Through seeing hot people212 posting about their involvement in them213 online, I stumbled across the narrative podcasts / immersive audio dramas produced by QCODE. The fact that I listened to three series all the way through in less than a week either means that they’re pretty effective or I needed something to distract me from how crazy my baby was making me while she was making me crazy all weekend. I do have mixed feelings about all of them, though. Which makes this the perfect format to discuss them.
Dirty Diana
Best: How effectively erotic it is isn’t clear until it nails a person trying to be erotic but not quite making it. Which is really impressive.
Worst: The drama and interpersonal exchanges are all pretty believable, except for a few occasions where it seems like the erotic situations the titular character is getting herself into might be fantasies. (They’re not.)
What Sticks Out: If you’re going to try to be undercover as a host of auditory porn, you should probably have a voice significantly less recognizable than Demi Moore’s.
The Left-Right Game
Best: Genuinely frightening at times, and it probably includes the best acting and concept of any of the series.
Worst: In a few places, the geography and actions were not made clear by the characters’ descriptions, which is all the audience has to go on in these sorts of things.
What Sticks Out: The premise with the biggest promise stuck the most mediocre landing, and that really sucks. I enjoyed the journey but not the destination, which is simultaneously exactly and exactly not the point of the series.
Borrasca
Best: Definitely the best ending to any of the series.
Worst: Definitely the worst writing of any of the series.
What Sticks Out: I actually think this one was the best on the whole? And that’s hard for me to say of a Cole Sprouse-produced property?
212Specifically Rosa Salazar of Alita: Battle Angel and Undone fame. Yet again in a project where she’s unable to show her actual real – great! – face.
213Specifically playing the bicurious fantasizer in one of the later episodes of Dirty Diana. Who says Instagram isn’t good for anything?
Alex Diamond 