Popular Reviews of terrestrial

With the high volume of podcasts that pass through my ears on any given week, it is rare to get sucked into an unplanned binge-listening affair. The most likely time for that to happen is when I'm reviewing a drama that can't be fairly parsed without a sense of the arc across a season. This week, however, the non-fiction narrative reporting show featured in this segment got me to inadvertently stream all six episodes of it's inaugural season. Terrestrial is built around the theme of people connecting to their community via an environmental issue. The stories in season one range from the entanglement of pollution and race, to a new experiment with body composting, to the decision to have kids in the face of a planet careening toward environmental ruin. Unlike other podcasts in which the environment surfaces, this show takes climate change as a given without lip service to a) how it is clearly happening, b) how it is clearly being undercut by skeevy politicians/corporations, or c) how it is clearly overblown by media elites. If you are looking for a politically charged debate or even a well-meaning contrarian approach to the topic, this is not the place for that. While the show could be called left-leaning (would you expect anything less from a product of a Seattle-based public radio station?) the tone isn't too preachy or one-sided. Much like the short-lived Placemakers podcast from venerated radio personality Rebecca Sheir, the scope of Terrestrial is national and local at the same time. It has an organic feel that doesn't spring up on more highly produced shows. Not to say that the technical elements are raw or unpolished, but rather that an earnest tone bleeds through that might be edited out of a show from a larger network. The episodes are breezy - rarely reaching past 20 minutes - and the topic of each one could lead to a lengthy conversation if listened to with a partner. These are issues that either have the potential to affect everyone, or are already doing so in some possibly unseen manner. When season two hits, I'm all in.