Will corporate ownership ruin Television Without Pity? - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine:
Will the conversion of TWoP into a network brand smooth out the idiosyncrasies that make the site...
—to paraphrase what Woody Allen said to Mariel Hemingway, his disturbingly underage girlfriend, at the end of Manhattan—I just don't want those things that I like about TWoP to change:
-Rambling recaps. Recapper Alex Richmond, in her blisteringly funny recaps of Sex and the City, free-associated on Sarah Jessica Parker's outlandish wardrobe: "Carrie is wearing yet another goddamn oversize knit rasta hat, this time in gradations of earth tones, as if Fraggles got in a turf war with Smurfs and wrestled away all the bright colors and demanded that now, under their rule, all large cartoonish hats mimic the colors of the earth, because everyone knows Fraggles are pagan and Smurfs ravers so respect it, yo." After the sale to NBC, will TWoP recaps be allowed to stay this weird?
-Talmudic forum commentary. Comment threads on TWoP can easily run into the hundreds of pages per discussion, with a dozen or more separate discussion threads per show. Clubby cult shows with small viewing audiences tend to develop larger TWoP apparatuses than smash hits: By far, the two most-commented-on shows in the current TWoP lineup are Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls. really? huh. and by far? (what about Whedon, Abrams shows. LOST. ?) that's cool though. I've enjoyed those two forums quite a lot, maybe more than have for any other shows? I really liked reading TWoP comments about VM ~ also some single thread shows, like N/T ... Kidnapped ... now Life, although have not yet gotten that into the thread. Watchers of Lost and 24 sift through past episodes to speculate about the shows' master narrative.
..obsessive fan-chat exists everywhere on the Web, but I don't know of any place that catalogs it as extensively and precisely. and thanks to the forum moderators—more on that below—the caliber of the discussion remains consistently high.
-Rigid Forum Moderation. TWoP readers listen [to the rule enforcement]. That, or they defect from the site entirely and go elsewhere to gripe. Personally, I'm charmed by the sadomasochistic dynamic between TWoP and its readers. The site's expectation that its readers be thoughtful writers, too, is a refreshing change from the usual blog ethic of egalitarian mediocrity.
But how will these quirks play with the far broader base of viewers the site seeks to attract in its post-Bravo incarnation? In order to appeal to a mass audience, will Television Without Pity have to show a little pity after all?

TWoP Criticism and Commentary's Journal

Newscat: R.I.P. Television Without Pity