Does This Work?

I really appreciate the inevntiveness of coming up with a new structure for the podcast each episode! Honestly, not all of them work, but enough of them do to make this a cool experiment, and finding out if each one works is half the fun!

This podcast can be really endearing at times and I enjoyed some of the different ideas and never knowing what the theme would be from one week to the next. The bonus with that is, if you don't like a theme, you know it will change in the next episode. However, it can also descend into a level of pretention that manifests itself most clearly in the poorly themed "let's make fun of someone on Facebook episodes"--a theme that somehow "worked" well enough in the host's minds for them to do quite a few episodes of this. These episodes generally descend into an egotistical, (sometimes) classist, pompous effort to ridicule a random person on the internet while trying (and imo failing) to remind us that because these two are generally liberal thinkers, their brand of "jokingly" ridiculing random strangers on the internet is wholesome and light-hearted and should be forgiven. All-in-all, I wanted to enjoy this and did for the most part but the last few episodes just left a bad taste in my mouth.

The biggest strengh and weakness of this podcast is its premise: the podcast's premise is always changing. If you loved the idea of the podcast this week, don't get too comfy because it'll be gone next week. But, on the upside, if the last episode wasn't your style, the next one might be. I started on the episode where the hosts both wrote and read a short story and I was intrigued, but then I listened to the phone tag episode and got bored, but then I listened to the apple picking episode and enjoyed it more. The through line, as other people said, is Clare and Matt's friendship. You can tell when you're listening that they're good friends and they're enjoying making the podcast. They sound a little too proud of their own jokes and ideas, but their great chemistry is enough to make it fun. If you get bored of one podcast easily, but wish you could keep the same hosts you love, Does This Work might be worth a shot.

A really unique approach to storytelling. Refreshing and well done!