I know it's not really a podcast. But what can I do? For some reason c/AudioDrama does not exist. The summary comes from metacritic.com and it's all I know...
Release date: September 18
"Batman: The Audio Adventures" • Audio drama • HBO Max • You know there's a content shortage when podcasts start showing up on TV. This one (which remains audio only despite TV and even HBO Max being a visual medium) offers an "over-the-top" take on Batman with a big-name cast led by Jeffrey Wright as Batman, Rosario Dawson as Catwoman, John Leguizamo as the Riddler. Also lending their voices are Alan Tudyk, Seth Meyers, Brent Spiner, Chris Parnell, Fred Armisen, Paul Scheer, Bobby Moynihan, Jason Sudeikis, and more. All 10 episodes stream today.
I will never speak a good word about capeshit so help me god, but I like the radio play format, and it deserves to come back.
Honestly, it might be interesting to see more radio play stuff come around because podcasts are big.
I assume streaming outlets are starting to experiment with audio dramas because when it comes to time, money, and effort - they are quick, cheap and super-easy to make. If audiences end up liking this genre - the outlets can crank them out. Still, that's some serious chutzpah for pay cable tv.
"Calls" is another example...
Anthology/Drama • Apple TV+ • We're not exactly sure why this is a television series rather than a podcast, but Apple's latest original could be TV's first audio-only series (albeit with very minimal, abstract visuals). Each of the nine 12-minute episodes takes the form of a phone conversation. Calls is adapted from a French series.
I'm a middle-aged curmudgeon so I'm far from the target audience. But I love audio dramas so I'll check out a series and hope in vain it surprises me. I took some notes to remind me of what I thought.
It's basically a very odd form of audio drama. Episodes are ~14 minutes long. I listened to ~2m of s01e01.
Problems
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When the connection is good - the audio is still crap. I do not want to listen to a drama with realistic audio of cell phone calls.
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It's not mumblecore but I do not want to listen drama with realistic inane dialog that usually takes place on cell phone calls.
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The connection broke up within the first two minutes and the audio went to total shit. Are you fucking kidding me? I REALLY do not want to listen to this fucking series at all!
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That's kind of fascinating. I hope it's good, just for the novelty, though I will probably never listen.
Audio dramas are a lost art. I hope they get it right but I have super-low expectations.
The average superhero movie has very shitty dialog and an asinine plot. With an audio drama there is no CGI eye candy to make things palatable. If the showrunners don't understand that - the series will be awful. If they make a 1950s-style audio drama with plots that are worth paying attention to and the dialog is good - it might be good if not great.
If we’re lucky they’ll reuse old radio dramas from back in the day
It would be beyond fantastic if they bought the rights to those (which must cost nearly nothing) and they updated them for the present day I'd seriously love that.