The Box Set: "Station Eleven."

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 morning, you’ll get an additional one with a separate show later today.

Hola, The Box Set television club members (yeah, I know, nobody got sent official cards or pins or stickers or anything). But we are off and watching.

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 “Station Eleven” 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 “Station Eleven” on HBO Max, 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 “Station Eleven” or are currently, say, half-way through, 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.

And, this part is, I think, 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.