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More podcast Recs (as of 3/16/22)
This list was made for a friend who already listened to and enjoyed: The Magnus Archives, The White Vault, and Welcome To Nightvale. He wanted more podcasts but didn't know where to start, and asked specifically for Sci-Fi fiction though he was happy to get other recs too. (He also has a bit of a problem telling people's voices apart.)
Sci-fi Fiction
Wolf 359 - considered one of the core "Sci-fi podcasts" in some circles. Complete, about 100 episodes, aside from finales most run 30-40 minutes. Doesn't have anything to do with Star Trek in spite of the name. While it does start off rather silly/lighthearted, it gets very serious with more gallows humor as time goes on. Employees on a privately owned space station are looking for alien life. Takes place in an alternative timeline version of earth in that while it is (iirc) 2016 in the series (when it was released), in that timeline humanity was able to achieve deep space travel in like the 80s.
VAST Horizons - by the same people who did White Vault, 35ish episodes, still ongoing, eps are about 30 minutes each. A biologist wakes up from stasis on a broken ship with a half-functioning AI as her only company, and she has to try to figure out what the hell happened from there.
Under Pressure - Complete, 10 episodes, abt 20 minutes each. Takes place on a hyper futuristic undersea station that is running on a skeleton crew, from the POV of the newest arrival. Of course, some things start going wrong right away...
Tides - Ongoing, 20ish episodes, 20-30 minutes each. A scientist is on a mission to be the first crew to explore an alien planet. When her landing on the planet's surface is particularly rough, she has to weather it on her own until her ship can re-establish contact. 99% of the show is a single person narrating her field notes, so no need to tell apart voice actors.
The Penumbra Podcast- Ongoing, Kai already brought this up but seconding the recommendation. An anthology series with several storylines, the main scifi one is a scifi/noir detective one about Juno Steel, detective on mars. Episodes run about 30 minutes, and while there's over 120 of them not all of them are Juno Steel.
EOS 10 - Ongoing, 30ish episodes, about 20 minutes each. I am biased as this is one of my favorites. Scrubs meets Babylon 5, it focuses on doctors aboard the space station Eos 10 and what starts out as wacky hijinks does quickly dive into deep galaxy-wide conspiracies... but also maintains the occasional wacky hijinks. Also deals very seriously with issues of addiction and grief.
Other Fiction
A Voice From Darkness - Ongoing, 30ish episodes, 15-20 minutes each (10 more patreon exclusives). My latest obsession, it's a little Welcome to Nightvale and a little Magnus Archives. Paranormal expert radio talkshow hosts takes calls and helps those who need advice.
Alice Isn't Dead - Complete, 50 episodes, abt 30 minutes each. I figure since you've listened to WTNV you've PROBABLY already listened to this? But if not, same team behind it. A woman searches for her missing wife on a trail of strange happenings.
Last Known Position - Complete, 8 episodes, 30 minutes each. A submersible pilot is hired by a billionaire for a private expedition where not all is as it seems.
Limetown - Ongoing(?) 20ish episodes, main ones are about 30 minutes each with average 2 minute clips of 'found footage' related to the next episode inbetween. Years ago a whole town just up and vanished, and a relative of one of the people who went missing seeks to find out what happened.(Limetown is also a ?? for status because I think it got optioned for television or a movie so I don't know if it's being continued....? It has a bit of a cliffhanger at the ending but it isn't bad enough to just not listen in my opinion)
The Bridge - Ongoing, around 30 episodes, most close to 30 minutes with a few shorter clips between. In an alternative timeline earth, a bridge across the Atlantic ocean was built in the post-WWII boom. Once a major tourist attraction, it has since fallen to neglect and disrepair. It's still manned, however, with regular watchtowers there to assist any travelers that need. One of the crew of Watchtower 10 is interested in the history of the Transcontinental Bridge itself and likes to spend her time telling these stories. Beautifully atmospheric with lovely background music, it's another one of my favorites even though it updates very slowly.
The Left Right Game - Complete, 10 episodes, 40ish minutes each. A journalism student investigates an urban-legend style game like the elevator game, only this one is played with cars on the road. It works, and turns out to be more dangerous than anyone could imagine.
NONFICTION
(Also as these are nonfiction, while I will still put in the number of episodes (they're 'ish' for the others because my player only says every episode in the feed while I'd rather not really count trailers or ads for other podcasts) these can be often listened to in any order as you see fit for whatever subject interests you. If there's a two or three parter, they will often have it in the title or the description so you don't listen to those out of order.)
Lore + Cabinet of Curiosities (Strange History) - They're in the same line because they're by the same person and effectively the same podcast, with the difference being length of episodes. Cabinet of Curiosities is little bite sized bits of fun obscure history that doesn't ever really break the 10 minute mark, while each episode of Lore is closer to half an hour. CoC (pfft) currently has 394 episodes, while Lore has 221.
Unobscured (History) - 77 episodes, episodes about 40-50 minutes each with post-season interviews with experts that can go an hour and a half. Also by the same person who does the above two, but rather than single episodes that can be done alone every season is dedicated to a specific topic and dives down deeper than most people know about them, going into the history leading up to, what happened, as well as the aftermath of the events and how they changed the world at the time. Season 1 is Salem Witch Trials, Season 2 is Spiritualism in the US (ex the people who would speak to the dead, hold seances, etc), Season 3 is Jack the Ripper, and the just wrapped Season 4 is Rasputin.
Apocrypals (Bible) - 102 episodes, usually 1hr 15/1hr 30 per episode. The tagline is "Two non-believers read the bible and they try not to be jerks about it". Actually really damn fascinating as they also go into things like "Who was the target audience for this specific chapter? What was it actually trying to say? Why did it stick around while similar ones fell to the wayside?" They're hilarious and jump around a lot, so unless it's a multi-parter for a specific book of the bible you don't need to listen to it in order. Came up with the fantastic phrasing of "Cesar Real vs Robin Hood Real" as they of course don't want to say "Saint Christopher is fake he never existed" but - we know Cesar was a real person he appeared in many texts across history, we have multiple people recording their first hand accounts with him. Saint Benedict is Cesar Real. Saint Christopher and Robin Hood basically only exist in texts specifically about them, or ones that reference that specific text. So.... we're not saying they're fake, but...
Bedtime Stories (Strange history) - 147 episodes, 15-30 minutes each. While it can go a little into (history channel voice) "aliens" at time, it often only offers that before sliding into "Or it could be this other perfectly reasonable explanation that's far less sensational so nobody wants to believe it. No way to know."
Disaster Area (Disasters) - 200 episodes, most are a little under an hour and a half but you sometimes get the odd shorter or much longer one. Again this is one of my favorites, I follow the host/writer/sole person who does it on Twitter. Covers various disasters throughout history like the Station Nightclub Fire, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, TACA Flight 110, the Galveston Hurricane... if it's a disaster, manmade or not, it's fair game. When applicable she gives as much history as she can to explain how the disaster occurred, as well as the positive changes that were made afterward to keep it from happening again when they could be done. Also sometimes she takes a break and reviews a disaster movie instead.
She is also responsible for one of my new favorite phrases of "I investigated myself and it turns out I did nothing wrong"
Last Podcast On The Left (True crime/spooky history/UFOs/Weird shit) - Episodes are AROUND an hour long, but they're really all over the place depending on if it's a shorter interlude vs a full series. Tends to do short mini series in sets of three on any given subject. Now... while there's over 700 episodes, this recommendation comes with caveats. Specifically, unless you are recommended a SPECIFIC EPISODE before it by someone, do not listen to ANYTHING before episode 335 (I believe that's the first about the West Memphis Three). The hosts are three guys who have become way more aware about social issues over the god decade they've been doing this podcast so I'm not going to hold their earlier stuff before they knew better against them, but I cannot stress enough how awful it was at the start. If someone recommends you a specific episode before 335, go ahead and listen to THAT SPECIFIC ONE and NO OTHERS. Also skip the HH Holmes series, one of the guys is SUPER dedicated to a bit he keeps doing that is just annoying rather than funny. LET IT GO HENRY.
Sawbones (Medicine + Medical History) - 403 episodes, 35 minutes long each or so. One of the only times where a husband+wife duo actually makes something great when hosting together. Said hosts are a doctor and her comedian husband and they deep dive into the history of illnesses both well known and completely unknown as well as specific treatments or even popular completely useless treatments from history. While it is educational they stress it's for entertainment and it IS a comedy podcast.
Southern Fried True Crime (... True Crime) - 190 episodes about an hour each on average. True crime that focuses on the southern part of the united states. I just love the host and her voice, I could listen to her read the dictionary, and she's very compassionate and insightful. This is her first podcast and she does it mostly by herself with her husband helping behind the scenes so the audio in the earlier episodes is very raw but it gets much better as time goes on.
They Walk Among Us + They Walk Among America (True Crime) - TWAU = 263 episodes 30min-1hrish each, TWAA = 25 episodes, same length. The first is a UK specific true crime podcast that got popular enough that the host started a spinoff show focused on American true crime as well. Covers more recent cases as well as older ones you've probably never heard about.
You Must Remember This (History of Hollywood) - 198 episodes, about an hour each. The tagline is "The podcast about the secret and/or forgotten history of Hollywood's first century." While each season has something of a theme tying the episodes together, most of the time it's ok to just skip around if one interests you more than another. I love that she covers both what the official story is and what actually has evidence that hints at a different truth than the popular 'myths". Occasionally there will be guest voices for quotes from specific old Hollywood stars, often done by current Hollywood stars as the host works in Hollywood (Her husband is Rian Johnson as in the Director)
Fun note for that too, someone asked her in a Q&A episode if she could pick any topic to write a book on what would it be, and she said she's incredibly fascinated with the work of Marcia Lucas nee Griffin - George Lucas' first wife, who worked on all his films behind the scenes, and that she did start to write a little but decided to table it for now as it would possibly be a conflict of interest given her fiancé (at the time) just landed the director position for the new star wars movie.
Parcast Originals (what it says on the tin) - All these bad boys get lumped together! They're scripted with lightly acted shows about various topics, some true crime, some history, some just random shit. All of them are named exactly what they're about too. For example the ones I'm following are "Cults" "Medical Murders" "Serial Killers" and "Unsolved Murders"
RECCOMENDED... ISH...
Archive 81 and Station Blue I remembered enjoying - I think they're both sorta Sci-fi sorta horror a little Lovecraft? But I also only listened to them when they first came out and it's been YEARS so I can't recall much about them and they may not have aged well.
The Strange Case of Starship Iris is a Sci-fi that started off really strong but I fell out of love with. The first season is like a Scum and Villainy game. What I didn't like is that later seasons felt like they took it from "Queers in space" (awesome I am here for this) to "Queers in space: a very special episode" - And while I know for some people it's very validating to see that same struggle in a show, it felt very strained to me and moreover "I get this shit in real life enough"
I much prefer how in Juno Steel it's just not a thing. Most characters in that are queer. I think at one point someone asked one of the showrunners about "OK how do people just know what right pronoun to use for someone without asking" and they were like "it's the future they figured it out!" Same with EOS 10. It's implied that being bisexual is far more common than having a gender preference and the main character's "I'm straight!" Is less about "I need to be heterosexual" and more "I'm in my 30s I should have this figured out by now". Which, big mood.
Again, that doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it doesn't appeal to me, personally. You may feel differently!
Sci-fi Fiction
Wolf 359 - considered one of the core "Sci-fi podcasts" in some circles. Complete, about 100 episodes, aside from finales most run 30-40 minutes. Doesn't have anything to do with Star Trek in spite of the name. While it does start off rather silly/lighthearted, it gets very serious with more gallows humor as time goes on. Employees on a privately owned space station are looking for alien life. Takes place in an alternative timeline version of earth in that while it is (iirc) 2016 in the series (when it was released), in that timeline humanity was able to achieve deep space travel in like the 80s.
VAST Horizons - by the same people who did White Vault, 35ish episodes, still ongoing, eps are about 30 minutes each. A biologist wakes up from stasis on a broken ship with a half-functioning AI as her only company, and she has to try to figure out what the hell happened from there.
Under Pressure - Complete, 10 episodes, abt 20 minutes each. Takes place on a hyper futuristic undersea station that is running on a skeleton crew, from the POV of the newest arrival. Of course, some things start going wrong right away...
Tides - Ongoing, 20ish episodes, 20-30 minutes each. A scientist is on a mission to be the first crew to explore an alien planet. When her landing on the planet's surface is particularly rough, she has to weather it on her own until her ship can re-establish contact. 99% of the show is a single person narrating her field notes, so no need to tell apart voice actors.
The Penumbra Podcast- Ongoing, Kai already brought this up but seconding the recommendation. An anthology series with several storylines, the main scifi one is a scifi/noir detective one about Juno Steel, detective on mars. Episodes run about 30 minutes, and while there's over 120 of them not all of them are Juno Steel.
EOS 10 - Ongoing, 30ish episodes, about 20 minutes each. I am biased as this is one of my favorites. Scrubs meets Babylon 5, it focuses on doctors aboard the space station Eos 10 and what starts out as wacky hijinks does quickly dive into deep galaxy-wide conspiracies... but also maintains the occasional wacky hijinks. Also deals very seriously with issues of addiction and grief.
Other Fiction
A Voice From Darkness - Ongoing, 30ish episodes, 15-20 minutes each (10 more patreon exclusives). My latest obsession, it's a little Welcome to Nightvale and a little Magnus Archives. Paranormal expert radio talkshow hosts takes calls and helps those who need advice.
Alice Isn't Dead - Complete, 50 episodes, abt 30 minutes each. I figure since you've listened to WTNV you've PROBABLY already listened to this? But if not, same team behind it. A woman searches for her missing wife on a trail of strange happenings.
Last Known Position - Complete, 8 episodes, 30 minutes each. A submersible pilot is hired by a billionaire for a private expedition where not all is as it seems.
Limetown - Ongoing(?) 20ish episodes, main ones are about 30 minutes each with average 2 minute clips of 'found footage' related to the next episode inbetween. Years ago a whole town just up and vanished, and a relative of one of the people who went missing seeks to find out what happened.(Limetown is also a ?? for status because I think it got optioned for television or a movie so I don't know if it's being continued....? It has a bit of a cliffhanger at the ending but it isn't bad enough to just not listen in my opinion)
The Bridge - Ongoing, around 30 episodes, most close to 30 minutes with a few shorter clips between. In an alternative timeline earth, a bridge across the Atlantic ocean was built in the post-WWII boom. Once a major tourist attraction, it has since fallen to neglect and disrepair. It's still manned, however, with regular watchtowers there to assist any travelers that need. One of the crew of Watchtower 10 is interested in the history of the Transcontinental Bridge itself and likes to spend her time telling these stories. Beautifully atmospheric with lovely background music, it's another one of my favorites even though it updates very slowly.
The Left Right Game - Complete, 10 episodes, 40ish minutes each. A journalism student investigates an urban-legend style game like the elevator game, only this one is played with cars on the road. It works, and turns out to be more dangerous than anyone could imagine.
NONFICTION
(Also as these are nonfiction, while I will still put in the number of episodes (they're 'ish' for the others because my player only says every episode in the feed while I'd rather not really count trailers or ads for other podcasts) these can be often listened to in any order as you see fit for whatever subject interests you. If there's a two or three parter, they will often have it in the title or the description so you don't listen to those out of order.)
Lore + Cabinet of Curiosities (Strange History) - They're in the same line because they're by the same person and effectively the same podcast, with the difference being length of episodes. Cabinet of Curiosities is little bite sized bits of fun obscure history that doesn't ever really break the 10 minute mark, while each episode of Lore is closer to half an hour. CoC (pfft) currently has 394 episodes, while Lore has 221.
Unobscured (History) - 77 episodes, episodes about 40-50 minutes each with post-season interviews with experts that can go an hour and a half. Also by the same person who does the above two, but rather than single episodes that can be done alone every season is dedicated to a specific topic and dives down deeper than most people know about them, going into the history leading up to, what happened, as well as the aftermath of the events and how they changed the world at the time. Season 1 is Salem Witch Trials, Season 2 is Spiritualism in the US (ex the people who would speak to the dead, hold seances, etc), Season 3 is Jack the Ripper, and the just wrapped Season 4 is Rasputin.
Apocrypals (Bible) - 102 episodes, usually 1hr 15/1hr 30 per episode. The tagline is "Two non-believers read the bible and they try not to be jerks about it". Actually really damn fascinating as they also go into things like "Who was the target audience for this specific chapter? What was it actually trying to say? Why did it stick around while similar ones fell to the wayside?" They're hilarious and jump around a lot, so unless it's a multi-parter for a specific book of the bible you don't need to listen to it in order. Came up with the fantastic phrasing of "Cesar Real vs Robin Hood Real" as they of course don't want to say "Saint Christopher is fake he never existed" but - we know Cesar was a real person he appeared in many texts across history, we have multiple people recording their first hand accounts with him. Saint Benedict is Cesar Real. Saint Christopher and Robin Hood basically only exist in texts specifically about them, or ones that reference that specific text. So.... we're not saying they're fake, but...
Bedtime Stories (Strange history) - 147 episodes, 15-30 minutes each. While it can go a little into (history channel voice) "aliens" at time, it often only offers that before sliding into "Or it could be this other perfectly reasonable explanation that's far less sensational so nobody wants to believe it. No way to know."
Disaster Area (Disasters) - 200 episodes, most are a little under an hour and a half but you sometimes get the odd shorter or much longer one. Again this is one of my favorites, I follow the host/writer/sole person who does it on Twitter. Covers various disasters throughout history like the Station Nightclub Fire, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, TACA Flight 110, the Galveston Hurricane... if it's a disaster, manmade or not, it's fair game. When applicable she gives as much history as she can to explain how the disaster occurred, as well as the positive changes that were made afterward to keep it from happening again when they could be done. Also sometimes she takes a break and reviews a disaster movie instead.
She is also responsible for one of my new favorite phrases of "I investigated myself and it turns out I did nothing wrong"
Last Podcast On The Left (True crime/spooky history/UFOs/Weird shit) - Episodes are AROUND an hour long, but they're really all over the place depending on if it's a shorter interlude vs a full series. Tends to do short mini series in sets of three on any given subject. Now... while there's over 700 episodes, this recommendation comes with caveats. Specifically, unless you are recommended a SPECIFIC EPISODE before it by someone, do not listen to ANYTHING before episode 335 (I believe that's the first about the West Memphis Three). The hosts are three guys who have become way more aware about social issues over the god decade they've been doing this podcast so I'm not going to hold their earlier stuff before they knew better against them, but I cannot stress enough how awful it was at the start. If someone recommends you a specific episode before 335, go ahead and listen to THAT SPECIFIC ONE and NO OTHERS. Also skip the HH Holmes series, one of the guys is SUPER dedicated to a bit he keeps doing that is just annoying rather than funny. LET IT GO HENRY.
Sawbones (Medicine + Medical History) - 403 episodes, 35 minutes long each or so. One of the only times where a husband+wife duo actually makes something great when hosting together. Said hosts are a doctor and her comedian husband and they deep dive into the history of illnesses both well known and completely unknown as well as specific treatments or even popular completely useless treatments from history. While it is educational they stress it's for entertainment and it IS a comedy podcast.
Southern Fried True Crime (... True Crime) - 190 episodes about an hour each on average. True crime that focuses on the southern part of the united states. I just love the host and her voice, I could listen to her read the dictionary, and she's very compassionate and insightful. This is her first podcast and she does it mostly by herself with her husband helping behind the scenes so the audio in the earlier episodes is very raw but it gets much better as time goes on.
They Walk Among Us + They Walk Among America (True Crime) - TWAU = 263 episodes 30min-1hrish each, TWAA = 25 episodes, same length. The first is a UK specific true crime podcast that got popular enough that the host started a spinoff show focused on American true crime as well. Covers more recent cases as well as older ones you've probably never heard about.
You Must Remember This (History of Hollywood) - 198 episodes, about an hour each. The tagline is "The podcast about the secret and/or forgotten history of Hollywood's first century." While each season has something of a theme tying the episodes together, most of the time it's ok to just skip around if one interests you more than another. I love that she covers both what the official story is and what actually has evidence that hints at a different truth than the popular 'myths". Occasionally there will be guest voices for quotes from specific old Hollywood stars, often done by current Hollywood stars as the host works in Hollywood (Her husband is Rian Johnson as in the Director)
Fun note for that too, someone asked her in a Q&A episode if she could pick any topic to write a book on what would it be, and she said she's incredibly fascinated with the work of Marcia Lucas nee Griffin - George Lucas' first wife, who worked on all his films behind the scenes, and that she did start to write a little but decided to table it for now as it would possibly be a conflict of interest given her fiancé (at the time) just landed the director position for the new star wars movie.
Parcast Originals (what it says on the tin) - All these bad boys get lumped together! They're scripted with lightly acted shows about various topics, some true crime, some history, some just random shit. All of them are named exactly what they're about too. For example the ones I'm following are "Cults" "Medical Murders" "Serial Killers" and "Unsolved Murders"
RECCOMENDED... ISH...
Archive 81 and Station Blue I remembered enjoying - I think they're both sorta Sci-fi sorta horror a little Lovecraft? But I also only listened to them when they first came out and it's been YEARS so I can't recall much about them and they may not have aged well.
The Strange Case of Starship Iris is a Sci-fi that started off really strong but I fell out of love with. The first season is like a Scum and Villainy game. What I didn't like is that later seasons felt like they took it from "Queers in space" (awesome I am here for this) to "Queers in space: a very special episode" - And while I know for some people it's very validating to see that same struggle in a show, it felt very strained to me and moreover "I get this shit in real life enough"
I much prefer how in Juno Steel it's just not a thing. Most characters in that are queer. I think at one point someone asked one of the showrunners about "OK how do people just know what right pronoun to use for someone without asking" and they were like "it's the future they figured it out!" Same with EOS 10. It's implied that being bisexual is far more common than having a gender preference and the main character's "I'm straight!" Is less about "I need to be heterosexual" and more "I'm in my 30s I should have this figured out by now". Which, big mood.
Again, that doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it doesn't appeal to me, personally. You may feel differently!