This week, we did something a little different — we built our own tier list website just so we could rank 80s sitcoms without fighting pop-ups and autoplay ads. Totally normal behavior.

But here’s the twist: we’re not ranking them based on how “important” they were at the time. We’re asking a much more dangerous question:

Would we actually rewatch this in 2026?

That framework leads to some very strong opinions.

🏆 The S-Tier Is Earned

A handful of shows prove they’re more than nostalgia. The writing still lands. The characters still feel alive. The cultural relevance hasn’t completely evaporated.

We talk about why certain series:

• Hold up surprisingly well
• Feel sharper now than they did then
• Or still manage to feel relevant without being preachy

There’s one in particular that we both immediately elevate without debate.

🚫 The Hall of Shame

There’s one show we don’t even rank.

We talk about:

• When “separating the art from the artist” stops being possible
• How cultural legacy changes over time
• And why historical importance doesn’t automatically equal rewatchability

It’s a sobering but necessary conversation.

🤔 The Middle Tier Dilemmas

This is where things get interesting.

We wrestle with:

• Working-class representation vs. caricature
• “Very Special Episode” overload
• Sitcom dads getting infinite second chances while sitcom moms don’t
• When a breakout character slowly destroys their own show

We also revisit the strange cultural phenomenon of:

• Every sitcom family in the 80s somehow living in a house they absolutely could not afford.

🔻 The Ones That Don’t Survive Rewatch

Some shows are huge in memory… and rough in reality.

We talk about:

• Nostalgia for actors vs. nostalgia for writing
• How certain catchphrases aged like milk
• Boomer sentimentality as a genre
• And why some “beloved” shows just don’t work outside their original era

🎧 What Else We’ve Been Into

Before the tier list chaos:

• Eden talks about a wildly violent light novel series featuring a sociopathic child adventurer who refuses to follow the script of her own destiny.
• Peter shares recent music discoveries, a disappointing Tool take, and why The Dark Forest might require an emotional recovery period.
• There’s also a brief detour into why everyone in Cheers looks 20 years older than we do right now.

🖥️ Bonus: DIY Internet Energy

Peter casually mentions:

• Taking a screenshot of a tier list site
• Feeding it to Claude
• Coding a cleaner version
• And deploying it live via GitHub Pages

Because apparently that’s what we do now.

In our 100th real episode, we did something intentionally unserious: we gave ourselves 15 seconds at a time to talk about things we love. What started as a goofy structural constraint quickly turned into a revealing conversation about taste, memory, comfort, obsession, and why certain art, habits, and rituals stick with us. Along the way, we touched on music, books, games, food, family, creative work, and the quiet joy of finding things that feel like home — especially in a world that’s been exhausting lately. It's a bit messy, but it's also genuinely us.

Episode Notes

• This episode marks our 100th regular, full-length episode, so instead of a standard format, we leaned into something playful and deliberately constrained: 100 things we like, 15 seconds at a time.
• A recurring theme is comfort versus depth: comfort movies, comfort albums, comfort routines — but also art that challenges us, wrecks us emotionally, or reshapes how we think.
• We talked about taste as biography — how the things we love are often tied to specific eras of our lives, relationships, or moments of becoming.
• There’s a strong undercurrent of making space for joy without justification, whether that’s bad movies, heavy music, silly rituals, or deeply personal creative practices.
• The episode also works as a quiet statement about community — family, friends, partners, collaborators — and how shared enthusiasm keeps us connected.

Shows to check out:
Devo-teas
Generations

This week, we wandered through a grab-bag of games, music, and reading before settling into a long-overdue cultural reckoning with This Is Spinal Tap. We talked Sonic games and cursed Sonic-sonas, gacha updates that somehow turn into cyberpunk motorbike fantasies, cheerful amnesia manga, extreme metal singles that absolutely rip, and a handful of games that ranged from surprisingly delightful to instantly forgettable. But the heart of the episode was finally sitting down with Spinal Tap itself—an enormously influential mockumentary that, forty years on, felt quieter, subtler, and stranger than its reputation. We landed somewhere between “mid” and “actually pretty good,” unpacking where it still works, where it shows its age, and why its legacy looms so much larger than the movie itself.

Episode Notes

What We’ve Been Into

• Games
  • Eden dives into Sonic Forces, embracing the chaos of creating a cursed Sonic-sona (a dog with a grapple gun).
  • A return to Wuthering Waves with the 3.0 update: underground cyberpunk cities, summonable motorcycles, and Sega crossover bike liveries.
  • Peter spends real time with the Playdate handheld and unexpectedly loves Dig Dig Dino—dogs, dinosaurs, and eldritch horror.
  • Mixed feelings on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: clunky combat, nonstop chatter, and controller prompts that can’t decide what console they’re on.
  • Dispatch lands as enjoyable but oddly forgettable—pure popcorn gaming that evaporates once it’s done.
• Reading
  • Cheerful Amnesia delivers wholesome, funny yuri romance built on anime-logic memory loss.
  • A shout-out to Adachi and Shimamura short stories, still reigning supreme.
  • Peter continues through The Dark Forest, the second book in Remembrance of Earth’s Past, digging into Wallfacers, Wallbreakers, and long-term cosmic dread.
• Music
  • New doom EP from The Eternal—short, tight, and surprisingly restrained.
  • Reliance by Soen: less adventurous, more consistent, and maybe better for it.
  • Absolute hype for Archspire’s new single “Limb of Leviticus”—blisteringly fast with just enough groove to breathe.

Main Topic:

This Is Spinal Tap

• Prompted by renewed discussion of Rob Reiner and his legacy, we finally sat down with his directorial debut.
• Initial reaction: not nearly as laugh-out-loud funny as its reputation suggests.
• Over time, appreciation grew for:
  • Its subtlety and deadpan delivery.
  • The improvised dialogue paired with surprisingly tight plotting and long-payoff jokes.
  • Iconic moments (“these go to eleven,” the cocoon stage prop, mysteriously exploding drummers).
• Nigel Tufnel emerges as the emotional and comedic core, hinting at the future of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary career.
• We talked about how much of Spinal Tap’s impact comes from being first—laying the groundwork for an entire genre that others would later perfect.
• Final verdict: historically essential, quietly funny, better on reflection than on first watch—and a reminder that movies used to trust audiences more.

Big Picture Takeaways

• Cultural influence doesn’t always match immediate enjoyment.
• Subtlety and restraint are skills we’ve mostly lost in modern filmmaking.
• Maybe we should make smaller, cheaper movies again—and let weird ideas breathe.