As You Know

We finally discuss everybody's favorite lovable Jewish-coded Alien Life Form, try to understand the comedy standards of the recent past, and ask whether or not it's actually good to end your show on a cliffhanger.

This week we're talking about everyone's favorite made-for-TV movie star, Columbo. With a run spanning over three decades we get to talk about everything from Steven Spielberg to The Crystal Method and get a surprise AYK all-star committing a murder. But most of this episode is just Columbo impressions.

We finally learn what that show they used to run ads for during the NBA playoffs is. It's Claws, the comedy-drama about South Florida nail salon workers getting involved in organized crime. Hank from Breaking Bad plays a bisexual southern gangster named Uncle Daddy. Other things also happen.

The twisted lapsed Catholic mind of Matt Ciani has made us watch the long-running religious anthology show Insight, which had many famous and cool contributors who we did not see or hear from. But we did get to look at a lot of paintings before seeing the story of a young couple embracing chastity.

We're turning the clock back to the 1950s, when rural programming dominated CBS and a collie named Lassie began a two-decade run as a cultural icon. What if we told you this show was surprisingly intense and then bizarrely experimental? And that Timmy never fell down a well but was threatened by an ape with a bomb?

Mmm whatcha say? Special guests Geoff and Audrey are joining us to talk about The O.C.? The goated teen drama? Well that sounds swell.

We enter the Tommy Westphall Universe to take a look at the acclaimed medical drama St. Elsewhere, which has one of the most famous finales ever and launched the careers of Howie Mandel, Ed Begley Jr., David Morse and some guy named Denzel Washington. Somehow this all results in boredom.

Ten years after the debut of Girls, we're still looking up what Lena Dunham said and we shouldn't have. Does the show about the daughters of wealthy people trying to enter adulthood in Brooklyn hold up? Were its myriad controversies worth arguing about? And most importantly: where is Lamby?

Disaster has struck As You Know studios. First of all, we had to watch Wife Swap, which was repulsive. But also we failed to coordinate which episodes we were watching. You would think the premise of this podcast (watch the first and last episodes of tv shows) would be quite simple, but it's not! This show got rebooted multiple times and Stephen has no sense of temporal reality! So the four of us watched three different pairs of episodes, resulting in FIVE Wife Swaps to discuss. Sorry.

"What's the deal" with Seinfeld? How does perhaps the most greatest sitcom of all time look when viewing its very unfinished feeling pilot? Is the finale brilliant or terrible? And what level of sociopathy do you really have to be at to find the show relatable?