Types of Reviews

I’m going to be using some new distinctions for my reviews in an effort to avoid confusion and hopefully prevent people from being spoiled (sorry!). It also helps me keep track of reviews as well.

So starting this week (of August 5, 2012), I’ll be clearly tagging and labeling my reviews as any one of the following four:

First Impression
First Impression Reviews will be of new series, whether just premiered or new to me, written after watching the premiere and/or the first few episodes. For American series, it’ll be whether or not I’m going to stick around and hope for six seasons and a movie. For Korean or Filipino dramas, it’ll be whether I’m going to stick around for eight weeks (or in the case of Filipino soaps, anywhere from a month to a year depending on how greedy the networks get with extensions). First Impressions are just that, first impressions. Your first impression of a new television series is not always an indicator of the quality of the product in the weeks or months to come. Which is why I think no matter how much you loved or hated a show at the beginning, they are always worth a 2nd or 3rd look and it is always interesting to go back and see what you thought of the series when it first started out.

Check-in Review
Check-in Reviews are warranted by either something so absolutely awesome or so absolutely horrible, it must be written about midway through a show. More often than not, it’ll be pointing out the moment or moments that make me go “Alright, the show is finally heading in the right direction.” or “WTF is this nonsense!?”

Hindsight Review
Hindsight Reviews will be written after the conclusion of a series, mostly for Korean or Filipino dramas. Or at the conclusion of a season, mainly for Power Rangers and the Toku series Super Sentai and Kamen Rider. Hindsight Reviews will only apply if I had originally written a “First Impression” review when the series first started. They’ll either be reviews of appreciation, living up to my ridiculous standards of quality or they’ll be reviews regretting all the time I spent and harping on about all that wasted potential I saw but the writers and producers did not. There will also be Hindsight Reviews in between, I suppose.

Good Ol’ Review
A Good Ol’ Review is a straightforward review. It could be for a film, but more likely it’ll be for a series for which I’ll only write one review for. For example, a review written after I’ve marathoned through a Korean drama or Tokusatsu season and I didn’t write a “First Impression” when I started watching it. A series with a Good Ol’ Review will most likely not have any other type of review written for it.

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