Reply All was a great podcast. It ran on Gimlet back when Gimlet was a thing, both before and after Spotify comically overpaid for it. Reply All ended ignominiously, but it had some amazing episodes, including one that I consider to be the best episode of any podcast of all time. If you’ve never heard “The Case of the Missing Hit,” go listen now.

Both the Reply All hosts now host other podcasts of their own. Each is good. Each is worth a listen.

PJ Vogt hosts Search Engine. Each week, PJ picks a question that’s been rattling around his head and chases it until he gets an answer. Some of the questions are silly and some are serious, and he gives both kinds the same treatment. Time put it on its list of the 100 best podcasts of all time, which is high praise.

A fun recent episode is “Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain?” Two Americans fly across an ocean to try to get into Berlin’s most exclusive techno club, where the line can run for hours and the bouncers never explain who they let in and who they reject. The episode sounds like it could be a waste of time, but it’s a genuinely smart look at how exclusivity works. And a lot more. It’s a nuanced episode. Freakonomics Radio liked it enough to run it on its own feed. It’s a two-parter; here’s part 2.

Also check out “What’s the best phone to do crimes on?” It starts out as exactly what the title says, then it goes somewhere else entirely. (The less you know, etc.)

Alex Goldman hosts Hyperfixed. Listeners write in with problems, which range from small, nagging annoyances to big life decisions, and Alex tries to solve them. Most of the problems turn out to be much bigger than they look. On Reply All, Alex often got obsessed with a single small mystery and attempted to solve it. This is that, every week. The Times of London called it “just wonderful.” It is.

Start with “Dylan’s Supermarket Cold Case.” Dylan is bothered by something at the grocery store, namely all those open-front refrigerators, and he can’t quite put his finger on why. Both The Times and the Financial Times singled out this episode. It is both very funny and yet also about energy efficiency.

Then listen to “Two Birds, One Hundred Stones.” A listener named Keenan has always had a question about his mom’s past, and Alex helps him chase it down. Matt Haughey wrote that it “really hits all the right notes” and compared it favorably to Heavyweight, which is about the highest praise a show like this can get. Hyperfixed itself re-aired it on New Year’s Day with an update from Keenan, so listen to that version.

One more, for the Reply All diehards: “ReTell All” is about a listener whose favorite podcast came to an abrupt end in 2022. You can guess which one.