The Glass Appea‪l‬ Elijah Gabriel

I binged this show within two days of discovering it. TGA uses a creative episodic structure to carefully and expertly unfold its world for the listener. I’d hate to spoil any details, but there’s some Biohacking and some Conspiracy and some Love and Friendship and do I really need to say more...

I can’t recommend this series enough. Go listen. It’s worth the binge.

Technically, this podcast has many issues. The main actor of this podcast gives a whiny, one-note reading of every line he has, and while I can understand having an unlikeable protagonist, he is not written as such.

For that matter, the writing sounds like it could've used more edits, since it is choppy and at times sounds like the writer is trying too hard to be smart. All of the characters' voices (in writing, not in performance) sound like the same exact person, which leads to boring, self-serving interactions that do nothing for nobody. Worldbuilding is delivered as blatant exposition. There is little to no integration and everything must be explained to an uninformed listener, rather than allowing them to figure out what may have happened. Again, this sounds like yet another podcast where the creator/writer didn't bring in anyone else to double-check their writing (and the overall story, which doesn't flow well at all, it just sort of happens).

Most of the other actors are decent, if not great. The sound engineering is tolerable, though not impressive, it is still adequate and serves the story (and is largely the reason why this review is not one star). The sound itself is decent and crisp, for the most part, the guard's audio overpowers others--whether this is due to levels, pitch, or resonance, I am not sure, but it is especially noticeable in episodes such as #4.

Overall, it could use a lot more cleanup. It's particularly worrisome when the descriptions for each episode do not use proper punctuation--several are written like post-it notes, which doesn't match the tone of the podcast.