![]() ![]() But “This Sounds Serious,” now in its third season, deftly avoids these problems. Scripted fictional podcasts, including satirical ones, often exude a self-serious, stagey artifice that, at least for me, can produce involuntary shuddering. ![]() What a surprise it was to listen to the satirical investigative podcast “This Sounds Serious: Grand Casino,” from Castbox and the Vancouver production company Kelly & Kelly, and laugh my head off over and over again. This was a year in which you really noticed a good laugh-what is this sound, this feeling?-and appreciated the hell out of it. Here’s to 2021, and may things only get better. And three long-running favorite podcasts of mine put out exceptional, must-listen episodes: the wrenching “ Remembering Lynn Shelton,” on Marc Maron’s “WTF,” which Maron released two days after the death of his partner, the brilliant and beloved director Lynn Shelton “ Curtis Flowers,” in which Madeleine Baran, the reporter-host of “In the Dark,” the podcast that helped free Flowers from prison after twenty-three years, finally interviews him and “Reply All” ’s “ The Case of the Missing Hit,” which brought us unlikely joy, via a mysterious Barenaked Ladies-like earworm, as we adjusted to our new reality in March. Deeply reported local documentaries continued to flourish, sometimes at NPR affiliates meanwhile, Spotify and other gargantuan parties continued to gobble up greater percentages of the podsphere, but independent creators doing truly original things thrived, too. In March, Covid-specific series sprang up-the one I liked best was a nearly robotic, just-the-facts situation called “ Coronavirus 411”-and, as the pandemic set in, many shows made great use of the power of voices to connect listeners in isolation. I also appreciated shows that gave me useful information in a form I could stand. ![]() The podcasts that stood out to me most this year, not surprisingly, were those that transported me-especially when they made me laugh. New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows. ![]()
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