Late last year I attempted to begin a series where I reviewed all 259 episodes of the animated comedy series King of the Hill. The show is one I absolutely loved during its run from 1997 to 2009/2010 and in syndication during and after this time span. As a bit of a tribute to it 10 years after its finale, I thought it would be a cool idea to really go through the series and do what I do best – review something from over a decade ago and really have some fun with it. It’s a silly thing to do, but it gives me a chance to enjoy the series from a different perspective and share those thoughts with anyone interested.
I made one major mistake when I started this process, however – I was a little too detailed in those reviews. The first 5 entries written took over an hour each and while I do quite like how I took each episode and wrote basically a long-form synopsys about it this doesn’t really work for what’s supposed to be a simple review. My focus shouldn’t have been detailing the episode but simply hitting the main points and maybe making note of some clever jokes or subtleties, but leaving the bulk of it to the reader to learn should they decide to watch the episode.
It’s a quirk I have in my writing, being super detailed at times when I shouldn’t be because I’m so “into” the subject matter. This website is a testament to that and while it has its benefits, it also has its drawbacks, and let’s face it — if it takes me longer to write a review of a TV show than the actual episode would take to watch, something is wrong. Of course writing takes time, but what I mean is it shouldn’t take me double or triple the run time of the product just to write a review — both in I should work better than that and the review shouldn’t require that much time to write.
So, what to do? I went on a hiatus from that review project, intending to come back to it when I felt the time was right and now, I think, is a good time. I’m feeling up to it and I’m pretty sure I know how I want to address not only the episodes I’ve already covered but the ones to follow.
First off, all the old reviews are going to be renamed to address that fact – they are the “old” reviews. They won’t be deleted, just “archived” in a sense. That being said, the “new” reviews will take their place on the master list and once I get past episode 5, which is where I quit originally, I’ll be continuing with, hopefully, one review a week to start, going more all-out if I get the urge, but otherwise setting a tame pace for myself.
Sure, that means it would take 5 years to review every episode, but that also gives me a nice long term project. It could be worse, after all, I could want to look at every episode of The Simpsons!
With that said, there’s really nothing else to do here but to, well, do it. I’m thinking Thursday will be a good day to release those reviews, since that is a “long” work day for me I can easily pre-write the content and schedule it to publish.
This will come alongside other content and I hope, by the end of September 2020, to have a nice pattern going. If not, no biggie – I’m no longer taking this site or any projects as seriously as I used to, but at the same time I think I can once again have a ton of fun doing this stuff again, and that may make my productivity higher than it has been for a few years now.
Time will tell. In any case, soon we’ll be re-joining our friends in Arlen, Texas and enjoying what has to have been one of the best pieces of animation ever made.