For some time I’ve been looking for something to track TV watching like Letterboxd does for movies. After using TV Time for a couple months, this feels like one of the better options available at this time. If anybody reading wants to recommend another, perhaps better option, please let me know in the comments.
The price is right: free. The site isn’t invaded by ads. In fact, I didn’t see any ads anywhere. That’s my kind of clean user experience.
One complaint. I don’t see an easy or intuitive way in the app or on the website to link to my individual TV series reviews (share links are available inside the app, so that’s probably one way to create the link, but I don’t want to share a link to a social media service every time, just to get a link), nor is there any way (that I see) to export my activity on this site, which is problematic for me using as a permanent source for reviews. Therefore, I’m going to continue to post TV series reviews here and use it primarily for tracking what’s been watched. TV Time is, however, very good as a watchlist tracker.
“There’s an incredible amount of quality TV being made today — some of the budgets are insane — and because all these different platforms are doing it, it becomes more confusing for the consumer to find out where to watch, to remember where they left off, and to remember when the premiere is,” says TV Time COO Dan Brian. “It’s hard to wrangle it all.”
TV Time, the TV tracking app with over a million daily users, can now find your next binge | TechCrunch
Some other things I’ve learned about TV Time. When you want to skip around and watch different episodes, click on the TV series title in the app and that will take you to the overall summary of the show. I don’t rewatch TV series episodes in order. Instead, I’ll rewatch my favorite episodes, jumping all around in between seasons. For example, when Star Trek: Picard was on recently, I went back into TNG and watched relevant episodes with Data and Bruce Maddox.
It is possible to track what you’ve watched this way in TV Time although the app by default displays the newest next episode, so if you watch something from season 5, it will show you the next episode following the season 5 episode you last watched. At first, this puzzled me, but it makes sense when you’re watching a series for the first time and you would want to see the next episode. Just keep in mind, you aren’t restricted to watch a TV series this way. Just click the title of the TV show and you’ll always return to the home which displays all seasons in the series. From there you can quickly find the episode you want.
As for movies, TV Time is just … OK. It isn’t nearly as useful either statistically or functionally as Letterboxd. I wasn’t looking for a Letterboxd replacement, anyway, especially when the name of the app has “TV” in it, but you can track, rate and review movies.
Following people on TV Time is not intuitive at all. You need to drill down on comments and look at the person and then click follow. It’s almost like following other people inside TV Time is an afterthought. What I’ve been doing is following those who leave great comments on TV shows I like a lot (Harley Quinn!).
Commenting in TV Time is a neat experience. You can leave memes and in some shows pick actual screenshots to include. Of course you can include your own screencaps from shows. I’ve found the phone apps Pic Stitch and Over useful for editing pictures (stitching multiple pictures together and adding formatted text).
Both apps are free and if you want to pay for additional features offer a pro version. I made the stitched picture above for Stargirl using both phone apps.
Speaking of Letterboxd, on 5/23/2020 I passed the four digit followers milestone.
Thank you to those following my movie reviews, it’s much appreciated. A friendly reminder to newer readers: all new and old movie reviews are posted to my Letterboxd account first. Maybe it won’t always be that way, but really dig using this site. It lets you export all of your activity any time you want, which is cool. If only it did TV shows too … alas, it’s only movies. TV Time scratches the TV itch, I guess. Not as well, but it comes close enough for now.
TV Time, again, as far as I can tell (corrections welcome in the comments), does not provide any sort of export function for your activity. If you’re looking at spending any amount of time creating content at another site, keep in mind that if the site/service goes away, you won’t have it any more without export functionality. Having your own blog at least provides a way to pull all content you’ve created together in one place.
I’m open to options that have both movie and TV review functionality as well as provide full export at any time (you should always own your own created content). I haven’t found any site or service which nails this for both … yet. Have you? Open to suggestions in the comments area, please. Will keep looking…
Movies, Movies, Movies 
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