I can't take part, since I have no tapes, but you've all won me over to the idea of this. This is definitely a great way to experience and discuss the series, by separating it off from anything else. You're also getting me to think it must be good.
On most message boards I find that the emphasis is on competition, which is automatically inserted into situations where it has no place and where it distorts our perceptions. There are polls between albums or shows or episodes, where I feel manoevered into saying bad things about episodes or songs I love in order to explain my decision to vote for the other one. I don't have that competition gene or brain area, or whatever, so I observe it from a distance and see how it screws things up, sometimes. I don't see that here so much. Even here though, it's good to lift the discussion out of the old-show-vs-new-show morass by, well, just forbidding that, as MB's done. Good idea. It makes a discussion possible that would have been difficult otherwise.
