Podcast recs!

[jamjar]

(Crossposted from dreamwidth)

 

Just back from holiday with a lot of very pleasant train travel (the trains in Spain are so good!) and a fair amount of walking in between, and I, very sensibly, download a bunch of new-to-me podcasts before I left. As a result, I have a few podcast recs (I have a lot more I'm subscribed to as well, so these are just a few that are new to me and I haven't heard other people recommend).

New podcasts where I'd definitely walk the slower way so that I could finish an episode.


MarsCorp - your basic sci-fi comedy-dystopia (is that an official trope? It feels like it should be one - Red Dwarf sort of thing, not black humour, but like... here's the future! It's like the past, but with more time for things to break and be kludged together to almost sort of work as well as before!) - a science fiction sitcom about a dysfunctional Martian terraforming company. First season is finished, second season is currently being written.

Definitely got an overarching plot, but each episode is a story in itself.

Reasons to listen - I really, really need people to listen to this so that I can share my thoughts about Hob and Chip and David and Dave and Hayley and the whole lot of them, really. But also suitable for people that like their sci-fi comedy fun and dysfunctional, with a bit of corporate satire, and also the effect of dropping one actively competent person into a mess and seeing them get to it. The power of a decent project manager!


Wooden Overcoats - Rudyard and Antigone Funn run Funn Funerals, motto: "We get the body in the coffin in the ground on time!", a 500 year-old business kept afloat, despite their utter inability to deal with people, by being the only funeral home on the tiny Channel Island of Piffling. Rudyard causes fights at the graveside. Antigone lurks in the mortuary, perfecting her scented embalming fluids.

The only funeral home, that is, until impossibly charming and likeable Eric Chapman opens up Chapman's Funeral across the road.

As above, it has an overarching season plot, but each episode is a story in itself.

Reasons to listen - it's a funny comedy radio show, the sort of thing that would fit quite comfortably on Radio 4 - think Cabin Pressure, but if it was set in a funeral home, and someone with Douglas's charm, Arthur's friendliness and Caroline's competence had set up across the way. I mean, it's not exactly like that, but it's as good a description as I can manage.

 

Other podcasts I've started listening to recently, that I enjoy, but would probably just pause when I got to the office and pick up the rest of the episode at lunch or on the commute home.

Victoricity - set in Even Greater London, 1887, an uninterrupted urban plain occupying the entire lower half of England, Inspector Archibald  Fleet and journalist Clara Entwhistle investigate a murder, only to find  themselves at the centre of a conspiracy of impossible proportion. Gaslamp fantasy type comedy (not a Comedy, but not, you know, humourless). Series is a story, rather than EotW. Each season (6 or so episodes) is the story, with each episode being a chapter in it.

We Fix Space Junk - seasoned repairman Kilner and her reluctant recruit Samantha roam the galaxy fixing things. Enjoyable sci-fi, comedy with a little c, mostly EotW, with some overarching plot stuff coming through. Episodes are short, <20 minutes, usually). Bit of an overarching story, but each episode has a complete story.  I'm enjoying it, but I also think the writing is going to improve- not the dialogue, but something about the pacing of the episodes so they seem to finish on half a beat off timing.


The Orphans - this reads *so much* like the type of YA british sci-fi of the 80s/90s, I don't  even have words for it. It feels - not in a bad way - like the slightly  battered novelisation I'd find in the school library of a sci-fi show  that aired on BBC in 1978. I mean, the characters names even have names  like Olivia, Baz and Nora. Crashed space-ships, amnesia, clones, AIs,  genetic engineering and alien planets. Big plot stuff (episodes are a  chapter, rather than each being a story).

David Tennant Does a Podcast With... So, turns out that David Tennant is really, really good a long-form interview. Good at getting his guests (mostly his friends, almost all actors ) to talk. Guests include Michael Sheen, Jodie Whittaker, Jennifer Garner, Gordan Brown (!?!!), Sir Ian MacKellen, etc.