“At the Nexus of all things, there is a diner. We open at 6.” https://www.weopenatsix.com/about/
If there were any piece of media in the entire world that I would most urge you to listen to, this would be it. This is not only the best audio drama I’ve ever heard (and I’ve listened to many an audio drama), but also literally the best piece of media EVER, in my opinion. Midnight Burger is “an audio drama about the adventures of a time-traveling, dimension-spanning diner” that is in equal turns funny, cozy, deeply emotional, and inspiring.
It centers around six main characters- Gloria, Leif, Ava, Caspar, Effy, and Zebulon Mucklewaine- who are voiced by Siouxsie Suarez, Tom Moorman, Finlay Stevenson, Joe Fisher, Julie Cowden-Starbird, and Neal Starbird, respectively. The show starts with Gloria, a Tacquera whose restaurant was shuttered by the pandemic, as she shows up to an interview in a weird diner outside of Phoenix. She cooks traditional Mexican food, she is very empathetic and also very, very scary, and she has a deep hatred for fascism and colonialism, as we all should. In the diner, called Midnight Burger, Gloria meets Caspar, a grumpy, lovable, and hapless waiter. He’s an ex-DMV worker, a huge pessimist, and my personal favorite character.
Then there’s Leif, a guy who can build anything, with a checkered past, present, and future. Ava, a theoretical physicist with attachment issues who revels in chaos, is feral over her designated booth and survives on coffee, cigarettes, and moonshine. And of course, the Mucklewains, two Arkansawyer preachers inhabiting an old-timey radio. Effie is easily peeved and has a mean streak, but is fiercely loyal to her husband and friends. Zebulon is a sweetheart, a calming influence, and his wife’s biggest fan and impulse control- he’s saved lives.
What follows Gloria’s arrival is, in no particular order: Gloria losing her car, Caspar talking about birds, a space goddess, travelling back to the Devonian period, alien wolves being named after the members of BTS, moonshine, robots, a plant person, a dead woman in a river, Windchimes, Ava being incredibly snarky, everyone else being incredibly snarky, and Night Breakfast.
Every twelve hours, the Diner travels to a new place in time, dimension, and space, and when the doors open, there’s always someone who needs a cup of coffee. Someone who needs someone to listen, or someone to help them fix their problem, or to help them move on.
But no matter where or when they are, or who is on board, there is one thing that is always true. They open at 6. This fiction podcast is a really excellent blend of humor, found family, angst, and action, and it truly changed my life.
Content Warnings:
Cursing
Moderately sexually explicit material (mostly dirty jokes and references)
You will cry. But only occasionally
Discussions about death and grief
Alcohol consumption
Violence, gory sounds, and gunfire sound effects
Terrible alien coffee
Racism, discussions of racism
Good for people who enjoy:
Wolf 359
The Magnus Archives
Welcome to Night Vale
Penumbra Podcast
Star Trek
Doctor Who
Also, good to know:
- Ongoing series
- Quite a bit of romance and romantic tension (important, but not the main focus)
- Not a thriller, but intense at times
- If you listen to it, I will appear at your location and ask your thoughts
