You were fans of gossip girl or even of Scrubs and The Office ? These old series, ended for years, have found a new breath thanks to the rewatch podcasts. We explain what is behind this new trend.
The fans of Smallville are the last to have had a nice surprise at the end of June. Michael Rosenbaum, the actor who played the character of Lex Luthor in the cult 2000s series, has announced the launch of the podcast Talkville. Accompanied by Tom Welling, who played Superman, this podcast enters the vein of rewatch podcasts.
But the rewatch podcasts, What is that ? This new genre of podcasts has been a hit in recent years. Worn by former actors, directors or crew members, they revisit the series to reveal behind-the-scenes secrets, episode after episode. A kind of nostalgic pilgrimage.
The most cult series to relive in audio
Smallville is not the only series to surf on the audio trend of podcasts, which has been very popular since the Covid-19 pandemic. With the cessation of filming of series and films, the entertainment world had to reinvent itself to survive. And it is through audio that success has returned.
Series New Girlalso a big winner of containment, delighted fans at the start of 2022. Zoey Deschanel, the comedy star who lent her features to the whimsical Jess, accompanied by Lamorne Morris and Hannah Simone, who respectively played Winston and Cece, embarked on a rewatch podcast of New Girl. The new podcast, dubbed Welcome to Our Showlaunched in late January 2022 but is far from the first of its kind. The Scott brothers, Scrubs, Newport Beach or The Officeseries well known to pop-culture lovers, all had the right to their rewatch podcast.
After invading social networks, fashion and even music, the trend of nostalgia has swept over the world of series. During the first confinements, the series New Girl, available at the time on Netflix, had enjoyed renewed success with viewers. A comforting feeling found and especially sought after in the middle of an anxiety-provoking period. In the United States, comedy The Office had been the most watched series in streaming in 2020, ahead of other more recent ones. The cult comedy had already been the subject of a rewatch podcast, Office Ladies, in 2019, launched by two actresses from the show: Jenna Fischer alias Pam Beesly and Angela Kinsey alias Angela Martin. Over the course of the episodes, the two actresses/hosts of the podcast have welcomed their former playmates: John Krasinski, Mindy Kaling, BJ Novak or even Rainn Wilson and many others have succeeded each other at the microphone ofOffice Ladies.
With the Covid-19 pandemic and containment measures, rewatch podcasts flourished on streaming platforms. The actresses of the series The Scott brothersSophia Bush, Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz had launched Drama Queensa podcast returning to the success of the series for teenagers which was a hit in the 2000s. And there is no shortage of examples: Newport Beach with Welcome to the OC, gossip girl with XOXO, Scrubs with Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with The Always Sunny Podcast and supernatural with more simply Supernatural Then and Now. A success that could even lead to the return of some of these series. Recently, the cast of the medical series Scrubs, with Zach Braff, Donald Faison or even Sarah Chalke, met and the latter spoke of their desire to return to the small screen, this time for new scenes. A desire confirmed by the creator Bill Lawrence. “Thanks to this podcast, my children started watching Scrubs,” revealed Judy Reyes, who played Carla Espinosa.
Between fiction and reality
And the success of podcasts is such that the series themselves are beginning to launch internal audio content for productions. Series The Boyswhose third season began airing in early June on Prime Video, revealed The Boys: Deeper and Deeper, a podcast carried by the character of The Deep, a half-man half-fish superhero and above all a sexual aggressor so the acts were covered by Vought, the organization in charge of the “Supes”. In this podcast, the character played by Chace Crawford, a former actor of gossip girl, delves into the traumas of his childhood to explain his current behavior. A fictional podcast, available on Audible, which not only extends the offer for fans on various platforms, but also highlights the importance of podcasts within the universe of series. Between fiction and reality, the line separating series and podcasts is increasingly thin. The audio trend has even reached the plots of programs, establishing itself as the new activity cool.