Difficulty tracking character names and relationships was the only real problem I had in the whole pilot. The voice actors themselves are stellar, bringing a needed surreal and charismatic quality to their characters. Needle Stitch and The Bright Sessions’ Julia Morizawa are standouts in this pilot, along with the very distinctive voices of Cinder Script and SkyBolt. Some of the voices have undergone modulation in order to indicate an otherworldly or mechanical quality, or an environmental effect, which resulted in occasional comprehension issues, but for the most part only helped distinguishing character attitudes. The fact that all of the characters sound like they are all in the same room almost the entire time, especially considering this is an audio drama made of remote recordings, speaks to a lot of effort and experience in production.

This focus on production and editing brings me to the aspects of this pilot that truly and completely enchanted me: the music and the fight scenes. The musical variety throughout was a series of surprising, yet wonderful, decisions, from orchestral to classical to hip-hop, an original composition and curation that keeps listeners on their toes and provides good counterbalance. None of the music ever overtook dialogue, only ever worked to enhance scenes and atmosphere, and honestly made me want a soundtrack. The music is often a highlight of this show, especially considering when they are paired with the fight scenes.

I’ve heard from some that the audio medium means that extended fight scenes are not as successful or interesting, and to include more than one fight scene that is longer than just a couple of punches is something of a risk. Untypical takes that risk and proves them all wrong. There are multiple, perfectly spaced fight scenes, each with their own musical accompaniment that changes the direction, quality, and mentality of the fight. While you may not be able to follow the exact moves, the sharpness and clarity of weapon sounds and ease of timing, grouped with not-overbearing reactions to the fight so that you can understand how it went throughout, means that Untypical has really figured out how to bring action to the audio format.

Untypical does a marvelous job of balancing the serious and strange with fun and goofy, aided by acting quality, musical choices, and thoughtful scriptwriting. This audio drama is reminiscent of Firefly for me, with the weirdness meter turned up to eleven. The pilot drops February 16th and I hope you will give it a listen.