The Box Set: "Collateral."

Note: I’m sending out two separate emails (and thus threads) for The Box Set television club today. If you’re seeing this email in the evening, you should have received a previous one, “Station Eleven,” in the morning.

Greeting to all The Box Set television club members who already got their feet wet by reading the previous email and learning that, oooooh, hell yeah, we are going to watch “Station Eleven.” Maybe you started already? Maybe you made some comments and got into the discussion vibe? Good! As I said this morning, we are off and watching. And now I’m dipping back into the vast, murky Netflix ether where good shows go to get lost and pulling, out of nowhere, a little four-episode gem called “Collateral.” If you’ve seen this, congratulations, because I’ve never met anyone who has other than myself.

The Details:

So here’s how it’ll work unless this proves to somehow not work, but I have faith:

1. Don’t read the comments until AFTER you’ve watched the episode. That’s the most important thing I can tell you, since the whole point of this is to DISCUSS the episode in the comments. (Also, just as a reminder, if you’ve already seen “Collateral” and want to contribute, be cognizant not to make comments about future episodes, just this one). I would have just posted a “thread” that Substack allows but to my knowledge you can’t embed the audio that I have above and, to my additional knowledge, there’s nothing really different from how the comments arrange in a “post” than a “thread,” so I went this route.

2. Listen to the SPOILER FREE audio from me and then watch Ep. 1 of “Collateral,” on Netflix, or vice-versa — watch first, come back and listen.

3. Discuss in the comments. All done. See, simple. But I’m going to drop this anvil one more time: For those of you who have already finished “Collateral”, please remember to only leave comments here about Ep. 1. (It’s easy to get confused, as I once spoiled a major plot point for “Mr. Robot” in my Visual Studies class — it was still two episodes away. Oooops!) . I’m a big advocate of rewatching episodes because there’s so much detail you have either forgotten or didn’t see upon your initial viewing, so I encourage a rewatch, which will keep the machinations of each particular episode fresh in your mind.

(Yes, I know that if you read this morning’s email, all of this seems….vaguely identical. But we just need to get on the same page for the launch so bear with me.

Next steps: The essential, fun, element: Interact with each other’s insight. Someone has a different take on a character’s action in this episode than you? Great, enlighten each other. I’ll come in and out of this thread all week, until I post Ep. 2 next Friday, liking comments and adding my own thoughts. I’m excited to see your reactions.

Hey, if you know other TV lovers — and my assumption is that you do — I would be grateful if you passed this along to them so that they can subscribe and join us. Maybe they’d love The Box Set feature or maybe they’d just like to read other TV and culture posts. Getting the word out helps me keep doing this, obviously, so I appreciate it.