chrissam42
May 8

Who Reviews the Reviewers

6 comments

Edited: May 8

Reading all the widely varying opinions on Discovery these last few weeks, I found myself thinking back over the decades to my favorite reviews of earlier Star Trek series. So I thought I'd start a meta-thread on reviews in general.

 

My favorite reviewer of all time is Jamahl Epsicokhan, who runs Jammer's Reviews. I first discovered him around 2000, when Voyager was still on. He got started writing DS9 and Voyager reviews "live", and then continued with Andromeda, BSG, movies, etc., and also went "backward" and reviewed some past things like TNG as time allowed. He's a great writer, extremely thoughtful and I have devoted years of my life to reading just about everything he has written about the shows that I have seen—and a few that I wanted to know what happened but not quite enough to actually continue watching (*cough* Enterprise).

 

The other day I was lamenting that Jammer had gotten too busy, as we all do, to continue his reviewing hobby. I loaded up his website to see what was the last thing he had written, and I was shocked to see that he has actually been reviewing Discovery all along! I had just not noticed because the places he posts new reviews happen to not overlap with the places I look for things. (Nerdy aside: I still use RSS as my main news-I'm-interested-in discovery method. Jammer's Reviews used to be on my RSS list but somehow it must have fallen off. Long live RSS!)

 

What are your favorite review sites?

Daniel Falch
May 8

I generally don't read reviews since my subjective taste doesn't line up with popular opinion. It's great you found a great read for a long time, that's hard to find.

1
Daniel Falch
May 8

Having read a few of his reviews, I agree he is a tremendously good reviewer and writer.

2
Karen Chuplis
May 9

I find most reviewers give synopses with some attempt at either snark or just comments that are often not based in much context. I’ll look for this one. I really think few people review anymore. They think they are but they really aren’t.

2
chrissam42
May 9

I think the modern-day version of in-depth reviews is podcasts. For Game of Thrones I love listening to two: Slate's TV Club (subscription required) for the snarky version, and Nerdette with Peter Sagal for the humorous-but-sincere kind.

1
chrissam42
May 9

Ha, just realized I posted this unironically on a literal podcast-review forum. Anyway hey all!

2
Karen Chuplis
May 9

@chrissam42 I also love Nerdette and my other go to for GoT is Bald Move. Yes, I agree a good podcast is where I consider real reviewing to take place. And in that group is Lower Decks. It's why I'm always recommending it. Thoughtful, educated commentary.

1
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