: Re: How do I keep an essay about "feeling flat" from feeling flat? I was invited to participate in an anthology of essays about a tv show. I chose an episode based on the Wikipedia summary

@Kaufman555

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I used to write movie reviews for my University News Paper and always felt that, if I'm about to give a bad score, I would point to how I would have improved the movie, if I was given the ability to do so. It helps me identify the parts that hurt my head because they were so stupid and challenge me to take the idea trying to be presented, and give credit it was trying to go somewhere, but lacked something to make it go the extra mile it needed to be great. Of course, I do this to things I do like too, so it's how I react to my own negative opinions.

Another option that I love, and you're going to need to really pull all your vocab for this, is to take your bland episode and praise it, rather than pander it. Or at least sarcastically praise it. Mockingly take fan favorite episodes and daring episodes and treat them as if those innovations are humdrum compared to the glorious mediocrity that is your episode. Treat everything you hated as brilliant genius in story form, from the dialog being exquisitely predictable that fans can anticipate every character's response. It is the best episode to of the whole of the series' [insert season it was in] season's run during the period marked by the end of episode [insert episode number immediately preceding this one] and the beginning of [episode number immediately following this one], that aired on [original air date] for the first time. Which is true, if overly narrow. It will always be the best example of an episode of this series with it's episode title.

Perhaps add some damnation with faint praise... like this episode taught an important lesson about how we shouldn't binge watch an entire season of this show... or it was the perfect adventure to make you feel like you had 44 minute nap. Highlights included the brilliantly telegraphed breaks to commercial and it contains the best transition to the end credits in the entire series run.

Specific critiques of the episode will have to be made, but if you didn't enjoy it the first time through, gather some fellow fans and party watch it, and take notes of the snark it's given.

If you'd like a very nice library of examples, I highly recomend a viewing of SFDebris' opinionated reviews. He mostly reviews Star Trek, but just about every show has some appearances. One highlight of his Trek Reviews is that he scores them on a 1 to 10 scale, 10 being the best episode of a particular series and 1 being the worst (actually, he does give exactly one 0 score per series, reserved for an episode so bad, the entire franchise is damaged by association... these are awarded exactly once, and, honestly, if you don't love Trek, don't bother, as they typically tend to rely on you being a Trekie). This scale is also a bell curve, meaning that most episodes are 5 out of 10 and, as mentioned, they are relative to the quality of their series, not all Star Trek Series... what may be a 5 average Deep Space 9 episode could be a 7 or 8 if it was Voyager doing the story. He has a tendency to enjoy the original series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space 9 over Voyager and Enterprise, so his snark in the latter two is often much more apparent. Discovery, I believe, is unrated as the series is currently on going.

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