Vulture's Secret History of Television by jgn on Sunday, October 25, 2026 in Entertainment, Television, and Wasting Time

Back in 2015, Vulture created a nice little Secret History of Television. The pieces were delivered through videos, but unfortunately, the Vulture site no longer links to the videos.

So I hereby present links to the videos on YouTube.

• Episode 1, July 1, 2015 Inside TV’s Secret History of Last-Ditch Efforts to Keep Shows Cute [i.e., the Cousin Oliver Syndrome]
• Episode 2, July 8, 2015 Why Bottle Episodes Make Great Television
• Episode 3, July 15, 2015 Are Crossover Episodes Ever a Good Idea?
• Episode 4, July 22, 2015 ‘Lesbian Kiss Episodes’ Were So, So Terrible
• Episode 5, July 29, 2015 Who First Said ‘Motherf*cker’ in a Show?
• Episode 6, August 5, 2015 Whatever Happened to ‘Very Special Episodes’?
• Episode 7, August 12, 2015 The Rise of the Spinoff
• Episode 8, August 26, 2015 What Are the Best and Worst Musical Episodes?
• Episode 9, September 2, 2015 How Superhero Shows Escaped Their Awkward Phase and Became a Force on TV