Programming note: I'll be on vacation for the rest of this week, returning Sunday night to write about the Game of Thrones and Veep finales. My Silicon Valley finale review will also post that night, and a couple of things I wrote in advance (like my review of Showtime's Roadies) should publish in my absence.

Last night's Veep was a format-breaking episode presented as the long-gestating documentary Selina's daughter Catherine had been filming all season. It not only detailed the results of the electoral tie-breaker vote in the House of Representatives, but cast new light on a lot of events we had witnessed earlier in the season.

I spoke with Veep showrunner David Mandel about how and why they pulled off the documentary episode, coming up just as soon as I make a call from an elementary school classroom...

A review of tonight's Game of Thrones coming up just as soon as my offer is free of marriage demands...

A review of tonight's Veep coming up just as soon as I remember to check for lead...

A review of tonight's Silicon Valley coming up just as soon as the problem is Terminator...

A quick review of tonight's Preacher coming up just as soon as I have a direct line to Heaven...

I really liked the new season of Orange Is the New Black, particularly the second half of it. Now that many of you have had the weekend to watch the whole thing (and if you're not done yet, you can come back to this when you are), I have specific thoughts on each episode — and I'm writing all of these capsules assuming you've seen the whole season, so there may be spoilers for later episodes in discussion of earlier ones — coming up just as soon as I rent a bounce house in the shape of a frog...

Happy Friday, everybody! You already heard me talking at length earlier this week with Fienberg, and now it's time for Ask Alan, where I deal with three questions: TV's best guest appearance where they only appeared on the show once, my favorite use of product placement on TV, and what happened to quirky small-town dramedies like Gilmore Girls and Ed.

Men plan, God laughs, then Netflix releases 13 episodes of a show all at once.

My intention was to watch between four and six episodes of the new season of Orange Is the New Black, write an advance piece on where the show stands as it enters its fourth season, then watch the rest after it debuts tomorrow (technically, tonight at midnight Pacific) and do a spoiler-filled piece after I had seen the whole thing(*).

It has been 257 days since Fienberg and I published the final installment of that podcast we used to do together. And in that time, each of us has received far more than 257 queries about whether the podcast might live again down the road. While we can't offer you a full-scale resurrection, we were just in Austin together for a long weekend (made a bit longer due to travel mishaps), and we thought we might do an early celebration of Dan's birthday (which happens to be today, so be sure to tweet him your best wishes) by recording a conversation that may in some way resemble the ones we recorded together in another life.