Boom: A Serial Drama Podcast [Review]

Boom: A Serial Drama Podcast is made by Faith McQuinn of Observer Picture. This podcast tells a story of Porter, a computer technician who have to deal with the murder that he witness himself, of his own best friend and love of his life, Genevieve. And not only dealing with his grief and scars, he also only face the fact that he became the suspect of the tragedy.

The first thing I realized was that the pace of this audio drama is really fast. We find out the incident straight in the first episode, and most of the characters also showed up in third of the entire season. It also should be noted that the duration of the episodes are fairly short, almost not even 15 minutes.

So, with that short of time, are the details behind the mystery behind Gen's murder revealed soon? Surprisingly–and kinda weirdly–no. Apparently, I'm a bit mislead by the summary of the podcast, Boom is more of drama rather than investigative mystery.

The story focused mainly to Porter and how he handle the loss and trauma of losing his love and surviving a bomb blast. He has to face that alone, while his friends, family, and therapist are trying to help him.

To be honest, Porter is a many things for me. For most, he is an annoying brat. Screaming and shooting dagger to any hands that honestly try to help him, even his nurse. But then again, we heard him alone when his painful scars keeps re-opened with nightmares about Gen.
Porter is the proof that grief is relative. People handle it differently, and sometimes, spewing poison is a way of coping with it. The actor behind the character (Garrett DeLozier) is amazing enough to made me realize this.

I am actually really okay with character-driven, instead of plot-driven, podcast. Boom's writing is....adequately good in handling it. See, this podcast is trying to put the entire characters development and emotion in a too short of a time. This lead into where though we listen the character's struggle with his emotion, but we're not given any time to let our emotion to be put into his position. Plus, new main character and major development are also introduced just in half the way of episodes–in one and half hour total. Of course, the real story happens in more than a year time, but we doesn't really feel that time span, one moment we listen Porter getting cold sweat nightmare, and just in couple minutes he's happily hiking with his best friends and (spoiler alert) proposing his new girlfriend.

Yet, thankfully, Boom is not a one time podcast like Steal The Stars or LifeAfter. The season one has ended, but they will be back in March 2018. So, I dare say–without spoiling anything, that the fast story jump would just be a preparation for the actual mystery and drama to be revealed next. And I will most definitely hanging on to this podcast.

The other reason I love this podcast is the voice talents behind it. Not only the character Porter, but all of the characters in it, no matter how small they are, are portrayed nicely. Not over the top, and most definitely not a flat script-reader. The sound engineering is also good, they could portrayed nicely the various surroundings, and astonishingly, as well as the flashback, voice-inside-your-head, and the nightmares scenes.

So, though I'm a bit annoyed by its short episodes, but I still can't wait to listen what this podcast will bring next.

Oh, extra thought, this audio drama, even though it's short, is a heavy ones to binge into. Not because the intricate details, but all the emotions in it. We're dealing with some depiction of post traumatic stress in here, also a bit turbulent relationship with family members and close friends, so I just think it could be too unsettling for some people to listen to. Please be wise, okay?     

Other than that, enjoy.

Note:

• Observer Picture official website
• Boom on Stitcher and iTunes
• genre: performing arts, drama, mystery
• recommended if you like: podcast with short episodes, amazing acting, and heavily character-driven story like The Bright Sessions. 
• caution for: traumatic and stressful situation, description of bomb incident, kidnapping situation, mental and emotional abuse, discussion of sex.