While audio shows have existed since radio for around a century, audio dramas in the modern podcast sense of the word are still in their adolescent stages. Part of the field is taken up with television and Broadway stars creating sleek and buoyant dramas that zip from moment to moment, and part of the field includes improvised efforts made by three friends in a bedroom with a Dungeons and Dragons playbook and an old tape recorder. And then there’s a middle ground, which is where “Angel and May” sits.

Expectations vs Reality in Angel and May

The press kit for “Angel and May” is a comprehensive 18-page document full of detailed character descriptions, actor bios, and colorful hypothetical set designs. It’s a well-made PDF that unfortunately most people will never have the opportunity to see.

The first episode of Angel and May was somewhat less appealing. The show starts out as a near-incomprehensible shoot-em-up. There are valuable points to recommend it, namely that the heroes doing the shooting are mostly female and mostly queer or allies, but the acting ranges from poor to adequate, the writing is a grab-bag of bad cliches and the plot drags.

Some shows have a slow burn at the beginning, where it might be beneficial to skip parts of or the entire first season. In that same light, “Angel and May” might best be enjoyed by skipping ahead to either episode four or five. Enjoyment will vary and the chances of finishing the season increase, but with the downside of not understanding characters or important beats of the story.

Positive Ideas and the Future

There are many pieces that make the rest of the show worthwhile. Competent female characters who don’t waste their lives talking solely about romance, countless flavors of the LGBTQIA community all living in a communal space where they support one another and some fantastic story ideas including a venus fly trap descendant that acts as a burglar deterrent, a beautiful story about a deformed homeless princess from Jupiter begging for air, and a Holiday mission to capture a group of carnivorous flying reindeer.

There’s also still plenty of clunky acting, pointless army jargon, and a three-episode arc when both of the title characters just aren’t there. If you call a show Angel and May, either Angel or May must appear somewhere in each 30-minute episode even if they’re just running by really fast like the Doctor in a Doctor-lite “Doctor Who” episode.) That said, “Angel and May“ is a story with a great deal of heart and a labor of love by many people. It has a lot of potential as it goes forward into season two.

Read Toby’s previous reviews of “The Half-Life of Marie Cure” and “Directive: Part One” on the site.