The End Issue #16 | Lake Song, Who Killed Avril Lavigne? + 10 more recently finished fiction shows & 4 more starting up new seasons soon!

Happy holidays, fan of fiction podcasts!

I guess this is the Christmas edition, if only due to proximity to the calendar. So if you celebrate (I do!), merry Christmas. Or Happy Hanukkah. Joyous Solstice. Fabulous Festivus. Et al.

A special holiday thanks to Joseph Stephen Leonardo for becoming our latest individual supporter. You can do that too on our freshly-revamped Support page.

Let’s get to the gifts, er… complete fiction podcasts for this issue, shall we?

Featured Finished Fiction Podcasts

My personal recommendations. If you don’t like it, I suck!

Lake Song from Make-Believe Association

• Dramatized scifi
• Series complete as of 21 Dec 2022 | 12 episodes
• Listening time: 5h 4m

OFFICIAL SELECTION — Tribeca Festival Audio Premieres. It’s 2098 and the Republic of Chicago has what the world needs: fresh water. But with new opportunities come new threats, especially for a pair of siblings on the South Side. Can the people come together to save their city — and each other?

Combining sci-fi and music, politics and poetry, Lake Song is a collective response to our times, and a shared dream of our future.

Who Killed Avril Lavigne? from Super Normal Media

• Dramatized scifi comedy
• 🤘🏼🎸🛸
• Series complete as of 15 Apr 2022 | 8 episodes
• Listening time: 4h 40m

In 2022, angsty teen Derek Walker is a pop punk poser living in the past; but when his mysterious substitute teacher Dom Telonge sends him back to Warped Tour 2005 to stop the abduction and replacement of the pop punk princess, Avril Lavigne, his dreams of fulfilling his pop punk destiny become a reality. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is a sci-fi comedy podcast, a send-up and celebration of the aughts with an original pop-punk score.

Follow us @WhoKilledAvrilLavigne on socials!

Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook
Directed by Duncan Gregory
Written by Anderson Cook
Produced by Super Normal Media

Recently Complete Fiction Podcasts

As the year winds down, so did a lot of fiction podcasts, it seems! Here’s what we learned about since our last issue last week.

ergo antz by Sam Sarkisian and Emma Arbor

• Dramatized horror thriller
• 🐜📞💊
• Season 1 finale dropped 22 Dec 2022 | 10 episodes available | Season 2 starts May 2023
• Listening time: 4h 19m

ergo antz is a found-footage audio drama with foreboding, supernatural spinnings. Ambivalent forces torment an unwitting young woman. A flailing boyfriend struggles to navigate his partner’s newfound obsessions and paranoia. A mind-tapping enterprise is hungry to exploit them all. Follow our troubled heroine, Christine, as she documents strange and disturbing experiences that have begun to plague her. While she defies classifying her experience as a psychotic break…the day might not be long when she wish it were.

Written and created by sam sarkisian and emma arbor.
Original music and sound design by sam sarkisian.
Voiced by sam sarkisian, emma arbor, and real-life jesse.

ergo antz is considered a fiction podcast with science fiction and horror podcast elements.

BRASS from Battleground Productions

• Dramatized steampunk
• 🎩🤖😉
• Season 4 finale dropped 20 Dec 2022 | 49 episodes available
• Listening time: 13h 38m

It is London, 1885 — an alternate history, where the computer age has come 150 years early. In this world of airships, automatons, and computational engines, a family of Victorian science geniuses match wits and weapons against a criminal mastermind for the fate of the Empire.

The Peepkins from QCODE Media

• Dramatized children’s
• 🐥🎶👪
• Series complete as of 20 Dec 2022 with 10 episodes
• Listening time: 4h 52m

Anna Faris, Maulik Pancholy, and Diedrich Bader star in this fully scripted kids story podcast. With original songs this show is perfect for screen-free listening for the whole family — just in time for the holidays. In the quaint, midwestern-esque town of Coopmore Ridge live an offbeat and somewhat insecure subspecies of the rural yellowfowl, Gallus Gallus-McDigitus Domesticus, otherwise known as Peepkins! Join eccentric, antenna wearing Commander Hatch (ANNA FARIS) along with her fearful but determined best friend Noah (MAULIK PANCHOLY) as they go on adventures and lift the town’s spirits all while trying to melt the icy heart of the menacing villain Baron Von Torius (DIEDRICH BADER). While they may be small, their emotions are big and ideas must be heard.
~~
From QCODE, the makers Hank the Cowdog with Matthew McConaughey and Cupid with Diego Boneta. All 10 episodes will be available for free, but QCODE+ subscribers get early, uninterrupted access to new episodes. Learn more at https://qcodemedia.com/qcodeplus.
~~
Visit https://qcodemedia.com/the-peepkins for a photo gallery of scenes and characters from The Peepkins!
~~
Produced by QCODE and Next 5 Miles Productions. Executive Produced by Anna Faris, Michael Barrett, Stuart Jenkins, and Jeremy K. Bullis. Created and Written by Stuart Jenkins and Jeremy K. Bullis. Based on the artwork of Jeremy K. Bullis. Directed by Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. Starring Anna Faris, Maulik Pancholy, Diedrich Bader, Adrian Pasdar, and more.

Burning Gotham from The WallBreakers

• Dramatized historical fiction
• Season 1 finale dropped 20 Dec 2022 | 8 episodes available | Season 2 starts Apr 2023
• Listening time: 1h 33m

New York 1835: A City at its tipping point. It’s ten years since the completion of the Erie Canal. New York City’s population is now over 270,000. Most of these people live below Fourteenth Street in wooden or brick buildings no taller than five stories. The gap between rich and poor is rapidly expanding as each week thousands of new men and women pour onto New York’s dangerously overcrowded streets. Many come to earn an honest living. Others for more nefarious reasons. Several historical lives converge in this scripted audio fiction series about the fastest growing city in the world, and the opportunists who shaped it.

God Rest Ye Merry Physicists from Newfangled Audio Drama

• Dramatized scifi comedy
• 🎄✨🚀
• Series complete as of 16 Dec 2022 with 2 episodes
• Listening time: 1h 16m

Welcome to the Newfangled Audio Theater. You’re just seconds away from full immersion in your new favorite high-concept, original, and, it must be said: bonkers, audio drama. Strap in. Visit Newfangledfilm.com for more

Dreamers from Broken Crown Productions

• Dramatized scifi horror
• 💤👧🏽🍆
• Season 1 finale dropped 9 Dec 2022 | 8 episodes available | Season 2 starts Sep 2023
• Listening time: 3h 21m

A young woman’s nightmares and fantasies are manufactured by a dream factory called the Reverie.

In this science fiction audio drama, Jonah Bard is the rising star of the Reverie’s Nightmare department. For the past three years it’s been his job to torment the dreams of a young woman called Lily Bliss. When Jonah suddenly gets a promotion to perform in her first Fantasy, he’s forced to alter his perception of her to become someone she could truly fall in love with.

Meanwhile, Lily’s first relationship meets impending doom as she develops feelings for this dream guy that are much stronger than those for her actual boyfriend, Christopher. With Jonah’s job at stake he’d risk everything to become Lily’s Prince Charming, but while he’s focused on his career Lily starts falling for him in real life, making his mission much more complicated.

Mansfield Mysteries from The QuaranTeam Group

• Dramatized comedy mystery
• 🍸🔪🔎
• Season 1 finale dropped 25 Nov 2022 | 9 episodes available | Season 2 starts Sep 2023
• Listening time: 3h 29m

Martinis, Motives, and Murder.

Mansfield Mysteries is a satirical, cozy murder whodunit, featuring the inquisitive, martini-loving socialite Dorinda Mansfield. Set in quiet, affluent Berkshire Bay, and told over nine hilarious episodes, each three-chapter story finds Dorinda wrapped up in a new murder. With the help of her devoted daughter, Stacey — as well as the occasional frenemy — Dorinda digs for clues, navigates Berkshire Bay’s elite social circles, and sifts through years’ worth of grudges and motives. In this company town, no one can be trusted, and everyone has something to hide. Whether at the Labor Day Extravaganza, the Halloween Tennis Club Open, or secret karaoke night, Dorinda sets out to find the real killer before they get away with murder… Just as soon as she orders her martini!

Fast Track to 40 from Aural Stories

• Dramatized comedy
• 🎮🫦🍨
• Season 1 finale dropped 5 Sep 2022 | 10 episodes available
• Listening time: 3h 45m

3 best friends, Clarity, Penny, and Janet, are trying to get their lives together before they hit the big 4–0. Clarity, the struggling screenwriter, is trying a new direction — a simple romantic comedy. Janet, working towards a major promotion at work, is dealing with her fear of commitment as her long-term boyfriend proposes the next step in their relationship. And Penny, a popular sex podcaster, is ready for the ultimate challenge, becoming a mom, partner optional.

Bloodthirsty Hearts from QCODE & Tenderfoot TV

• Dramatized horror comedy
• Series complete as of 18 Aug 2022 with 8 episodes
• Listening time: 3h 51m

Friends growing apart happens, but creatures crashing a fantasy convention… not so much.

Five high schoolers bonded over the Bloodthirsty Hearts novel series turned slightly-erotic movie franchise as kids, and now it’s what brings them back together for the first-ever fan convention. However, what starts as fun and games quickly turns into a fight-for-your-life event as creatures from the same universe invade. Will the childhood friends be able to work past their differences and survive the night? Perhaps their shared obsession will prove to be useful after all…
~~
From the makers of Classified and Ronstadt comes Bloodthirsty Hearts, a supernatural comedy premiering everywhere July 7. QCODE+ subscribers on Apple Podcasts will get early access to new episodes before anyone else and exclusive bonus content. Learn more at apple.co/qcode.
~~
Produced by QCODE and Tenderfoot TV (Up and Vanished, Radio Rental). Created and written by George V. Ghanem and directed by Sam Beasley. Starring Victoria Moroles, Gus Birney, Sofia Bryant, Sivan Alyra Rose, and Cheyenne Haynes with Taran Killam, Happy Anderson, Naomi Grossman, and Ezra Buzzington.

Mahalo With A Bullet from Voyage Media

• Dramatized thriller
• 👮☀️😬
• Season 1 finale dropped 20 Dec 2021 | 4 episodes available
• Listening time: 1h 13m

Starring Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris: The FBI ran a sprawling surveillance operation into suspected contract killer Richard “Rico” Sanders and his employer Frank Litvak’s extensive criminal operation. When Rico was dispatched to Hawaii to kill a fence who had stolen an invaluable piece of jewelry from Litvak, everything that could go wrong, did. These are the FBI surveillance tapes.

New Seasons Starting Soon

Get caught up on prior seasons of the shows before they start launching new episodes!

The Ostium Podcast by Alex C. Telander

• Dramatized scifi
• 🚪 🚠 ⛰️
• Returning 1 Jan 2023 for season 6 | 59 prior episodes available
• Listening time: 33h 33m

Ostium is a fictional podcast about a man who discovers a secret town with many doors that lead him to strange and interesting places.

The Strata by Mark R. Healy

• Dramatized scifi
• 🦾🤖👩‍💻
• Returning 3 Jan 2023 for season 8 | 37 prior episodes available
• Listening time: 15h 12m

In a dystopian city, an ageing courier is forced to go into business with an underworld ganglord in order to pay for the treatment that keeps him alive.

Underwood and Flinch (Saga) by Mike Bennett

• Narrated horror
• 🧛🏼‍♂️😱😄
• Returning 4 Jan 2023 for season 4 | 67 prior episodes available
• Listening time: 46h 13m

For hundreds of years, the eldest-born male of each generation of the Flinch family has been servant and guardian to the vampire, Lord Underwood.

While the Flinches have changed through the generations, Underwood has remained eternal. David Flinch had hoped to be spared the horror of serving his family’s lord and master, but when he is summoned to the Flinch home in Spain by his dying older brother, he knows his luck has run out.

After fifty years of slumber, Underwood is to be resurrected from the grave in a ritual of human sacrifice, and David, by right of succession, is to be his resurrector. But there is another Flinch, one who craves the role of guardian to the vampire: David’s sister, Lydia. It’s a job she means to have, even if it means making David’s the first blood shed in this new age of Underwood and Flinch.

Petrified by Peter Dunne / Liam Geraghty

• Dramatized horror anthology
• 💀 😱 🇮🇪
• Returning 11 Jan 2023 for season 3 | 16 prior episodes available
• Listening time: 8h 8m

Petrified — a horror fiction anthology podcast from a darker Ireland. Petrified tells the chilling tales of ordinary people encountering the supernatural, and their terrifying fates.

Written and directed by Peter Dunne. Produced by Liam Geraghty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

See you next week with more fiction podcasts complete and ready for your enjoyment from The End!

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