Much as we’ve all been losing ourselves in TV shows, movies, books, and games while self-quarantining and staying inside, there are times when all you want to do is sit back and dive into a story without actually having to put all that much energy into experiencing said story. This is where podcasts come in handy.
Even if you’ve never exactly been the kind of person who normally delights in listening to a bunch of people have a conversation that you can’t participate in, podcasts—particularly scripted ones—have the uncanny ability to transport you (mentally) to faraway worlds, which is something we could all do with right now. Even better, you can listen to all of these choice pods while doing whatever has become your new normal while keeping safe at home.
Mission to Zyxx
Though each member of the Bargarian Jade is a specific type of deadbeat on their own, together they’ve saved the galaxy multiple times while journeying through the dangerous Zyxx quadrant on a variety of diplomatic missions to different planets. Though each episode is improvised, the larger story being told across the show’s four seasons has come together in a fascinating way.
ars Paradoxica
When modern-day physicist Sally Grissom inadvertently unlocks the secrets of time travel and accidentally finds herself flung back through time to the year 1943, she immediately becomes one of the most brilliant people in the world because of her knowledge of the future. But while knowledge is power, the gendered power structures of the 1940s present an almost unimaginable obstacle for her—both her quest to find her way back to her own time and to fight in an epic battle that she never imagined herself getting sucked into.
Adventures in New America
Adventures of New America tells the tal of an unlikely pair of friends who team up to make their way across the country in search of what they need most. It takes place in a near-dystopian future where the world is plagued by space vampires who hunt black people and the American healthcare system is still designed to let those in desperate need of life-saving treatment die,
The Deca Tapes
At a time when so many of us feel trapped in confined spaces, a podcast like The Deca Tapes hits a little bit different. None of the characters in the story knows why they were chosen to be locked away together in a room and monitored as part of a mysterious experiment. But with each episode—all of which revolve around recovered audio—the mystery begins to become more clear and terrifying.
Wolverine: The Long Night
As more and more people in Burns, Alaska start turning up dead, local authorities are increasingly convinced that the town’s new, amnesiac mutant resident (Wolverine) is the culprit. But even though Wolverine’s got a violent past, the truth of what’s happening in the sleepy Alaskan town proves to be far more grisly than anything he or the police could ever have ever fathomed.
Limetown
Ten years following the unexplained disappearance of 300 people from Limetown, Tennessee, American Public Radio reporter Lia Haddock journeys to the town to investigate just what the hell happened. The disappearances themselves are mysterious enough, but the bigger questions revolve around just what the residents of Limetown, a place where brilliant scientists flocked in order to conduct top-secret experiments, were up to. Also, it’s a show now.
The Two Princes
Because both Prince Rupert and Prince Amir understand the royal duties they’ll one day be responsible for, they take it upon themselves to get a jump on the future and set out on individual quests to save their respective kingdoms at a time when their people need them most. But when the boys’ paths cross and their destinies become intertwined, they realise that in addition to saving their kingdoms, there might just be a chance that they’re fated to fall in love.
Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke
The funny thing about people who thirst for monsters is how they never seem to take into account how difficult actually boning or being in a relationship with one would actually be given all of the anatomical and cultural differences there would inevitably be. How, for example, does one kiss their orc beloved without being accidentally mauled to death? These are the kinds of problems that therapist Dr. Olivia Seabrooke is here to solve with her call-in advice show.
Imaginary Worlds
Imaginary Worlds is less of a narrative podcast and more of an exploration of the fantasies we’ve created for ourselves. It delves into what it is about those fantasies that makes us want to explore them.
Lore
In direct contrast to Imaginary Worlds, Lore explores the myths we all know. It provides meticulously-crafted, fictional stories that draw on fairytales and legends while weaving them into historical narratives about the supernatural things lurking in our midsts that we all fear and dread.
[referenced url=” thumb=” title=” excerpt=”]