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Podcast Reviews and Other Short Pieces

 

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Next Door Villain Brings The Pain

It’s Review Time!

Early this week, pod-rockstar Arielle Nissenblatt (https://twitter.com/arithisandthat) tweeted to her almost 13K followers a list of the reviewers she works with, yours truly included. And I got a number of pitches. So many pitches that to review them all, it would take me until the end of the year. So I turned a few down, those that I didn’t think I would enjoy for the subject matter. Which left me with months’ worth of podcasts to review. So I got that going for me.

The first of what I’m going to call the Nissenblatt Reviews is Next Door Villain, an indie podcast that looks at villains in popular culture and tries to uncover their humanity. The show is hosted by Joe Anderson and Tiana Hennings, who describe themselves as “a couple regular people” but, if you listen to the show and check out their IG, they clearly are much more talented than your average Joe.

I listened to two episodes focusing on the Queen of Hearts (specifically in the original Alice In Wonderland film from 1951) and Hans Gruber (Die Hard), everyone’s favorite Grinch (because yes, it is a Christmas movie, Yippie Ki Yay Motherfucker!).

But first, it’s everyone favorite part of my reviews, the caveats. I normally don’t enjoy chit chat shows. Interviews? Yes. Two people yakkin? Please. So I came into this one worried I was going to despise it for that reason and I gotta say as a credit to Joe and Tiana, it wasn’t that at all.

I started with the Queen of Hearts episode because I love Alice In Wonderland (no, not you Mr. Depp, sit down) and I truly enjoyed the deep dive the pair did into The Queen of Hearts and the entire film/story as a whole. And from there I moved on to the Hans Gruber episode, which was even better and it made me glad I decided to check out a 2nd episode.

Because here’s the negative; the Queen of Hearts episode, while enlightening, wasn’t very entertaining. Which is the downside of the ‘two people chatting’ kind of podcasts. If one, or both, has an off-episode, the entire episode crumbles. Happily, I can report that this wasn’t the case with Hans Gruber, which was an entertaining episode I shared with a buddy who loves Die Hard.

The major pros of this show are the hosts. Joe is a calming presence and, from two episodes, clearly the deep and insightful one. Tiana, on the other hand, is the funny and creative one (although Joe, on another show, could claim the creative title). I love their personal take at the end of episodes, where one reads a poem or lyrics inspired by that week’s topic. At the end of the Queen of Hearts episode, Tiana recited/sang a poem inspired by the Queen and to say it was enchanting would be an understatement. It immediately made me want to check out another episode.

By the end of two episodes, I wasn’t sure I would keep listening to the show, but I definitely wanted to be friends with both of the hosts and take part in similar conversations.

Overall, I’d give the show high marks for creativity, and say when they’re on, Joe and Tiana can hang with the best of them. It’s a solid 4.25 out of 5!

Check out Next Door Villain at their website or on Great Pods!