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I enjoyed Doug's many astute observations. It was interesting to hear B&D ep 99, recorded pre-judgment. Apparently they tried "pilot pitching" with Nick, but it didn't quite work. That comedy bit could have saved them. btw TL's one-line description is totally excellent.

At the end of the day, "wheelhouse" never bothered me.

Fingers crossed for Two Guys, A Girl, Bobby Slayton and a Pizza Place

Wow, what an episode. Some of the criticism here has been nitpicky IMO, but your discussion was compelling. I've heard a forum poopy-pants get his moment on a podcast. The guy was incredibly tedious.

TL has put up a couple of weak entries. That's not saying the show is terrible, or that women are deficient podcasters. TL earned that frontrunner status on their own merit. Their early entries were great. I do think B&D is the most underrated of the remaining shows. Their recent submissions have been stronger than they've gotten credit.

I really enjoyed Bob and Dan's submission this week. They'll probably be at the "top of the bottom" again, but I think they finally presented a good representation of their style. I agree the F+ has a "listening curve" but that hasn't stopped me from subscribing. My only beef with LHR is ... I liked their original intro! Hack schmack, it worked fine for me. At any rate, it's nice to hear them thriving in this competition.

"Earwolf's next great podcast" is clearly the Earwolf Challenge. It's been dominating forum activity since it began. IMO the judging has been fair and the show has been great. I'll leave the page-stretching analysis to you guys ... ;-) And while I've been indifferent to TL (chat show fatigue), since they're receiving some harsh jabs I'm officially joining the backlash backlash.

I hadn't realized Lou Reads was such a shameless, disgusting show. My takeaway was to subscribe immediately. The judges raised valid points about the disorienting nature of the F+ clip, but I agree it was still the funniest submission. It sounds like they'll be in the bottom 3, but I hope they don't get the axe. The unusual formats of F+ and TVZ puts them at a disadvantage with judges doing a brief blind listen. So a little overview from the producers may even the playing field, as sketch and chat shows are self-explanatory.

Yes, the LHR conversation sounded interesting, as they may have a tricky task this week. Speaking of missing (?) audio, I'm not in favor of shorter episodes suggested by some listeners. If every episode was only half an hour, I'd probably wait until Wednesday and play them all at once.

I'm not convinced another permanent judge would have led to different surviving podcasts. Such a judge could be more important in later rounds, but that remains to be seen.

Looking forward to another fun week of the show. And since the topic came up again, I haven't been lost with Brett's material yet.

^ I confess I read this with an Australian accent. I subscribed to Beginnings after they got the boot. Notable guests include Jon Wurster and James Adomian.