Talking points
Likened to a UK This American Life by the wise minds at Hot Pods, the BBC’s new podcast series Multi Story makes inventive use of the corporation’s local reporting. Each episode assembles a collection of regional stories from across England on a single theme: this week’s instalment on parenting features one couple’s story of how they came to terms with the loss of their child and the tale of a prolific sperm donor.
While Multi Story is focused very much on the present, a new podcast from New York magazine is looking to the future. 2038 attempts to discern what the life will be like in 20 years’ time, with input from experts on everything from technology to climate science. The first episode is on the very US-centric topic of the supreme court, but future instalments will tackle China’s growing global status and self-driving cars. Gwilym Mumford
Picks of the week
You might have surmised that, in the age of social media, what society needs is fewer heated debates about politics. The New York Times, however, has come to the opposite conclusion, launching a podcast that seeks to get political tribes out of their respective bubbles. Here, conservative columnist Ross Douthat, liberal blogger Michelle Goldberg and progressive opinion writer David Leonhardt engage in spirited, if civil, discourse about the big issues, beginning – naturally – with the Kavanaugh confirmation. GM
Daphne Rubin-Vega and Bobby Cannavale star in this tense thriller about a woman who returns to New York after 16 years in prison to find that her boyfriend is missing and her family have moved out of her now-gentrified neighbourhood. She soon gets an ad-hoc job as a masseuse operating in the basement of a stoner’s empanada shop and fights for survival as the dark plot unfolds. It’s very much Rubin-Vega’s show, but she and Cannavale make a beautifully shambolic duo destined to be involved in terrible things. Hannah Verdier
In focus: TV podcasts
Where once TV was tailored to the casual viewer, now – in the age of binge viewing – shows are built to satisfy the obsessive fan, full of minute details that such viewers are keen to pore over. That culture shift brought about the rise of the episode recap and in recent years podcasting has got in on the act, with episode-by-episode podcasts appearing for just about every major show out there.
Some you may already be familiar with. Gilmore Guys and Go Bayside have attracted sizeable audiences for their sharp and funny dissections of every episode of The Gilmore Girls and Saved by the Bell respectively. While both of those podcast are hosted by fans, The West Wing Weekly has the extra selling point of being presented by Joshua Malina, who appeared in four seasons of the show.
In a similar vein is NBC’s official Good Place podcast, which is hosted by Marc Evan Jackson, who plays the acclaimed sitcom’s buttoned-up judge Shawn. Elsewhere No F*ckin’ Ziti breaks down The Sopranos, and The Wire Stripped tackles David Simon’s Baltimore-set opus, while The Ringer’s Binge Mode makes the bold decision to break down multiple works, including Game of Thrones and the Harry Potter films. Finally, there’s The Simpsons, a series so vast that it has prompted multiple podcasts: The Simpsons Show, The Springfield Files and Everything’s Coming Up Simpsons adopt a completist, every-episode approach, while Worst Episode Ever restricts itself to the show’s weaker instalments, mostly drawn from its disappointing later years. GM
Your picks:
Pants on Fire is an awesome podcast that introduces a very funny robot named L.I.S.A. and has kids from all over the US on it. There are two grownups who have to tell a kid everything they know about a topic, but only one is a real expert. I like trying to figure out who’s lying! Recommended by Gabriel Roush, age 8
In 1962, when JFK promised to put a man on the moon, people felt it was a fanciful ambition. But that dream inspired the people who made it come true. Moonshot explores ground-breaking technologies and offers glimpses of a future that may be closer than we think. Recommended by Jonathan Craig
Guardian pick: We need to talk about … extinction
Our monthly We Need to Talk podcast, which is driven by our readers and listeners, tackles the devastating impact of human behaviour and overdevelopment on the natural world. How can conservation be rebalanced with development? Who has the power to decide which species should be saved? And what can we do to save the many endangered species locally and globally?
Joining our executive editor for membership, Lee Glendinning, is Dr Nisha Owen, who runs the Zoological Society of London’s international Edge of Existence programme, focusing on species prioritisation, conservation action and capacity building; Tony Juniper, executive director for advocacy and campaigns at WWF-UK; and George Monbiot, environmental writer, campaigner, and Guardian columnist.
They discuss the increasingly devastating impacts of human behaviour on fauna and flora, and what can be done to protect species, locally and globally.
