Speaker 1: And now Audio Theater Central.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome to Audio Theater Central. This is the show
that explores family friendly audio drama through news, reviews and interviews.
I'm your host, JD. Sutter. This is episode two twenty seven.
Well today we've got some feedback coming up from Abby
and Grayson. I've got a bunch of audio drama updates
to get to here shortly, and we've got a review
of Jake muller Adventures Blood and I'll be joined by
ATC contributor Michael Schrader for that. And now that i'm
thinking about it, this was not planned when this was
put on the calendar, but it's quite appropriate that we're
talking about this audio drama right after Easter, and speaking
of which, I hope you had a wonderful Easter. But
before we get to that review, let's jump into the updates.
Speaker 3: Water up this program to bring you a special report.
Speaker 2: And their news tonight.
Speaker 1: A brief look at the headlines.
Speaker 4: Now they want exciting, fast piece news that's relevant and
entertaining like this.
Speaker 2: Just a quick reminder, if you have any updates about
audio drama projects that you are involved in or that
you have heard about, please let us know. Send your
updates to us PFM dot link, slash atc news or
click the button in the sidebar on our website. News
is coming in very sparsely, so please please keep us
informed about what's going on. If you are privy to
some great information that we need to know about well.
First up is just a little reminder about an upcoming event,
the Voyage of Voices Cruise that is coming up October
seventeenth through the twenty second of twenty twenty six. A
whole bunch of great audio drama professionals are going to
be there. Phil Lawler, Katie Lee, Chris, Anthony Lansdowne, Genesis Long,
Donald Long, Kimmy Robertson, John Fornoff, Steve Burns. All of
these folks have been involved and adventures in Odyssey, and
others like Phil and Katie and John have been involved
in multiple shows and Chris as well, so lots of
great fun to be had there for fans of family
friendly audio drama. Link is in the show notes to
check out more information and to sign up for that cruise.
And moving on to new releases, the Encounter Season five
is here. After several years of a gap between season four,
we now have some new episodes from The Encounter. Here
is the summary. Twenty years have passed since the followers
of Elyon crossed over the Third Peak and into the
Great Beyond, ushering in peace and creativity. Inspired by Eleon's
Pure Mist and Syrig's Isolation, a wider expanse of reclaimed territory,
the Beyond is teeming with exploration, vitality, and contentment. At
least for most. However, peace is fragile, and a breeze
of discontent flames afresh. Threat some great new episodes out
now from the Encounter. This is the show produced by
Libert University. It is exclusively available on Dramafi. Link in
the show notes to go ahead and grab that show.
Another new release, Subscribe to The Shepherd from Heart Matters.
This is the first release from them for twenty twenty six,
and the summary is A Shepherd boy named Max wants
to go viral. His new collaborator, the Big Bad Wolf
in disguise, just wants a free meal. This comedic spin
on The Boy Who Cried Wolf teaches the importance of
being honest both online and offline, and the cast includes
Bethany Baldwin, John Fornoff, Rose Beasley, and rig by Daynert.
This was written by Glenn Haskell, with sound designed by
Ezra Losa and music by Cole Brumley and cover art
illustration by Noah Cecil. As with all of the Heart
Matters audio dramas, Subscribe to the Shepherd is available free
through the Heart Matters app. Link is in the show
notes to get that app for your smartphone. Next up
is a new episode of The Chester and Ralphie Show,
this micro audio drama series from Eternal Future Productions. It's
called Leverage Lament. In pursuit of his precious snacks, Ralphie
learns a very valuable lesson in physics and accepting help
from others. You can purchase a copy of this at
the Eternal Feature Production's web store, which is linked in
the show notes, or you can give it a listen
on Dramafi and Window Seat. Next up is a really
fun project that just recently came out, and it's called
spy Ish. It is a spy comedy micro audio drama
from Craig Heart of LRT Media and this is just
a fun collaboration project that he started working on with
Jonathan Cook of Eternal Future Productions. And it's not got
a regular release schedule. It's just a project that Craig
is going to put out when he has the free
time and the inspiration strikes. It's just a fun little
comedy and they're very, very funny. There are two episodes
out now. Link is in the show notes to go
ahead and give these a listen, and I really encourage
you to do so, Craig said. He told Jonathan, if
this stops being fun, we're not doing it. So, like
I said, there are two episodes out now and you
can listen to them for free via the link in
the show notes. And moving on to upcoming releases, Season
two of Welcome to Hope Springs premieres May eighteenth. The
summary for this season is A Thin Veil follows the
spiritual and relational journeys of Jay Rooney, Brace Woodward, Dante, Zach,
and Dakota as they encounter prayer, forgiveness, unexpected opportunities, and
an ancient mystery that could impact the lives of everyone
it touches. This is a serialized story, so you're going
to want to listen to season one before season two,
but you've got a little while. You've got about a month,
so May eighteenth, is when season two launches. Season one
is available now on podcast platforms everywhere. Link is in
the show notes, to the Hope Springs website and to
the podcast listing for the trailer for season two, which
is out now, And if you're an ATC backstage member,
you can listen to ATC contributor Austin Peachee's first impression
of the Welcome to Hope Springs season two trailer. It's
available now. And lastly in upcoming releases is The Mask
of the Red Death from marky Witz audio Works. This
is inspired by the eighteen forty two Edgar Allen Poe
thriller of the same name. They said that this is
their eleventh full cast audio drama and the fifth in
their post series. It will release on May sixteenth on
both YouTube and Dramafi, with further distribution across Audible and
other platforms coming after that. But right now they are
offering a pre order of autographed CDs through their online store,
so if you want to support them in this way,
a portion of the proceeds from each pre order will
go directly to their voice actors. So let's go ahead
and give a listen to the trailer for the Mask
of the Red Death. Marky Wits Audio Works proudly presents.
Speaker 4: The peasants and the outlying villagers are dying at a
tremendous rate.
Speaker 1: Please help us for the love of God.
Speaker 3: Now ride through my dominions. Assemble from the living nobility
a thousand, hale and lighthearted friends. We shall bring music
and happiness, and joy and life to the abbey.
Speaker 5: Hey, suspenseful full cast audio drama.
Speaker 3: For tonight we live huldah hala he Hello. If this
is another of your party games, Viceroy, I.
Speaker 2: Am not amused.
Speaker 1: It is the calling cord of the Red Death.
Speaker 3: I shall put an end to this, even if it
kills me. You there, hot.
Speaker 1: Pross the Mask of the Red Death.
Speaker 2: This was written, directed, and sound designed by Jason Markiwitz
and featured in the cast as Our main characters are
Brennan Vilados as Prospero, Jason Markiwitz as the Viceroy, and
Mark Biaggi as the Red Death. Now published today on
our website is a review of the Mask of the
Red Death, so that is linked in the show notes
as well. Go check that out and if it sounds
like something you're interested in, go ahead and pre order
that CD copy or hang on until May sixteen for
the release and you can get your MP three copy
at that point. All right, well, let's go ahead and
bring in Michael Schrader and talk about Jake Muller Adventures.
Speaker 1: What do you think of our little plan?
Speaker 2: Your characters were weak, your dialogue was cliched, and you
didn't have much of a story.
Speaker 3: Wonderful everyone, We have a delightful show.
Speaker 4: It's the Michael, a true genius to use symbolism in
that way.
Speaker 2: You may even get a standing ovation. Well, I am
excited to talk about the second installment of the Jake
Muller Adventures called Blood, which released in October of twenty
twenty four. And this is released in four parts and
it comes in at two hours and fifteen minutes, so
a pretty good chunk of content there with this show,
same as as with the last one, about a similar length.
And I am excited that Michael Schrader is joining me
for this review. Michael, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 4: Jad always a pleasure to be in the studio with you,
which I'm not, but it's still a pleasure to be
recording with you.
Speaker 2: We're in the same virtual room.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2: Now, I want to say upfront that if you're not
familiar with the Jake Muller Adventures, you'll want to go
back and listen to the first one because this one
builds off of the events that take place in the
first one. Technically they can stand alone, but you're going
to be missing out on some context in this one
if you don't listen to Unidentified, which is Part one
or volume one of this series. So I highly recommend
doing that first. Now, we're not going to go too
deeply into spoiler territory, but there might be a few
little minor things, but we want to share our thoughts
on this production, and sometimes we're going to, you know,
mention a few plot points, but we're trying not to
get too deeply into all of the spoilers that take
place in this show. Now, I also want to mention
this one is not for the little ears. There is
some heavy stuff that takes place in this audio drama.
And so if you haven't heard this one yet, parents,
you were going to want to listen to this first
to see if it is appropriate for your children. Different
kids can handle certain things that other kids might not
be able to, so you know your kids but I
would say generally this is for older teens and up.
What would you say, Michael, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Would agree with that.
Speaker 4: We let our little infant listen while we were in
the car, but she didn't know what was going on,
and it is you sent me over. They have a
study guide, I guess, and I thought it was interesting
that it was giving different ideas for how you could
incorporate this with your kids, for younger kids and then
for older kids, and so Yeah, obviously each family is
going to be different in their tolerance level for these
kinds of themes, but I think that using that study
guide's a really good way to address some of the
issues that are brought up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, if you're not familiar with Jake, or if
it's been a while since you heard the first one,
just a little bit of context here. The Jake Muller
Adventures is about Jake Muller and his team. He runs
a private security company and they get hired by high
profile people like senators or whatever to be bodyguards or
to serve as security for events and things like that.
So they're action packed. There's some crazy cool stuff that
happens in them. And these are made for older listeners.
These are not intended for children, like Adventures, Odyssey or
other popular shows in this industry. This is made specifically
for older ears, and I love that about this show.
So all right, So now that all of that context
is out of the way, Michael, we have a summary
here for Blood. Why don't you share with the listeners
what this is all about?
Speaker 4: Yes, the summary for Blood. There's no such thing as vampires, right,
That's what Jake's good friend Ariana thought. So why did
somebody drop a body covered with bites at the hospital
where she works? And why is she being followed by
creepy dudes? Jake wants answers, and he's going to get them,
no matter the cost. He's also going to learn that
we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over
this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly places. Will Jake Mueller take up a sword
in this spiritual battle?
Speaker 2: Will he?
Speaker 1: I thought you said no spoilers. You have to listen
to find out.
Speaker 2: JD Yes, Yes, that is the correct answer. So this
is written and directed by Darby Kern and produced by
Micah Toouchet. Sound design was also done by Micah Toouchet
and music by Jared Dipesqual. Also want to mention the
executive producer David Fair who made this show possible, and
engineering by here Vergara and Todd Bestied at Gap Digital,
where these shows have been recorded and there are more
to come. They've all been recorded there, so this is
a high quality audio drama.
Speaker 4: M Yeah, I've been really impressed with Mica Toochet's sound
design and production quality. I think that they're very well produced.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: When I got into this one, I jumped into listening
to Blood and I had not heard Unidentified since I
think I got a copy of the CD at the
first Sonic Con. Do you remember what You're Unidentified was
released twenty nineteen? Okay, yeah, so I probably listened to it,
you know, five years ago, and I and I remember
like little bits and pieces. But I'll echo what you
said about people listening to that first, because I there
was definitely like and it did stand alone like I,
you know, knew what was going on, but there were
definitely parts that when I went back and listened to Unidentified,
I was like, Oh, that's right, that's what that was
fucking that's what happened there. And there was definitely like
little references where I can't believe how much I forgot
out of it, to be honest with you, but I
was like, wait, what that happened?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So yeah, but it did stand alone by when I
introduced my wife to it, we listened to Unidentified first
and then and then went into Blood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a ton of different callbacks in this, and
each of these stands alone in that they have their
own plot points and sort of themes that are being
addressed in each title. But we have the character arcs
with our main characters that continues throughout all of them,
and so that's mostly what is needed for context, aside
from a few little character references of events that took
place in the first one. But primarily you kind of
want to have that background of what happened with Jake
and Arianna specifically in the first one.
Speaker 4: So for example, I don't know if this is a
spoiler for the first one or if we can say
spoilers for the first one, but I did not remember
that she said early on something about him blowing up
her house, and I did.
Speaker 1: Not remember that at all. Yeah, Like wow, well, that
is extreme. I should probably listen to the first one.
That's what I realized.
Speaker 4: I should probably refresh myself on the first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the line of her bringing that back up kind
of kind of throwing it in his face. It's funny,
but it's also like, wow, yeah, that's right, that's that's
not a light thing that happened there. You know, you
lose your entire house and everything in it pretty much.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so it's good that they didn't just her
house wasn't just magically rebuilt in this one and they
moved on like it never happened. Yeah, they're still dealing
with the aftermath of the first one.
Speaker 2: And I think he even says, Jake says something along
the lines of it's only been a couple of months
or something like that. So it kind of helps orient
you if you have heard the other one and you
know that it's sort of just picking up shortly after
the first one.
Speaker 4: Well, and the first scene was definitely referencing back to
the other one as they were still investigating, and I
was I could not remember at all what was going
on in that first scene, but I just powered through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an interesting sort of little prologue. I
would say, kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It was like a touch point with the last one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sort of a bridge between the yeah,
the two stories. Yeah yeah, and that's we might as
well get into it now. That's that's an interesting point
because it's an interesting choice that they made here. It's
a cold open, which is not necessarily unusual in audio drama.
It happens, but it's not just a cold open. It's
just it's that there is also no dialogue for about
thirty seconds.
Speaker 4: Yes, I was gonna say the same thing. It's just
sound effects for thirty seconds. Great and a couple of
like vocal fold things. But no, yeah, I was, I
was going to comment on that same thing. I was.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I was engaged with it. I wasn't like, hey, I thought.
Speaker 4: I turned it on, you know, like I the sound
effects qued you and you're listening, you know.
Speaker 1: But I did think that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And that stood out to me. I mean,
it just jumped out at me again on this latest
listen because it's a bold choice to do that, but
it absolutely worked. And I thought that the same as
what you said. It pulls you in and you can
picture what's happening. You can picture the scene, yeah, but
you don't have all the context of course, now you
know that's that's probably not an unusual thing to do
in a visual medium like TV or film, yeah, because
you know, you have the pictures there to help you.
But to do this in audio, I love it when
they kind of push the boundaries. Producers push the boundaries
of what you can do with audio, and I thought
that was a really cool thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a.
Speaker 4: Great point because that was definitely a production choice, because
I'm sure when they got in the studio they just
started recording the lines, you know. I don't know if
they planned it out or if they they thought, you know,
let's start it off with a good thirty seconds so
of just sound effect and leading it in slowly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then we have that sort of prologue or
bridge scene, and then we come into the first true
scene I guess we'll call it of this show, and
we have the announcer voiceover comes in with the listener
discretion is advised sort of warning, and again we have
a really interesting choice here. That voiceover is done over
the top of the scene, over the top of the
sound design for the scene. It's not over a music
bed or something like that, or just dry like most
of the time that kind of stuff is done in Odyssey,
it's typically just there's no backing. It's just a dry
read there, but it's over the top of the sound
design of the next scene. That's a really really cool thing.
Then I picked up on too, and I'm like, oh,
another interesting choice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess it was seamless enough that I didn't notice,
but that is that is an interesting choice, but that's
not an intuitive choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the first thing we were talking about that
might have been written into the script, because I I
haven't seen the script for this show, but I have
seen some of Darby Kerr's scripts and he does write
fairly good notes for scene settings and things like that,
so he may have written that into it. I don't know.
But in this case, I would guess that that was
a mic a tooiche decision to do this with the
parental warning or listener discretion advised warning. Anyway, it's not
a huge thing, but it's a really cool little tidbit
that I thought was neat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's not breaking you away from the story
that you're already entered into. It's just a little over
the top, like we're continuing the story, but we're just
going to warn you danger ahead.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the announcer, that's Chris Fabriy and he's just
got that just a great set of pipes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a great voice. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I guess Darby Kerr probably worked with him on like
the Left Behind Adventures, Right, didn't Chris Fabry or co
write a lot of that? Yeah, I thought this is
back to the first scene, but I thought there was
there was a funny line where he said something about
the bad guy having friends in low places, and I
really enjoyed that line. There was a there was a
couple of witty things just that first.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The dialogue, there's a lot of witty dialogue in this.
And then that's kind of one of the signature things
of Darby's writing. He's he's really good at snappy dialogue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, snappy dialogue and a lot of references to pop
culture from I don't know, the eighties.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't quite pick up on.
Speaker 4: But I know that just enough of the context that
I can roll with him. But yeah, I can pick
up on, like you know, Phil Lawler's C. S. Lewis
references but the eighties TV show references I struggle with
or nineties.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what. And I thought
that first.
Speaker 4: I think the first conversation after that opening scene between
Jake and I guess it's his employee Nate. I thought
that was a very I thought the dialogue was. It
felt like a very real conversation, you know, to me,
it was. It didn't feel stilted, even though even though
it was you know, they were talking about some like
deep themes, but it felt like the kind of conversation
that somebody would have with a friend.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought the dialogue was really well written there. Yeah,
it was probab written throughout. But I just noticed that
and off the bat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, And I'm glad you brought that up too,
because you know, we have heard from some feedback from
some people who they look at the cover of the
album and they see the title and they see the
little summary and it's talking about vampires and blood and
all this kind of stuff, and yeah, they draw conclusions
about what kind of show this is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hey, I had to hide the cover right when
I was walking into a couple of conversations.
Speaker 1: I just made sure that wasn't on my phone.
Speaker 4: When they people start talking to me like what are
you looking at?
Speaker 2: Which I think is probably intentional. It's an attention grabbing right,
So it's it's doing two things. It's it's setting in
the tone that this is not your average kid's audio drama,
and it's also saying that we want to grab somebody
the attention of people and potentially people who are not Christian.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it is cool too because it's kind of
geared towards older listeners and towards people that are you know,
that are exploring different things. They're able to deal with
some some spiritual themes that that other audio dramas don't
necessarily go into too deeply, Like and what I'm specifically
thinking of that comes up several times throughout the drama
is the way they talk about salvation and how it's
not just about praying a prayer, you know, when you're
a kid and then you know you're you go on
and do whatever you want and you're fine, which is
sometimes how it gets presented, you know. And I appreciated
that they explored that a little bit with like, hey,
you know, a Christian in name only isn't really a
Christian just just because you said a prayer ones. If
you're not actually making submitting to Jesus as Lord, then
there's still an issue, you know, you still have to
and so and they dealt with that, and I think
that's really helpful for people, and especially older kids need
to be thinking about that, you know. And and so
I appreciated that they dived and dove dived, that they
dave delved delved into it.
Speaker 2: Well, you you've perfectly set up the clip that I
was going to play, and I didn't even tell you
ahead of time. So this is totally an organic conversation here.
But Scout's honor, I wanted to specifically mention this because
of what I referenced earlier, how some people have drawn
some conclusions about what the content of the show is.
They didn't even realize that it was Christian at all,
and so I wanted to make sure to mention that
it absolutely is, because, as you said, it's at the
very beginning. We're only about six minutes in, and we
have this deep discussion about salvation and spiritual warfare, and
so the biblical messages and faith are very apparent for
those who might be concerned that this is not a
Christian audio drama. It absolutely is themes of the power
of the blood, which is the theme is all throughout this.
So here is a little clip. It's about a minute
of that scene that you were actually just talking about,
to illustrate that.
Speaker 5: You don't become a Christian. You don't become a child
of God by saying a prayer.
Speaker 2: You need to change.
Speaker 5: You need to ask forgiveness and change your life. You
need to make Jesus your lord and live for him.
And you didn't do that before. No, man, you know
that Jesus wasn't who I was living for. Before you
saw me doing things things no Christians should be doing.
I wasn't saved, But now you are. I hope I'm different, man,
I really do. For whatever reason, I've been dropped into
this battle that I wasn't even aware of before, and
now I feel like I'm fighting at hand to hand.
Speaker 1: And I can't help you.
Speaker 5: How how are you going to fight off a spiritual
enemy or stand up to a demon?
Speaker 2: How are you going to do that? How are you?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 5: Only with Jesus? Well, I guess I don't get to
play those games with you.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 5: I figured, Ny, listen, I don't worry, boss, I get it.
Speaker 2: So good. Yeah. I mean, you can hear the example
of the really great dialogue there. It sounds so natural
and genuine, a real conversation. It's Dugan Scherbondi as Jake
Muller and Christian Gill as Nate Hammill. Nate is one
of Jake's employees at the Security Agency, and obviously Jake
has sort of rededicated his life to the Lord in Unidentified,
but his employee Nate is not a Christian, and so
they have this really real conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which I really appreciated.
Speaker 4: And when you listen to Unidentified, the Christian themes don't
pop out right away.
Speaker 1: You know you're going along with the story.
Speaker 4: But in this one, you know, maybe assuming you've already
you're already intrigued by the story from Unidentified, and they
put it right out in the front and with a
great conversation and a lot of good things to think about,
and even little things like he says the employee says, Nate,
I miss talking about football and classic rock or whatever,
and he's like, well we still can. You know, all
that felt very natural, Like I feel like I've had
those same kind of conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, except right,
I'll generally talk about football and classic rock, just in
full transparency that those are not subjects that I am
very well versed in, So not.
Speaker 1: That specific thing, but in general, you know, the themes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are people out there who think once you
become a Christian, then you suddenly are reading the Bible
twenty four to seven or praying and you never do
anything that other people do. You know, you still enjoy life.
It's it's life and that more abundantly, right, Like you
can still enjoy life and have fun conversations with your
friends and so yeah, yeah, that was a really good
point that they brought up there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I appreciated that, and I appreciate it several
other times. Well maybe I'll bring it up in a
little bit later, But there are several times where you
come in on a conversation that he's having with his
other employees, and and you're coming in just like in
the middle of the conversation, but you could tell they're
waiting for you know, the suspect or whatever, and then
it just brings you in and you can tell like, okay, well, yeah,
they're sitting there on a steak out, so of course
they're talking about all kinds of things while they're waiting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like that. Yeah. I have a very
specific scene that comes up later that I jotted down.
It does that exact same thing, and I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet I jotted down the same one.
Speaker 2: Well, let's real quickly shout out some of the other
main cast members. So Arianna Rodgers, who is sort of
the love interest though they're kind of kind of on again,
off again sort of thing with them, but she's played
my Sky' Siskin, who does just a fantastic job with
that character.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lots of funny lines about their the nature of
their relationship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're confusion.
Speaker 4: About it and now there's confusion or lack of confusion
about it.
Speaker 2: And then another one of Jake's employees, Kevin O'Hare, is
played by Jake Phillips, and he also does a great
job with that character too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I recognized his voice right off because I listened to
I think you told me about his podcast where he
reads yea some classic lib poems and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the culture Bumpkin. If you're interested, it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I thought he did a great job with
his character, although I did not realize No Hair was
a nickname, oh until until like the third episode, and
I was like, wait a minute. I thought they were
just saying his last name, and I was like, no,
there's a he's bald.
Speaker 1: They're calling him no Hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. And that's another thing that lends to
the believability of the story, because you know, a bunch
of dudes who were working together all the time in
stressful situations, like I think they're all, at least some
of them are ex military guys, and so they build
that camaraderie, and part of that is giving each other nicknames, right,
and his name is O'Hare, so why not call him
No Hair? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 1: I didn't even pick up on it at first, but
and I did.
Speaker 4: Uh. I wasn't sure about something with him, because you know,
we have this whole conversation about how Nate can't really
help in these spiritual battles because he's not a Christian,
and then he brings in No Hair to help him
out stuff. But it wasn't really ever made explicit that
he was a Christian. But I'm kind of assuming that
he is, since he was bringing him in to help
out with some of this stuff.
Speaker 2: But well, he's actually not either, but he's more open
to hearing about it. Nate's kind of like more stand office.
He doesn't really care too much. It seems like that's
the conclusions that I'm drawing, because in a later scene
where Jake is actually sort of witnessing to a character,
uh he Kevin O'Hare is in the in the in
the room or in the vicinity there, and he makes
a reference to oh it's his it's his Christian thing
or something like that. Oh it's a parent that he's
not either, but he's apparently he might be a little
closer to Jake personally.
Speaker 4: Okay, sure maybe they yeah, they go further back, but
it just it was kind of weird that they made
such a big point about how this other character can't
help him, and then he's using all the help from
this other character who's apparently also not a Christian. So
I'm not that seems like a kind of an odd
double standard.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was like he can't help him
in the actual the spiritual warfare aspect, not that he
can't work with him.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that he comes in at the end doing
a couple of things also, Yeah, so yeah, I guess
he's still.
Speaker 1: Using him for for the non spiritual aspect of what
he's doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was my assumption, but I can
I can see how that might be a little confusing
for sure. A couple of other cast members which are
probably people who are very familiar to the listener here,
and that is Phil Lawler as Brian Omack. He's the
pastor that we hear in Unidentified. He comes back in
this one, a couple of really great scenes with him
again in this and then we also hear his wife.
She's referenced and unidentified, but we actually hear from her
in this one. And she's played by Chris Anthony Lansdowne.
Speaker 4: So which you would think of all the voices I
would recognize, I would recognize Chris, but I did not
know that was her until I heard the credits.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, what so she disguised her voice from me at.
Speaker 2: Least, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, any way, it is her character. Yeah, her character
name is Kristin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Kristin Omack. And sort of a piggybacking on what
we were saying, a little bit ago about the dialogue.
We also have another example of really natural dialogue and
also an example of Darby doing some research, and that
is in the hospital scenes, we have a lot of
medical jargon thrown at us. Well, not that sounded negative.
I didn't mean it that way. It's like the characters there,
they're doctors and nurses. They're going to use that kind
of language with each other. And so we had stuff
like pedes as an abbreviation for the pediatric ward of
a hospital and saying they needed some onegg which is
oh negative blood to do a transfusion or or is
that what it's called, right, or an infusion of blood
or what whatever?
Speaker 1: Vampire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, we have those different kind of
shorthand and terms that they would use naturally with each other,
and it's not like explained for the listener, Like when
I say this, I mean, you know, because sometimes people
actually do that kind of stuff in writing and it's terrible.
But this just sounds really really smooth and natural. So yeah,
it does.
Speaker 4: And also not you find out what's going on through
cues in the dialogue, because when people are having a conversation,
they already know information and they're not going to spell
it out, and so like I didn't, I didn't realize
that she was there because she worked at the hospital,
but now she's in a different area. Now she's not
in the emergency room anymore, and so at first I
was like, why is she offering to help? She's like,
because it just seems like she was coming this year
but didn't work there anymore. But then but and this
is all stuff that they would know automatically. But then
then it's worked in the dialogue, like what the situation is,
and you realize, oh, okay, so that's that's what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I yeah, again, good good writing.
Speaker 2: And then ye're talking about there is Ariana, so she's
actually in the medical field here, and so yeah, a
few scenes with her on the job and interacting with
other medical professionals, and and that's kind of where the
action really kicks off, is because we have somebody brought
into the emergency room who has all of these bites
all over his body.
Speaker 4: And the sound effects of the blood were horrible, Yeah, horrible,
and like a good way. I guess that could be
a good way. But I don't mean that they were
poorly produced.
Speaker 1: Sound effects. I mean that like it was just so gross.
Speaker 4: It was just like nasty to listen to, so not horrible,
Like great job on the sound design, and like, oh
my goodness, you're I don't know, just hearing the squishing,
the squishing in the sloshing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like they did a great job with those.
Speaker 4: And you you know you expect to hear some bloody
sound effects, I mean something called blood, but it was
very intense.
Speaker 2: No. I mean I I was thinking the same thing
as I was listening to it again, and I was like,
I don't remember this. This gloopy sounds.
Speaker 4: Like it jumped out at me the very first time
I listened to I was like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Now, So after we have that interaction there at the hospital,
we have this scene where they go to visit the
pastor right, and so we have this really interesting discussion
about the song power in the Blood, right, Yeah, And
I mean that's you and I both have grown up
going to church our whole lives pretty much, and like
we're that's a song that we're both very familiar with.
And when you grow up in church and you hear
those kinds of phrases. Phil's character even calls it to
you know, Christianese, we don't necessarily always think about how
it sounds to somebody else who is who is not
from that worldview and not in that environment. But it
is something that I have thought about before over the
last few years, and thinking about certain not just hymns,
but other phrases that we use, how they sound to
other people. And I thought it was really interesting how
they discussed that, and it works really well. It's obviously
intentional they chose that song because it makes sense with
the theme of this, but it was really cool to
hear that, and I liked them just discussing what the
ramifications really are of the message of that song. So
I liked that quite a bit. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I had a friend who went to India first admission
work and they were singing, there's another hymn, There's a
fountain filled with blood from Emmanuel's veins.
Speaker 1: You know, he was thinking about that.
Speaker 4: It's like, this sounds pretty weird if you don't know
what it's talking about. Absolutely, Yeah, sinner's plug just beneath
the blood, lose all their guilty stains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so true, you know, And it's funny. As
I was listening to this It really piqued my curiosity
because I was hearing those in the scene. There's a
kid's choir or a children's choir who is practicing or singing
that song in the background at the church and while
they're having this conversation with Pastor Omac. And for some reason,
that just really jumped out at me, those kids, and
I'm thinking, this is not a piece of royalty free music.
This is not stock. This is not a perfect quote
unquote perfect performance from like a children's music record, because
I heard a ton of those when I was a kid.
I've heard all of those kind of albums, and this
is not that. And so I thought, Yah, knowing that
Micah has three kids, I'm like, I wonder if he
recorded them for this, because that is definitely a custom
piece of of audio there. So I reached out to
him and I asked him, and turns out that's exactly
what it was. It was his kids and him and
his wife, and they all three are all three, they
all five of them sang through the song. And his
youngest daughter, I think he said she was around five
or six at the time, and so they recorded all
of them three times through and then he kind of
layered it and did some things with it. And if
you notice, it's not When I say it's not perfect,
I don't mean that in a negative way. It sounds
like it's a real group of children singing. They're not professionals,
and so there's certain things with the timing that are
slightly off. They're not all in sync all the time,
and so it's because he did some layering there and
sort of staggered certain parts of it so that it
wasn't all in sync completely. And he actually sent me
a screenshot of his project in his digital audio work station.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's really cool and I love that kind
of stuff, those little details. But to think about it,
that scene was only a few minutes long, and all
of that work went into just a little section of
the background audio. This is not even the main characters. Yes, yeah,
that's the level of detail that high quality audio drama
producers go to.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that's awesome, very very cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I in that scene, I liked how Phil
Aller when he was quoting the words of the song
because that those A lot of my favorite hymns do
have to do with the blood, and there is there
really is power, you know, when you're singing about the
blood of Jesus and the blood of the Lamb, and
when he was quoting it back, even though he said, yeah, yeah,
that does sound a little odd, you know if somebody
doesn't know what you're talking about. But the gravitas that
he lends to the words when he was quoting them again.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. One other little detail about
that kid's choir is if you listen closely, you'll hear
their a director who is giving them, you know, direction
or prompts as they're recording or as the kids are singing. Well,
turns out that was Darby's wife. Bobby. Joe and Micah
reached out to her and asked her to just record
some random lines directing the kids, and so he worked
that into the mix as well. So it's it's really cool. Again.
I love I love this kind of detail in the
little behind the scenes tidbits. It's so much, so much fun.
And speaking of little details again, we have a scene
shortly thereafter where Jake and and a cop are going
to visit this guy's house and the doorbell, the sound
of the doorbell at his house. It's got this creepy
sort of I don't know, haunted House quurt sort of
sound to it. Well, this is a creepy dude, right, like,
this is a this is a guy who is into
this vampire subculture. And I just love the sound that
they that he chose for the doorbell, and it immediately
made me And I don't know if this is a
me misremembering something because I haven't listened to it in
a very long time, but it immediately made me think
of that old Carmen song from like the nineties, Witch's Invitation.
Did you ever hear that?
Speaker 1: Ah?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: And it's it's sort of a similar concept of talking
about spiritual warfare. This preacher gets called to this warlocks
house because he wants to sort of challenge him. So
it's definitely all about spiritual warfare and all this, but
he's telling this story. It's a it's a narrative song
that that Carmen did and has him walking up to
the front door and pressing the doorbell. And in my memory,
again it may be inaccurate, but in my memory, the
doorbell sounds very similar to the one that Mike used
for this house.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was definitely definitely gave you Dracula vibes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And speaking of the cop that he goes with, Detective Kowalski,
I loved her character.
Speaker 1: I thought she was great. Yes, I loved her accent.
Speaker 4: I load her added dude, I thought that was a great,
great character.
Speaker 2: Sort of the stereotypical, no nonsense cop. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was the straight person, but she Yeah, she
was just so funny. Every time she was in a scene,
I was.
Speaker 2: Like, Yes, she was played by Kara O'Brien, and Kara's fantastic.
She did a really great job.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And speaking of the vampire subculture, of course, that is
what the main point is of this. It's looking at
how Satan sort of distorts themes from scripture or things
that are truly part of God's relationship with man, right,
and he takes them and makes these twisted, perverted versions
of these things. And so that's exactly what they're tackling
here with this show. That's the point of it. And
so I don't know this for a fact, but because
I haven't verified, but it sounds to me like Darby
did a lot of research into this subculture and we
have all these terms like cy vamp and sanguinarian and
all these different terms that these people are familiar with
and use, and it is a weird, dark place and
I'm sure it wasn't super fun to do that research.
But if you're going to tell a story like this
and it's going to be successful, it's going to pack
a punch, it's going to be true. You have to
you have to go into those places to understand what
you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and even that you know, original book about
Dracula by Bram Stoker, Bram Stoker. Yeah, there's a lot
of Christian themes element that are being played with there
that that have, i think have been muted by a
lot of the like pop culture stuff that's come out
in recent years. But that's definitely what he was playing with, absolutely,
the perversion of all the all the true biblical themes
about the blood and you.
Speaker 2: Know, well, and then that happens, This is sort of
a rabbit trail, but that happens with a lot of
those sort of older stories that even have a slight
tinge of horror or something like that to them, when
they get adapted into pop culture, they lose a lot
of that. And we had this almost exact same discussion
a few years ago when we were talking about Frankenstein
and you ended up reviewing Oasis Audio's version, their audio
drama version of Frankenstein, which is very faithful to the
original book. And I remember you and I talking about
this and You're like, I don't know, isn't that a
weird like monster kind of thing. And I'm like, it's
actually way more than that. And I think you'll be
surprised when you listen to this audio drama how different
it is from what people think of when they think
Frankenstein around Halloween time, you know, right right, yeah.
Speaker 4: And that's another one where there's powerful biblical themes and
not even that, like Mary Shelley wasn't exactly a you know,
upstate believer following Jesus, you know, but but the themes
that she's exploring are they're human themes and it has
to do with God and creation and you know stuff
with Dracula. It has to do with the blood, and
it has to do with everlasting life and you know,
all of these things that are that the devil offers
a different path and he take and that's what he
always does.
Speaker 1: He takes things and he perverts them for his own ends.
Speaker 2: Yep, exactly. So there's your little rabbit trail on classic literature.
You might you might want to go check out those books.
Speaker 4: There you go all from the doorbell. Yeah, another sound thing.
This is kind of a vocal foldy thing. When she
is walking home in the middle of the night and
she was breathing really heavily, and I was like, is
she running? Like why is she breathing so heavily? And
then I realized it's because it's cold, and you do
breathe like that when you're walking in the cold, you know,
there's the heavier.
Speaker 1: Breathing, and so that was kind of when I realized it.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, that's of cool because that tells
me what the temperature is without them necessarily like they
do make reference later on to how cold Chicago is
or whatever, but that was a vocal folding thing that
tells us something about the weather, you know, and the
temperature without being explicit about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of Ari, there's a scene close
to the beginning of part two where she's talking with Jake,
and I just thought it was kind of a funny
little reference and it's sort of an example of how
you can work in personality into just dialogue, just by
little comments that sound natural in the dialogue, and it's
also conveying to the listener a little bit about who
this person is without them saying well I like this
and this is what you know, because that kind of
dialogue is terrible, and so it's just just a little
bit of reference where she's kind of kind of pushing
back at Jake about his dad's music collection, how she
doesn't like his selection of music, and it was just
a I don't know, she didn't say I don't like
his music selection, you know, it was more like, I
think she says something along the lines of getting because
she's actually staying at Jake's house. He's staying elsewhere because
her house got destroyed in the last show, so he
said she could stay at his place. Or maybe it
was that he was going to say she could go
stay at his dad's house or something. Anyway, I don't
remember the specifics, but it was something about his dad's
music election and she says, well, that's not necessarily a
plus for me, or something along those lines. And so
it's just little little things like that which don't stop
the flow of what's happening in the scene, but again,
it conveys something about who this character is, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, although speaking of her character, something that did stop the.
Speaker 1: Flow for me that I do not understand.
Speaker 4: And I don't know how much we want to get
into it because they had to be aware of this,
but I just don't. It just doesn't make any sense
to me because she references several times about how she's
a black and karate so she can take care of herself. Yeah,
and Jake doesn't need to protect her. She can handle herself,
but she never like several times, if I was a
black belt karate, I would have been acting way quicker
than she was, and I was my wife was listening
to a particular part where I don't want to spoil things,
but you know, one of the creepy guys is like
physically like has his hands on her, and she's just like,
I don't like this, you know, and Allison is like
before he ever got close enough to touch me, I
would have been fighting back, you know, and I would
have too, because like it's I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, I did. I do not understand. I guess
I was more sympathetic with Jake's point of view.
Speaker 4: I was with hers, because she is very insistent that
she can handle herself, and she doesn't seem to. She
seems to just like, I don't know, she just never
uses those skills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have any perspective on that?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, a couple of things. And here is a
slight spoiler, So skip ahead about five seconds in that
scene that you're talking about. I think it might be
because he had chloroformed her and so she might have
been sort of incapacitated.
Speaker 4: Okay, five seconds has passed. Skipping ahead another five to
ten seconds. No, that is one of the scenes I'm
talking about. But I'm talking about the very first time
when she's walking home and he like puts his hands
on her head, and why is she letting him put
his hands on her. She doesn't know what he's trying
to do, she doesn't know who he is. And it's
this guy that comes out of nowhere and he grabs
her head like this is before the chloroform thing. And
then and then Jake comes up thankfully, because I mean
not that that guy was actually you know, like I
guess it would have turned out okay, but and I'm
not saying that Jake, you know, covered himself with glory
necessarily either in the way.
Speaker 1: He handles them.
Speaker 4: But I didn't think it was very odd that she
because she was already on edge, she was already nervous.
She's she's talking to the pastor and his wife, you know,
mentioning that these creepy people are following her.
Speaker 1: And she doesn't know why. You know, So why are
you letting him get that close to you? I did
not get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I I understand too, because I was like,
is she being a little too unreasonable about getting frustrated
when when Jake's stepping in to help her out. I
was thinking that she's she's getting a little too unreasonable there,
Like he's he's just trying to let you know that
he cares, you know, he doesn't want to see you
get hurt. So I'm sympathetic to Jake there on that
point too, But I think it's also part of just
trying to show the struggle that both of these characters
are going through as they're trying to figure out what
they want in life. So she's like struggling with.
Speaker 4: Like, sometimes I just want a vampire to squish my head,
and I don't want you to.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to mess with me when that's happening.
Speaker 2: It's like she's she's got mixed feelings about does she
want to pursue a relationship with this guy or does
she not? And I think that's part of what they're
trying to show there. But I understand, I absolutely agree
that it's like, all right, chill out, let him, let him.
He's got all these trained guys who can help out.
Speaker 1: You know, that's really what he does for work.
Speaker 4: Which I could kind of understand her, like, hey, you're
not you know, we're not in a relationship. I don't
want you like hovering over me, Like I can kind
of understand that perspective. Yeah, but when a guy was
literally had your head in his hands and he stepped
to defend you when you said you were going to
defend yourself, and then you just let him try.
Speaker 1: To do his syvam thing on you like that, that
is does it?
Speaker 4: And I don't know if she if she because of
being a Christian, like she doesn't feel like she should
fight back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So do you think that's part That was the
other thing that I was going to say too, And
I think that's part of they're trying to show the
contrast where Jake is just immediately fly off the handle
and start punching things, and she's kind of the opposite, like,
that's not how you solve the problems. Yeah, and so
it's kind of the opposite the two extremes there that
they're trying to show. That's that's kind of what I thought.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, let's calm down and make a couple
of Star Trek jokes, you know, while they're you know,
coming at me out of.
Speaker 1: The dark alley, and we'll just kind of just see
what happens.
Speaker 4: You know, Jake, maybe this is a one perspective versus
a guy perspective.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I am I'm mystified by her behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 4: I am also mystified by since we're you know, just
on this track, and I just want to throw this
out there. He runs a security company, and there is
at least one time where he has guys outside and
she's at his house and there's somebody in his house,
and you're telling me he doesn't have like a good
security system and his guys aren't watching, Like, how in
the world did.
Speaker 1: They get in his house? I like that unless it
was like spiritual like.
Speaker 2: Maybe they Yeah, maybe that's what it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe monically they somehow got in, but otherwise that
you know, maybe it's like the painter's house who isn't
painted and he's like a security guy, but he doesn't
have a good security system his own house. But that
felt very unrealistic to me, especially since he's concerned and
he has I had forgot the guy's name that was
outside Stewie, but he he you know, fell out, the
dropped the ball he did he did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for thank you for admitting that.
Speaker 4: I don't want him to get fired or anything, but
I want him to be strongly reprimanded because that was ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's so so. Stewie's another employee of the
of the agency there, and we've mentioned Kevin before. This
was funny. We have this this tough security dude and
he's like making latte art in that one scene. I
loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, this is what I'm paying for. Yeah
that was funny. Yeah, I really liked his character. He
had a great character.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't remember how much coffee was in this show.
It's it's all throughout. It's like, yeah, as a coffee lover,
I'm all all about it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And early on at the hospital, they had a great
line where she says, how old is this coffee and
the other girl says, I have children that are younger
than that coffee.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Good stuff. Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And they had some great moments between No Hair, Kevin
No Hair, and and Jake, especially as they're like investigating
and you know, trying to track things down, and the
whole dialogue at the furniture store where he repeating the
sales points of the yes, the salesman.
Speaker 1: That was so funny. I loved all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's another thing too, is the dynamic between I
had that in my notes. The dynamic between Jake and
Kevin is just so great throughout this. But he had
a really good point too. He was kind of saying
it in a joking way, but it's absolutely true, he says.
Kevin says, people complain about privacy and then they post
their whole life on social media, you know, and that
is very dangerous. I mean tying this to another audio
drama producer in this space, Heart Matters, that's kind of
one of the things that they were talking about is
being safe online and It's absolutely true. Most people, if
they're on Facebook, their profile is publicly accessible. Anybody else
who has a Facebook account can read all of their posts,
not just your family and friends that you're connected to,
and you're sharing pictures of your home, your kids, all
this kind of stuff, and even the slightest little details
that you share. The cumulative effect of all of that information,
bad actors out there can totally take that and do
some crazy stuff with it. So, yeah, a really good
point that he brought up.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, very true.
Speaker 4: In line with that, the social media site. I know
that you and Roy and Andrew have talked about this
in the past, how when audio dramas make the decision
to use brand names or not. And so they had
my face as the social media account that they're talking about,
which I laughed at, and then I was like, they
haven't been too shy about any other like specific references.
But I was curious why they went that route for
this specific you know, for a social media platform.
Speaker 1: If they were worried about rights or something or.
Speaker 2: Oh, I you know what, that one went right over
my head. I didn't even know it catch that one.
That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and they avoided saying FaceTime.
Speaker 4: Also, at one point, the character says, they' spen all
the time facing each other, and you know, you assume
that they're talking about FaceTime. But and he's like kind
of older. It's Jake's dad, you know, so oh, you
kind of assume like, oh, he just messed up the word.
But I wonder if it was intentional that they didn't
want to use that in case it was branded or something,
which maybe I shouldn't have used it. Strike that from
the record, don't listen to this Apple.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question, because I
think there are other brand name references in other areas.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, it seems like it, But maybe I'm just
more thinking of specific like pop culture references to TV
shows and things that but like places, like they're talking
about real places and they're talking about Yeah.
Speaker 2: So but well, and you mentioned Jake's dad. That was cool.
We have a Bill Myers cameo. He plays Jake's dad, David.
Was that his name, right, David?
Speaker 4: Yeah, David Muller, Yeah, which I really enjoyed that. I
have a weird Bill Meyers story. Do you want to
hear it?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 4: I think I was sixteen and I went to a
writer's call conference by myself, and it was a couple
of days and I saw I'm a teenager. I didn't
know anybody there. I just went because I wanted to learn.
And he was one of the speakers there, and I
think he could tell that I was like alone by
my you know there, No, I didn't have anybody with me,
and uh, and so he he was like making a
point to like interact with me. He wasn't like coming
up and having conversations, but he was interacting with me
in the.
Speaker 1: Classes and stuff.
Speaker 4: And then at one point I was standing in the
hall and he came by and suddenly he just bent
down and untied my shoes and then kept walking. And
so then later on and he didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: And then later on.
Speaker 4: He was standing there and I went by and he
was talking to somebody and probably somebody important I don't know,
and I and I did the same thing to him,
and he's like what you know, and he reacted really big,
and the person standing there was like.
Speaker 1: What the world I just ran off? But anyways, that's
like the one interaction.
Speaker 2: Hilarious.
Speaker 1: I don't impune him or anything.
Speaker 4: If he wants to deny that, but uh, I was
the kid who was, you know, there with all the
like what are well known people, and it actually meant
something to me that he just did that goofy thing.
Speaker 1: You know, just to like acknowledge me and interact with me.
Speaker 2: So anyways, money, that's that's awesome. Yeah. I've had some
some interactions with him, mostly over over email over over
the years, but he I actually did interview him on
the Bookworm Banquet podcast a few years back, and even
before he was a part of Odyssey, I had been
a reader of his novels and so I've been a
fan of Bill Myers for many, many years. So anyway,
it was cool to hear him in this show. And
that is a hilarious story, and I'm glad you shared it. Okay, good, good,
Well we've kind of alluded to this already, but another
example of the great dynamic between Jake and Kevin. All
these crazier things are happening, These these creepy guys are
coming after Ari, all this stuff is going on. They're
trying to figure out what these weird vampire guys are doing,
and so Kevin's like, well, what gonna do now? And
Jake says something like, well, I want to keep an
eye on this guy, and he was saying he's basically
going to go stock him, and Kevin's like, did you
clear this with CPD? And Jake's like, I figured it's
easier to ask for forgiveness and permission, and Kevin's like,
you know that's not a real plan, right, yeah, And
that's exactly how two dudes would talk.
Speaker 4: To each other, you know, yes, yes, absolutely, And just
that's a perfect segue. I'm going to steal this before
you have a chance to say it. But when the
when they're talking in the car and they are like
staking out this guy and you come in towards the
end of their conversation. They've obviously been sitting there a while,
and you know, at first you're not sure what they're
talking about, but they're totally arguing about the JFK assassination.
Speaker 1: I loved that.
Speaker 2: So I loved it too.
Speaker 1: That's a very real conversation.
Speaker 4: You know, people do like that's exactly what like, you're
sitting in a car for hours and that's exactly the.
Speaker 1: Kind of stuff that you like end up talking about.
But that was so good.
Speaker 2: Arguing the assassination conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, JD.
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you right now that I'm fully
in the camp that Oswald did it, So I probably
just lost a lot of fans right there.
Speaker 1: But so that's not a reflection on JD.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know what he believes about it,
but I listened to the rest of his history podcast
about it and they convinced me like thoroughly, Well.
Speaker 2: My takes on that are way too hot for this show.
Speaker 1: So okay, yeah, no, we don't want to get into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's just just really really good. And there's
another scene. I'm not going to go into all of
the details because I don't want to spoil it, but
there's just a really funny scene with Jake sending Kevin
into the store where this one dudeceiver works and it's
just you know, he's got an ear piece in so
they can talk to each other and it's just really fun. Again,
love those characters.
Speaker 1: Classic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And as they're still investigating, there's a voice of
a character who's he's kind of like a bouncer, I guess,
but his voice cracked me up as well.
Speaker 1: It was it was a little bit cartoony, like.
Speaker 4: The it's like a big guy, but I'm here for
the cartoony that was that was really funny his voice.
And another this is a production thing and I don't
want to spoil the effect if people haven't heard it yet,
but I want to acknowledge it. And I don't know
how I'm gonna do this without spoiling it. But they
had this great moment where, like with the music and
the sound effects in the situation, it feels like it's
leading up to a jump scare, you know, like you
could tell when there's gonna be a jump scare and
then it doesn't happen, and then until it does.
Speaker 1: So anyways, yes, how's that vague?
Speaker 4: But anyways, I for as far as like when people
listen to it, they'll probably know what I'm talking about.
But I thought that was so well done. I really
really enjoyed the way that they played that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really cool too. And here's another one.
So there's a scene where we have a conversation on
the phone between Arianna and Jake, and it starts off
with with one side with with with ari and so
we're hearing the conversation from her point of view, and
then we have this shift in the sound design over
to Jake and and I think Kevin is there also
with him at the time, but that that just those
little things are so cool. I love it when I when.
Speaker 1: You do that like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like I've heard that in some other
drama before. But yeah, I that was that was a
really really cool effect.
Speaker 1: But I think my wife actually.
Speaker 4: Commented on that and how how she liked how that
played out. And I think around there he there was
a funny line from from Kevin where he says, can
I give you some unsolicit advice about Ari?
Speaker 1: And he says nope, and then he just proceeds to
give it to him anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that made me laugh out love again.
Speaker 2: It's it's what two friends would would do. It's exactly.
I mean, I we're we're probably be laboring the point,
but it's just so so good the way these guys
interact with each other. And uh, there's another couple of
interesting and funny lines. So they're they're sneaking into this
place and he gets in and Jake's like, what what
do you see or something like that, and Kevin's like,
it looks like a kitchen it hasn't been used in
a million years. And Jake's like, guess I won't be
ordering the wings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of good a lot of good
lines that, just like you said, a lot of witty,
witty dialogue.
Speaker 2: And all throughout. The music by Jared deepest Wall is
really good. I mean you referenced it just a moment ago.
How the music definitely plays a part in helping to
tell the story. But the closing music queue of part
two there, it's just it's building and there's just it's
just epic. It's it's so good. And the way that
the four parts are broken up, it's done at a
really good times in each part of the story. It's
they're like little cliffhangers with each one. It's it's done
really well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm thinking particularly of episode three here, but
they work in a flashback to something in Jake's past
right at the beginning of three, which is the perfect
time to work it in, and you're at first not sure, like,
oh is this happening real time? And then you pretty
quickly realize like, oh no, this is a flashback, you know.
But I thought the way that they handled it was
really good, Like they worked it in a good way.
Speaker 2: Dude, we are so in sync today. Notice that I
had that exactly. This is exactly what I have in
my notes. That opening scene throws you a curveball, but
it's as good a place as any for a flashback.
And I'm not going to spoil why, but it was
a great writing tactic to use it at that point.
And it's not just there to say, oh, this is
a cool flashback. It's telling a little bit about Jake's past.
Speaker 4: Which becomes important further on in the story, like we
needed to know that information for something that happens later.
But then they obviously want to tell parts of Jake's story.
But it's kind of cool how they're sprinkling in things
from his past in these I'm assuming they're going to
do that in the next couple that I haven't heard,
just putting working it in as we go.
Speaker 2: That particular event is sort of traumatized as him because
it's it's referenced in Unidentified as well, so it's something
that he's really struggling with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I I liked this is another sound design thing.
Speaker 4: I don't know which part it was, but this is
just like a hats off to the sound designer.
Speaker 1: But her dog, which I forget the name is like.
Speaker 4: Criten or something, but I had forgotten that she had
a dog, so's I guess it's the first time the
dog appears. And I was doing some work for my
company out in a field, like a farmer's field that
we had some you know, fiber going through there that
I was placing. And I'm listening to the story and
I hear a dog barking and like getting closer, and
I'm looking around. I maybe jump because I thought I
thought a dog was coming after me in that moment,
and then I realized that was all that because she
yells at the dog to be quiet or whatever. I
was like, oh no, but it sounded so real and
I genuinely thought.
Speaker 1: A dog was running out. So good job with that
dog sound effect.
Speaker 2: That's great. That's great.
Speaker 4: And also she should you know, I won't get on
this again, but she should into her dog more. Her
dog knows it best.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So you know, we talked about how this
is sort of tackling the whole vampire subculture and this
is not just a weird thing that people do around Halloween.
This is an actual crazy thing that is happening around
this country and around the world. This is not something
that was made up for this show. This is real stuff.
And so that we have a scene here with one
of those characters who's involved in that stuff, who gives
a lot of context and information about this whole thing,
but he doesn't do it in an info dumpy way.
It's again very natural in the conversation. But he's also
he's a little bit of a creepy dude. But there's
little things that he makes references to Jake and it's like, oh,
he's hitting a nerve there, and that was wondering also
if that might be another one of those little spiritual
things that it's sort of coming into play there because
some of the references that he's saying there he shouldn't
know necessarily these things about Jake. Sure, but it's maybe
like I'm not I'm not saying that he is like
possessed or anything like that, but it was it's more
like he's being he's getting nudges from from somewhere to
say certain things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah he was. And that was kind
of a theme through is there was there was character
development for Jake, you know, as he's he's wrestling through
some different things.
Speaker 2: And then we have this scene which is crazy, crazy
dramatic scene with a character called Penelope mm hmm, and
it's absolutely gripping, and there's an interaction with with her
uh and and Arianna.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a whole lot going on with that character.
But uh, what a performance by Chloe Elmore. She did
just a fantastic job with that character. And she was
not even in the same room with Sky, who was
playing Arianna. In fact, Chloe's a kiwi actually, I think so.
I think she was coming in either remotely or she
may have even recorded wild. I can't remember the specifics
on this, but the interaction there was seamless.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, I would not have known that it was wild,
if that's what it was. And I did think about
that scene and how difficult it would have been as
an actor to maintain the kind of what she was
doing with her voice, just like she was playing that
character and just the aspects of that character and like
maintaining what Yeah, I feel like I'm dancing around it
because I'm trying not just spoil things, but the way
she maintained what she.
Speaker 1: Was doing with her voice was really impressive. That would
have been hard to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just I mean, she has some heart
wrenching moments with this character and just I mean, I
don't even know what else to say. Just the performance
there was top tier. Yeah, and again, we have all
of these themes from the actual title of the show
blood running through. We have blood sacrifice and blood is life,
and there's power in the blood. And without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sins. And all of
these things are coming through, and so it's brought home
really really well. And Penelope says, I don't remember now
if this was in the conversation with Ari or with Jake,
but she says, Jesus blood, we used to use that
as a curse. And I don't know if that's a
real thing that that Darby found out in his research
and worked it in, but it seems plausible that people
in that kind of environment or that subculture would would
use something like that, because again, this is coming from
down Under. Well no, that sounds like I'm talking about Australia.
That is like, this is this is coming from the
nether world. You know, this stuff is as we said,
it's a it's a perversion of the gospel that that
say has has foisted on humanity. And so it makes
sense well, And the.
Speaker 4: Idea that you can get power from any blood other
than the blood of Jesus, that's such a typical Satan
lie to make you think that you can get power
of your own volition through taking advantage of other people
or whatever, that humanity is enough to get to the
kind of power that really it only comes through the
blood of Jesus.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we come to the final part of this
four parter and again lots of character development with Jake
throughout this, but a whole lot in the last part.
And we have another great conversation with phil as pastor
Omac and it's sort of kind of a mirror of
the conversation they had in the hotel room in Unidentified
but this time he's talking with him, just just a
frank conversation with his pastor and I love that. And
he's talking about violence versus non violence and when it's
appropriate and those kind of things. And he's trying to
tell Jake or illustrate to him, maybe you're not handling
this super well. You know, you need to check yourself,
look in at how you're handling things. And he didn't
just he wasn't like Nathan looking at David and saying
you're the man, you know, but he was saying in
a roundabout way, there's a better way to handle this.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think Frank is a little soft. I think he
was pretty blunt. And I actually wrote down tense Conversation
with the Pastor because I felt like he was very,
very forthright.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, he wasn't beating around
the bush, but he wasn't I don't know. I didn't
feel like he was doing it in a way that
would sound like overly accusatory and make Jake be defensive
or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I am glad you probably have of
a would handle.
Speaker 4: That conversation better than I would have, because I felt
defensive just listening, all right, all right, But I.
Speaker 2: Think those those moments are really cool, and I'm glad
that Darby is writing those sorts of things into these shows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I did. I did make no of the.
Speaker 4: They I'm glad that conversation was there because there were
some things that needed to be dealt with with how
Jake had handled situations earlier in the drama and it
wasn't appropriate and it was uncomfortable, and it was important
that that get addressed.
Speaker 1: So I'm yeah, I'm glad that conversation was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have another character and I won't spoil
exactly what happens in this scene, but it's just a
really interesting little twist. I know that's super vague, but
he's only in one scene, but he has this interaction
with Jake and it's just like a really really cool
little thing.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think I just got what you were talking about.
Speaker 2: You'll know it when you get to it. It's in
episode four, and it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Is this a cameo of someone we yeah? Yeah, okay,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: But you know, we've mentioned several different sound design moments
all throughout and it's really well done. But I mean,
we have some big moments, like a car crash scene
and that that combat flashback scene, and then we have
this this I'm gonna call the final confrontation scene in
episode four. There's just I mean, Micah is painting with
audio in these scenes, like there's layer upon layer and
there's all this stuff going, but it doesn't sound busy,
it sounds real. It's doing what it needs to do
to tell the story. And all of those big moments
are fantastic, but even the mundane moments, the just the
daily life moments there all super immersive as well. It's
just really really well done.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: He threw a couple of other little tidbits at me
about the sound designer. Overall, there are over three thousand
pieces of audio in the project file or the session
for this audio drama, over three thousand audio files, and
he said that he likes to use intercoms and things
like that to help set the scene, sometimes in airports
or hospitals and things like that. So in one scene,
in the hospital scene, we have the scene opening up
with doctor making an announcement like that's a cool way
without putting in the dialogue exactly what's going on. It's
a really good way to help tell story in audio
drama is to use those sorts of things. It's really smart.
But one of the cool things in this particular case
is that one of the voices there are coming over
the intercom was Mike's wife. He texted her, can you
record this real quick on your phone? And so she recorded,
like he said, she was probably in the kitchen or
something on her iPhone with a voice memo and sent
it to him and he used that to as the
voice of a doctor making an announcement over the intercom
in the hospital.
Speaker 1: That's cool, Yeah, I'm ready. He shared those tidbits with you.
Those are so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love this kind of stuff. And he also
sent me the song that's playing on the radio in
the background of that furniture store scene too.
Speaker 1: It's like, really that stuff is that he pulled from somewhere?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he sourced it. It's not like a well known
like top forty hit or any kind of anything like that.
It's probably a royalty free thing. And it's fun to
work those sorts of things in because I mean, most
places of business have a radio playing, and so you
have to use that kind of stuff. But you can't
go pull, you know, your favorite song up from your
favorite artist and use that kind of stuff. You can't
get the licensing for that. It is crazy. Now. I
know that's common to do in film and TV. They
do that then they license those, but for these kinds
of projects, you know, it's not feasible, and so doing
that kind of stuff is great, and so I mean,
I've done the same thing with some of the projects
I've worked on with One day in Aspen Creek, I
found a song that sounds like a normal pop single
from you know, the top forty radio station, but it's
a royalty free from an artist that puts out their
music for free and then you can use it. So
I've done that before. And then another time I used
a song that Christopher Green wrote and recorded as just
a project for himself, and I got his permission to
use that as a song. So if you listen really
closely to the radio that's playing in the background, you'll
hear his song. And another thing I did this is
a little bit of a sidetrack again, but in one
scene in one of my Aspen Tree episodes, I didn't
want to just have one song plaguing the whole time,
because you can do that, and there's nothing wrong with
doing that, but I thought it would be interesting to
in the background we have a part of a song
and then it ends, and then the DJ comes on
and makes an announcement, and then it goes into the
next song. So I have that whole sequence and then
I actually voiced the DJ as well, so it's way
back in the mix and you can't hear you know
who it is or anything like that. But anyway, it's
fun those little behind the scenes things.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that it just gives it lends so much more
realism in things that you might say, well, who's going
to notice that, but it just it puts you there
in the scene and it makes a difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Like I didn't.
Speaker 4: Really think about the song playing over the intercom at
the furniture store, but it felt like a there at
an actual furniture store, and that's why, you know, though,
I wasn't really thinking about the song itself, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and if it hadn't been there, it might have
sounded weird or awkward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's cool.
Speaker 2: Well, we're about to the end, and again we're not
gonna spoil any of the climax of the story, and
and there's some really cool things that happen. But I
do want to mention one of the things that that
Ari says to Jake at one point, and she says,
you know, demons exist to make us look like fools.
She said, did you think he was going to take
it easy on you, and I was like, man, that's
that's a really good line there, you know. Yeah, I
liked that. You know, she's like the devil wasn't messing.
Speaker 4: Around, right, Yeah, yeah, a lot of the spiritual warfare elements.
It reminded me of some of the things that were
played out in like The Father Gilbert, that air radio drama. Yeah,
definitely different storyline, different, you know, lots of differences, but
there were a couple of elements that made me think
of that because that's another another one where it's dealing
with the demonic and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and Darby has even said that, you know,
he's inspired a lot by what Paul McCusker did with
the Thunder Gilbert stories. So they were they were wanting
to make something they had that same kind of feel
but in a completely different setting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and they they handled it differently, but yeah,
it did have that field.
Speaker 1: I did notice that. And this doesn't really fit right here.
Speaker 4: But I I was gonna say this back when we
were talking about Micah, but I wanted to shout out
another influence he's had on these dramas is his Louisiana knowledge,
and he referenced Boudan, which before I'm married to a
Louisiana girls, so I wouldn't have known what that was before.
But we have stopped at Billy's gas station for some
boot An balls and they're delicious and I don't want
to know what's in them, but I just appreciate that
reference to the threre in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the Louisiana influences are very strong in the
next one, undhead for yeah.
Speaker 1: Because it does it take place in Louisiana.
Speaker 4: Yep, Oh okay, yeah, I haven't heard it yet, so
I'm curious what my wife will say. And then of
course we should have mentioned that there was a familiar
voice right at the end that I wasn't expecting, but
brilliant vocal talent by the bystander, which really should you know,
be top of the chart here and we just read
to give top billing to JD the bystander.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was such a privilege to get to be
involved in this project.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I laughed, I cried and moved.
Speaker 2: Me And how cool to get to hear my name
is spoken in the credits by Chris Fabry. I mean
that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That is cool. That is cool.
Speaker 4: I one other vocal thing. I didn't notice the character
of Stayne who voiced it in the credits, but it
reminded me of the voice for one of the villains
in the Jonathan Park, one of the Jonathan Park albums
that we I think it had to be the same guy,
but was it? And I was thinking it was Nato Jacobson,
but I didn't see his name in the credits, so
maybe it was Jonathan Cook.
Speaker 1: No, it was Josh Murray really the voice stay saying.
But so then that wouldn't been the same actor.
Speaker 2: Right from now, he's been in at Vinum and I
think he's been in some of the Jonathan Park as well,
So I don't know which you're thinking of. It very
well could have been I'm not sure, but it could
have been.
Speaker 4: I remember the there was some albums where they were
going to like Athens and then to Israel, and they
were it was like it had something to do with
all these different religions. Yeah, that they were interacting with
and there was a bad guy with like a really
goofy henchman.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, they were.
Speaker 4: Both there were they were kind of like more comical
and this was definitely not comical. But I kept hearing
that vocal. There's certain vocal signatures that I'll pick it
up that I remembered from that that other character. So
I don't know if it's the same actor.
Speaker 2: I can't remember off the top of my head if
that was him or not, but it could have been,
because he's definitely done some stuff for Wise King Media.
But Yeah, just a fantastic performance here in this show,
Like wow, I mean, he has the more regular interactions
in some places where it's just I mean, he's creepy
all throughout. He's got a sinister feel to the character
the entire time, but at the end here when everything
kind of goes crazy. Man, just a fantastic job.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And Halean Haylen Haylean. I forget exactly how it was pronounced.
Speaker 4: Well, they kind of played with that, like where they
were some characters were saying Halon and then the guy
who knew him was like Halen. Like I feel like
they were intentionally played with the pronunciation of his name.
Speaker 2: He was played by Jonathan Bullock and he did a
great job too. Seaver was played by Jonathan Cook and
so we had a really really great cast of actors.
I mean, the talent that they've been working with is
so good. And we also have Andy Harvey and John Fornoff,
Randy Strew, just some great, great voice artists in this production.
Amy Lily is in here again she was in the
first one, and just a brief scene again here, just
a very brief scene as well, but just some super
talented people and they all gave amazing performances. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
speaking of the pronunciation of names, this was something I
picked up in the first one, and that was with
the name of Ariana. And I can't remember exactly because
I haven't listened to Unidentified recently, but there were some
people that were saying Ariana and others were saying Ariana.
And I think it's supposed to be Ariana because that's
the most common pronunciation. And in this one, I think
pretty much everybody says Ariana except for Chris Fabr at
the end in the credits, he says ariana.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well he doesn't know where personally, so.
Speaker 2: But I also really liked the wrap up at the
end by Darby kind of the Chris of Jaco Muller Adventures.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this one felt like it had more of
like the first one. Definitely felt like it ended more
on a cliffhanger where things weren't wrapped up and it's
still like unclear you know, where things are going, And
this one felt like it though obviously there's still a
through line, but it felt like it kind of wrapped
it up a little bit neater, you know, with the
expectation that there's more adventures coming. But like, I don't
know if I'm making sense, but it just seemed like
it came to a conclusion.
Speaker 2: You know. This app Yeah, a little bit more resolution
this time around.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Resolution, that's a good word for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you mentioned this at the top. But the
study guide, it's a thirty six page study guide, and
it's broken down into sections by episode and then by scene,
and each section has three parts. We have Listening Well,
which is like comprehension questions. We have Thinking Further, which
are discussion questions with lots of scripture references. I mean,
there's a ton of scripture that's mentioned there. And then
we have a section called Defining Words, and so it's
like a list of and terms that might need explanation.
And then this is followed by three short Bible studies
on some relevant topics. And then there's also a place
for notes, so that is a really good resource. It
might be something if you are homeschooling, maybe for your
high school age kids, this would be a great resource.
They have a digital version and a print version of
this study guide, So I think it's a fantastic tool.
It's done really well. It looks really good too, Like
it's easy to throw together a PDF and just put
some information in it, but this is actually formatted and
designed really well as well. So I think that is
definitely a bonus and really good stuff there to help
prompt discussion and kind of dig into some of the themes
and some of the actions of some of the characters
and why they're doing. Even the thing that you talked about,
how we have this conversation between Nate and Jake about
Nate not being a Christian, but then later on he's
working very closely with Kevin, who is not a Christian,
And that's actually brought up in the study guide. So
here's an example of one of them. It says, Jake
knows he's in a spiritual battle. Why do you suppose
he relies so much, almost exclusively on O'Hare, who isn't
even a Christian. So that's one of the things that
is in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know, tell me, I'm confused by that.
Speaker 2: So Jake Muller Adventures Number two Blood. It's an amazingly
well done audio drama. Sound design music by Jered de Pesqual, fantastic.
The actors all did a great job, the script is
well written, it's fantastic. And then we have number three Undead,
which is out already if you haven't heard it, that's
already available. And then number four is called Engineered. It's
coming very soon, possibly in May so on just next month.
So Jake Mallard Adventures, they're putting them out there and
they're doing a really, really good job. Again, if you
haven't heard Unidentified yet, you'll want to go listen to
that first, and I would say go buy it to
support the producers so you can actually help fund future shows.
But if you can't swing both of these right now
and you want to get Blood, you can go and
listen to Unidentified on Drama PHI. So link is in
the show notes to listen to that. You can listen
to it on the free tier of Drama PI, the
ad supported version, and then you can pop over and
get a copy of blood if you need to. But
my final thoughts, I'm loving what they're doing. We've said
it before on the show. We need more audio drama
for adults and older teens that's still clean and has
a good, moral, wholesome message to it, and that's what
they're doing with the show, and I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: If you like thriller and like supernatural themes, then I
think you'll enjoy this.
Speaker 2: You talked about referencing the Father Gilbert stuff, but it's
also like kind of feels if we're looking at books,
it feels a little Frank Peretti or Ted Decker as well.
So it's it's got a lot of these sort of
themes that some of these other writers have addressed in
other ways, but they're doing some really cool stuff. So yes,
I highly recommend this for the older listeners. And talking
about spiritual warfare, there's a connection that you have in
a story that you've written to spiritual warfare. Oh yeah,
so tell the listener a little bit about Darkened Eyes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was It's a novel that I wrote
and published and it's available on Amazon and well anywhere
you can get.
Speaker 1: Books, I suppose where good books are sold at all
bookstores for although you may have to request it. I
don't know if there's stocking in everywhere.
Speaker 4: But it was born out of the group that I
was part of, which was really into the skater culture
at the time, and so my main character is a skater,
but there's a lot of spiritual warfare elements in that
story as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thanks for plugging that, JD.
Speaker 2: You bet. Yeah, it's it's a it's a great book,
and it's kind of tackling some similar issues, obviously not
from the vamporism sort of angle, but definitely has spiritual
warfare elements and even more overtly though I would say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. The theme is like the battle
over over a person's soul that's happening in the And
also JD actually made a book trailer for me where
he voices some of the supernatural characters.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: In one of the scenes, he reads a section of
the scene and he put music and he put vocal effects,
and that's it's really cool and I think I believe
I have it hosted on my website if anybody wants
to hear it, which is Michael Schrader Author dot com
and Traders spelled like Schroeder, just to make so that
nobody can ever actually find it. But the link who's
in the show notes right.
Speaker 2: Gee, yes it is, Yes, it is okay. And also
speaking of links in the show notes, there's also a
link to an episode of the lamp Ladder podcast Fastened
like Nails. Because you were just a guest on that
show talking with Mark Camby. Give a little pitch for
that real quick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was super fun and a very different kind
of conversation. But we were talking about something that I
found as I was studying in the Psalms. Were doing
a Psalm's Bible study. Me and my wife had been
studying it, and it has to do with the structure
of how the Bible's written. Mark Camby loves talking about
not just what the Bible says, but how it says it,
and talks about like the way that Biblical poetry works
and with across sticks and chiasms and things like that.
And I found something that I hadn't heard anybody talk
about it, and I've had lots of conversations with him
about things like that. So I sent him an email
and I said, Hey, what do you think of this?
And he said, why don't you come on the podcast
to talk about it? So that was really cool of
them to have me on. And it was a really
fun conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really interesting if you like digging into the scriptures,
it was a really interesting conversation. So that is also
linked in the show notes. Any final thoughts on Jake
mueller Adventures.
Speaker 4: Blood No, yeah, thank you for bringing me on to
talk about it. I was it's exciting that they're putting
these out.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, no profound words to wrap this up, but
I think if this has peaked your interest at all,
if you haven't heard it yet linked in the show notes,
go in and get your copy. It's available on CD
or as a digital download. I think it's worth your time.
Speaker 1: You're here.
Speaker 5: Let's see what do we have in the mailbag?
Speaker 1: It looks like letters or something.
Speaker 2: Is that your phone?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Hello, I just sent you a text. You've got
tons of comments on that entry. You're like famous. Oh,
let me get to these comments.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, what nuver you calling?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is that time of the episode to hear
from you. If you would like to get in touch
with us, you can send your emails to feedback at
audiotheatercentral dot com. You can always comment on the show
notes of each episode, or you can send a text
or leave a voicemail at our feedback line which is
six three six eight eight two seven seven zero Again
six three six eight eight two seven seven zero. Well,
first up is a comment from Abby. She commented on
our post ranking all the patch the Pirate Adventures that
had been published up to that point when this was
published a couple of years ago, written by Austin Peache.
But she left a comment saying, loved this article and
I've read it multiple times. Fun to relive some of
the nostalgia, and I'm excited to listen to the ones.
I haven't. Probably stopped listening after Pleasure Island because I
grew up, but now I have kids. Great writing and
great reviews. Well, thank you so much Abby for the comment.
Really appreciate that. Love to hear that she enjoyed it
so much that she read it multiple times, And just
want to drop this in here. If you haven't checked
out our website, there are years of great articles like
this one that you can check out. And if you're
only a listener to the podcast, thank you for listening.
But to be sure to hop over to the website
every now and again and see all of the great
content we've got there as well. Next up is a
comment from Grayson on episode two twenty six, the previous
episode where we reviewed Adventures not Odyssey number seventy seven
a new perspective. He says, I was thinking when one
of you guys mentioned that episode nine eighty eight, the
Heavens Declare and the Truth Chronicles are similar to Jonathan Park,
except that Jonathan Park has more action in them. I
was thinking of the Jonathan Park episode where they get
trapped in a supposedly haunted house which they should be
trying to escape from, but they interrupt that plot with
the lesson, which is why I prefer how Odyssey does it.
But I do agree that episode nine eighty eight is
not the most exciting episode. I also don't remember if
they ever mentioned Zoe's age on the show, but I
always pictured Jay and Zoe around the same age. I
also didn't notice the garage door opening sound, so that's cool. Yeah,
that is an interesting point. I've heard from a lot
of different people about Jonathan Park. Some people that grew
up with that show and absolutely love it. They really
like the way that there was a lot of teaching,
a lot of apologetics worked into the stories, and others
who thought it did interrupt the story a little bit. So,
you know, I guess it just depends on what you're
used to and if that really is the main point
of the show is to teach a lesson, then I
guess it makes sense to use that route. But the
particular volume that you mentioned there, Grayson, that is a
really interesting point. It's a good example of it, because, yeah,
that is overall there's a lot of action going on,
but yeah, it's interesting. There are different ways to do this,
and it really just depends on the goal of the production,
what you're trying to do with the story. Are you
trying to to tell a good story that illustrates a
lesson or are you trying to teach a lesson and
using story and characters as just the vehicle or the
method to do teaching. So, you know, again, it depends
on the purpose, and there are different ways of approaching it.
I personally typically prefer the method that is not quite
so overt, But to each their own, so I guess
it's great that we have options that do both to
cater to different people's tastes and about the ages of
Jay and Zoe on Odyssey. Yeah, I don't know if
the ages have ever been explicitly stated. This is probably
something that has been addressed on the official podcast. People
ask questions like this a lot, and I think I
remember them talking about which grades these kids are in
at school, but I don't remember the specifics off of
the top of my head right now, but I think
they are pretty close in age. Grayson also says I
was wondering, after you guys review album eighty rewritten, will
you guys review the AIO club exclusive mainstream albums? Yes,
And just to clarify, there aren't going to be really
mainstream albums anymore. It's just going to be everything is
just going to be episodes of Odyssey. There's only going
there's not going to be mainstream versus club. But I
know what you're saying there and now what you're asking,
and yes, we will continue to review episodes. I don't
know exactly how we're going to do that. We have
been in discussions about how we're going to approach this
going forward. So if you have a preference, should we
still keep doing six episodes at a time, Should we
go back to doing twelve like we did when the
albums were released, twelve at a time. Should we do
three at a time or should we keep it flexible
depending on how the episodes get released, because sometimes there
might be a three or four parter, you know that
that might end in the middle of the next six
episode chunk or whatever, So it's gonna be a little
bit confusing. We're still trying to figure all that out,
but yes, we will be reviewing those episodes going forward.
Thanks for the questions and the feedback, Grayson and Abby.
Well that's going to do it for this episode. Thanks
to Michael for joining me for the review segment. And
don't forget the ATC Insiders, which is our newsletter, and
we'll email you about the cool stuff we're up to
in between episodes. It's very infrequent, so you won't have
to worry about us spamming you all the time. But
it's just a way to keep the contact open if
we need to get some time sensitive information out to you,
and if you'd like to get in touch with us,
head over to Audio Theatercentral dot com slash contact and
don't forget the show notes for this episode. Audio Theatercentral
dot com. Slash two two seven links to everything we've
talked about in this episode are going to be there
and I will talk to you next time. Thank you
for listening. Audio Theater Central is a production of Porchlit
Family Media. Our theme music was composed by Sam Avandanio.
The show is produced and edited by Yours Truly. Our
website is audio Theatercentral dot com.
Speaker 4: Porkslight Familymedia your source for family centered content. Porchlightfamilymedia dot
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