Out of Place

It’s hard to put into words how much I’ve enjoyed this podcast. I’ve listened to close to 100 podcasts, and nothing has grabbed me as much as TMA until I found this. Ben Counter’s narration is incredible. Each episode is equally captivating. Best of all, it makes you think. After each episode ended, I’d just sit there for awhile and ponder the episode. It truly grabbed me and affected me emotionally in a way that doesn’t happen often with podcasts. The only negative is that I wish there were more seasons.

This is such an amazing show. Probably my favorite ever!!

This show really affects me in such a deep, visceral way that I genuinely don’t know if I could ever truly articulate. It invokes a sort of philosophical nausea unlike anything else in the horror audio drama sphere I’ve seen before or since. The episodes that particularly stand out to me will always the timeline where McVeigh goes full Seven Days in May (although I can’t help but wonder if would’ve simply ended up another forgotten American war criminal if he never picked up a copy of The Turner Diaries at a gun show), the earth where the fear of overpopulation led to widespread eugenics (with the testing started at expense of the global south as these things always go), and that one glimpse of a better world where the AIDS crisis never happened. As a queer person, the last one left me with a sense of yearning for what might have been. And I’ll admit I always enjoy the one where Nixon went full General Ripper as well as someone who studies that era of history and has a bit of a vendetta against him <3 Anyway, I relistened to this whole podcast today because I miss it so badly. I know a third season is looking increasingly unlikely, but god, I want one. Although, I’ll always love the almost The Prisoner-esque ambiguity of the finale.

Truly a show of phenomenal substance. The listener certainly gets to know the narrator a bit more as the show marches on, however the plot is not overly focused on the narrator’s life outside of work which is a good thing; it is not a show about a man but rather the peculiar things he discovers, speculates on, and educated the audience about. The first season was very similar to ‘The Magnus Archives’, and quite frankly, I enjoyed its style more than that show, which is not to say ‘The Magnus Archives’ is of poor quality at all. The listener gets to learn the history of and the narrator’s speculation on all the different strange, and sometimes disturbing, artifacts that come through his door to be archived. Season two takes a different approach than the premiere season, which also works quite well despite it feeling as almost a different show entirely when compared to the style of the first season. In season two, a different…version of our narrator from season one does most of the talking, although there are other characters whose voices we get to hear. Season two takes a somewhat similar approach to season one but it differs in regards to exactly what is being analyzed. It is not bizarre artificers that have no business in even existing that our narrator, Arthur, analyzes, but instead, different worlds; different versions of Earth and different versions of the human race and what they have done to their home to make of enough interest for Arthur to analyze the data brought back from it. I’m conclusion, I can definitively state that this show has rightfully earned its place among some of my other favorite audio dramas. The writing of ‘Out of Place’ really makes the listener feel as they are right there with Arthur as he attempts to discern what exactly he is looking at. While music and sound effects are certainly present in this show, they are not anything fancy or liberally inserted through the episodes; they are present but not overbearing, just the perfect amount to make the audience feel relaxed, yet gripped and interested in what is occurring in any given episode. I really wish that the studio responsible for this lovely show decides to produce more episodes, however with the last episode being published around two years ago, I find this unlikely, unfortunately. Despite ‘Out of Place’ seeming to not be coming back for a third season, it is an absolute must-listen for any listeners that enjoy science fiction, alternate history, or moderate horror. To the creator of this show, bravo, you have produced a true work of art and I highly enjoyed every second I listened to this show, not a dull episode to be found nor an episode that lost my attention, great work.