The unstoppable rise of television-rewatch podcasts

Talking Sopranos — a new weekly podcast which launched this month— is another example of a seemingly unstoppable sub-genre occupying an ever-growing slice of the podcast market: the television-rewatch podcast.

The format is simple: take any much-loved yet expired television series (the kind usually prefaced by words like ‘I can’t believe you haven’t seen…’) and scan the cast list until you find some former stars willing to work for an affordable rate. Record them giving an audio commentary on each episode and, bingo, you’ve got yourself dozens of hours of podcasts — and a massive fan base waiting to be converted to listeners.

Add a few external factors — say, hundreds of millions of people trapped in their homes with nothing to do but watch television — and you can see why rewatch podcasts are enjoying something of a moment. But are they any good? Even with the most obsessive fan base in the world, a rewatch podcast needs two basic elements to work: decent chemistry between the hosts, and something interesting to say.

Do Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli — aka Tony Soprano’s big-hearted sidekick Bobby Baccalieri and heroin-smoking nephew Christopher Moltisanti — have chemistry? Largely, yes. They’re unarguably charismatic. But there’s something about their clashing styles — Imperioli: reflective, chummy, urbane; Schirripa: loud, abrasive, choppy (think Donald Trump yelling into a duff pay phone) — that can grate at first.

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It’s not always a big problem. If anything, it’s Schirripa’s adherence to the New Jersey ‘goomba’ stereotype that makes for the podcast’s funniest moments — intentional or otherwise. In the podcast world, for example, it’s common for the hosts to plug sponsors directly, rather than cutting away to premade ads.