Voyage to the Stars Episode 1 review: Perfectly sets up the story
Voyage to the Stars dropped its first episode this week. After giving the podcast a listen, it’s time to break it down. Let me say, it’s the perfect start to the story.
Voyage to the Stars isn’t quite Supernatural but it does include an important Supernatural alum. Felicia Day plays Elsa, the science officer, and after chatting to her about this podcast, it only seemed fair to give it a listen. And I’m glad I did! This is something that, if you can listen to podcasts, you’ll want to check out.
While it’s an improvised podcast, you’d never know listening to it — and in a good way. From the first second, you’re pulled into this story and you forget that they’re making a lot of this up as they go based on the reactions of their fellow cast members. The cast may have an outline, but nobody has a full script.
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Voyage to the Stars introduces each of the main characters. Felicia Day introduced each of the characters quickly for us during her interview, so it was certainly fun to see them all come to life through the audio. And yes, they do come to life.
Despite not being able to see anything acted out, you can tell where people are meant to be, who they are, and get a hint of when they’re not being completely truthful. It’s not easy to make emotions come through just the voice — we often need facial expressions to help really cement a feeling — but that’s not the case with Voyage to the Stars. You can imagine the facial expressions the characters would have if they were on TV or in a comic.
For example, there’s one point where the “captain” is trying to prove he knows what he’s doing. Before anyone else realizes, you can hear in his voice that he has no idea what he’s doing.
Because the characters can’t waste time describing where they are — they’ll describe the worm hole and some of the things they see, but this isn’t about describing their actions like you’d get in a book or through audio description on a TV — background noise is needed. There are moments of others chatting in the background, running of feet, and computer-generated noises for the AI, Sorry. All these elements thrown together immerse you into this experience.
Naturally, this is just the first episode. It introduces the characters — and that’s made effortlessly by the characters being introduced to each other — and sets up the plot. The next episode is where we’ll get into more detail, so it will be interesting to see how much of the good from the first episode continues into the second.
Overall, the episode was funny and not from listening to awkward improvisations. The cast has immediately gelled well and the characters’ personalities are sure to set up some hilarious problems.
Have you listened to Voyage to the Stars yet? Will you give it a try? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Voyage to the Stars is on all your major podcast apps and sites and is released weekly.