In “Pluribus,” Utopia Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

In “Pluribus,” Utopia Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Vince Gilligan’s new show, “Pluribus,” opens with an unconventional apocalypse. A benevolent alien hive mind descends on Earth, commandeering the bodies of all but a handful of people who appear to be immune, including a curmudgeonly writer named Carol Sturka. Though the world that the “joined” are building seems ideal—no more crime, efficient resource distribution, an end to discrimination—it doesn’t leave much room for Carol’s messy humanity. Is it worth it? On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss “Pluribus” and other perfect societies imagined and enacted by artists and thinkers, from Thomas More’s 1516 satire, “Utopia,” to the Shaker movement and beyond. They reflect on why these experiments have rarely held up to scrutiny or benefitted more than a select few, and why we keep coming back to them anyway. “I’m not the most optimistic person,” Fry says. “But if you’re stuck in pessimistic, dystopic thinking, are you foreclosing on greater promise or greater potential of imagination?” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Pluribus” (2025–)“Breaking Bad” (2008-13)“Better Call Saul” (2015-22)“The X-Files” (1993-2002)“The Giver,” by Lois Lowry“Utopia,” by Thomas More“Les Guérillères,” by Monique Wittig “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977)“The Testament of Ann Lee” (2025)“The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins“Utopia for Realists,” by Rutger Bregman“Ragtime” (1996) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Critics’ Cult Classics: Hannah Goldfield on the Food World’s Secret Tastemakers

Critics’ Cult Classics: Hannah Goldfield on the Food World’s Secret Tastemakers

In the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to the topic of cult classics, Naomi Fry talks with the New Yorker staff writer Hannah Goldfield about how that designation app...

13 Aug 39min

Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

When it dropped in January of 1997, Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” thrilled some listeners and confounded others. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to resurfac...

6 Aug 46min

The Irony and the Ecstasy of Colson Whitehead

The Irony and the Ecstasy of Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead’s ascent in the literary world has seemed, like much of what he does, impressively effortless. Though he’s best known for “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys”—both of whic...

30 Juli 50min

The Golden Age of the American Idiot

The Golden Age of the American Idiot

The new game show “Nation’s Dumbest,” flips the classic “Jeopardy!” script on its head. The format: twelve famous-ish contestants are peppered with basic logic and trivia questions. The twist is that ...

23 Juli 52min

Who Owns the Odyssey?

Who Owns the Odyssey?

In its nearly three-thousand-year history, the Odyssey has undergone as many twists and turns as its protagonist does on his journey home to Ithaca. Its origins as oral poetry suggest countless revisi...

16 Juli 50min

An American Playlist

An American Playlist

This week, to commemorate two hundred and fifty years of the American experiment, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz present an American playlist. On this special episode, the hosts ...

2 Juli 59min

From The Political Scene: The Politics of the Big Game

From The Political Scene: The Politics of the Big Game

Critics at Large will be back next week. In the meantime, you can hear Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry on a recent episode of The New Yorker’s Political Scene, hosted by Tyler Foggatt, where they cons...

25 Juni 37min

Steven Spielberg’s Blockbusters

Steven Spielberg’s Blockbusters

When “Jaws” hit theatres in 1975, no one—neither the studio executives involved nor the film’s twenty-six-year-old director, Steven Spielberg—was betting on its success. But it dominated at the box of...

18 Juni 55min

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