What is a TV guest star for? Maybe they have something to promote, maybe they're supposed to boost ratings, maybe they help deliver a new audience, or let you do a joke you couldn't otherwise do. And maybe honestly they are just the best possible actor for the story.

But whatever guest stars are for, they range from highly celebrated to frankly infamous.

And they might be gracefully integrated into a cast or awkwardly shoehorned into a plot and soon forgotten.

I'm Glenn Wellen.

And I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about TV guest stars on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Here with me and Glenn today are our co-hosts Aisha Harris. Hey Iisha,

Hey Linda, hey and Stephen Thompson, hey Stephen. Hello Linda. So what got us

talking about guest stars was really a couple of things.

One was the discussion about the season of The Bear, which really leaned on how hot the show was

in its first season to bring in a very powerful roster of actors like Jamie Lee Curtis or Olivia Coleman or the director and comedian Robert Townsend.

Other thing we got talking about was only murders in the building which is so heavily

associated with its central trio Steve Martin Martin Short and Salina

Gomez but which continues to bring in big talent including in this third season that's currently underway,

Paul Rudd and Merrill Streep.

Stephen, I want to start off by asking you, when you hear about a big guest star on a show that you like, what is your

mix of reactions as far as that's really fun, that's exciting, all the way to that sounds like a weird stunt like

like a weird stunt like what makes that determination for you?

I think for me the first thing I'm really looking for

is the guest star appropriate to the plot? Is it in some way commenting on something?

I like it when a guest star has some like slightly fourth wall

breaking reason to be there.

Examples that jump out for me are like putting Will Arnett as a bad boyfriend

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