I would not recommend this podcast. The voice acting in this is horrendous. The constant lip smacking is awful and there is barely any emotion in the voices. The music doesn’t match the story and is just thrown in random places. When the music gets thrown in there he could be in the middle of the a sentence and then the sentence just gets cut off. And sometimes the sentence doesn’t even get finished because of this. After the music starts I’ve noticed that the story seems to jump ahead. Like it doesn’t go through his thought process of why he did that he just does something completely unexpected without explaining why he did that. Also, a “Volkswagen Mini” doesn’t exist. Get fact checkers! Or just do more research!!. Also the swearing is so unnecessary. Half the time when they swear it doesn’t even make sense. You don’t have to have swearing in a podcast for people to like it! It’s better without! In all honesty, it’s pretty difficult to listen to and I would not recommend this podcast. If you want to listen to some good horror podcasts I recommend you listen to the Magus archives or Malevolent.

So far I’m enjoying this story…but there is no car called a “Volkswagen Mini.” Why and how do authors make mistakes like this? Mini (make) Cooper (model) is a British car brand. VW (make) Jetta/Beetle/Golf (model) is German. Podcast folks, hire fact checkers! It’s worth it. Or, at least check this kind of stuff yourself. I have heard quite a few of these kind of errors in just the first few episodes.

It was great before the female character got added. I honestly don’t like her personality.

Interesting premise, but the writing problems made this painful halfway through season 1 and I had to stop. After 5 minutes of ads, you really have *two* pieces of product placement, probably unpaid, within the same episode? Both characters think many of the exact same thoughts when encountering the same situations including the same bad jokes/references. The writing of the female lead is especially painful, full of tired tropes fit for /r/menwritingwomen. The acting really doesn’t help, either. It really brings me out of the story when a voice actor fails to say a really common phrase in any way that any real human would ever say that phrase, like it was the first time they’d ever seen it.

Interesting story which the creators do their best to sabotage with flat emotionless acting and intrusive, self-congratulatory pop culture references

This should be a video game silent hill style. I’d play for sure. I like the story. There’s too much banter back and forth though in the dialogue. Maybe it’s realistic that people go back and forth meaninglessly and unfunny “jokes”but it’s kinda annoying/tiresome. Also the Voice acting could be improved. It’s descriptive but I want more description of all these crazy cool places! That’s my main suggestion- less chatter and dialogue and more descriptive language. It’s a really neat story-i actually just read some of the transcripts instead of listened on some of the episodes. Im in S4 right now. I certainly appreciate the creativity and work that went into the podcast.

Most of the first season was awesome and I was hooked. When Monica showed up, I could only manage a couple more episodes. Flat and noticeable reading intonation. I listened to the recent S6 episode and found everything to be exactly the same. As other commenters have stated, doesn’t seem like they’ve improved. So sad cause it’s a lovely plot.

I feel like no podcast creator has ever read reviews and made changes based on what listeners prefer or would like to see. It feels like reviewers just scream into the void and never get heard. What a waste of time and space. I’ll repeat what everyone else has said - I wanted to like the show so SO badly but the voice acting is atrocious. I can get past a flat affect or bad delivery. What I cannot get past is the lip-smacking and general noises between every word. The main character’s voice triggered my misophonia so badly I had to play something else in the background just to get through the first episode. Then add in the weird transitions and music interludes that made ZERO sense. All of that combined is a huge no thanks. What a cool story idea executed in the worst possible way.

I really wanted to like this show. Unfortunately, the voice acting was pretty horrendous. Even worse was the constant swearing that made it almost impossible to listen to.

This story has such a fantastic premise, original and full of options for storylines to go just about anywhere. Unfortunately, it starts to lose its way and devolves into giggly “she’s so hot/he’s so dreamy” drivel pretty quickly. Such a bummer with all that potential.

The concept is great, and the story isn’t awful. Definitely sounds like it was written by a teenager. Also, everyone who has said that the acting is horrendous is actually being kind. It’s better just to read the transcripts for the story.

I liked it at first. Couldn’t figure out what the clacking, smacking sounds were at first. Thought it was a keys clicking on a keyboard as if the character was typing his thoughts while at work. Nope. It’s the main character’s gums smacking with each and every word. I got through season 1 to see where it was going. With AirPods in, the ASMR was way too much. The story is almost taking too long to get where it needs to go. Sorry, not a keeper for me.

The male lead/narrator reads as very autistic. For example, he has monotonic speech and is hyper fixated on historical disappearances. It’s great!

This story is so crazy. It’s like listening to a Diary and I was sucked in from the first episode. The writing is superb. I LOVE Chris Fletcher as Jake. His DRY SENSE OF HUMOUR and his delivery are perfect. I can’t wait to hear how many different doors Jake will go through on his trip to Ostium in Nowhere, CA.

All the complaints must be from later seasons cause I’m only 3 episodes in and this is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for. Thank you!

Before anyone uses the word “empathy”, again, please use a dictionary.

I have loved the first seasons of Tanis and the Black Tapes, but there were so many loose ends just left hanging that I gave up. Osteum is tight, the writer sets things up, so all the breadcrumbs actually lead somewhere season after season. It is ambitious and entertaining. It was a little slow to start, but worth sticking with it. Great podcast.

It’s hypnotic. Calming and captivating. And tons of episodes which I love, enough to really get into. I’m in the high teens now and sticking with it. It’s eerie, and so entertaining. Monica seems as if she’s just reading her script but Jake is genuine. Enough so that he keeps me going. Loving this!

The storyline seemed promising but the acting is so, so bad. The sound quality is poor. The guy speaks like he’s eating the mic and the woman sounds like she used a tape recorder with full background hiss that cuts off when she’s not speaking. Awful. It was rated E, so I expected some language, but it’s ridiculous how they use the F word over and over like a middle school boy trying to impress his peers. I tried. The first few episodes were tolerable. But it definitely gets worse, not better. I made it through 6, but turned off 7. So bad.

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find Ostium, huge fan of audio dramas and this ranks right up there with we’re alive, limetown, and earth collective.

Terrible acting, just awful

I get the point of these episodes being short - mini and all - but I found it very distracting and hard to get into the storyline. I think it would have been better to release max every other week and have them be at least 5mins. Although longer would be ideal. The ads were longer than the actual episode many times!

I really like the idea. It’s very original and would be really amazing if the acting wasn’t so over-the-top awful. I tried to keep going to find out what happens, but Omg it’s so bad.

Look, this is worth listening to in their background. It has interesting plot points. When one character is “recording” their thoughts, it’s pretty good, which is counterintuitive. Show don’t tell is a basic general writing principle. But, here, any time two characters interact, this podcast becomes almost unlistenable. The dialogue between characters who are intimate with each other is stilted, formal and shallow. I’ve been binging and need to finish, but it’ll be a slog. Update: Had to stop at Episode 37. I thought the writing and acting were bad with two characters. With four, this is unbearable. This was a great concept that just wasn’t executed well: editing (both sound and text), writing, acting, and character development are all boring.

So much potential gone to waste. Read the reviews but gave it a shot anyway, and was barely able to get through seven episodes. Decent story (although the Bay Area details are inaccurate). The voice work, however, is *appallingly* bad - worst I’ve come across in years of listening to podcasts. I truly want to love this, but can’t. Two stars for interesting premise...although I did wonder if this was leading to the “strange phenomenon of the week,” syndrome... Maybe I’ll give it a try again, in future.

I like the idea of this podcast and then mood and atmosphere is pretty solid. The problem is in the execution and the writing. I’ll get into the problems in a moment but I just want to say if you like the idea of every episode a main character goes through a door into a different horror scenario then I would definitely recommend checking out THE GREY ROOMS. It’s very similar to this but executed much more successfully. Anyways I see a lot of people saying that the voice actors are bad but I think it’s more of a problem of writing than the acting. The writing is so unnatural. It honestly reads as some thing a teenage white boy would write. There are a lot of pop culture references which I usually think is a bad idea and it is but whats really strange is this podcast is only a few years old and most of the references are from like 2008. I’m 29 in 2020 so I get them but I would imagine a zoomer would be completely lost. At one point he makes a reference to the lonely island, LOL, come on now. It just completely ruins the momentum of the story.There’s nothing wrong with having humor in a sci-fi horror podcast but if you don’t know how to write comedy don’t try it. My biggest biggest problem, which is why I am probably not going to continue listening, is I just got to the introduction of the woman character and oh my god this guy cannot write women. Here’s a tip for any man trying to write a woman. No woman, particularly within the first couple sentences of their introduction is going to bring attention to the way they look or their weight or their body.I swear every amateur male writer makes this mistake and it seems like such an obvious thing to avoid. Beyond the fact that she within the first couple sentences of her introduction talks about how hot she is it doesn’t get any better. I’m telling you she sounds like a 15-year-old white boy from 2008. It’s just so unrealistic and it’s incredibly distracting. It was already distracting enough with the main character but at least I could kind of believe that this is a 20 something-year-old dude who is just very basic. But now the fact that there is another character and she sounds and thinks exactly like him is just too jarring. So yeah I wouldn’t recommend sadly. Oh and finally, I don’t know who made this call but having the same Ad repeat 2 to 3 times in a row is infuriating.

Fun story- really bad acting that made it hard to listen to.

This is the only podcast that I have been able to listen to over and over. His voice is so comforting, the story line and crossovers are amazing. Keep listening. Trust me.

It started pretty good. For being told in a very odd mix of audiobook and audio drama. And being written in the voice of a straight white man. Even the black lead lady has the same cadence ad the Whiteman. The romantic subplot feels SUPER forced. It’s a self insert. There’s no proper story arcs and almost no character development, I’ve listened to season four in hopes the creators storytelling would, you know, improve and evolve. But it doesn’t. The acting is subpar and the most boring and flat narration, and SERIOUSLY LEARN NOT TO MAKE WET MOUT NOISES WHEN YOU TALK FOR FRACKS SAKE.

The podcast starts out very believable and ventures further and further into sci fi. Very imaginative. Fun listen. I really enjoyed binging on the provided complete season compilations!

I really wanted to like this. I think that the concept is really strong, and the first season was interesting enough for me to forgive this podcast’s problems. I’m a couple of episodes in to Season 2 and I just can’t do it anymore. Here are my beefs. The dialogue writing does not sound natural at all. Like other reviewers, I’m particularly bothered by the excessive swearing that doesn’t sound natural coming out of the actors mouths. The acting is not great. The sound mixing is TERRIBLE. I almost exclusively listen to podcasts with my headphones on and the difference in volume from one speaker or sound effect to the next is crazy unbalanced...and I’m no audio engineer, it’s ROUGH. Biggest offender, the LIP SMACKING. It’s cringeworthy. Final note, the episode that made me give up was Voyager. Just because you have music doesn’t mean that it should underscore every single moment. Jake’s droning voice using every adjective under the sun with the same musical tones playing over and over again almost made me fall asleep while driving. Great concept, ridiculously poor execution.

The story line started out fun. It gets a little wonky, but still an out-of-the box idea. The acting is pretty terrible, unfortunately-made me shake my head a little; there seems to be excessive f-bombs just to make the female character sound “tough”; and, of course because it was produced by humans and we can’t keep our opinion to ourselves these days and we think what we believe is so righteous that we have to interject it into a podcast that has nothing to do with politics, they throw BLM stuff in there. The political crap is why I gave it 2 rather than 3 stars. If you want to talk politics-start a political podcast and keep it there. Nobody listens to your ScFi podcast to be lectured.

Tried to like it. The lip smacking killed it.

Starts out pretty interesting, I liked the concept. I made it to like episode 36 or something before I just gave up.

The premise is interesting. The podcast has it’s moments, but more often I’m cringing. The writing and acting are subpar. It’s as if this was a rehearsal. I’m trying to make it through the 3rd season. Jake’s character and acting skill are not great but I’m involved and his voice is soothing to fall asleep to. Monica and Dave are obviously acting and it takes away from the story because you're left imaging someone reading a script.

Great sci-fi storytelling.. Jake, Monica and Steve against the big-baddy, is it the Ostium Network or some other monster?

So the first season really drug me in and I was into it. But now like half way through season 3 and I feel like I’m completely lost and the story means nothing anymore. Yup finished season 3 just now and I don’t want to see how stupid season 4 got. Where you on a meth fueled trip while writing this ????

Great premise. Slow storytelling with wooden, emotionless voice acting. I’m hesitant to blame the actor for the shows failing though. I think it’s just poorly scripted.

I completely enjoy the story and can’t wait to see where our 3 characters go next, but all the extra stuff is just filler for me. I realize other folks might love the manifestations, but I’m not into it. I just want more Ostium please. Keep up the great story telling!

The concept is strong. I made it through 4 or 5 episodes before having to quit due to the subpar acting.

Found this about a month ago maybe. Can’t stop listening to it. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!!!!!!

The whole podcast has gone to crap, original story gets destroyed by these behind the scenes crap, don’t care, lm listening for the story not what’s happening in your lives. There’s no more story just these insane Behind the scenes, just garbage now!

Over 20 episodes of just “behind the scenes”, interviews with voice actors, and “mini episodes” in between season one and two. Just get on with it and do season two already. The lip smacking is terrible too. Really makes it difficult to follow. I quit listening half way into season two.

EDIT OUT THE MOUTH SMACKING!!!!

Great story so far. My only complaint is sometimes the voice acting can be a bit wooden. I’ve certainly heard worse and it’s not super off-putting, but it might bother the pickier listener. I will certainly continue listening because the premise and storyline are really cool. It definitely has an eerie and mysterious vibe going on, so if that’s your thing I highly recommend

These people need acting lessons. It sounds like they’re reading instead of acting. There needs to be more dialog.

Such a compelling idea for a podcast! So much potential! Unfortunately, the delivery is sub-par. The voice actors sound like they’re reading the script right off the page for the first time. There’s not much acting going on, and there’s no chemistry between the two characters. Also, the female part is soooo disappointing. The way the female character speaks, it’s PAINFULLY obvious this was written by a man. It seems like the female character is a two dimensional nerdy dream girl. Is this “geek” (their word, not mine) porn?

I started listening to this show last week and have been hooked from the start. I just downloaded, installed, and created an account on iTunes purely to rate the show. I highly recommend this show to anyone looking for something new.

Absolutely addicting. 108 work hours in one week and this is a go to. I can’t imagine not having this story to help through the long days.

The story for this podcast is first rate and compelling. Production quality including Foley noises etc. are excellent. The music is even good if not obviously low budget. My problem really is with the voice acting. I appreciate the low-key understated delivery approach of the main character. When we add the female lead the dialogue falls flat because the characters are not listening to one another. In fact the first dialogue episode sounds like cold table read. For me what adds reality to dialogue are the non dialogue cues like breathing, sighs, chuckles etc. From listening to parts of episode 6 you might think that the actors read their parts in separate rooms directly into the microphone at all times. Written dialogue also suffers from the Gilmore girls-like plethora of adjectives for every day conversation. The fact that the actors stumble over the pronunciation of words only adds to the feeling that the dialogue is unnatural. Also not a fan of the F word in every paragraph. Is a artifact of podcast culture where people think they’re being edgy by writing dialogue laced profanity? Still Ostium carries me forward because the story and situations are imaginative. Hoping this podcast matures because it has great potential!