Frequently Asked Questions

TheAttReviews is an independent TV show review site focused on honest, long-form analysis of television series. Every show in our database has been watched in full and scored using a custom ELO ranking system, so the rankings reflect direct head-to-head comparisons rather than isolated gut-feel scores. Learn more about the site and our editorial approach on the About page.

Every review on the site is written by The Att, a software developer by trade and a lifelong television enthusiast with over two decades of TV analysis experience. You can read more about the author and editorial background on the About page.

New reviews are published on an ongoing basis, usually after a complete series or season has been watched and properly considered. The cadence depends on how much television is watched and reviewed in any given period rather than a fixed editorial calendar. The full archive is always available on the reviews page.

The ELO system is the same kind of algorithm originally developed for chess rankings, but adapted here for television. The Att has spent tens of hours running head-to-head show comparisons through a custom-built duelling tool, converting years of exquisite, considered opinion into a quantifiable rating. When one show beats another, points are exchanged based on the result and the relative rankings of each show — so a lesser-known show beating a highly rated one climbs faster than beating a low-ranked one. Over many, many comparisons the rankings settle into a reliable pecking order driven by actual quality rather than hype. The full methodology is explained on our How We Rate page.

The Att has built a custom duelling tool that presents two shows at a time and asks a single question: which is better? Every pick feeds back into the ELO algorithm and shifts the scores. Shows only appear on the public ratings page once they have been through at least 30 duels, so nothing half-considered ever lands on the leaderboard. Newly added shows are prioritised in random matchups and weighted toward other shows near their current rank, which quickly produces a fine-grained ELO score. After 30 duels the show has earned its place on the list and continues to move as further comparisons happen.

The Woke Rating is a 1–5 scale that sits alongside the quality rating and describes how heavy-handed a show’s modern political messaging is. A 5 means the show is completely free of that kind of content, while a 1 means the messaging is so heavy it damages the show itself. It is deliberately separate from the ELO-based quality score because a show can be well made but still heavily ideological, or vice versa. See the full breakdown on our How We Rate page.

Rankings are the result of many head-to-head comparisons between shows, so an individual ordering reflects a long history of matchups rather than a single judgement. If a show you rate highly sits below one you don’t, it simply means that across the comparisons so far the other show has accumulated more points. The methodology behind that is explained on our How We Rate page, and the full leaderboard lives on the ratings page.

Whenever a new show is reviewed or an existing show is re-evaluated, new head-to-head comparisons run and ELO scores shift accordingly. The leaderboard is not static; it is a living ranking that evolves as more shows are watched and compared. The current standings are always on the ratings page.

A 5/5 Woke Rating means the show is completely free of modern political messaging — it tells its story on its own terms, without ideological framing. It is the highest score on the scale and is reserved for shows that focus purely on plot, character, and craft. Full definitions for each rating from 1/5 to 5/5 are on the How We Rate page.

Yes — and this is a strict policy, not a casual one. Every review on TheAttReviews is written to be read safely before, during, or after watching a show. We will never tell you when a character dies, who betrays who, or what happens at moments like the Red Wedding. We stick to broad, spoiler-free generalisations: whether the seasons hold up or lose their way, what themes a show wrestles with, how a character arc develops in tone. So you might read that “Tommy Shelby spends the series confronting grief and loss” — but never who he loses, when, or how. You can use TheAttReviews to decide whether to start a show without ever worrying you’ll have its story handed to you.

The process starts long before any writing. As The Att watches a show, he dumps every stray thought, reaction, and observation into a private database — a messy, ongoing braindump that grows throughout the watch. When it comes time to publish a review, all of those accumulated thoughts are pulled back out and used as the foundation for a draft, which is then refined with the help of AI tools. Image prompts are drafted the same way and iterated on until the imagery feels right. The final, polished draft goes live via a custom CMS built specifically for TheAttReviews. As a software developer, building this pipeline is part of the passion — the site is a personal project that exists at the intersection of quality television and cutting-edge AI tooling.

Not every show ends up with a full published review, but every show watched to completion gets rated and added to the ELO rankings. Reviews focus on the shows that are worth discussing in depth, whether they are great, deeply flawed, or culturally significant. The full list of rated shows is always visible on the ratings page.

Yes, suggestions are always welcome. You can get in touch through the contact page or on any of our social channels. Suggestions go onto a watchlist, though they are prioritised based on interest, availability, and fit with what’s already in the queue.

As Michael Scott once said, you’re welcome to file that in the corporate filing cabinet... the trash can. More seriously: reviews are one informed opinion backed by a consistent methodology, not the final word on any show. If you’d like to share your own take, reach out via the contact page or on social — respectful disagreement is a healthier way to evaluate TV than a pile of identical aggregate scores.

A small number of images are found editorial shots, but roughly 95% of the imagery on TheAttReviews is AI-generated personally and with a great deal of care. The first 40 or so reviews were generated using OpenAI’s Sora, which produced stunning results. With Sora being retired, image generation has moved to Google’s latest Nano Banana model with web search enabled — fed headshots of the actors we want to recreate and instructed to research the character, setting, costumes, and typography to match the show’s atmosphere as closely as possible. Staying at the cutting edge of AI tooling and image generation is one of the main reasons this site exists as a personal project.

A newsletter rounding up the latest reviews and rankings is on the roadmap but is not live yet. In the meantime, the best way to keep up is to follow the site on YouTube, X, Instagram, or TikTok, all of which are linked from the About page.

The easiest way to get in touch is via the contact page, which is the right place for show suggestions, feedback, corrections, or general questions. You can also reach out through any of the social channels linked from the About page.