I quit my job! tvscholar is going full-time.

But enough about me—this TV newsletter is now a weekly dispatch.

Natasha Rothwell is correct (Insecure, season 5)

The tv scholar newsletter is now weekly! You can expect a newsletter in your inbox every Friday at 6am ET/9am PT. Consider upgrading to paid subscriber for full access to all my TV recs and to support my work! You can also buy me coffee(s).

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Well, I quit my day job y’all. The fear leading up to this decision was…extremely annoying. “It’s the best time to be a freelancer writer,” said nobody in 2023. Writing opportunities are drying up, publications are shuttering at record speeds, incredibly talented writers are getting laid off left and right, and publications are trying to cheapen their costs by hiring AI for free. I kept changing my mind about letting go of my salary safety net at the last minute, calling my friends in existential crisis, wondering if this was even sustainable long-term, wondering if freelance writers are happy without benefits and paid time off and sick time and when payments don’t come on time.

“But you’ve got a unique platform, you could make it!” My friends sent me encouraging messages, their faith infecting me with blue sky optimism, but the reality of my life is a skyrocketing cost of living. I pay $1800/month in Vancouver rent, and like everyone else, there’s nothing like a good dose of financial scarcity and the deeply internalized tenets of capitalism to squeeze out any creative momentum or utopian possibilities of being a creative and surviving in this world. But I also couldn’t keep writing and TV watching from the trenches of a 40-hour work week, something had to give.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season five

Sadly for my bank account, I care about television too much. And the seeds I’ve been planting over the last few years are coming to fruition — I’m certainly getting more writing opportunities, and this newsletter continues to be a joy to write and put together. I’m getting way more press screeners of upcoming shows than before, and am feeling more within/through the gates of television criticism access in terms of being on PR lists, editors who commission me, and so on. All of that being said, I don’t yet know if that will be financially solvent for me, or if I’ll end up as depressed as I was in graduate school from the endless precarity and lack of daily structure. But I know if I don't try this now, I never will.

I started getting the sense I should move on when life started to feel impossible. I’d be on Zoom for five hours in a day while trying to answer all my DMs, responding to my emails, and writing off the side of my desk on lunch breaks and before/after work. As we emerged from pandemic restrictions, my job got more chaotic and the demands of trying to hold it all together started getting to me. But the doubts crept in every time I considered quitting: do I have it in me to even try? I don’t pretend I’m the deepest thinker or best writer in the business, that I’m the next Didion or Nussbaum or Tolentino. What I do know is that I adore television, I love running my Instagram, and I’ve felt held back from reaching my full potential as a writer and thinker on the medium by working 40 hours/week on something completely unrelated. I want to do this as long as I can, whatever this is (I keep joking I’m a full-time influencer now).

I also realized something that feels crucial, and something of a tvscholar PR crisis: if I spent the next six months burning through my savings and all I got to show from it was having finally watched The Sopranos (I know!), The Wire (I know, I know!), and finished my Six Feet Under slow-watch, it will have been worth it. Just to finally close the book on the male-dominated television canon and shows that I embarrassingly have not gotten around to watching, mostly due to being too busy watching every other damn show and trying to stay afloat.

Lauren Ambrose asking the real questions on Six Feet Under (season 3)

I have also begun working on the inklings of a PhD proposal, for a potential return to academia in the near future (gasp). Or perhaps I’ll put together a book proposal. Those are explorations for a future newsletter and therapy session(s). The point is, my time away from working full-time will be well-utilized. To watch television, to read about television, to feel fully immersed in the medium and sharpen my writing and gaze. I am essentially quitting my job and traveling Europe for the summer, as many do, except that Europe is my apartment and I am traveling from television show to television show. I don’t know if I expect a kind of revelatory finish line, or that I will suddenly qualify for a staff writer position in institutional TV criticism (these barely exist anymore anyways), or that I will even publish significant bylines. But I know this is what I’m meant to do, in this moment. So let’s get to work.

Here’s what I’m working on for the future of this newsletter:

• Advanced previews of upcoming TV shows. I think this is key! I’ll be watching a lot more press screeners and giving you my thoughts on shows before they air or finish airing, to help steer you in the right (or wrong, if you’re into that) direction.

• Interviews with real-life TV scholars. I’ve definitely expanded my network of TV thinkers over social media, and there are so many scholars doing path-breaking work in the field of television studies — I’ll be talking through their research with them. I’ll also be aiming to interview more TV industry insiders to compliment this.

• Best shows ever masterlist. I get asked what my favourite and formative shows are all the time. I’ll be looking back and reviewing them one at a time and compiling a master list of the shows that are forever cemented as seminal in my heart, as well as providing mini bibliographies on what has been written about them academically for further research opportunities.

• TV-minded advice. In February, I answered an anonymous letter from a 23-year-old trying to get sober and provided a few television recommendations. You can submit your letters for future issues here.

• As always, my newsletter will be a site of endless recommendations, a safe space for telephiles.

If you like the sound of the above, you can subscribe, gift a subscription to a friend, or buy me a coffee. Or you can just vibe, that’s ok too! Wherever you’re at, see you here next Friday.