Trying to do a bit more focused listening of the new podcasts that started this year, with the intention of filling out the bracket for the Cool Audio Theatre podcast awards, but also to get out of the rhythm of only listen to long-running ongoing shows and snippets of new shows without ever following up.
In that vein, I sat down with Dr. Goodvibes, both because I'd actually listened to more of it than I usually do when cataloguing, and because it was a fixed length series with relatively short episodes. I figured I could bash through it without too many distractions.
Luckily that wasn't really a concern. The show follows Dr. Hal "Goodvibes", an agony uncle with a radio/podcast show with a particular focus on romance and sex. With a particular interest in BDSM and power exchange, mostly because he's a bit of a perv (affectionate).
As such, the podcast itself jumps in and out of the framing device of the advice show, and tends to offer actually useful advice, which is a nice side element. But an advice show isn't what you've signed up for, and that starts to kick in early, when Hal gets a caller-in who has questions that are eerily similar to relationship problems in his own past.
From there we're generally out of casual horny interest, and more into mystery thriller territory. Hal is intended to be tremendously charismatic as a radio host, and it's played well. The actor does an excellent job of portraying someone in that space, while still getting an edge of nastiness as his darker side is revealed.
Related to that, the second half of the season is very tight. A lot of episodes end up in places where you don't expect them, and the show has a nicely dynamic approach to sequencing, with time skips bouncing around between different cliffhangers. It subverts your expectations basically every time (or at least it did mine), in such a way as to keep you guessing where the truth lies.
More generally, very polished production, and one I'd happily recommend you listen to.
Tagged: Audio fiction Drama Cast Dramatised Thriller Serial