This is my first review of some of the many podcasts I listen to. I decided to start with Week in Whedon because I always forget what it is like and I just listened to it today. I’m working on a uniform format, so things may change in future reviews.
Sound Quality: Excellent
Caster’s Communication Skills: Good
Content: Good
Website: Fair
Scale: Crap/Poor/Fair/Good/Excellent
Week in Whedon (iTunes) is a podcast dedicated to covering all things Joss Whedon. Sam and Kevin cover stories from various websites dedicated to Buffy, Angel, and Firefly/Serinity delivering them in there own style.
It’s a “living room” podcast, meaning it is two people talking about the subject in their living room. At their worst, these kind of podcast are as boring as cat blogs. But that’s not the case here. A husband and wife team, Sam and Kevin alternate back and forth telling the stories, asking the questions and laughing at each other.
I have to confess the first time I listened to the show I thought Sam’s voice was very sexy. I still do. Given these two run a podcast dedicated to a Science Fiction writer, I expected them to look like a lot of SF geeks I’ve met at various cons. While the picture they posted on the show’s Frapper site is certainly the height of geekiness, they are a fine looking couple. I think this will be the last time I discuss the looks of podcasters. I’m starting to creep myself out.
The show is fun and their beginnings are usually hilarious. So funny they don’t normally make it all the way through without cracking up. Today’s was the first one I’ve heard where they said their real names, before saying they were Sonny and Cher. They have a new promo that I’m sure caused people to wonder about my as I walked to my car laughing maniacally at what was coming out of my iPod.
A lot of podcast’s sound quality suck. Normally it gets better every episode and WoW has been around awhile. It’s always sounded good as long as I’ve been listening.
Kevin and Sam are normally able to read their stories and even do so dramatically. Very often they get too cracked up and can’t finish a story, which can grate a little. Sam has the tendency to say “Oh my Gosh” a lot, but I’m sure that’s because Kevin always doing screwy things. Yeah it must be his fault. 🙂
The podcast’s website is a disappointment. It did get better this week because they got a domain that actually means something weekinwhedon.org. It is important to have an easily remembered URL when the main way people will get it is saying it out loud.
They don’t do a great job of putting all the things they talk about into the show notes either. They have a weekly prop watch, but they don’t have those links up. OK I’m just stupid. I didn’t find the “read more” link and wasn’t looking at the full entry. Suggestion: make that link more prominent in your site’s theme.
If you are into the Whedonverse, the podcast will be right up your alley. If not, it will probably just freak you out. But I just received 140 hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the mail yesterday, so I qualify. And I wouldn’t have gotten the great price I got ($111.89) if it hadn’t been for WoW pointing me to the DeepDiscountDVD 20% deal.
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