This week is all about our favorite reality show hobby horse, The Bachelor/ette franchise. This is Andrew's first season watching, and the gang talks about the way their Rose Buddies-inspired fantasy league has affected their viewing. 

Then we fire up the ol' TV vs TV cannon to settle that age-old debate: which is actually a better show, The Bachelor or The Bachelorette?

After a bumper crop of responses to our segment on animated TV shows, we talk about some of the comments we received. We highlight a few listener suggestions for other animated shows to check out. 

Our big segment this week is a spoiler-filled discussion of Orange is the New Black's fourth season. We talk about some of the controversies surrounding the last handful of episodes, about the difficulty of negotiating OITNB's interest in the Black Lives Matter movement, about TV's troublesome Bury Your Gays trope, and about whether we think the season works as a whole. To no one's surprise, Piper is still a huge bummer. 

Nielsen ratings—the things we use to determine how many people watched a given TV show, not reviews of TV shows by families named Nielsen—are still widely used and Netflix just gave us a rare peek at its ratings for the season four premiere of Orange is the New Black, but how useful are they, really?

Then, using OITNB as a springboard, the gang talks about how characters on TV (and TV shows themselves) use references to movies, music, books, and other TV shows. When is it useful character development? When is it lazy writing? When is it just played for laughs? And what current TV shows would your favorite Star Trek characters be REALLY into? 

For our first segment this week, we talk about half-hour animated TV shows, and why we don't spend much time talking about them. Andrew, with some assists from Margaret, tries to explain to Kathryn why animated TV shows are worthy watches, particularly shows like Bob's Burgers, Home Movies, Clone High and Venture Brothers. 

In light of Kathryn's animated TV reticence, we turn to a consideration of our TV dealmakers and dealbreakers. What things about a TV show will make us tune in, regardless of any other aspect of its production? (For Margaret, is it a costume drama? Then yeah, she's there.) What things about a TV show will make us tune out and never look back? Andrew lets loose some Joss Whedon feelings.