GOOD AUDIO DRAMA SUNDAY TO YOU ALL! I am at The Audio Fiction Convention today, so I am in full hype mode and having a great time, but I can’t resist the chance to talk about audio drama! Let’s go!
🌅 I feel like Small Forgiveness was a perfect little cap to the masterpiece that is @wgc-productions’s Small Victories. Forgive Me! is great at this sort of self-reflection, by design—like it truly is the perfect crossover show, although it does give up its own story development for the sake of other shows. (Very christian of it.) Small Victories is such a perfect capsule of a story that it truly feels like no stone is left unturned, so what a treat to give an extra little tidbit about something I was curious about: how Marisol thinks about religion. And what a relief for her to be thinking about it on her terms, in her right mind. This feels like the kind of freedom she has needed all along, and what a privilege to get to see it.
🕳️ If you’re not listening to the new season of Alice Isn’t Dead, what a treat you have in store! This show captures everything I liked about the first seasons, especially the creeping road trip loneliness, and ESPECIALLY in this last episode. The church that Keisha hides in is just background to the real thing going on in the episode (hi, is that future!Keisha or some kind of other inherently trustable person perhaps? Maybe future!Alice?), but it struck such a chord with me. Pleeeease listen.
🎸 HELLO IT’S TIME FOR MORE GHOST BANDS! Everyone Leaves Alive is a rock musical with diegetic music that absolutely rules. I love that Haunted Rock Band is becoming an audio drama subgenre (see also Highgate Wood and Phantom Pulse), and this one is especially funny and fun in a way only Jessica Best can pull off. It’s also great that a main conceit of the show is “finally, a way to use my folklore degree.” I cannot wait for more.
💐 Desert Skies always hits so good. I feel like the central thesis to @desertskiespodcast is “people are generally good and trustworthy, and if they’re not it’s because something horrible happened to them—they deserve not anger and vengeance, but pity and help.” And what a powerful thing, what a huge ask, to remind us that actually being kind is quite difficult sometimes, and we are obligated to do it anyway. This episode reminds us why the characters are doing what they’re doing, not just from a plot perspective but from a heroic one. What a comfort, to know that even though there’s a lot of work to do, you’re not doing it alone. (Also, the joke about one guy doing all the voices had me rolling.)
🐀 What an absolutely delightful episode of World Gone Wrong. One with the rarely seen endangered species of Answers! It’s episodes like this that really show how they’re trying to wrap up the last season, tying up loose ends, removing the In The Same Room Obstacle that is the Bermuda River. Like Jamie said, I’m going to miss this.
🚗 This episode of Mayfair Watcher’s Society made me WEEEEEP oh man! Kayla Temshiv has long since proven their writer chops on Something’s Amiss at Juniper’s House, and this perfect little encapsulation of an impossible situation, alongside the new-girlfriends-fear of asking a hard question in a desperate situation, just hits perfectly. What a good episode.
I’m gonna go enjoy TAFCON now—if you see me, please say hi!! You can catch me at early registration, the script clinic, the Adaptation Panel, and the Re: Dracula booth! See you there!
