IAN
Hi folks, this is Ian W. Hill, the co-creator and sound designer of the science-fiction sitcom for your ears, LIFE WITH ALTHAAR, currently in the middle of its third and final season, and I’m here with co-creator and showrunner, Berit Johnson—
BERIT
Hello!
IAN
We also both write, act, and do almost all the other jobs on the show—
BERIT
Along with the other 23 members of the Gemini CollisionWorks theater company.
IAN
And we’re coming to you, as always, from the Gemini CollisionWorks Radiophonic Workshop deep below South Brooklyn, an audio wonderland where anything can happen!
BERIT
Platypus parkour! (sound of platypus parkour)
IAN
What?! Oh, wow, look at 'em go. (ahem) So what we’ll be sharing with you here in this year’s Nominee Showcase is “Dial ‘O’ for Bigelow,” episode 20, from October of 2020, midway through our second season. As for what you might need to know about the characters, well, LIFE WITH ALTHAAR is the story of John B.
BERIT
A spectacularly unlucky Human who was forced to leave Earth after an incident that cost him his job, his girlfriend, his family, and his legal right to call himself Human in the first place.
IAN
And his friend and roommate, Althaar.
BERIT
Who is an Iltorian, a species considered throughout the Galaxy to be kindest, sweetest, most delightfully considerate beings you’d ever want to meet.
IAN
But who look, to Humans, like unspeakable eldritch horrors that we absolutely can’t catch so much as a glimpse of without vomiting in abject terror.
BERIT
And that’s if you’re lucky.
IAN
Right. And all this is happening on the Human Exchange Concourse, better known as the Fairgrounds, a space station that was built to host the First Annual Galactic Fair, an event intended to show off Humanity’s greatness to the rest of the Galaxy.
BERIT
And which turned out to be a really good example of why you never call something the “First Annual” until you’re sure there’s going to be a second one. So, the Fairgrounds ended up as a decrepit rest stop for sapients on their way out of Human space to somewhere better, or a permanent residence for folks with nowhere better to go.
IAN
We should note that a lot of the staff on The Fairgrounds are robots who were originally built to portray famous figures from Human history and fiction. They were reprogrammed to do new jobs, but it wasn’t cost-effective to update their appearances or voices, so some of them may sound familiar.
BERIT
As for the other non-Human characters: Mrs. Frondrinax is a plant being of the Fugulnari species, who looks exactly like a common parlor palm from Earth, and by this point in the series, we know that she is up to some kind of possibly-sinister spy activity for her people, but we don’t know why.
IAN
And Lt. Frall, the station’s second-in-command, is an energy being of unknown origins, who perceives reality in 27 dimensions, is probably omniscient, and quite possibly omnipotent.
BERIT
In other words, just your standard, run-of-the-mill sitcom.
IAN
With aliens, robots, sentient plants and energy clouds, secrets, murders, a giant cast, and a really long running time.
BERIT
So we hope you enjoy “Dial ‘O’ for Bigelow.”
IAN
And we hope that if this is your introduction to LIFE WITH ALTHAAR, that you’ll go back and start the story from the beginning, and spend some more time getting to know our friends on The Fairgrounds. So on behalf of Berit, myself, and all of us at Gemini CollisionWorks...
BERIT
Thank you for your attention...
IAN
And it’s a pleasure working for you.
Transcript can be found at: https://bit.ly/3kAFOVX
https://www.lifewithalthaar.com
Twitter: @LifeWithAlthaar
