While the province is slowly re-opening, we’re probably all running out of shows and movies to watch, video games to play, and books to read. Why not give podcasts a shot?
Four UVic students have compiled this list of our favourite podcasts from the semester as a starting point. Give some of these a listen!
Justin’s favourites
Where This Service Will Terminate
Onboard a train, a man searches for his reserved seat and finds a woman already sitting there with the same seat number on her ticket. After they get into a courtesy argument, the person beside them gives up his seat and they end up having to sit together for the 5-hour trip from Paddington to Penzance. As the country rolls by, the two being to discover a genuine connection.
Dr. Dace Zake is a temporary doctor from Latvia trying to make her way and fit in in the local U.K. towns. The quick 15-minute episodes cover her interactions with patients that are jam-packed with socio-cultural exploration. Each episode is bookended by candid tape recordings Zake makes for her mother.
Conversations of a Long Marriage: Why didn’t you ask me to dance?
A couple that have been married “forever” evidently has their flaws and fights, but always come back around to each other. The first episode is about a dinner party that they are preparing to attend. While the wife is micromanaging her husband, he doesn’t pick up on her signals that she wants to dance. The podcast follows their conversations before the party in the living room, afterwards in the car, and in all the mundane places of domestic life.
Brianna’s Favourites
An unnamed documentarian has collected a series of records and documents of an international repair team sent to Outpost Fristed in Svalbard, an island far north off the coast of Norway. Once there, they discover that something is lurking underneath the ice.
Best described as magical realism, Leon Statmatis dies on a roller-coaster to avoid dealing with the 1 per cent chance that something else might go wrong. A story about the interconnection of people, Statmatis’s death sets off a domino effect that changes the world for the Greater Boston area. A train line becomes a town, Leon’s brother discovers Atlantis and the still-alive D.B. Cooper, and a line of cheese robots emerge. And that’s only scratching the surface.
Lynnéa’s Favourites:
Truck driver Keisha journeys across America in a search for her missing wife. Along the way, she encounters strange, unnerving places and people. She finds that she is being hunted by a man she does not know, for reasons she is yet to discover.
Jonathan Sims serves as an archivist for the vast, unorganized collection of supernatural and paranormal accounts submitted to the London branch of the Magnus Institute — an organization founded to research the paranormal.
Julia’s Favourites
“The Bright Sessions” are therapy sessions with Dr. Joan Bright, who provides therapy for the strange and unusual. The first episode centers around Sam, who confides in Dr. Bright about her time traveling abilities. Dr. Bright remains calm and understanding while helping Sam uncover her feelings of invisibility and nonexistence. The second episode centers around Rory, a young woman who struggles to contain her outbursts of fire. Dr. Bright is the first person to truly believe Rory and try to understand her feelings.
This is an apocalyptic drama. Those who survive are completely unsure of the world around them. It begins as diary-style narration, with 27-year-old army sergeant Michael “starting from the beginning” to piece it all together and make sense of the fast-paced events that changed his life. Michael was living in an uneventful time, as a college student. Riots suddenly broke out and he was called to the military base. He and his fellow soldiers soon discover the non-human qualities that the rioters possess, making them a large, mysterious threat that the soldiers are ill-equipped to defeat.
