As the quality of television has dramatically increased in recent decades, it has, in its finer forms, also achieved the kind of cultural cache formerly enjoyed by the modes of expression considered “art,” such as books, films, works of visual art and music.

“TV is getting smarter,” said Brendan Auvil, founder of the new iOS content discovery app PreviouslyOn. “There is more meaning and more historical and literary references behind it, and the plot points in these are being broken down and analyzed all over the Web now.”

From goofy Bachelorette blogger recaps to exquisite gems of criticism on sites like Grantland and the AV Club, the Internet is rich with TV-related commentary. Auvil believes that Lost was the show that kicked this movement of recaps, breakdowns and opinion pieces into high gear, and sent it down a path to where it “has really become its own standalone medium,” he said. “Lost was really the show that started it all. Every episode was like, ‘Whoa, what just happened and what does it mean?’ That was a show where [an episode] ended and I would read three different versions of what happened, and each guy had his own [theory].”

These days, Auvil continued, it’s gotten to where there are people out there who don’t watch TV at all, but stay caught up on shows by regularly reading their favorite TV writers. To many, engaging in such activity probably sound preposterous, but this writer counts himself as one of the addicts of secondary TV content—in part because there isn’t time for a journalist covering the television space to watch everything that needs to be written about, and in part because, like television itself, TV writing has gotten really damn good.

For we connoisseurs of the literature of television, Auvil’s PreviouslyOn is an extremely convenient way to stay on top of quality Internet writings about top TV shows. Sleek and simple, setting it up and using it requires nothing more than populating the home screen with shows you want to read about, then selecting the specific episode for which you’d like to find related writings. Links serve up an array of pertinent Internet musings, including summaries, critiques, profiles, rabid speculations about upcoming episodes, and even social media content from key personalities such as cast members, directors, writers and show runners. There are even spoiler guards in place to make sure you don’t accidentally read something about an episode you haven’t seen yet—which is especially handy for those getting caught up on older, spoiler-riffic shows included on the app, such as Breaking Bad.

PreviouslyOn’s content is mostly curated by human staffers, who scour the Web looking for the best offerings they can about the shows it includes. The team, Auvil said, respects that “TV has evolved into an almost kind of literary medium” and is more “interested in covering the stories behind the stories than in becoming “the next gossip magazine app for what happened on The Real Housewives.”

The team also clearly has its biases; for instance, premium HBO dramas are more available to read about than, say, reality TV—but that should change, Auvil said, as the fall season kicks in and the company starts scaling and growing its staff. He even hopes that the app will one day feature its own editorial content, which he calls a “good play from a monetization standpoint” and in terms of controlling the message of its strengthening editorial brand.

For now, the app is free and ad-supported, but Auvil could see the data it culls from who’s reading what about which shows as one day being valuable to advertisers, and a source of revenue in itself. The key to success, he said, lies in keeping things streamlined and focusing on what PreviouslyOn does best.

“There are some other apps that do some similar things,” said Auvil, “but they are very bloated. There’s a TV guide and a social component, etc. We’re not looking to replace Facebook; we just want to provide and aggregate and deliver good content.”

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