Pod Hunters: all of the cool podcasts that we recommend

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.

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.

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 the infamous nuclear reactor, but of a man, Valery Legasov (the head of the USSR’s investigation into the incident, played by Jared Harris) musing about the importance of truth just before he hangs himself. After flashing back to the moment when the plant explodes, the series spends the next five episodes through the immediate aftermath of the disaster, how the Soviet Union undertook some unfathomable measures to contain the radiation, and how Soviet culture essentially created the perfect environment for the meltdown to occur.

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.

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.

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.

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 accompanied by veteran science journalist Corey S. Powell, and a number of guests to help out each episode on any given topic. The series is described a bit like NPR’s Car Talk, but about science instead.

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, she comes across a host of strange characters, as well as deep-seated conspiracies and ghosts.

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-conformist politician by a federal investigation,” and if you aren’t up to speed on Illinois politics or can’t quite remember who Blagojevich is, the show is a deep dive into his rise to power that eventually brought brought him to the governor’s office in 2003 — and subsequent fall when authorities hauled him in after their investigation.

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.

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.

Last year, blood-testing startup Theranos dramatically shut down after the company and its founder Elizabeth Holmes were charged by the SEC for defrauding investors. That happened following scrutiny from Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, who published a string of articles — and after that, a bestselling book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup — which uncovered the company’s business practices, and how it marketed a blood testing product that didn’t work. There have been a couple of new projects focused on the company: a documentary film named The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, and an investigative series from ABC News, The Dropout, which is accompanied by a six-part podcast, hosted by chief business, economics & technology correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.

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.

A young man named Charles Dexter Ward goes missing from his locked room in a Rhode Island institution, while his psychiatrist, Dr. Jonathon Willett later travels to Britain to murder a woman. That’s the start of a new podcast series from BBC Radio 4, based on an H.P. Lovecraft novel called The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which follows a pair of investigative reporters working on a fictional true-crime podcast, Mystery Machine.

Over the past few years, podcasts have developed into an incredible medium for long-form reporting and creative fiction, with shows like Serial and Welcome to Nightvale garnering massive mainstream followings.

If you’re a fan of these types of programming, and want more to add to your listening queue, there are 11 of our favorite podcasts that debuted (or ran a new season) this year.

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 1985, a hunter walking through Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire made a grisly discovery: a 55 gallon drum left deep in the woods, containing two sets of skeletonized remains, which investigators believed had been left in the woods for years. A subsequent investigation yielded little results until 2000, when a second barrel containing another pair of bodies was discovered, just a hundred meters away.

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.

Just two days after the deadly school shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, authorities in Vermont arrested 18-year-old Jack Sawyer, who told a friend that he planned to commit a similar shooting at his former high school. The revelation had a bombshell effect on the state: Republican governor Phil Scott eventually signed three bills that implemented some restrictions on gun ownership in the traditionally gun-friendly state. Earlier this fall, Vermont Public Radio released a five-part podcast called Jolted that delved into the attempted shooting and its ramifications.

As podcasting has matured as a medium, it’s grown to cover almost every genre and style imaginable, from old-school tech talk and true crime, to sci-fi and sobering historical deep dives. It’s also proven extraordinarily adept at horror, with both fictional podcasts and real-life tales offering a variety of scares, chills, and unsettling encounters. Much like traditional radio dramas, there’s a distinct intimacy to the format, one that allows talented storytellers to unnerve audiences with nothing more than sound.

For Halloween, we’ve collected some of the best and scariest podcasts to grace our smartphones. They might be brand-new shows, or long-running classics, but like a great horror movie or novel, each and every one is practically guaranteed to leave you unsettled and looking over your shoulder. But don’t worry — they’re just podcasts, right?

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 beginning of Stitcher’s new podcast, My Dead Wife, the Robot Car, a widower named Matt signs up with a mysterious tech company to work as a test driver for a new autonomous car. After a confusing introduction — the company rep won’t divulge any details about the company or even tell him his name — he’s set up in one a car, when he receives a rude surprise: the car’s AI is programmed to replicate his recently-deceased wife Joyce, whom he was about to divorce.

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.

The third season of Serial starts off with host Sarah Koenig introducing the place where the podcast listener will reside for the duration of its run. It’s a stunning, almost cinematic monologue. Koenig takes the listener through Cleveland’s Justice Center Complex, explaining that the “hideous but practical,” complex is an entire justice system, housing courts, jails, offices for state prosecutors and sheriffs, and city police. If this were a film, it would be one of those single-shot takes, taking you from the basement of the building, up the elevator, to the jail and courtrooms. We bump into the detectives, prosecutors, stenographers, lawyers, judges, defendants, victims, and witnesses who populate the building and who will likely pop up over the course of the season.

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.

Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film Jaws is a cinematic classic, a film that set the mold for the modern blockbuster. This summer, Wondery debuted a new podcast from Mark Ramsey, the podcaster who was responsible for two earlier series, Inside Psycho and Inside the Exorcist. Inside Jaws opens with an infamous incident that occurred in July 1916: 25-year old Charles Epting Vansant takes a swim at in New Jersey with his dog, and became the first victim of a series of shark attacks that summer in the area. It was an incident that cemented the image of a killer shark in the American public, and helped set the stage for future stories like Jaws.

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.

Earlier this summer, HowStuffWorks released a fantastic podcast miniseries called Drawn: The Story of Animation, which takes a close look at the history of cartoons, and how we went from the classic Warner Bros. stable of characters to the latest hits like Rick and Morty. It’s a well-researched, engaging podcast to binge on, even if you’re just a casual fan of cartoons.

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.

Imagine life in Brooklyn, Portland, or any other fast-growing, hip metropolis, where people are obsessed with things like brunch, have a side hustle, or want to extoll the merits of Die Hard as a Christmas movie. Now imagine that city under a dome on an alien planet, and the threat from alien monsters. This is the world of Bubble, a science fiction comedy podcast from podcast studio Maximum Fun.

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.

In June, the country hit a boiling point after revelations that thousands of children had been separated from their parents as the Trump administration implemented a new policy. It would criminally prosecute parents who entered the country illegally and place them in a federal prison, where children aren’t permitted. Later that month, the administration backtracked slightly, replacing the separation with indefinite family detention. The situation has invited comparisons to another dark period in American history: when the US government interned hundreds of thousands of Japanese-descended Americans in camps, under the guise of national security.

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.

On November 29th, 1970, a family discovered the body of a woman in Norway’s Isdalen Valley in Bergen. It was a strange scene: the body was burned, and an autopsy later found at least 50 sleeping pills in her stomach. Investigators discovered a pair of suitcases at a nearby train station, loaded with money, clothing without labels, eight fake passports, and some other objects, only to have the case abruptly closed.

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.

During the 1970s, the Cold War was in full swing and Eastern Europe was a hotbed of agents and spies of both the Soviet Union and the United States. During this time, Czechoslovakia was a quiet battleground as both sides attempted to gain intelligence from one another. But in Serial Box’s podcast series The Witch Who Came in From the Cold, there’s another war brewing: one between ancient magical factions, Ice and The Flame, each of which have battled for millennia over control of the world. Prague in particular is home to several intersecting Ley lines unseen by the typical citizen, turning the city into a magical battleground.