Our first episode, and it’s a bonus double episode! Before the fall TV season started (and before the podcast launched), Holly and I recorded an episode about all the shows we were excited about. But it took a little longer than we expected to start publishing the podcast, and we didn’t want to kick everything off with episodes that already seemed really dated. So, instead of trashing our original fall TV episode, we played it as is, and recorded what was basically a second episode to act as a bookend, adding in what we thought now that we’d seen most of the season and series premieres.

Thanks to our production team for extra voice-over and effects for this one, and thanks to our intern, Shenelle Opoku, for listening to the whole first episode and making an extremely handy spreadsheet for us to plan our follow-up. And to make sure we’d watched all the TV we meant to watch.

(That’s right. I used a spreadsheet to plan my TV watching. That’s when Holly said I out-dork her in so many ways.)

Some of the references that flew by while we talked about the TV:

• “Rosemary’s Baby“
• Batmanuel
• Asexual reproduction
• Betty Draper’s dresses
• The late, great “Better Off Ted“
• McDonald’s commercials with Braille menus and Ronald McDonald skating (Aside: Another commercial that makes me cry? This one.)
• Our inability to record a podcast about Jim Henson
• Greek theater and catharsis
• The “Grey’s Anatomy” episodes “Good Mourning” and “Goodbye,” which started season six and were what got me hooked on it, thanks to watching them with my mom
• Deus ex Denethor
• The BBC “Pride and Prejudice”
• Body dysmorphia
• Parallel evolution
• My ongoing recovery from a phobia of airplanes
• “Omar comin’” (I can’t find any example of this that’s remotely SFW to link to. Google is your friend if you want to know what that’s about, but fair warning: violence and swears.)
• “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and “Barton Fink“
• My wish for a doctor show with a clinical trial arc in which the clinical trial has a good methodology and isn’t tampered with
• The Catherine the Great rumor about the horse and “How Gossip Works“

Quick and dirty list of the shows we talked about: “American Horror Story,” “Grimm,” “A Gifted Man,” “Terra Nova,” “Ringer,” “Person of Interest,” “Castle,” “Bones,” “Prime Suspect,” “Pan Am,” “Modern Family,” “30 Rock,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Community,” “The Biggest Loser,” “The Rachel Zoe Project,” “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Fringe,” “Glee,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Up All Night,” “The Big Bang Theory”

Here’s the episode itself in iTunes: Time Traveling Through Fall TV

You can follow PopStuff on Twitter at @PopStuffHSW, and you can keep up with us on the PopStuff Facebook page.