While I might have started listening to Media Club Plus first thanks to what felt like a premise made specifically for me and my podcast listening time opening up right as it started posting, the podcast that actually got me to stop avoiding media discussion podcasts as a category was A More Civilized Age. I might not seem like it, but I’m a pretty ardent fan of Star Wars. I mostly avoid it because the online fandom is, perhaps, the most toxic and miserable fandom I’ve ever seen and not only do I want to avoid being associated with it in any way, shape, or form, I don’t want to ever catch its attention. The worst of them have way too much time on their hands and these miserable fucks have driven numerous people off the internet already, so I want to avoid them at all costs. Still, I love a good bit of Star Wars and while I might have some mixed feelings about the modern media landscape of the franchise (especially after all the books I’d read as a child and teen got launched into the uncaring and non-canonical oblivion that is “Star Wars Legends”), I figured that listening to some media-savvy folks discuss it might be a great way to push myself to finally sit down and watch some of the TV shows. I’d already tried and failed, after all, since I let myself get caught up in a bunch of online message boards that listed each episode in what was supposedly the “correct” timeline. I bounced off it pretty hard when I tried that method since none of it made any sense and it was a pain in the butt to cycle through seasons for the next episode I was supposed to watch. This podcast, though, declared that they were watching it in release order and, this January, when I ran out of other things to do, I resubscribed to Disney+ and started working my way through the show and the podcast in tandem.

What drew me to this podcast, ultimately, was all the seasons of Friends at the Table that I’d listened to and all of the journalism that the main GM of that podcast, Austin Walker, had done. All of the discussions he’d had with his fellow podcasters, the articles he’d written, and the opinions he’d voiced gave me a strong sense of his ability to analyze a story and I was interested to hear what he had to say about pretty much anything that I enjoyed. Hearing a little bit about his cohosts during the times he shouted thier podcast out during episodes of Friends at the Table or during segments from FatT’s Patreon streams made me intrigued to hear what they might have to say, especially because they were people that Austin trusted enough to have this discussion with. Knowing that another host (and the chief producer) of Friends at the Table was a part of it only sweetened the deal since Ali was (and still is, of course) legendary for her incredibly specific love of Star Wars. It all seemed like such an interesting mix of personalities and points of view that I couldn’t resist and added it to my followed podcasts the instant I stopped listening to them on Spotify and actually used a proper podcatcher app (Podcast Addict, which I’d strongly recomemend). I, of course, didn’t start listening to it for almost a year, but that was mostly a timing thing and me already struggling to work my way through all of the FatT’s patreon content, catch up on other podcasts, and work my way through another one I’d already added to my active listening list each week.

Now that I’m listening, though, it has become probably the podcast I listen to the most in any given week. Yes, that’s mostly because there’s a sizable backlog for me to work through as I watch along (I skipped the initial Star Wars movies they watched and discussed since I’ve seen them enough at this point in my life and went right to watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars), but it’s also because I find their mixture of enthusiasm and critical analysis incredibly enjoyable. I love doing any kind of deep-dive analysis on a show, book, or game and I have a difficult time finding anyone willing to engage in a discussion like that with me. I studied English literature in college, which means I did a lot of critical analysis and I genuinely enjoyed it so much that I have a difficult time turning off that part of my brain, but that’s not really a mode most people reach for when they encounter a story. A lot of people are willing to go there, of course, but not always to the extent and depth that I would like to. The crew on A More Civilized Age, though, takes it even further than I’d think to go most of the time and I find it incredibly rewarding to listen to them talk about the show they’re watching in a way and through a lense that wouldn’t even occur to me. After all, my history with media analysis is based in personal experiences, the Roman Catholic religion, and then a wide array of English literature with a heavy focus in the medieval sections of that and a smattering of women and gender studies scattered around. I’ve been expanding it in more recent years, as I’ve attempted to educate myself more widely in various other theories, but I haven’t had as much time for that as I would like and haven’t had much context to put it all in until I started listening to AMCA.

As far as media analysis podcasts go, I don’t know that there’s one I’d enjoy more than Media Club Plus, but A More Civilized Age actually gives it a run for its money. It is a close contender and I’ve enjoyed every episode I’ve listened to since it is incredibly clear that the crew has thought through what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, even if they have a hard time lining up which of their main episode releases will be covered in their next Patreon Q&A release (at least so far–I’m only twenty episodes into the podcast). They are organized and passionate from the first episode, where they explain why they’re watching the show in release order and why they’re skipping over Revenge of the Sith, to just over a dozen episodes in when they realize during a Patreon Q&A that not only has one of the hosts not seen it, but maybe two of the other three hosts haven’t seen it or have at least forgotten several important and pivotal moments that made it almost impossible to talk about all of what the Clone Wars cartoon was referencing in multiple episodes. The organization stumbles a bit there, as they realize they need to get everyone on the same page to talk about some of the stuff happening in the latest episodes, but they quickly recover and listening to the almost four hour podcast that came from Revenge of the Sith was one of my favorite moments of the podcast. They’re all so much fun to listen to and they give me so much to think about as I continue watching half a dozen Clone Wars episodes ahead of the podcast episodes I’m listening to (it’s faster to watch a show than to listen to the podcast, most of the time, and I want to have a buffer in case I don’t have time or the desire to watch something for a while).

If you’re looking for several hours of entertainment and want to get into some great analysis of the storytelling and politics of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I couldn’t recommend A More Civilized Age enough. It has everything you could want in a media podcast and more! There’s excerpts from the series’ director, determinations of what creatures, people, and robots are bugs or insects, a count of the named clones who are fed into the meat grinder that is this war, and peeks behind the scenes of not just this series but all of Star Wars that happens around this period of time (the titular “More Civilized Age” referenced by good ol’ Ben Kenobi as he hands of a lightsaber to a very young Luke Skywalker). It’s a fun time, an excellent experience, and absolutely worth a listen if you’re into media analysis.