Reality television has generally got a bad rap, but Emily Nussbaum—who received a Pulitzer Prize, in 2016, for her work as The New Yorker’s TV critic—sees that the genre has its own history and craft. Nussbaum’s new book “Cue the Sun!” is a history of reality TV, and roughly half the book covers the era before “Survivor,” which is often considered the starting point of the genre. She picks three formative examples from the Before Time to discuss with David Remnick: “Candid Camera,” “An American Family,” and “Cops.” She’s not trying to get you to like reality TV, but rather, she says, “I'm trying to get you to understand it.”

There’s arguably no better time for falling down a cultural rabbit hole than the languid, transitory summer months. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the season allows us to foster a particular relationship with a work of art—whether it’s the soundtrack to a summer fling or a book that helps make sense of a new locale. Listeners divulge the texts that have consumed them over the years, and the hosts share their own formative obsessions, recalling how Brandy’s 1998 album, “Never Say Never,” defined a first experience at camp, and how a love of Jim Morrison’s music resulted in a teen-age pilgrimage to see his grave in Paris. But how do we square our past obsessions with our tastes and identities today? “Whatever we quote, whatever we make reference to, on so many levels is who we are,” Cunningham says. “It seems, to me, so precious.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Heathers” (1988)
“Pump Up the Volume” (1990)
The poetry of Sergei Yesenin
The poetry of Alexander Pushkin
GoldenEye 007 (1997)
“Elvis” (2022)
“Jailhouse Rock” (1957)
“Pride & Prejudice” (2005)
The Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante
“Ramble On,” by Led Zeppelin
“Never Say Never,” by Brandy
“The Boy Is Mine,” by Brandy and Monica
“The End,” by The Doors
“The Last Waltz” (1978)
“The Witches of Eastwick,” by John Updike
“Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003)
“Postcards from the Edge” (1990)
“Rent” (1996)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

In recent years, as our culture has embraced therapy more widely, depictions of the practice have proliferated on screen. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace the archetype from the silent, scribbling analysts of Woody Allen’s œuvre and the iconic Dr. Melfi of “The Sopranos” to newer portrayals in shows such as “Shrinking,” on Apple TV+, and Showtime’s “Couples Therapy,” now in its fourth season. The star of “Couples Therapy” is Orna Guralnik, whose sessions with real-life couples show how these tools can lead to breakthroughs—or, in some cases, enable bad behavior. Since the series débuted, mental-health awareness has only grown, and the rise of therapists on social media has put psychoanalytic language and constructs into the hands of a much broader audience. Is the therapy boom making us better? “There’s a way in which jargon or concepts when boiled down can be used to categorize both ourselves and others,” says Schwartz. “Maybe what I’m asking for is a reinvigoration of the idea of therapy—not to close down meaning, but to open up meaning.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“The Sopranos” (1999-2007)
“Couples Therapy” (2019-)
“The Therapist Remaking Our Love Lives on TV,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)
“The Rise of Therapy-Speak,” by Katy Waldman (The New Yorker)
“Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist” (1995-2002)
“The Critic” (1994-95)
“Annie Hall” (1977)
“The Case Against the Trauma Plot,” by Parul Seghal (The New Yorker)
“Shrinking” (2023-)
“Ted Lasso” (2020-23)
The Cut’s Overanalyzed series
“21 Ways to Break Up with Your Therapist,” by Alyssa Shelasky (The Cut)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.