Miss one exit and the county gets strange.
Uncanny County is a supernatural anthology performed by a full cast, and each story starts with the same spoken detour: a missed exit on a moonlit, starless night. Inside the county, a tiny funnel cloud attaches itself to a baby girl, a saucer sighting ends up in a half-page newspaper ad, and a former Christmas thief makes his last delivery.
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Uncanny County is a full-cast supernatural anthology, and it introduces itself the same way each time. A voice describes riding alone on a moonlit but starless night, missing an exit, and taking the only road left, which runs straight through the county. From there, each episode is its own story with its own characters. What gives the collection its texture is how local the weirdness feels. The county has a sheriff, a radio station broadcasting storm warnings, a newspaper with ad space to fill, a daycare that volunteers for the county and a meteorological institute. Into that setting the stories drop one impossible thing and let everyone react. In Imperfect Storm, a county-wide storm warning leads to something far smaller: a funnel cloud with no moisture, so it can't be seen, that has attached itself to a baby girl. One person wants to run more tests. Another refuses, especially after hearing that a funnel that small will probably dissipate on its own. The Clowning follows a sheriff reassuring a mother named Susan, whose young son Tyler has become obsessed with clowns and keeps making a noise she cannot account for. Wichita Starman hinges on a photo that might show a hubcap, a plate, a frisbee or a saucer, and on a half-page newspaper ad signed by the Wichita Star Man announcing that they're coming back. Wellness moves the unease indoors, to a newly renovated open-plan office where the staff seem almost too eager for the new hire to fit in, and where a key card with an 11:15 time slot is handed over as a welcome. Our Better Angels goes broader, setting talk of opening an interdimensional portal to bring through an angel beside a tense argument about revolution and the status quo, while a man named Del insists his neighbors are trying to kill him. Then there is Santa's Last Stop, narrated in rhyming verse. Its Santa is a former Christmas thief sentenced to community service. On his last stop he meets Timmy, who asks for a new version of a toy unicorn his late grandmother made. The stories range from grief to office satire to flying saucers, but the tone stays consistent: eerie premises handled with a dry sense of humor. The endings reinforce that. Cast credits roll, and a sign-off, often from Todd Faulkner, lands a deadpan joke, such as fearing not the things that go bump in the night but the things that don't. Nicole Grevey takes one sign-off with a vampire pun. The closings also point to Patreon bonus material such as annotated scripts and behind-the-scenes interviews. A listener who wants to sample the show's range could pair Imperfect Storm with Santa's Last Stop, one a county in crisis and the other a holiday fable about loss.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys standalone supernatural stories performed by a full cast, especially ones that root the impossible in everyday local routines and end with a joke.
What sets it apart: Every story is entered through the same spoken preamble about a missed exit on a starless night, and the premises twist ordinary local things like a storm warning, a newspaper ad or an office key card. Its range stretches as far as a Santa story told entirely in rhyming verse.
A wellness room's gaping void is the office perk you never wanted but can't stop asking about.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A daycare mix-up turns Tyler's clown fixation into a dry, unsettling family mystery.
A daycare mix-up drops Susan into a studio scene that already feels half out of control: Mr. Giggles is unconscious, the children are screaming, and the sheriff is trying to separate a real emergency from Uncanny County's usual background strangeness.
A storm-chaser's miracle becomes a test of whether love can raise something dangerous.
An impossible storm leaves Rocky alive, his SUV dropped into a ruined landscape, and points him toward Kira, a baby girl with a tiny invisible funnel cloud attached to her.
A county lineman's UFO claim turns into one strange night for the whole town.
A night on the lines turns strange when county lineman Russ Matheson walks into the local paper with a hand-drawn map, a picture signed Wichita Star Man, and a warning that they are coming back.
A cheerful office welcome turns into wellness time with a gaping black void and the pressure to fit in.
Wellness turns a first day at the office into a dryly funny collision of corporate welcome rituals and something much darker. The New Girl is shown the oversized fridge, the off-limits shelves, her workstation, and the promise of a key card, but the real centerpiece is the…
A wrong turn leads to a frightened stranger, an unlocked house, and something deeply off inside.
A moonlit wrong turn leads to an unlocked house, where Del arrives frightened and apologetic, certain his neighbors mean to kill him. Rebecca offers water, but the conversation keeps slipping away from ordinary hospitality and into Del's account of an interdimensional portal, an…
Dice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
["Uncanny County's The Clowning follows Susan Pasternak after she gets fired over Mr.
Uncanny County's “Imperfect Storm” follows storm chaser Rocky Mitchum after an F5 tornado lifts his SUV and leaves him carrying an invisible baby named Kira.
Uncanny County's “Wichita Starman” follows county lineman Russ Matheson after he reports a flying saucer and becomes a local spectacle.
Uncanny County's "Wellness" follows New Girl into Authentica, where the fridge is monitored, the desk shelf has rules, and the wellness room is locked behind a key card.
A stranger named Del forces his way into John and Rebecca's house, and Uncanny County's 'Our Better Angels' keeps asking whether the danger is outside, in the basement, or inside Del's own story.
Uncanny County's "Wish You Were Here" follows Photo Cabana workers Ace and Fern as a wish sends Ace into Mrs.
Uncanny County's "Host in the Machine" follows Morgan McNeil, a Texas weekend anchor summoned to replace legendary News 3 anchor Connie Ambrose.
Uncanny County’s “Locked In” follows Jill Conway, who survives a car crash but wakes unable to move or speak while hospital staff assume she is comatose.
In Uncanny County's 1985 episode "Homecoming Queen of the Damned," new student Kimber Spaulding buys a crystal charm from Totally Witchin after moving to Heller, Texas and wanting popularity during senior year.
Uncanny County's "The Ridgeway Motel" follows Sheriff Jane Rowland, Larry Tots, and Ellen Fleischer after a lost wallet leads Ellen to a motel whose clocks revisit major life events.
Uncanny County’s “The Ballad of Bobby Blue” follows sisters Annie and Lana as they search for Ginger at performances by the Tri-Counties’ celebrated crooner.
Lydia Hanlon returns from New York to Fort Finney for Thanksgiving and finds her mother Barbara serving as mayor after a special election.
Uncanny County's "The Tub" follows Cheryl and Reed Knopf after they move into a house whose bathtub appears to restore Reed's memory and Cheryl's damaged hip.
Uncanny County's “Burnin' For You” follows Chester O'Leary, a fire lookout who has spent 25 years alone in a mountain tower.
Uncanny County's “Rainbow Magic Kittens” follows twelve-year-old Trev, who wants a $7,500 color-changing kitten after his father's death.
In Halloween 1939, Orson Welles works as an announcer at a tiny Monroeville station while trying to recover from the previous year's War of the Worlds panic.
Uncanny County's “Coulrophobia” follows Ted Kreider, who visits the Clown Motel with professional clown Susan Pasternak to confront his fear and support their future together.
Uncanny County’s “Mother Loves You” follows Alice Maxwell Whitaker, a suburban mother who became a vampire to protect daughters Margaret and Beth from life’s future dangers.
Uncanny County’s “Eleventh Hour” follows Bill Harris, a struggling lawyer and car-wash operator whose anonymous client sends him to intervene in precisely timed emergencies.
Uncanny County's "A Thing For Machines" follows Hal Berkeley as he proposes to Sally Poole, a Junction Falls inventor whose robotic helpers keep the town running.