I know we’re well into 2023 now and you’ve probably read enough retrospective lists. But some of us (me) were on holidays through December and haven’t had a chance to pull our lists together until now. Better late than never!
For posterity’s sake, here’s some podcasts I listened to for the first time, or that put out a new limited series, in 2022. And, of course, some thoughts I had about them.
The Trojan Horse Affair
Another buzzy one from the Serial team, this time with a UK connection. If you haven’t heard, the Trojan Horse Affair was a British scandal to do with radicalisation within Islamic schools in Birmingham, that has had serious and far-reaching consequences. This series puts forward the idea: what if this whole scandal was obviously based on a load of shit? The producers find themselves taking on the establishment – school administrators, the media, even politicians, are all implicated. And it seems clear that there’s been a mass failure of our institutions in how the scandal was discussed and dealt with.
Unfortunately for the show, the British establishment blob knows exactly how to play a story like this. They close ranks – which you can see in the hysterical condemnation of the show upon its release. And, crucially, they delay and obfuscate. The reporters have to chase in circles through layers of bureaucracy, parse dry administrative documents, and butt their heads against denials and avoidance. Unfortunately, it hurts the show. At times the story is dull and confusing – you wait for the spark of a new bit of evidence to light things up but it doesn’t come. It all fades out with a whimper, an unsatisfying, inconclusive ending. Obviously you don’t know what’s going to come of an investigation when you commit to it. You can only hope it’s full of twists and turns and excitement. But if it’s not there it’s not there. Ultimately I found The Trojan Horse Affair to be a worthy, important piece of journalism that wasn’t super enjoyable to listen to.
Football Cliches
A football podcast for the sports-hesitant, Football Cliches focuses on the things I truly love about football. That is, weird malapropisms from commentators, meaningless platitudes from players, and firm judgements on what cadence to use when saying “Champion’s League”.
The show’s beat is the way we talk about football, and it’s pitched at just the right intersection of inconsequential and mildly interesting. And even though I still can’t tell any of the male football nerd voices apart, I’ve generally found that the more you listen, the better it gets – consider me extremely invested in the ongoing saga of “cometh the hour, cometh the man”.
Killed
Lots of narrative podcasts end up being meta-narratives – half the story is how they got the story. Killed’s bright idea is to make this explicit from the jump. The show speaks with journalists to tell the stories behind stories that were “killed” – canceled by an editor or publisher. Each episode is a self-contained story with a climax and resolution — for example, episode 1 finds two magazine writers butting up against a metaphorical brick wall as they try to break the story of a sex abuser Hollywood director. I found this much more interesting than hearing another investigative podcast where the host talks increasingly about themselves as their investigation trails off into inconclusiveness (not naming any names). Don’t know why this didn’t get more buzz in 2022!
Fed Up
A nice little show at the intersection of two zeitgeisty topics – scams and social media scandals. What lifted this limited series about a high-fibre diet into a guilty little treat (and kept me listening through a storm of ads) was Casey Wilson’s hosting. If you ever want a good example of what a good presenter can do, listen to how she makes the script sing, and turns stretches of exposition into sheer delight.
Cover Story: Seed Money
This was my favourite traditional narrative podcast of the year. A limited series telling the story of a billionaire accused of sex crimes by a former friend, it begins by letting the listener know that basically everyone they spoke to for this story lied, in one way or another. It’s an intriguing way to set up a show that is ultimately a satisfying mix of hook-y story, sharp writing and dynamic presentation — with just the right amount of personality coming through from the hosts and reporters.
Dig: Sirens Are Coming
Coming from the ABC (the Australian one), this historical podcast about corrupt cops in Queensland is a bit more radio documentary than I normally enjoy. I stuck with it for two reasons: a) the dark history of Queensland police is fascinating and appalling; and b) the authority and expertise of journalist and host Matt Condon. You can tell he lives and breathes this subject, and it absolutely shines through – the kind of well-informed, nuanced reporting that makes you glad for the national broadcaster.
Normal Gossip
If you haven’t heard this show – get out from under the rock. Each episode, the host shares some reader-submitted anonymous gossip with a guest, and we all laugh/gasp/wince in unison. I had a lot of thoughts about Normal Gossip! I think the way they tease out the stories is perfectly pitched, and look, the show’s obviously working, it’s a big success. But I do feel that sometimes the guests add absolutely nothing, to the point of being actively annoying, and I usually find the opening segment where they’re introduced to be slow and skippable. That said, I’m definitely going to keep listening – and it’s also the easiest show to recommend to friends.
Project Unabom
As a sworn enemy of industrial society, I’ll check out anything that slaps the Unabomber on the cover. And ultimately I enjoyed this Apple Original, even if I thought it needed to pick a focus. Is this a biography of Ted Kaczynski, through the eyes of his brother? Is this the story of the investigation, through the eyes of an FBI detective? Is this a broader look at the social backdrop behind the Unabomber case, and the threads that link then to now? Or is it just… all of these, at the same time? Maybe it was a deliberate decision to cover every aspect and angle of the Unabomber story, switching between and within episodes. But I’m not sure Project Unabom had the dexterity to pull that balancing act off.
You Must Remember This: Erotic 80s
Probably my personal GOAT podcast delivered one of my favourite series they’ve ever produced – a year-by-year breakdown of a lost genre, the erotic movie, through the 80s. Think Risky Business, Body Double, Sex Lies & Videotape, and so on. This was right up my street, and I think the series did a great job of articulating how the relationship between sex and Hollywood cinema has changed in the contemporary era. Like always, host and writer Karina Longworth goes beyond the cliche and gives you something of an untold history – a fresh perspective on movies and stars you think you already know. I can’t WAIT for its follow-up, Erotic 90s.
A Closer Look: Season 2
They’ve cracked it: a scripted comedy podcast that’s both well-produced and laugh-out-loud funny. A Closer Look’s second season is about the doomed production of 90s sci-fi movie Cyber Cowboys in the Arizona desert, told through retrospective interviews as well as some unearthed archival audio from the set. It had me from the moment when Steven Segal gets into an aikido sparring match with Klaus Kinski’s dead body in his trailer – and if that tease doesn’t pique your interest, nothing will. This was my favourite podcast find of 2022.