Pod Hunters: all of the cool podcasts that we recommend – The Verge

Carrier is an immersive podcast that left me on the edge of my seat

2019-08-11T18:06:12-04:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our new column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

I'd recommend against listening to QCode's latest podcast while driving. When I queued up Carrier for the first time to listen while running errands, I jumped out of my seat when it kicked off with an intense introduction that bounced the sound from speaker to speaker, and closed with the blaring horn of a tractor trailer truck.

That was a good example of the tension that the rest of the series would bring. The serialized podcast introduces us to Raylene, …

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Moonrise looks to the space race to find out what we can learn about returning to the Moon

2019-07-21T13:00:00-04:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our new column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission taking place this weekend, there has been plenty of retrospectives and examinations on the impact of the space race and the lunar missions. In addition to a flood of books and documentaries, there are a handful of podcasts as well. One of those new podcasts is The Washington Post's Moonrise, hosted by Lillian Cunningham.

Cunningham is the creator of a couple of other excellent podcasts - Constitutional, ab …

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The Chernobyl Podcast is a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the HBO series

2019-06-23T11:00:00-04:00

In May, HBO scored an unexpected hit with Chernobyl, a five-part miniseries about how the world's worst nuclear disaster unfolded. Like any dramatization of a real-world incident, it takes some liberties to make the story fit into television's dramatic structure. That's where the show's companion podcast comes in: it features Wait Wait Don't Tell Me's Peter Sagal as he interviews series creator Craig Mazin about the production of the show, why they had to make some changes, and what really happened in the real disaster.

Chernobyl is a compelling show, exploring how the disaster occurred and its aftermath. It opens not with the explosion of …

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How a podcast helped solve a grisly cold case

2019-06-09T14:20:07-04:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

On Thursday, New Hampshire authorities held a press conference where they identified three victims who had been killed by a serial killer in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The case was the subject of New Hampshire Public Radio's true crime podcast Bear Brook, and it played a small role in helping to identify the victims.

In 1985, a hunter discovered two bodies in a barrel in 1985 in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, while two additional victi …

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Blockbuster is a heartfelt podcast series about George Lucas and Steven Spielberg

2019-06-02T16:51:46-04:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

When it comes to the history of cinema, there are few origin stories that are as well-trodden as that of the careers of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and John Williams. Their friendship is the subject of a new, six-episode podcast called Blockbuster, which retells their early days as filmmakers in a dramatic new way, and explores how their iconic films helped change cinematic history.

The podcast series comes from Matt Schrader, a former investigative journal …

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Blackout imagines the collapse of civilization from a small New Hampshire town

2019-05-05T11:00:00-04:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

In the first moments of Blackout, a new podcast from Endeavor Audio, we ride along with the pilot of a fighter jet who is flying over the White Mountains of New Hampshire, when suddenly he notices something off, and abruptly loses power and crashes.

The episode jumps to a recording made by a DJ named Simon Itani (voiced by Mr. Robot / Bohemian Rhapsody's Rami Malek), who says that he's documenting what's transpired in the months since power went out across the …

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Bill Nye wants to educate the public about science with his new podcast

2019-04-26T16:43:47-04:00

If you grew up in the 1990s, you're probably familiar with Bill Nye. He was the host of the popular PBS series Bill Nye the Science Guy, a TV program that ran for a hundred episodes and introduced kids to a range of science concepts. More recently, he hosted Bill Nye Saves the World, a Netflix series designed to educate the wider public about the importance of science. Now, Nye has a new project: a science-themed podcast called Science Rules, which will launch on May 16th.

Unlike his TV programs, Nye's new podcast is a bit more interactive. In it, he'll be taking audience calls to answer various questions about science, and he'll be accompa …

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Unwell is a fantastic gothic horror podcast set in midwest America

2019-04-07T17:00:00-04:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our new column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

HartLife's new podcast series Unwell is a good example horror storytelling. After her mother is injured, a woman named Lillian Harper moves in with her mother in the very small town of Mt. Absalom, Ohio to help her recover. When she arrives, she rediscovers the strangeness of small-town middle America. Lillian and her mother have been estranged for years, and when she returns to her mother's home - a boarding house that's been in her family for generations, …

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Public Official A charts Rod Blagojevich’s spectacular fall from grace

2019-03-10T14:00:00-04:00

Remember Rod Blagojevich? My memory of the former Illinois Governor is the coverage of his case from The Daily Show as Jon Stewart made a long-running gag of exaggerating his name. In 2008, Governor Blagojevich was arrested and charged with corruption after a long-running investigation, and was eventually impeached and removed from office. A new podcast from WBEZ Chicago, Public Official A, delves into the events that led to Blagojevich's removal from office, and why his name has been in the news lately.

In the introduction, journalist Dave McKinney describes the show as "this is our podcast about the bringing down of a charismatic and non- …

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Of course there’s a podcast about pizza

2019-02-24T10:00:00-05:00

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our column Pod Hunters, we cover what we've been listening to that we can't stop thinking about.

There are a lot of podcasts out there, and when "National Pizza Day" came through a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that there was indeed a podcast all about pizza: Pizza City, hosted by Steve Dolinsky, a food reporter for ABC 7 in Chicago, the author of Pizza City, USA: 101 Reasons Why Chicago Is America's Greatest Pizza Town, and founder of Pizza City USA Tours, which is… exactly as it sounds: a pizza tour of Chicago.

The show is an ongoing project for Dol …

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