Twenty years on, Russell T Davies’s storytelling is just as impactful as it was when it first aired on Channel 4.
Originally a podcast for the US version of the show, which spanned five series and 83 episodes in the early 2000s on Showtime, Still Queer as Folk’s American hosts, Patrick Randall and Matt Dominguez, return to the original UK series to give an unfiltered analysis of each episode.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. The podcast picks up where episode six would probably have left off – lost and confused in their realm of glorious nonsense.
The duo abandon logic and linearity to present a hotchpotch of ludicrous stories with the utmost seriousness. Think Baynham and Chris Morris’s surrealist satires such as The Day Today and Brass Eye.
So, if ever the fans of a TV series might have pleaded for a podcast that deconstructs each episode, Inside Inside No. 9 answers that call.
Becoming even more granular than the series itself, the two creators and stars, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, dissect each episode after it has aired.
Every week, the masters of misdirection are joined by a different member of the Inside No. 9 team to talk about the making of the programmes.
The next Fleabag or Line of Duty tossed into the television abyss, taking with it the awards buzz that might have surrounded the breakout stars and the flood of fascinating fan fiction that could have gushed from a new global fan base.
Everything is cryptic; minor characters from three series ago suddenly pop up on screen; and half of the dialogue is in acronyms. Yet viewers still can’t get enough of Jed Mercurio’s perplexing police procedural.
The series delights in plunging viewers into the darkness as they fumble to their own (often wrong) conclusions. Luckily for us, BBC Sounds’ companion podcast Obsessed with… Line of Duty is on hand to offer illumination.
In each episode of In Writing, journalist Hattie Crisell seeks solidarity and insight from one of the best of any and all genres. Among the 25 to date are playwright and screenwriter Lucy Prebble, novelist David Nicholls and writer and performer Robert Webb.
The interviews feel less like formal conversations than intimate visits. Crisell starts each one by asking the writer to describe their writing room.
The Receipts Podcast presenter Tolani Shoneye joins co-host and friend Gena-mour Barrett – who works for Netflix – on the streaming service’s rebranded podcast, previously called What to Watch on Netflix.
The duo trawl through 32,600 hours of content on Netflix (though they may have fast-forwarded parts of the catalogue…) to the must-see shows for ultimate escapism, from big hitters to the hidden gems.
The weekly pod invites celebrity guests to discuss their own lives on television, from favourite TV moments to their childhood on-screen inspirations.
The likes of Mo Gilligan, Emily Atack and AJ Odudu choose the shows they would “bin, binge or bring back” and share their personal career journeys in television. Hammond’s own path to success started with a much-loved stint in the Big Brother house, after which she established herself as a permanent fixture on daytime TV.
Or ,“That will never work!” – before debating with your household exactly how you’d catapult a shoe into a bath using a home-made contraption.
Taskmaster has returned to our screens on its new home, Channel 4, bringing some much-needed joy to Thursday evenings, with a new companion, Taskmaster: The Podcast.
Hosted by series nine Taskmaster champion Ed Gamble, the weekly podcast welcomes past and present contestants to unpack the most recent programme and relive some iconic Taskmaster moments.
Loosely inspired, it is said, by the Murdochs, the Roy family of Succession boasts some of the most complex characters on the small screen. Series 2 saw the Roy siblings vying to ascend the Waystar Royco throne once the aging, raging patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) finally steps down.
Sports journalist Roger Bennett hosts with infectious enthusiasm. His emphatic introductions to each actor have become something of a trademark. He breezily steers the conversation from their origins to the peaks and valleys of their Succession characters’ story arcs.
