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What are your favourite podcasts regarding TV shows?
As a TV Show nerd, I just recently found Double Take, a podcast where 2 women discuss the episodes they watched last week.
Do you know / listen to any other podcasts, which talk about TV shows?
Recent HBO shows tend have “official” companion podcasts, which are worthwhile for hearing directly from the writers, directors, showrunners, and actors after each episode airs. I thought the Last of Us and Succession podcasts were decent quality.
it was so nice to have both of those podcasts after the episode. It made everything that much better. Kara Swisher was a great host for Succession.
Craig Mazin (Last of Us, Chernobyl) has a podcast called Script Notes that is pretty good. His co-host John is on the WGA negotiation committee and is giving regular updates re: the strike.
There was a great official companion podcast for Chernobyl, too. Worth noting that Craig is a bit of a scab, though.
https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/wga-dissident-craig-mazin-phyllis-nagy-agency-packaging-dispute-1202161842/
I'd recommend the earlier episodes of the It's Always Sunny in Philly podcast. The show's creators reflect on older episodes and discuss things they remember about the creation and production of each episode. I really enjoyed getting a behind the scenes look at the show. They also have a few episodes where they bring in other cast members and some of the other writers who helped them write the show. It's pretty fun learning about how different jokes evolved and how story lines changed.
However, I would recommend against listening to the more recent episodes. it's just devolved into the shows creators having a conversation about everything except the TV show now. Some of the things they've discussed are also pretty suspect. One example is Glenn Howerton mentioning that vegetables are dangerous to your health according to the research he's done. Another example is Rob & Glenn talking about how they casually take something called "Feel Free" which apparently is as addictive as opioids.
I've heard great things about the Office Ladies podcast which gives a more behind the scenes look at the Office. Unlike the Always Sunny Podcast, they seem to always stay on topic and don't shill for pseudoscience or dangerous products so that's a massive plus.
the Sunny podcast is frustrating. I stopped listening with The Gang Sells Out because a lot of the charm went away with the new studio, Athletic Greens etc.
Now I pull the episodes using yt-dlp + sponsorblock and run it through a php script to generate an ad-free RSS feed... there are better ways to do this.
But overall, I still like the podcast, but its becoming extremely clear that Rob is absolutely out of touch with the everyman's reality. They all are, but I think Charlie is self-aware enough to not say the crazy stuff... at least on camera.
I wish they'd just focus on the show and go long if they need to.
I’m glad other people picked up on this too. There are still bits of the podcast that I love, of course when they’re talking about how the show was created on all that, but even when they start going off on certain bits and you can almost see the writer gears turning and you can see in real time how they develop ideas and how they work with one another. I wish there was a lot more of it of course, but it’s nice to see. It would be really cool to see an episode of the podcast that’s just them writing an episode, but I doubt that’s gonna happen.
Yeah I only use YouTube with SponsorBlock nowadays, it's impossible to watch it otherwise. Have it on basically all my devices, just hate that I need to keep my YouTube app on my iPad/iPhone constantly refreshed.
About Rob and Glenn, I think they have been out of touch for a while now, they've gotten caught up in the Hollywood lifestyle. I think Rob has just gotten a lot worse recently because of his involvement in Wrexham AFC and Ryan Reynolds. And yeah, I really wish they'd focus on the show more. I watch because I want to know more about the show, not whatever random drivel they want to talk about.
Its a shame. Those first episodes they made were so good. Its nice for Meg to get paid for this, I guess.
Which youtube app are you using?
Currently using one called uYouPlus, I find it to be essentially Vanced for iOS. Though I won't be using it for much longer bc I can't refresh it on macOS Sonoma :(
oh yeah! I was using that before. I don't use youtube very much on my phone. I might try that safari extension for sb+ -- its only $4 or something
Yeah I was looking into the SponsorBlock extension for Safari and it's mighty tempting. However, I'm not super invested into the Apple ecosystem (yet) and I don't really want to spend that money just for my iPad.
ok! I just bought it and got it going. You need to give the extension access, but once you do that and the other settings, it seems to work well. Pretty decent.
Completely agree. Long time fan, but the recent seasons and podcast episodes just aren't it.
I really enjoyed the official Better Call Saul companion podcast that aired alongside the show. They always had significant guests on, and went deep into interesting stuff involved in the production of the show.
The HBO Chernobyl one was pretty good too.
The Better Call Saul podcast was fire. I loved how Vince Gilligian was on almost every episode. You really got the sense of who he was as a person and as a producer.
It was during this podcast run that I realized that a lot of the shows that I love had a few things in common:
Every show I've watched and I've listened to the podcast, these three things were mentioned in some way or fashion. The only show I can think of where this wasn't the case was The West Wing. I'm still going through the podcast so it might be true. But so far, it seems Aaron Sorkin was a different type of producer. For him, what was on the page what is canon.
But don't quote me on TWW yet.
I like Talking Simpsons a lot, it's two guys that aren't related to the production of the Simpsons in any way, but they are going through each episode chronologically to review all of them. They have started repeating themselves because I get the feeling they want to avoid the later episodes where the quality drops a bit. They also do movies/Futurama/King of the Hill/other cartoons on their Patreon feed.
I'm also a big fan of Taskmaster, so the Taskmaster Podcast is one I listen to quite regularly. The host is former winner, Ed Gamble, and he has almost gone through every single episode in the UK run of the show, and I don't think it's been announced if he'll move on to do the other territories versions of the show afterwards, but hopefully he will.
Other than that, a few of the sitcom-based ones:
Just took the first link off google for all of them so apologies for the mixing of Spotify and iTunes. You can find all of them in whatever podcast app you choose to use though. Of those, I think the Good Place podcast probably stands out as the best of the bunch, but it has completed its run so there won't be any more episodes of it.. Parks and Rec had Rob Lowe/Alan Yang as hosts for the first run, but they've switched to Jim O'Heir and Greg Levine and they have an odd form of banter between them that I'm not quite tuned into just yet. Office Ladies is also pretty solid, but it did start fairly rough. They've hit their groove now though so the more recent ones are much better.
It's Always Sunny and Scrubs podcasts tend to drift off topic quite a bit, though I don't mind so much as I find the chemistry between the cast and the chat they have quite entertaining anyway. It just very rarely relates to the show itself, probably only 10-20% of the podcast they talk about the episode sometimes.
The others are a bit more middle of the road, I have a large backlog of them because I'm not that enthusiastic about the show or the lineup in the podcast, but they do focus more on the episodes than Scrubs/IASIP.
If you're a fan of reality TV then I recommend Rob Has a Podcast. It's hosted by Rob Cesternino who was a memorable contestant on Survivor 20ish years ago (not Boston Rob). It was originally a Survivor podcast but has expanded to cover Big Brother, other reality shows, random weekly Netflix shows, and weekly podcasts of general tomfoolery. It also has sister podcast networks, Post-Show Recaps and Reality TV RHAPups (with dozens of sub-podcasts within those networks), that have different hosts and cover other scripted and reality TV shows.
It's likely only fun if you have seen both shows, or at least one, but I love love loooove Buffy the Gilmore Slayer, which goes through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls and compares each episode. It's so good and really funny because both hosts are comedians.
For fans of The Office, I just started The Office Ladies which is excellent.
Finally, The Villian Is Right is really good. It mostly covers movies but also does some tv shows. Their episode on Friends is excellent, but a good place to start is SpongeBob Squarepants, since their defense of Plankton is just delicious. It's really funny.
Talking Sopranos was really good, was hosted by Chrissy and Bobby [from the show]. I liked how bulshy Steve Schrippa is, but then again I have a soft spot for that wiseguy archetype, some might find him abrasive. He goes off on a recurring 'fan' who always brings up conspiracies...funny shit.
Trekkies who don’t take themselves too seriously should definitely try The Greatest Discovery for all the new trek coming out these days.
And The Greatest Generation for all the old shows. They started with TNG, then did DS9, and I believe they are currently on VOY (I am way behind though).
Absolutely. I’ve gone through TNG, DS9 and Picard so far. They put out episodes so fast I’ll probably never catch up.
I liked Picard Season 1. I was okay with Season 2. I gritted my teeth through Season 3.
It had so much potential....
I kept wondering when Queen Agnes would show up to help
LOST: Down the Hatch. I think it’s turned into a Battlestar podcast so scroll to the beginning. They recap every episode of the show, and they spent like two hours in each episode. The thing is, there really is that much material for LOST between all the fan theories (we were really bored in the mid 2000s) and going behind the scenes.
A lot of people here are talking about show-specific podcasts made by people involved with producing the show. But if you like podcasts where it's just viewers talking about different shows they watch, there are some I recommend:
It's Spoilerin' Time where they talk with full spoilers about the shows they are watching. They also have a podcast called CordKillers where they talk about streaming news.
We Enjoy... Here they sometimes talk about TV but also sometimes talk about movies.
A More Civilized Age This one just talks about Star Wars shows all the time.