A TV app for even the most organized student

If you are anything like me, you spend most, if not all, of your free time watching TV shows and movies on your favorite streaming services. And if you are even more like me, you want to keep track of exactly which TV shows and movies you have watched and how much of your life you have devoted (some might even say wasted) to them. 

The best way I have found to fulfill these goals is the app TV Time. It is available for free on the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, and it does everything I just described and more. On the most basic level, it lets you keep track of everything you have watched. 

The leftmost tab in the app displays your “currently watching” screen, with a widget representing your most recent episode on every series you have started but not finished. When you watch an episode, you press the checkmark on the right side of the widget, and the app will immediately populate the space with the widget for the next episode of that series. If that was the show’s final episode, a satisfying green “You’re finished!” widget will pop up briefly in that show’s space. 

You can also click at the top of any of these widgets to see the show’s page. This page allows you to see how many seasons a show ran for, how many episodes are in a  season, when a show might be coming back— if it is still airing— and so much more. 

The “Upcoming” tab is also in this portion of the app. This is one of my favorite features, and one that is underrated. The tab is fairly self-explanatory; it displays when shows you have added are airing next. This is most helpful for shows that have been on a break and have just announced their next season’s premiere date. For example, it recently informed me that the first three episodes of season four of “The Handmaid’s Tale” will premiere  on April 28 on Hulu.

Another less practical yet more fun aspect of TV Time is its social media-esque features. For instance, every user makes a profile, can follow people, accumulate followers and see everyone else’s recently watched shows. Users can also comment on specific episodes, react using emojis and vote for who they thought the best character in any given episode was. There are also quizzes users can take, which test your trivia knowledge of the most popular shows. The app then shows you where you ranked on that quiz compared to your friends. 

TV Time is constantly updating. In June 2019, TV Time added a movies tab to their app, meaning you can now track every movie you have watched in addition to TV shows. You can create custom watch lists by genre or any other category, and the app also suggests movies you might like, regardless of whether or not you have set up these custom lists. As it does for TV shows, TV Time calculates how much time you have spent watching movies.

Personally, I have watched 220 movies since the update, which calculates to approximately 17 days of my life. I would not wish for any of that time back, and if you feel the same way, TV Time might just be for you.