Popspotting

Today's featured panel is NBC's "Chuck," entering its fifth and final season. The show kicked off the Saturday program in Ballroom 20.

Once again, we’re happy to bring you audio from the San Diego Comic-Con. As always, the sound quality isn’t perfect, and audio levels can only be tweaked so far. Nonetheless, we hope it helps you feel a little closer to the wonder and chaos of this incredible annual event. Today’s feature is the Entertainment Weekly panel for “LOST,” which brought in surprise guests Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Here’s the (misleading) official synopsis: Entertainment Weekly Presents…Totally LOST: One Year Later— EW’s Lost gurus Jeff “Doc” Jensen and Dan “Dan” Snierson wax nostalgic about the past, perhaps with a surprise guest or two, and discuss how they’re “moving on” in the wake of Lost’s departure from the air a year ago. The duo will look to the future by previewing promising TV obsessions. Watch the ‘deleted scene’ here.

Torchwood: Miracle Day— John Barrowman (Doctor Who) and Eve Myles (Doctor Who) join cast members Mekhi Phifer (ER), Bill Pullman (Independence Day), Alexa Havins (All My Children), and Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under), along with writer Jane Espenson (Battlestar Galactica), to discuss the fourth installment of the hit BBC Worldwide show.

We continue our series with "The Big Bang Theory," a show that in many ways epitomizes the geek-positive ethos of SDCC.

Once again, we're happy to bring you audio from the San Diego Comic-Con. We hope it helps you feel a little closer to the wonder and chaos of this incredible annual event. We kick things off with the panel many of you said you were most excited to hear: "The Walking Dead."

This week’s Feedback Friday opens with a couple of musical gems (The Wailin’ Jennys and The Swell Season), then races through books (Sarah Vowell and “Robopocalypse“), TV (“Shameless“), movies (“Highlander,” “Cars 2” and “Brave“) and yes, once again, “Firefly.” Next week is Comic-Con, and we’re bringing the whole family out to San Diego! While that means we’ll be soaking in all kinds of news and stories to tell on our podcast, we may not be putting out our regular set of daily shows. We hope you’ll stick with us, though! In the mean time, we encourage you to catch up on any shows you might have missed… and more importantly, maybe take a moment to send us an email. What topics would you like us to tackle? Are our shows still too short, or getting too long? Is a daily podcast a treat, or a challenge to keep up with? We make Popspotting for you, so we’d love to know what you want! Need more awesomeness? Watch The Swell Season cover “Two Headed Boy” by Neutral Milk Hotel on AV Udercover! The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel

Our guest this week is Desiree (@sitakatherine), or "Des," who joins us from Jen's home state of Florida. She's a podcaster herself, with the proudly not-safe-for-work NonsenseCast, as well as the TV-centric "What's On With Steph and Des." She shares her love of "Falling Skies," "Luther," and "Firefly," then is subjected to our most awkward trivia segment yet, wherein we can't quite decide how many answers count as a win. Nonetheless, Des was a great sport, her long resume of podcast guest stints clearly shining through as she makes us feel like we knew what we were doing, even when it's painfully obvious we don't.

You want more music? You've got more music. This week, Jen highlights five Hawaiian music artists that have caught her ear lately. Fresh from the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards (Hawaii's version of the Grammy Awards), we look at some younger acts with a bright future in Hawaiian music.

No less than the leader of the free world has declared "The Wire" on HBO to be his favorite show. This series, which ran for five seasons, pretty much appears in most dictionaries next to the entry for "critically acclaimed." Written by author and one-time police reporter David Simon, "The Wire" explores every facet of urban life in Baltimore, from top-level civil servants to lost children on the streets.

As our last week before Comic-Con begins, we check out "Horrible Bosses," a raunchy, dark comedy starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis. They have horrible bosses played by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell. And there are quite a few other familiar faces, including Donald Sutherland, Julie Bowen, and Isiah Mustafa.

Once again, our Feedback Friday show serves up a grand buffet of topics. From "L.A. Woman" to "Foxy Brown," from "Toy Story" to the Muppets, and who hasn't heard of the "Wilhelm Scream"? The call goes out for a spoiler show on "The Hunger Games" trilogy, more share their "Firefly" fandom, and we hear from a fan of Laura Linney. (We need more convincing.) Finally, as a follow-up to our food show, Jen and I decide to share the story of how we met. We promise we kept the mushy stuff to a minimum.

This week we check in with Ryan Drake (@rayke) in Oklahoma, who took a break between late-night parties to share his love of Donald "Childish Gambino" Glover, the C25K running program, and "Shameless" on Showtime, starring William H. Macy, Emmy Rossum, and Justin Chatwin.

It's back to the bookshelves for Wildcard Wednesday, as Jen gives a whirlwind tour through the bibliography of Sarah Vowell, whom most know as a contributor to "This American Life" on National Public Radio (and a few know as the voice of young Violet in Pixar's "The Incredibles"). Jen has read every single one of her books, and loves how she mixes solid history, personal anecdotes, wit, and snark.

When we first launched Popspotting and asked for your recommendations on TV shows to watch, "Justified" was one of the most popular suggestions. So this week, after working our way through most of the first season, we share our first take on this FX series. Created by Graham Yost, "Justified" stars Timothy Olyphant as deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a character from stories by Elmore Leonard. Set in Harlan in Eastern Kentucky, Raylan enforces his own brand of justice while coming to terms with the people and problems from his past.

On this 4th of July holiday, we celebrate two films in which veteran warriors battle for their own kind of independence. (Okay, we tried.) Jen dubs this the "Ancient Warriors with Sketchy Accents" double feature, and we take a look at a cult classic and a bonafide blockbuster: "Highlander," from 1984, and "Gladiator," from 2000. Admittedly, Christopher Lambert and Russell Crowe have very little in common in these two films... except, perhaps, in not delivering the most memorable performances in each. Nonetheless, even if you've seen them before, they're certainly worth a rewatch.