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I liked the concept of Ars Paradoxica, but Sally was just such an annoying character whose personality is nothing but a collection of every stereotyped "internet geek girl" cliche and yet is completely fawned over and adored by these people from the 1940s who would care even less about her pop culture obsession bullshit than I do. Within the Wires is by far my favorite of the non-Welcome to Night Vale podcasts they put out. Alice Isn't Dead just didn't really do it for me, and again I like the concept of Orbiting Human Circus a lot and a lot of the characters in it, but the janitor is performed in such an annoying manner it's a turnoff. But I thought that Within the Wires was a combination of a really interesting and creepy setting with a poignant story that ramped up both aspects as the series progressed. I liked the GE Podcast Theater stuff (The Message and LifeAfter), much more than I thought I would like a podcast put out as an ad for a giant industrial megacompany. Both have interesting ideas and refreshingly are each a self-contained, one-and-done storyline, so it doesn't tread into Tanis/Black Tapes territory. I think I liked LifeAfter better, but both are worth a listen.
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Jul 7, 2017 18:04
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Jurgan posted:To me it's sort of the opposite, in that Sally is the only character I can remember. There are so many different people and they all kind of blur together, so I don't really attach to any of them. Not sure why you say Sally is "fawned over and adored," though- half the characters can't stand her, and only put up with her because of what she's done. I don't think characters in general are that podcast's strong point, and I think the creators of it even said that they're mainly interested in talking about the sort of time travel concepts that you don't usually see in time travel fiction, which I can respect. But she definitely does get fawned over, adored, admired by everyone except the villains. There are at least two episodes almost entirely devoted to people telling her how smart and important and valuable she is to all of them, and an episode about how she shouldn't feel bad for getting most of their friends fired from the base after she arrives. One other thing about it that irks me, for a show about time travel, they get a lot of fairly easy minor details about history wrong. The one that sticks to mind is that they mentioned Harry Truman being vice president in 1943. There were a few other ones that I don't remember now but were also stuff where even a cursory Wikipedia search would have been fine to correct it. None of them really affected the plot but if you're going to do any work of fiction set in the past, at least do basic research. (It also seems to be set in an alternate universe where racism and sexism don't exist but that's another issue entirely.) Jurgan posted:I'd appreciate if you'd write up a little blurb about these, as what you wrote doesn't tell me about the content. I'd like to add them to the OP. The Message takes the form of a cryptography podcast whose host gets involved with a cryptography consulting firm hired to decode an alien message received by a US military radio station at the end of World War II in 1945. However, as the message begins to be decoded, the effects of listening to it causes mental harm to certain people who hear it - which becomes a bigger problem as the message is broadcast around the world, leading to people beginning to succumb to its effects worldwide. Life/After is about an FBI agent whose wife died, and he obsessively listens to recordings of her. One day, the recordings start talking back to him, and reveal that she is a detailed recreation of his dead wife made by a cult-like group, compiled from her social media, email accounts, and the like (think of the Black Mirror episode Be Right Back, but just as an AI, not a physical body). However, the cult begins to restrict his access to her until he agrees to start spying on the FBI's investigation of them from the inside, just as the FBI starts pressuring him to infiltrate the group. It was advertises as being similar to a cross between the movies Her and Ex Machina.
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Jul 10, 2017 17:13
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Just started listening to Passage. I'm enjoying it so far. Since it's only 7 episodes, I'm hoping it actually wraps up at the end. A podcast about a spooky mystery in the Pacific Northwest that actually has a conclusion would be nice.
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Aug 14, 2017 17:14
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Finished Passage. I enjoyed it - not going to be one of my top-tier podcasts or anything, but for a 3.5 hour or so self-contained story I thought it did a pretty good job. Kraps posted:Binging through Homecoming, it's quite good, I'm just curious if there's anything David Schwimmer is in where he doesn't play a huge rear end in a top hat. I thought his role as Robert Kardashian in The People vs. OJ Simpson was the most, if not the only, really sympathetic character in the show.
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Aug 15, 2017 23:10
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I liked the storyline with Strex-Corp taking over the town, because the very mundane but destructive act of privatization and corporate takeovers contrasted well with the supernatural stuff that the town is completely comfortable with. Night Vale has no problem with the Illuminati and the Lizard People, but they are defenseless against a multinational company that poses as your friend. Plus, the episode where the show becomes the Desert Bluffs News Bulletin or whatever and Cecil returns to the show theme music partway through was great. Other than that, I haven't really liked or been interested in any of the major storylines, though I guess half the time they kind of go over my head anyways. Any episode Zack Parsons co-writes is usually pretty good. I also feel like someone can dislike a podcast without it meaning they're homophobic, so...
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Sep 13, 2017 17:18
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Jurgan posted:I wasn't accusing Ten Cent Fang personally Jurgan responding to Ten Cent Fang posted:you are literally reciting homophobic attacks against a gay man
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Sep 14, 2017 02:38
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Wait, did The Black Tapes actually finish?Jurgan posted:I mean, maybe? Go back fifteen years and I'd start screaming at people for having differing opinions of TV shows. I try not to do that anymore Well, I guess just writing incredibly hostile posts at people who have different opinions of podcasts is an improvement....
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Sep 15, 2017 04:32
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So Rabbits was a one-and-done story, then? I listened to the first few episodes but figured it was just going to be an endless Tanis type thing, but if it actually goes somewhere and wraps up, I'll give it a shot. I liked the more grounded premise of basically an ARG that has gone on for centuries than... well, whatever the basis for Tanis and TBT was.
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Sep 16, 2017 18:44
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I just got done bringing through all of Crimetown and while I loved the podcast, it had maybe the most miserable advertisements. Particularly because they reused the same recordings for the same products for every episode (and for a podcast where most episodes were ~30 minutes, I think six minutes or so were ads). The one advertising the group discussion of podcast hosts from that network as the narrator breathlessly describes it as an "extraordinary conversation" particularly grated.
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Sep 18, 2017 02:03
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I started listening to Tribulation, I'm really liking it so far, though I do think the first episode was the creepiest by far. But I'll probably finish it up on my commute back tonight. I have to say that I'm increasingly enjoying listening to shorter, self-contained podcasts (at least in the narrative genre) rather than endless sprawling ones.
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Sep 28, 2017 17:53
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Just Tribulation, and I definitely recommend it. Very creepy at parts, and good speculative concepts at other parts. It almost reminds me of some of the things Zack Parsons writes. Though I did have one thing I'm not quite sure of - in the "1999" episode, was it supposed to be implied that the Tribulation cult caused 9/11? Also listened to the first episode of It Makes a Sound since it was on the WTNV feed, and... well, I stuck it out because I was kind of curious if they were actually going to play a song, but instead got 30 minutes of a Manic Pixie Music Hipster Snob, so probably won't continue with it.
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Sep 29, 2017 04:47
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theblackw0lf posted:Vox has an article up on recommended horror/thriller podcasts. Some good ones in there, and a couple I haven't heard of. Awesome, thanks for pointing this out. Spooked, Return Home, and Lost Cat seem like they'll be up my alley. Though I'll nitpick and mention that although the article says that Life After works best as a sequel to The Message, but they're really completely standalone (Life After has a single reference to the events of The Message, but that's it). Even thematically they tread on different grounds. But still, both worth listening to.
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Oct 19, 2017 19:46
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Maybe It Makes a Sound is good, but the first episode was just so terrible there's very little chance I'm going back. If they decided to make it deliberately bad then consider it a ringing endorsement of just how well they were able to make an unenjoyable product. And after five episodes in a row I thought were really bad, I finally jumped off the WTNV bandwagon, too. Been with it almost since the start but my remaining enthusiasm for it was really dampened the last few months.
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Dec 6, 2017 18:05
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Parakeet vs. Phone posted:A bit outside the usual for the thread, but A Very Fatal Murder is pretty great. I just binged through it. It's a new podcast from The Onion that's parodying Serial, S-Town and a bit of NPR in general. it's short enough to not wear out the premise and stays funny. Listened to this on a long car ride, and I thought it was great as a parody of Serial (though American Vandal was better). I love the "twist" where the host decides to move to the town and become chief of police in order to properly solve the murder. That was a great logical extension of the "narrative journalism murder investigation" formula.
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Feb 12, 2018 21:17
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What was the ending to Ars Paradoxica? I kind of lost interest a year or so ago, but am curious how it all wraps up. The spinoff podcast they did about their favorite time travel movies is worth listening to, too.
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Feb 16, 2018 13:44
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I hope he learned all of that in a phone call infodump from a bored-sounding Meerkatnip.
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Mar 14, 2018 23:39
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