My Favorite Pop Culture Podcasts

My posts on podcasts don't seem to be my most popular work here, but it's nice to organize my thoughts, so I'll keep doing them till I run out.

In this post, I'll be covering roundtable type podcasts. These usually have a regular crew, plus guests. There are a million of these, but these are my faves, and I try never to miss an episode.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

If you think of NPR as being staid, boring and quiet, well, you're generally out of date as their podcasts are usually great, but this is particularly true of PCHH. Usually hosted by Linda Holmes, this podcast has three regulars and a large gallery of guests who fill the fourth chair. The drop two, fairly short, pods a week, each usually covering one topic, and the second one also including their "What's Making Us Happy" segment of recs. If you only listen to one pop culture podcast, this is the one.

Extra Hot Great

This one is very TV centric, and created by the people behind Previously TV, who once upon a time created the great, lamented, Television Without Pity (where Linda Holmes also got her start). As befitting the group that basically created the super long online TV recap, this podcast is at least an hour long, often longer. This one also has three regular hosts and one rotating guest. The discussion is always lively and amusing, and while I don't always agree with the hosts, I always come away with a more informed viewpoint.

The Empire Film Podcast

Speaking of long podcasts, The Empire Film podcast is often 2 hours long. It features both a round table discussion and interviews. They stand out with their Spoiler Specials, where they get the creators of some of the biggest films and go deep discussing the film. The latest of those is The Last Jedi, which has both a discussion and a long spoilery interview with the film's director, Rian Johnson(!)

Are there pop culture podcasts you'd like to recommend? Lemme know in the comments!