I loved old school Radiolab, especially the themed episodes (e.g., Blood) but I stepped away from listening a few years ago because it started leaning too heavily on eyeroll-worthy ideas such as 'ooh, maybe there IS a mystical force behind this phenomenon!' The credulous tone was offputting for me. But I listened to a few recent episodes and it seems like they've dialed back that device.

One thing that still bothers me about the podcast, however, is hard to explain: as Radiolab listeners, we might hear a few sentences from an interviewee, then the host voiceover jumps in to summarize something, and then we hear a little "that's right!" or "yes!" or "mmm hmm" from the interviewee.

I know the interviewee is not actually reacting to what the host said, the voiceover is recorded after the interviews. The Radiolab sound designers just plucked the interviewee's confirmation vocalization from another part of the audio and inserted it there. To me it feels just a little bit dishonest, it's putting words in the interviewees' mouths. Imagine if you were interviewed for the show, and the host made an erroneous statement, and then your voice involuntarily chimes in with "That's right!"

It's just a little thing, but it rubs me the wrong way, and they've been doing it for as long as I've listened to the show.