Series: Skeptacular

Where popular culture is given a skeptical mark

Hosted by Fraser Cain of AstronomyCast, this hour long magazine-style show takes listeners through the previous week's space news. Each episode has an assortment of guests who take it in turns to present, each with their own topic, and with Fraser asking the questions and expanding the stories. Each week a cast of regular voices tend to appear, and there's a wider community of more infrequent guests.

One of my favourite podcasts is this seasonal offering from British skeptical activists and science communicators Brian Cox and Robin Ince. This is a BBC Radio 4 production – oooh get me! – but the podcast version is 10 minutes longer. As Robin says, “this show contains extra material which wasn't considered good enough for the radio.” In exactly that sort of way, Robin provides the banter and is the gleeful layman. Brian, on the other hand, brings it all back to reality, reining-in tangents and correcting any guest who dares oversimplify a bit of physics.

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There's a trend among some of the longer-running US TV shows of, after a few seasons, releasing a musical special. I guess once a show's creators know they're on safe ground, and that their show isn't going to be cancelled in the near future, they can take the risk of making a themed episode - and music seems to be a common theme. Shows that have had their cast break out into song for an episode include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Psych and Scrubs. And, although I'm not a fan of musicals, this issue of our newsletter will be focusing on music and audio.