I Am All In with Scott Patterson iHeartPodcasts

Best of my 20211

I’m a fan of Gilmore Girls and the Drama Queens podcast. As such, the prospect of ‘I’m all in’ sounded very appealing. I know it isn’t fair to compare the two but the difference in quality and thus listenability is staggering. Rather than a takedown of the show I would offer some suggestions. First of all, Scott Patterson is a very interesting person but he’s not a great interviewer. I think if he didn’t have to carry the podcast and had another member or members of the cast as cohosts it would let him shine more, give him the opportunity to share anecdotes without making his stories repetitive and would give him someone to bounce ideas off of who he could see more as an equal (the production team is not accomplishing this.) I think Sean Gunn would make a very intersting cohost, he seems to have very different and reflective opinions on the show. I say this from hearing his comments of what it must have been like for Amy Sherman-Palladino to be the head of the show 20 years ago and his take on who would be better matched for Rory and why (very interesting and thought out opinons). He seems to have a finger on the pulse of what is going on now in a way that Patterson unfortunately does not. In one of the earlier episodes Patterson talks about how there is no more likeable character than Rory Gilmore and I thought, had there been a cohost who was more in touch with the zeitgeist they could have talked about the downfall of Rory in popular opinion as of late. It’s clear the production team isn’t on equal footing or comfortable bringing things up. Maybe Keiko Agena or Kelly Bishop would be good in order to have a female perspective. Secondly, I would restructure the episodes. There is no flow right now. Move the interviews to the end and have a more organic commentary on what happens in each episode first. Integrate more clearly and limit the segments you have so far (soundcues are great for this). Whereas something like ‘Drama Queens’ feels like a reexamination of a pop culture hit by three performers whose careers are still active but who are trying to reconcile with and celebrate the beginning of their careers, ‘l’m all in’ feels like a has been parade made to campaign for another Year in the Life instalment. It doesn’t have to be this way! What could be a really great podcast on a fast paced very female driven show with a very female fanbase feels like a slow and clunky production where three women cower around their star, a slightly out of touch man, both hurting the product and the way the host is perceived. Reformat, limit the participation of the production team and get another member of the cast on as a cohost.