The Terraformers
Official Site / Listen : Click Here
(The Signal)

This is a bit tricky to listen to, because it doesn’t seem to have its own feed or web site yet, and the audio dramas are buried inside hour long non-audio drama podcasts. The show notes do not always say if there is a Terraformers episode or not, but sometimes it is listed. You might have to download some of the Signal episodes and keep forwarding through their segments to find the audio drama. If you are about to give up on attempting to listen to the show, don’t! It may take a few minutes to find, but I think it is quite worth it. If The Signal ever puts up a separate feed for this series I’ll be sure and post it. You might even want to email them (feedback@serenityfirefly.com) and request a separate Terraformers page.

The show is a fan production set in the Firefly ‘Verse, but you don’t need to have seen that series or the movie to understand what is going on. The concept is that a team of two girls go around working for a terraforming company. Planets and moons all over the ‘Verse are being terraformed to support human life, but sometimes things go wrong. The water might come out the wrong colour, or other terraformers disappear, the list goes on. This is a very realistic comedy show with two very average people trying to do their job but they either mess it up by accident or something just keeps going awry and they end up in trouble. Most of the shows involve:
1. Assignment to terraforming problem that needs fixing
2. They arrive and muck it up even more
3. They have to quickly solve the problem and cover up the messup to their boss

The final step of coverup is sometimes absolutely hilarious. One of my favourite moments was when they accidentally locked themselves out of their vehicle with nothing but some bins of seeds. Just at that moment their boss contacted them. They had to unlock the car to answer him and the only way to do that was to entice some sort of chipmunklike creatures which were inside to jump up and down until they hit the button unlocking the vehicle. After a few minutes of waving seeds in front of the windows the plan succeeded and they were able to answer the boss in the nick of time.

If you want a good laugh and enjoy slapstick comedy, this is a great show to listen to. It has consistently witty writing and fantastic voice acting. It shows how with only a few characters and a lot of imagination, you can put on a great scifi show without it being epic. Whether or not you are a Firefly fan, dig through the Signal and find some Terraformers. It is a laugh out loud audio drama for the whole family and as far as I know may continue into 2010. Often Signal shows like this only last a year (2009) but we’ll see!