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Podcast Friday (on Saturday)
Oct. 14th, 2023 10:07 amI've been exploring fiction podcasts again, and having better luck with them. There are more of them now.
Midst
So this is "an immersive, semi-improvised, sci-fantasy podcast recounted by a trio of playfully omniscient, mysterious, and unreliable narrators. " (Third Person, picked up after production by Critical Role).
I've only listened to the first three episodes, but I found them pretty charming. There's a lot to like here. The dynamic between the three narrators, they way they effortlessly pick up from one another and layer ideas, is really pleasurable. I think there's some truly skillful editing and great sound design focusing that effect, but it means I can enter the world without tripping over any doorsill of awkwardness -- the weird just flows. There's almost none of that improv-cringe vibe where the performers go in on a digressive bit way too hard -- and where they do kind of do that, it's very funny. (Ex. the bit with the ice.)
In the beginning the episodes feel almost standalone, though it sounds like they come together into a narrative later.
The Left Right Game
The blurb: "Tessa Thompson stars as an idealistic young journalist trying to make a name for herself by following a group of paranormal explorers obsessed with a seemingly harmless pastime known as the Left/Right Game. The journey takes her into a supernatural world that she and the other members of the expedition can neither handle nor survive" (QCode).
I liked this. Highly listenable. I worked through all of Season 1 over a few days, and the quality stayed high from start to finish.
The cast is terrific -- not just well-known actors, though many of them are, but well-known actors who can voice act. Tessa Thompson is one protagonist, Alice -- lots of Alices in these stories -- and she's great: compelling, both vulnerable and steely. She's playing a character almost twenty years younger, and she really nails the voice. Ami Ameen gets the frame narrative as Tom, and he plays bewilderment with great nuance. I knew John Billingsley's voice immediately, of course: he doesn't get a lot of airtime, but when you hear his voice you know something otherworldly must be involved. Other highlights: W. Earl Brown doing his best Bobby Singer; Inanna Sarkis and Jojo T. Gibbs as Lilith and Eve; Dayo Okeniyi as Apollo. But there were no vocal rough spots -- well, except one, which I'll get to, but that I think is more a writing/direction issue.
If you've listened to other surreal fiction podcasts you're going to recognize some of the story beats -- Alice isn't Dead would be a reference point, or maybe Rabbits, although I haven't listened to all of that. Maybe Archive 81? I watched that rather than listening to it.Someone goes missing, leaves strange records behind. Internet message boards, weird alternate-reality games.
Seems like a genre, one that I don't know the name of exactly -- portal-disappearance-quest story. Maybe we call them Alice stories? This is a very good version of that.
Because this is good, I thought quite a bit about its narrative choices as they unfolded. A couple of things tripped my own particular -- not do-not-wants, but don't-prefers. These might not bother another listener at all:
( Vague spoilers for form, not specifics )
{rf}
Midst
So this is "an immersive, semi-improvised, sci-fantasy podcast recounted by a trio of playfully omniscient, mysterious, and unreliable narrators. " (Third Person, picked up after production by Critical Role).
I've only listened to the first three episodes, but I found them pretty charming. There's a lot to like here. The dynamic between the three narrators, they way they effortlessly pick up from one another and layer ideas, is really pleasurable. I think there's some truly skillful editing and great sound design focusing that effect, but it means I can enter the world without tripping over any doorsill of awkwardness -- the weird just flows. There's almost none of that improv-cringe vibe where the performers go in on a digressive bit way too hard -- and where they do kind of do that, it's very funny. (Ex. the bit with the ice.)
In the beginning the episodes feel almost standalone, though it sounds like they come together into a narrative later.
The Left Right Game
The blurb: "Tessa Thompson stars as an idealistic young journalist trying to make a name for herself by following a group of paranormal explorers obsessed with a seemingly harmless pastime known as the Left/Right Game. The journey takes her into a supernatural world that she and the other members of the expedition can neither handle nor survive" (QCode).
I liked this. Highly listenable. I worked through all of Season 1 over a few days, and the quality stayed high from start to finish.
The cast is terrific -- not just well-known actors, though many of them are, but well-known actors who can voice act. Tessa Thompson is one protagonist, Alice -- lots of Alices in these stories -- and she's great: compelling, both vulnerable and steely. She's playing a character almost twenty years younger, and she really nails the voice. Ami Ameen gets the frame narrative as Tom, and he plays bewilderment with great nuance. I knew John Billingsley's voice immediately, of course: he doesn't get a lot of airtime, but when you hear his voice you know something otherworldly must be involved. Other highlights: W. Earl Brown doing his best Bobby Singer; Inanna Sarkis and Jojo T. Gibbs as Lilith and Eve; Dayo Okeniyi as Apollo. But there were no vocal rough spots -- well, except one, which I'll get to, but that I think is more a writing/direction issue.
If you've listened to other surreal fiction podcasts you're going to recognize some of the story beats -- Alice isn't Dead would be a reference point, or maybe Rabbits, although I haven't listened to all of that. Maybe Archive 81? I watched that rather than listening to it.Someone goes missing, leaves strange records behind. Internet message boards, weird alternate-reality games.
Seems like a genre, one that I don't know the name of exactly -- portal-disappearance-quest story. Maybe we call them Alice stories? This is a very good version of that.
Because this is good, I thought quite a bit about its narrative choices as they unfolded. A couple of things tripped my own particular -- not do-not-wants, but don't-prefers. These might not bother another listener at all:
( Vague spoilers for form, not specifics )
{rf}
