The news on the radio is still too depressing to listen to as I drive to work, so podcasts via Spotify on my phone are my choice of automotive media diet. Recently I stumbled on a quirky history podcast called Not Past It. Each Wednesday host Simone Polanen examines a moment in history from that same week and how it changed our world. Their snarky, off-beat approach is what grabs me. Also the subject matter which can range from vital and heavy (the Fugitive Slave Law, Lizzie Borden, abortion) to frivolous and fun (beanie babies, the LaLa Land-Midnight mixup at the Oscars, Paris Hilton's sex tape, Zsa Zsa Gabor slapping a cop, Patti LaBelle's infamous train wreck of a performance at the White House Christmas Tree lighting ceremony where the back up singers were missing and cue cards were mixed up. Evidently the last named event has gone viral, but I had never heard about it.)
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Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac
star in Case 63,
a sci-fi thriller podcast |
Listening to Not Past It led me to another unusual podcast: Case 63, a sci-fi thriller starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. Divided into ten brief episodes running about 10 to 15 minutes each, this audio series focuses on a psychiatrist (Moore) and her apparently delusional patient who claims to be a time traveller (Isaac) from the year 2062 voyaging to our time to prevent a pandemic even worse than COVID which will destroy his present. I binge-listened to the entire series over Spring Break. It totaled only about two hours, but was very gripping. The time-traveller convincingly tells of a world decimated by division and disease. The psychiatrist is slowly drawn into the patient's world until she is trapped in another reality. I thought I could see the final plot twist coming, but it was not what I expected.
I really enjoyed this different format. We need to get used to all sorts of different media now. Speaking of which, Netflix is discontinuing its mail-in DVD service in September. Evidently, profits from this aspect of their service with which they started have dwindled. It's disheartening because it provided rare and esoteric classic and foreign films unavailable on Netflix's streaming platform.
Another media shift: Nobody sells books on the street anymore, or very few vendors do. Today, we strolled past a church bazaar with tables full of all kinds of crap from dolls to shoes to plates to DVDs. But only one had books (I bought Mindy Kaling's book for $1.)
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Janet Fielding (Tegan), Jodie Whittaker,
and Sophie Aldred (Ace) in
The Power of the Doctor.
Credit: BBC |
My consumption of Doctor Who must change as well. I finally caught up with Jodie Whittaker's final episode, the Power of the Doctor, one of the better ones in an otherwise lackluster season. Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, cameos by five classic-era doctors, the Fugitive Doctor, and past companions such as Ace and Tegan were in a complex and fascinating story tying together different strands of the show's 50-plus years. But the new episodes, first with David Tennant returning as the Doctor with Catherine Tate as Donna Noble and then Ncuti Gatwa taking over the Time Lord's role, will now be exclusively shown on Disney-Plus. They made this announcement back in October 2022, but I wasn't paying attention. Should I add yet another streaming service to my already crowded media plate? Would it be worth it? I might watch The Mandalorian, which is supposed to be high-quality sci-fi. I did watch one episode when ABC showed it as a tease to get people to subscribe as they were dropping the third season and it was pretty riveting. Well, I have until November to decide. It's awfully tempting. The new Doctor Who will feature guest appearances by Jonathan Groff (Merrily We Roll Along), Neil Patrick Harris (just saw him in Peter Pan Goes Wrong), and RuPaul's Drag Race contestant Jinkx Monsoon.
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Doctor Who will be joining
The Mandalorian (pictured) on Disney Plus.
Should I bother getting yet
another streaming service? |
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