The Episode

On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the episode--a fading television art. Beginning with a brief history of what early American Broadcasting aestheticized about television as form (e.g., its liveness), the hosts theorize the unique cut of the television episode, an analysis typically reserved for film media. The cut has been aesthetically mobilized by television (as seen in the banal yet artistically fruitful breaks for commercials), though it is precisely this cut dimension of television that is currently being lost in favor of cliffhanger heavy models of recent streaming television series.

You can listen to The Episode online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Episode is an episode from Why Theory by Why Theory.

This episode is 01:11:43 long.

This episode was published on Dec 7, 2025.

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