Teen Wolf returns to MTV tonight, and, in what’s becoming a rite of passage, it’s getting its own postshow. Wolf Watch joins the long line of MTV after-shows — Awkward., Catfish, and the various Teen Moms all have them, and the format stretches all the way back to the early days of The Hills. But MTV is no longer alone in the after-show market: AMC’s Talking Dead airs right after The Walking Dead, and over the summer, the less punnily titled Talking Bad aired after Breaking Bad. (Let’s place our bets now on whether AMC will air a post–Mad Men series when that show returns. We’re betting yes.) But Teen Wolf and TWD shouldn’t have all the fun. Many shows should have postshows! Here are a few suggestions.
Scandal
Scandal already has an official postshow podcast, and the series lends itself to discussion, since it’s occasionally confusing (go ahead, just try to explain the arc of Billy Chambers) and constantly juicy. It’s a network show, though, which means it would never be able to bump the local news — but we’d take a web-only series.
American Horror Story
A show that lends itself to this much GIF-capping deserves some more discussion. Tell us about the gruesome practical effects! Tell us about how much everyone loves Stevie Nicks! Tell us about the origins of “surprise, bitch!” The show could be called American Horror Story Story, and Ryan Murphy himself should host.
Game of Thrones
Another gimme. GoT fans, like Walking Dead fans, have both the source material and the TV show to dissect, and GoT has ten times as much going on in each episode. The special effects, the armor design, the creation of fictional languages? That’s enough for a show right there! The TV adaptation of course has to cut some information and backstory, and a postshow would be a very easy way to add some of that back in for those who watch the series but haven’t read the books.
Doctor Who
Doctor Who fans are a devout people. That should count for something.
Saturday Night Live
Not as an immediate postshow, like the rest of the series on this list, but as a Sunday-morning deconstruction. What didn’t make it out of the dress rehearsal? What impressions did cast members try out that were rejected for that week’s sketches? What were the host’s surprising strengths and weaknesses? Criticizing SNL is basically a national pastime, but it seems in recent years there’s been more and more interest in how the sausage is made.
Archer
Archer is dark and hilarious at face value. But in addition to the jokes, each episode is also filled with homages and allusions, and if After Archer enumerated and explained even a few of them, we’d all get to feel more enriched.
Sherlock
Since Sherlock’s seasons are so short — like, three episodes short — it doesn’t seem like so much to ask that both its leads be present for all the after-show festivities. And rather than have Sherlockdown be a dissection of the episode, it should just have Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman playing silly games like they would on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Only part of the Sherlock fandom is about the show-qua-show; a lot of it is about the chemistry and ephemera surrounding the series.
