Portals to other dimensions, and a roommate who keeps interrupting.
Max, an engineer and inventor, has built a machine called the Bageltron 2000 that opens portals to other dimensions, and he presents his recordings as 'this very scientific podcast'. His roommate Jack has other plans, and their squabbles, the runaway gadgets and the mock sponsor reads carry the comedy.
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Dispatches from the Multiverse is science fiction told as a sitcom, framed as the home recordings of an inventor who can rarely get through his own introduction. Max, an engineer and inventor, has built the Bageltron 2000, a machine that opens portals to other dimensions. He introduces the whole enterprise as 'this very scientific podcast'. Jack, his roommate, is the problem. He watches through the door crack so he can jump in the instant Max hits record, a habit Max calls creepy and Jack insists is not complicated. Once, when Max calls him in early to head off the interruption, Jack says he would not have come anyway, because he was engrossed in Strong Bad's email cartoons. Their squabbling is quick and overlapping, and it carries much of the show. The inventions are the other engine. An Automatic Home Cleaner 2000 goes missing, along with a warning that switching it on while anyone is home would be a bad day for everyone. A running mystery about vanishing household items even claims the Bageltron 2000. In 'That password is incorrect', an AI with a patience meter presides over round after round of retyping and email confirmation, while an alarm blares and nobody can get into the bank. Jack has an implant that streams thousands of channels and may be slipping ads into conversation. Other scenes swing wider. In 'Clip Show', a horse-racing tip turns out to be a ruse to chloroform someone who was nearly a stranger, which gets justified as friendship. In 'For just a few shards a day…', demon children turn up in the house and set off an argument about demon law and a flower grenade. 'The Final Episode' brings out a Wealth Redistributotron with a big red button, and a debate in which ethics and criminal law are raised, then undercut. The show also toys with its own packaging. In 'A word from our sponsors…', a character called Credits Guy confesses that he quietly sold ads in this dimension, never told Max, and kept the money. He presents this as a reveal, since, in his words, listeners assumed the show only ran weird ads for products in parallel dimensions, and his spots mock website builders and VPN services with cheerful cynicism. A 'Post-Show Listener Q&A' drops the fiction altogether. Tim Ellis, who plays Max Adams, sits down with Scott Trapp, who plays Wilson, and J.R. Willett, who plays Jack, over whiskey and bagels. They answer listener questions, insist the finale left no loose ends, and make a tongue-in-cheek appeal to any billionaire who comes across the feed to send Tim some money.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes science fiction as a setup for comedy: bickering roommates, malfunctioning gadgets and running jokes about podcast habits such as the intro and the sponsor read.
What sets it apart: The multiverse premise frames a lot of plain domestic farce, and the show turns its own podcast trappings into material, from a roommate who ambushes the intro to a credits character running a secret ad racket.
Hi, I’m Max. I’m an engineer and inventor. I know this sounds crazy, but I accidentally invented a device that opens a portal to other dimensions. Each week I visit a new alternate universe and no matter how strange it is, somehow I keep running into parallel dimension versions of my roommate in every one of them. I’m documenting my incredible travels and discoveries on this podcast.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose farewell turns listener questions, 30 cents an hour, and unused dimensions into a fond comic coda.
A finale-sized listener Q&A turns Dispatches from the Multiverse's 300-episode run into a loose, affectionate postscript. Tim Ellis, also known as Max Adams, sits with Scott Trapp as Wilson and J.R.
An interdimensional cleaning mystery turns into a password ordeal with a patience meter and no sensible place to log in.
The missing Automatic Home Cleaner 2000 leaves behind a filthy house, a hole in the wall, and a broader suspicion that anything said aloud on the podcast may be disappearing.
Max's interdimensional crime plan targets billionaire wealth and keeps finding its way back to the red button.
Almost seven years of interdimensional travel becomes a sharp little argument about crime, wealth, and the appeal of pressing a very large red button.
A portal adventure derails into demon law, flower-filled evidence, and an automatic home cleaner nobody should switch on.
Max's portal trip turns a homemade science podcast into a domestic demon farce, with the Bageltron 2000, an automatic home cleaner that should not be switched on with anyone inside, and a dispute over whether demon law applies on Earth.
Max and Jack discuss a damaged droid and prepare for a trip to another dimension, honoring a Patreon supporter.
Jack steals Max's trident of compulsion to stop him from using it for evil, but Max confronts him.
The host updates his roommate about the problematic essence of the Wilhelm scream he acquired in a trade, which ages the listener each time it's heard.
Max recounts his quest to extract plans for a lewd gnome sculpture from a holodroid using the Golden Trident of Compulsion, while dealing with memory manipulation by his roommate Jack.
Tim Ellis, Scott Trapp, and J.R.
Dispatches from the Multiverse’s “Clip Show” begins with Max discovering that his mother confiscated both Bageltron devices after he continued traveling through dangerous dimensions.
Dispatches from the Multiverse follows engineer and inventor Max Adams as he uses the Bageltron 2000 to reach a high-security dimension storing his missing inventions.
Dispatches from the Multiverse ends its run with Sam Smada revealing that hundreds of shifting podcast formats concealed a wealth redistribution scheme.
Max Adams uses the Bageltron 2000 Mark II after nearly seven years of dimensional travel, hoping its revised settings will produce a pleasant surprise.
Dispatches from the Multiverse’s “Portal Blaster” follows engineer-inventor Max Adams as he uses the Bageltron 2000 Mark II to visit a random parallel Earth.
The Ethical Testing Society pays participants, and the consent-o-meter says who would consent before anything happens.
Dispatches from the Multiverse: “Brainrot” sends Max and Jack to a carnival dimension where machines demand slang like “bet,” “slay,” “cap,” and “sus.” Taylor, voiced by Maisie Ellis, corrects them repeatedly while Max and Jack lose transdimensional ducats and get banned from games.
Max returns to Dispatches from the Multiverse after apparently spending two weeks trapped in shifting environments called the Back Rooms.
Max and Jack Strobe promote the Eight Sleep mattress and Sleep Soaker 2000 as tools for enlightenment, including a coupon code called "quantum 80." Max’s mother leaves a voicemail about episode 45, "Grandpa Hiram," after listening through episode 60.
Max and Jack Strobe turn an 8Sleep sponsorship into a fictional investigation after Max claims the mattress semi-digests users and returns them “upgraded.” A voicemail from Max’s mother praises Dispatches from the Multiverse but criticizes episode 15, “Sliders,” for its unicorn-drug content.
Dispatches from the Multiverse’s “Burning Guy” follows Max’s search for deeper forbidden knowledge after completing the Chugglebutts collection.
Dispatches from the Multiverse follows Max’s search for episode 3264 of Chucklebutts, a forbidden podcast whose catalog jumps from episode 3263 to 3265.
Dispatches from the Multiverse: The Unevil Dimension follows Max and Jack as they investigate contradictory visions of Donald Trump after the 2024 election.
Dispatches from the Multiverse’s “Saving democracy” follows Jack and Max as they debate an Election Rigor 2000 machine allegedly designed to help Kamala Harris.
Dispatches from the Multiverse presents Max Adams’s visit to Eight Sleep Headquarters after a satirical ad promises 42% off with a bizarre three-question-mark promo code.
Dispatches from the Multiverse follows Max and Jack as they recover their house and Bageltron 2000 after an interdimensional conflict and travel through a portal to Alderwood Mall on Earth.
Max, an engineer and inventor, uses the Bageltron 2000 to search for his missing roommate Jack Strobe across parallel dimensions.
Dispatches from the Multiverse follows Hellscape Max and Jack Strobe as they execute multidimensional Jeff Bezos’s Plan Zeta.
Dispatches from the Multiverse's "Imperturbium" follows Max Adams and Jack as DeBezos sends Max across dimensions to obtain a rare material for ear protection.
Jeff Bezos sends inventor Max through the Bageltron 2000 to investigate Sam Altman's apparent death in another dimension.
Max Adams travels through the Bageltron 2000 to Workertopia, a dimension where the labor market is centrally controlled and worker satisfaction reaches 98.7%.
Dispatches from the Multiverse follows engineer Max Adams and Jack Strobe as Jeff Bezos sends them to investigate a claimed leadership crisis inside a parallel-dimension Amazon.
Dispatches from the Multiverse’s “AWS Powered by AI” sends Max toward an AWS dimension after Jeff Bezos demands that he fix a performance slowdown.
Max Adams travels through the Bageltron 2000 to seek financial help after Baby K's care, sold household goods, and failed funding applications leave his household nearly broke.
Max, an engineer who invented the Bageltron 2000, travels with Baby K and a haunted Saskatchewan farmhouse deed to Con Con, a multiversal convention for con artists.
Dispatches from the Multiverse's "The Peaceful Dimension" follows Max and Jack as they investigate the Wilhelm Scream, whose essence allegedly ages listeners by one year and places owners on a multiversal hunting list.
Tim Ellis voices Max, an engineer traveling through parallel Earths with the Bageltron 2000 and trying to trade Grandpa's Vapors.
Max and Jack Strobe manage a unicorn that passes softball-sized gold kidney stones, including one that sold for $600,000.
Max Adams and Jack Strobe try to monetize a solid silver Santa skull that answers questions with evasive or reality-altering results.
Max and Jack Strobe take a solid-iridium Helen of Troy statue to Santa after museums and the interdimensional museum consortium make selling or melting it impossible.