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.

Platforms

Apple Podcasts: New Shows

Talk ‘90s To Me (Podmasters)

Wrong Turns (ind.)

Liberty Lost (Wondery)

What Happened to Holly Bobo (20/20)

Hot Money: Agent of Chaos (Financial Times/Pushkin)

Spotify: New & 🔥

Dig It (Persephonica)

The Crime Agents (Global)

Sir Bradley Wiggins’ Cafe Aficionado (Atomized)

Goldstein & Cundy: 21 Minutes to Go (ind.)

Talk ‘90s To Me (Podmasters)

Amazon Music: Best Podcasts of the Week

Staying Relevant (ind.)

Wanging On (Listen)

The Good, The Bad and the Beast (Folding Pocket)

Good Bad Billionaire (BBC World Service)

Flesh and Code (RedHanded/Wondery)

Pocket Casts: Featured

The Rest Is Entertainment (Goalhanger)

Dish (Cold Glass)

A Twist of History (Ballen Studios)

Heavyweight (Pushkin)

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle (BBC World Service)

Reviews

Miranda Sawyer in the Observer

• Derailed (BBC Radio 4) - The strangest thing was how nobody seemed to be to blame. Reasonableness squashed accountability… The engineers and politicians couldn’t summon the energy to communicate why HS2 would be good, other than that the trains would be a bit faster. The vital argument that a new high-speed network would free up the old lines for local train services wasn’t ever effectively delivered.”

Fiona Sturges in the FT 

• Charlie’s Place (Pushkin) - “Thanks to the elegant sound design and Guissé’s artful narration, the series is rich in atmosphere and detail. We learn that Fitzgerald, who paid officials to turn a blind eye to his flouting of segregation laws, always carried two pistols in his pocket. And rather than keeping a guard dog, he kept a bad-tempered spider monkey tied to a tree outside his house.”

Patricia Nicol in the Sunday Times looks into the logistics of some of the most popular always-on podcasts including Miss Me?

Lucy White in the Irish Independent

• Wanging On (Listen) - “During Norton’s summer hiatus from his eponymous TV chat show, it’s a reminder how much his whip-smart mischief is missed.”
• Dig It (Persephonica) - “Whiley met Zoe Ball (54) – a treasure in her own right – while both were researchers on the 1990s Channel 4 show The Word. They’ve been firm friends ever since, which is on palpable but never nauseating display.”
• Comfort Eating (The Guardian) - “It’s not the first time Grace Dent’s Comfort Eating has appeared in this column. And it won’t be the last, due to its reassuringly simple format, great guests and Dent’s wit.”

Listings

Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times

• 13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle (BBC World Service)
• The Lodge (RNZ)
• Centuries of Sound (ind.)
• The Lab Detective (Tortoise)

The Guardian’s Best Podcasts of the Week

• The Rise & Fall of Indie Sleaze (BBC Radio 6 Music) - Pick of the Week
• On the Marie Curie Couch (Marie Curie)
• Why the Fork (D2M)
• Leading Labour (Institute of Historical Research/History & Policy)
• The Lab Detective (Tortoise)

The Guardian Weekly magazine’s Podcast of the Week

• Flesh and Code (Wondery)

In the Saturday Guardian magazine

• Democracy:Differently (ind.)

In the Radio Times

• Leading Labour (Institute of Historical Research/History & Policy) - Pick of the Week
• Dig It (Persephonica)
• Shadow World: Grave Robbers (BBC Radio 4)
• Signs From the Other Side (ind.)
• Naked History: Unearthed (Windfall)
• Lives Less Ordinary: Hold Fast! (BBC World Service)
• The Price of Music (Music Ally)
• CBeebies Parenting Helpline (CBeebies)
• Camp Shame (iHeart)

In i Weekend

• Derailed: The Story of HS2 (BBC Radio 4)
• Autocracy in America (The Atlantic)
• Good Bad Billionaire (BBC World Service)
• The Crime Agents (Global)

Plus Lara Kilner speaks to Nicola Adams about The LGBT Sport Podcast (BBC Sport)

Heat’s Top of the Pods

• Wanging On (Listen) ★★★★☆
• The Affair (ind.) ★★★★★

Woman Magazine’s Listen Up section

• Get A Grip (Audio Always)
• Where There’s a Will There’s a Wake (Sony Music Entertainment)

Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts

• Derailed: The Story of HS2 (BBC Radio 4)
• Your Greek Word on a Sunday (ind.)
• Flesh and Code (RedHanded/Wondery)
• The Sound of Trans Freedom (Aunt Nell)