Recommendation Engine: Who Trolled Amber?

Welcome to this week's Recommendation Engine from Podcast Rex, rounding up the week in podcast reviews. Get this in an email each week by signing up to be a supporter of Podcast Rex from £3.99.

Apple Podcasts New & Noteworthy:

• The Secret History of Antarctica
• The World’s Hardest Puzzle
• Electoral Dysfunction
• Comfort Eating
• Straight to the Comments!

Spotify New & 🔥

• Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right
• Straight to the Comments!
• The Louis Theroux Podcast
• The Gatekeepers
• Welcome to Hell

Fiona Sturges in the FT

• Who Trolled Amber? - “Unlike much of the Depp/Heard content, Who Trolled Amber? isn’t merely a retelling of a celebrity scandal, or a cynical attempt to poke the hornet’s nest. It’s a thoughtful, compelling and frequently alarming tale of industrial-scale misogyny and online manipulation and of lives and livelihoods derailed."

James Marriott in the Times

• Here Comes the Guillotine - “This sort of poorly thought-out speculation and nonsense would never have been broadcast in the old media world of pedantic producers and broadcasting standards.”

Miranda Sawyer in the Observer

• Straight to the Comments! - “The show lickety-splitted along with plenty of laughs and upbeat revelations.”

Laura Pullman & Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times

• Autopsy - “Just as every democracy gets the leader it deserves, surely society gets the podcasts it deserves too. Unfortunately that means we have been given Autopsy.”
• Where There’s a Will There’s a Wake - “It turns out that asking famous folks about their perfect death is oddly revealing and occasionally moving.”
• Who Trolled Amber? - “Investigating who might have been responsible for the trolling and what threat organised online disinformation means in this year of key elections worldwide.
• Electoral Dysfunction - “Why our political classes seem so disconnected from the electorate.”

The Guardian’s Hear Here column recommends

• Electoral Dysfunction - “What voters want, leadership and the sorry state of things are all on the table.”
• Turdcast - "Joe Lycett announced this poo pod as a prank for his campaign against sewage leakage – but it’s now really here.”
• The Tiger Tamer Who Went to Sea - “This isn’t your usual history podcast.”
• Significant Others - “A new series of the podcast about history’s lesser-known characters.”
• The Spy Who… - “It’s irresistibly film-like, with dramatic recreations of scenes from the time.”

And in the Guardian’s Guide newsletter

• The Watch - “This terrific TV pod has been covering the whole True Detective series in forensic detail, as well as the strange culture war that has grown around it.”

Highlights from the Radio Times’ true crime special

• Serial - “The original and still the best.”
• Sweet Bobby - “‘An elaborate online identity fraud.”
• RedHanded - “Astute mix of social observation with case analysis.”
• Bonaparte - “Painstaking, sometimes painful.”

Heat’s Top of the Pods

• The School Runway ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts

• The Gatekeepers - “Tracks social media’s descent into hell.”
• Patient 11 - “A shocking new investigation 18 months in the making.”
• Dead River - “In 2015, Brazil experienced its worst ever environmental disaster when the Mariana dam burst.”
• Oceans: Life Under Water - “Best listened with your headphones, because alongside countless facts and interviews with experts, there’s immersive sound design transporting you into the depths of the ocean.

In PodPod’s Earworms column

• Faye McDowall, Global: Hot Money: The New Narcos - Feeding my true crime addiction.
• Hannah Southern, Lower Street: Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy - “Each episode presents a gripping story of madness.”
• Nick Haley, Big Little Vets: Veterans in Politics - “A revealing insight into the lives of some of our veteran politicians.”
• Jordan Newman, Spotify: How Do You Use ChatGPT? - “An extensive range of guests to go deep on how technology is impacting our society and culture.”