I usually write a post about the film and TV related podcasts I've been listening to every year around this time, but the current situation being what it is, I thought the topic required some more meta commentary.
Everybody is podcasting. In the age of COVID-19, one of the few categories of media that has been largely unaffected has been the humble podcast. And now everybody in the entertainment industry has one. Beloved cinematographer Roger Deakins started his in May. Former "Community" castmates Joel McHale and Ken Jeong started "The Darkest Timeline" podcast in late March, and have been wrangling an increasingly star-studded guest list. Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani created a six-episode series, mostly talking about movies. There are new podcasts about "The Wire" and "The Sopranos," with various talent from those shows involved. Also, I am dying to get my hands on the new Audible adaptation of "The Sandman" starring James McAvoy, which I hope will help tide me over until that Netflix show gets rolling.
The trouble is - and this may well be the most extreme of all first world problems - I have drastically reduced time to listen to podcasts right now. Having shifted to working from home, I no longer have a commute. Frequently facing gaps in childcare, I'm often working while parenting, which means headphones and earbuds are out of the question. I could listen to podcasts while out of the house running errands, or those rare instances when I get to exercise by myself, but that only adds up to a fraction of the time I used to have available. For me, quarantine has meant a drastic reduction in privacy and time I get to spend alone. When I do have time to myself, I default to watching a show or movie out of habit. A week's worth of pre-COVID podcasts took me about two months to get through while sheltering in place.
And when I went back to my RSS and Podbean feeds for my next batch of shows, I was hit by the flood. So many podcasters who were previously juggling multiple projects suddenly had way more time to devote to their podcasts, and podcast they did. I'd expected a few gaps here and there for various shows, but this wasn't the case at all. I mostly listen to film related podcasts that cover a mix of old and new releases. With theatrical releases paused, most of them transitioned right over to VOD releases or decided to discuss old favorites instead. Is "Tenet" delayed again? Well, let's do a Christopher Nolan retrospective and talk about his Batman trilogy and the tenth anniversary of "Inception." The Double Toasted guys are reviewing stuff from the so-bad-its-good pile, while the Slashfilmcast seems to have embraced the chance to watch random older films like the Japanese foodie classic "Tampopo."
I wound up with over eighty hours of podcasts, even after significantly pruning down the offerings. In some cases this wasn't difficult - a few of the shows I follow did change their formats to cover topics I wasn't interested in. In most other cases, however, I had more trouble. What's more, I wanted to hear about how people were coping with the lockdowns and how they were reacting to the Black Lives Matter protests. There have been movies and television shows being released regularly during the past few months, not to mention the launches of multiple new streaming services including HBO Now, Peacock, and Quibi (RIP). I wanted to hear all of those discussions. And I realized that I missed being plugged into the entertainment world, and the little piece of normalcy that listening to podcasts afforded me.
So, over the last week or so I've adjusted my routine. I've cut down on videos and spend more of my evenings listening to podcasts while doing chores. Sometimes I only get in twenty minutes or so, but I find the podcasts much better for my mental health than obsessing over news broadcasts. Still, I was relieved to learn that "Unspooled," one of the classic film podcasts I've been doggedly trying to keep up with, wrapped up recently and won't be adding more episodes to the considerable backlog I have to work through. And I've been secretly happy every time that I note that some of the more sporadically updated shows I follow have taken another week or two off.
I'm still way behind, but little by little I'm catching up. Hopefully by the time the pandemic is over, I'll have at least that tiny part of my life straightened out.
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