The first episode of Scott Spaulding’s “This Thing of Ours” is a great mixture of the first-person viewpoint, production value and what can be accomplished in an audio drama. The story plays out like one being told in the first-person point of view. Normally, in film and radio, it’s often a cheap trick to give away exposition and often times is not received well by audiences. This, however, is an exception.

So far, this show sets my bar way above other audio dramas that use voice-over narration. I say this because they are often used as a comedic element of the story. “This Thing of Ours” just proves that you can treat this story technique seriously. I honestly wish there were more voice-overs that didn’t put a joke in just to poke fun at the fact that it’s a voice-over.

When Carmine Santorelli is describing Joey “8 ball” Scarfidi he just flat out explained how he got his nickname and the story continued. Most of the time a sequence like that would detach a reader from the story;  The dreaded info dump, if you will. Maybe this is just a perk of audio dramas, but I didn’t get derailed at all. It could have been the acting, the amazing production value or the script that made it work. All of these basic elements of any audio drama have to work together. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been turned off, because of a sound effect or audio filter.

I never really have much to say about the acting component, because usually, the actors do a great job at their performances. “This Thing of Ours” is no different. The production was phenomenal and rivalled that of “The Leviathan Chronicles.”