UPDATED: TV Club relaunches: now, with alphabetization! (And a bunch of other cool stuff.)

By Emily St. James | June 24, 2011 | 5:00pm

Aux Features TV

If you head on over to the TV Club main page, you'll find that things have changed a bit. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Ah! I hate change!" I know. We all do. But with this helpful guide, maybe you won't hate change quite so much.

First, let's take a look at what's going on at the top of the page.

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You'll see a bunch of new tabs. The most important thing about the TV Club redesign is that you can now follow specific shows, and "your" TV Club will be updated with reviews and features about those shows.

Starting on the left, you'll see the Calendar button. Click on this button to see what was on last night, what's coming up tonight, and what's coming on tomorrow, with quick links to all of those articles. You'll also find a link to a seven-day calendar, that lets you look over the past three days, today, and the next three days, if you really want to plan your TV watching in advance.

Next to that button, you'll see something marked All Shows. This is exactly what it sounds like, and if you click on it, you'll find a scrolling list of every show we've ever covered. (Yes, we've made the ones we made invisible re-visible, so you can relive the glory days of our coverage of Rock Of Love and The Good Guys.) See that little star next to the name of the show? Click on that if you want to follow the show. The ones you're following will be marked with a yellow star. (More on this in a moment.) Shows that are currently on the air are followed by a little green circle, while classic shows are followed by a little white circle. Looking for Other Shows? It's WAY at the bottom.

SPECIAL BONUS! Has it bugged you that the TV Club sidebar alphabetized things by "The" or "A," rather than the first word after the article? Well, it bothered me. This list alphabetizes things correctly. Hooray!

Just to the left of the big area reading "My Shows," you'll find a little button marked with a gear. This sorts how things appear in the "My Shows" box. If you're looking for what's been updated most recently, click on that option. If you're following both Community and Futurama but want to find the most recent Futurama episode, for instance, this might be easier to use, since Futurama is currently on the air. But click A-Z if you're looking for Community because, well, C comes before F.

Next, we have the My Shows box. This is where every show you're following is listed, in a handy to access place. Click on the name of a show to go to its show page. Click on the little arrow at the end to display every show you follow (if you follow more shows than will fit in the space). And as you add shows to your list, this list will update automatically. You'll definitely want to add shows that aren't currently on the air, just in case we run features over the summer pertaining to them (as fans of a certain sitcom about a small-town in Indiana might want to do before next month rolls around). All in all, this is the best place to instantly access the shows you care most about. (I am not currently following any shows because I don't actually watch all that much TV.)

Below that, you'll see two tabs. First is All TV Club. This will let you see every single review, feature, or newswire article that's listed as a TV article (like this one). Next to that, you'll see My TV Club. This lets you see just the articles pertaining to the shows you follow.

Below that, the left-hand column is taken up by Recent Reviews, which is a list of the 50 most recent reviews TV Club has run. (Most weeks, it will run back a week or so.) And next to that are the five articles we most want you to take a look at. Complete with pictures!

Below that, we come to our next set of tabs:

These seem more or less self-explanatory, but because this is a tutorial, what the hell, right?

All TV Club lists every TV article on the site, going back through the past 25.
Reviews lists the last 25 reviews.
Features lists the last 25 TV features.
Newswire lists the last 25 TV news posts.

Easy, right?

Now, let's check out one of the show pages. Let's assume that, like all good Americans, you're obsessed with CBS' short-lived reality show Kid Nation.

Again, this all seems self-explanatory, but I'll walk you through it.

First, you have the show's name. Next to that is a button marked "Follow." This is just another way to add this show to your list of shows, so that should we ever write something about Kid Nation again (unlikely), you'll be the first to know.

Below that is a space that will tell you when the show airs. Kid Nation isn't on the air, but if this were Louie, it would look like this:

Below that is a list showing the current season (or the most recently completed season) and the total number of episodes we've covered. And below that is a link that will take you to the top-rated episode of the show's run.

Below that are quick links to the show's four most recent episodes, with the most recent article on the show popping up in the main space.

Finally, we come to what's below that, which is a new way to filter reviews.

The top tab lets you toggle between reviews of the show's episodes and other articles on the site that mention the show in some capacity. Easy enough. Below that is a drop-down menu that lets you pick which season of the show you'd like to browse. This takes you handily through all four years of TV Club's existence, to find just the episode you want. You can browse by "oldest" or "newest" first, just like in comments. And then below that is the list of every episode in the season you've currently selected, with the grade available right there, for ease of skimming.

There are sure to be quirks of the system, but hopefully this gives you a good overview of what the new design can do. Please let us know if you find anything weird, preferably in comments of this post. And we hope you like the new system!

UPDATE: We know some users are having problems with logging in. It comes from the system having to re-categorize every comment you've made, and we all know A.V. Club readers tend to make a lot of comments. It's going to be slow today and probably throughout the weekend, but we're doing everything possible to speed that up. Thanks for your patience.