Popspotting

If you missed the awesomeness that was the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot, you've got another chance. BBC America is going to start running the show as part of its "Supernatural Saturday" lineup beginning tomorrow, June 11. That's just one of the things we learned today from our listeners during "Feedback Friday." Also mentioned, "Galaxy Quest" and "Justified," and more love for Lady Gaga, the Foo Fighters, "Modern Family" and "Sons of Anarchy."

For our third "PopTalk & Trivia Thursday" outing, we welcome Robin Burdge, co-host of Media Junkyard" and "Movie Snobbery." He is also the host of Vermont's most popular trivia gatherings (or, at least, it should be), making him the strongest candidate yet to face Jen's tough questions.

Book talk returns for "Wildcard Wednesday"! As promised, Jen returns with her report on "Catching Fire," the second book in the "Hunger Games" trilogy. She also shares her thoughts on "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," a post-9/11 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.

This week we shift from current shows to long-lost shows, focusing on a pair of quirky death-centric stories created by Bryan Fuller. "Dead Like Me" saw two solid seasons on Showtime and a less-than-solid straight-to-DVD movie a few years later. "Pushing Daisies" couldn't catch a break, stumbling through only two partial seasons on ABC. But both are worth checking out today, on DVD or via Netflix streaming.

Against all odds, we make it out to another new release: "X-Men: First Class," a prequel to the previous four "X-Men" films. For a superhero movie, this movie doesn't forget that character counts, and that the conflict within is just as important as the conflict between characters and people.

The KillingIn this fresh batch of listener comments, AMC's "The Killing" gets a lot of love, "Pirates 4" finds a defender, and we take another look at Zooey Deschanel. We also hear from a number of book lovers, which is wonderful.

Jo got an advance look at several upcoming series starring former "LOST" stars, and gives a quick, spoiler-free take on each.

For our first music show, we get Jen's take on two big recent releases: "Wasting Light," the seventh studio album from the Foo Fighters, and "Born This Way," the omnipresent second album from Lady Gaga.

Today we catch up on a couple of our weekly watches: "Hawaii Five-0," the reboot of the classic cop show on CBS, and "Chuck" on NBC, one of the geekiest shows on television.

It seems every summer is the summer of sequels, but both of today's featured pair of films were a pleasant surprise. "Kung Fu Panda 2" from Dreamworks delivers a surprisingly solid plot on top of kid-friendly fun and sharp animation. And while "Fast Five" was a great big noisy ball of ridiculousness, it wore its big-budget blockbuster genes well.

For our first Feedback Friday, Carl asks if we've seen "500 Days of Summer," starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel. Next, Lauren suggests four TV shows she thinks we should watch, and names two we still have to check out.

Ever since we first planned to launch Popspotting, we knew we wanted to have guests join us now and then... both to feature voices and ideas other than our own, and to try our hands as trivia game show hosts. Of course, after years of recording as a couple, we knew it would be a bit of an adjustment to bring new people into the conversation.

Jen has a husband, but she also has a boyfriend: her Amazon Kindle. She's a voracious reader, and finally gets to share her love of the written word with the world. But her first pick isn't exactly high-brow literature. It's "Lies that Chelsea Handler Told Me."

It's no "LOST," but after "LOST," J.J. Abams' "Fringe" was and remains our favorite network show. Unabashed sci-fi with decent plots, strong characters, and great actors, on FOX.

The latest installment of Disney's most lucrative franchise, "Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides," is a bit of a mess. Frankly, so are we. After nine months off, we're a bit rusty, a bit punchy, but still eager to get back to podcasting. This episode is a beta test of a new format, switching from longer shows a few times a month to shorter, simpler episodes a few times a week. Will it work? Only time and our listeners will tell. So do tell what you think, but please be gentle. It gets better. Probably.