Alt-Media: The Consumer - Pt B

Despite this blog, for me, being about Movies & TV, I have written a handful posts about video games (yes, that's the Tag, not just the posts about video games proper). But I don't believe I have covered much of other media. I read at a snail's pace, and usually only when commuting. My days of actually sitting in a corner and reading are gone the way of That Guy, and reading before bed causes immediate zzzzz's. I am also not that properly versed with podcasts, them being (in my old man voice) a rather new media that The Kids are listening to. But, given the Ken't description of this blog being about us sharing consumption habits with each other, why not a mixed media [series of] post[s]?

Started here. 

This one is where I cover some podcasts I listened to. I am not Of The Podcast World. I don't listen to True Crime shows, I don't listen to audiobooks as I drive my car into work (for one, I don't drive to work). I don't, despite trying desperately, enjoy live-play D&D podcasts -- I find pretty much every fucking single one of them are more "comedians playing D&D" than "D&D players recording their game" and that irritates the fuck out of me. But in general, I don't consider myself subscribed to the medium.

But...

Something Rhymes with Purple, SomethinElse

I suppose I could include "watched a shit ton of British Panel Shows" in this post, but I was never fully invested, as Marmy plowed her way through most of them on their own, finishing what she could find on legal streaming services (usually Amazon) and then finding YouTube channels that had almost entire show runs, and even at almost that is impressive for these things have impressively long runs. 

One was a show called 8 Out of 10 Cats Do Countdown, which itself is a mashup of two already existing panel shows. Countdown is a show where stodgy people do mental challenges. The 8 Out of 10 Cats bit is a more irreverent show about current events hosted by British comedians. The mashup has the hosts & guests of the latter doing the challenges of the former. The challenges are broken into two categories: words and math.

For the words bit, they have "dictionary corner" where an astute lexicographer (she who works on dictionaries) named Susie Dent checks the dictionary, for both the mashup show, and the original, since she was in her 20s. She is now in her 50s. Whatever her connections to the dictionary world were she is now truly a panel show host. But she is entirely, deeply, fully invested in the world of words, so much so that I am utterly enamoured with her. So, I began listening to her podcast.

Her podcast, which is technically the podcast of Gareth Brandreth, another staple of the British Panel Show landscape who is also enamoured with words, which will be forever solidified upon seeing him on even one episode of anything, where you will experience him talking, and talking and TALKING. Sure, he has an endless supply of anecdotes and is connected to pretty much everyone in the world. but fuuuuuuck does he like the sound of his own voice. And in THIS podcast, they two discuss words, always around a cohesive topic.

For example, they would do an episode of portmanteau's (e.g. breakfast and lunch, becomes brunch). Or an episode of loanwords vs calques. Bazaar and café are loanwords, words adopted from another language and so in common use they become part of the hosting language. Meanwhile, a calque is when the word being loaned is translated, usually literally. For example, ear worm translated German ohrwurm for the term describing a far too catchy song.

She explains it better, which is why I could listen to her explain such all day. The podcast is fun, as the two do share a common passion and can elucidate it to us (oh, pleeease [can a voice in your head roll its eyes?]), its almost as much fun seeing the relationship between the two played out in the recordings. Brandreth is somewhat insufferable, but so often he has to defer to her, as she is clearly the expert. Meanwhile, Dent is always charming, demure and very very British, even when talking about the word fuck or about how much the cast of 8 Out of 10 Cats are utter shits to her [it's part of the gimmick of the TV show, and she obviously is playing along, but I guess it still gets to her]. For the vast majority of the world, two very British people talking about words would be utterly boring (dude, sometimes it can be) but I just love the passion for the structures of language that they share with each other. I am also rather amused at, how despite both being rather world travelled, how unexposed they are to anything outside of the UK. 

The Cipher, BBC Radio

The above is probably the only non-fiction podcast I have listened to extensively. The rest are "audio dramas", which are not quite audiobooks, which I have always defined as someone reading the text of a novel out loud, even if the modern version of that has added some dramatic effect to the recording. But audio dramas are more akin to what radio dramas were like Back In The Day. A number of people tell the tale, with added sound effects, music and any additional required audio to round out the story. Almost all I have listened to have been specfic to some degree, and all Thrillers by nature.

The Cipher tells the tale of a teenage girl (Anya Chalotra, The Witcher) who begins the story solving a riddle, a challenge, a puzzle going around The Internet. She's good at puzzles and has been working with some others in chatrooms on various aspects of the puzzle. And then she solves it, and is drawn into a much deeper, more chaotic conspiracy that, well, leaves the premise of the show behind.

This is the most recent radio drama I completed, and it pointed out something to me, that is inherent to this form of media. For each show, there has to be a hook, as with all fictional media, but then the hook has to keep on coming up week to week, for each episode. Many feel a need to keep on hooking you. TV can do character episodes, filler episodes, different stylistic choices to break up the flow or stretch out a season. But podcasts seem more beholden to retaining the audience. Each episode ends in a cliffhanger, and some dramas, like this one, have to keep on changing up the game to keep the tension & excitement alive. Not sure it always works, but it is always thrilling. 

The Cipher starts as a tale about a girl solving a cipher but literally ends up being about aliens, robots, Iceland, and genetic manipulation, almost as if they wanted to do a Lost style WTF show where each episode answers little (or nothing) but adds two more questions. The presentation, directing and voice acting is top-notch and. honestly that is what kept me listening. That can truly be make or break.

Solar, CurtCo Media

Preceding the above, was this one, that played on one of the inherent natures of Radio Drama vs TV or movie, as a media -- there can be no cast of thousands, little use of background characters. If they don't have a line, they are not known, and budgets & time reduce the number of bodies available. Oh, there are always "background voices" such as TV reporters, voices on recordings, occasionally a supporting character yelling (henchmen, cop, etc.) but more often the cast is reduced to just the main characters and the strong dialogue between. 

Solar is broken into conversations, over a radio, between the two remaining astronauts onboard a spacestation that suffered a disaster, having lost contact with Earth. The remaining cast is from recordings and dramatized flashback sequences. The gimmick is that the AI in control of all these recordings has a damaged awareness of time, so everything is being delivered to us out of sequence.... for the most part. We get a disjointed story of tension, loss, tragedy and recovery that was always compelling.

Another interesting aspect of these podcasts is the need (desire?) to have at least one Name. The former had Chalotra and Chance Perdoma (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and a brief cameo from George Takei. This one has a few, with Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn 99), Alan Cumming (The Good Wife) and Helen Hunt (Blindspotting) leading the cast. 

One thing I wish these dramas would do, to separate themselves from TV Land, and be happy with the "one season and done". Tell a complete story, answer all the questions, end it and move onto your next thing. Instead, they often leave with vague open ended scenarios that kind of end the story, but also leave it open to another season, should they get... funding?

Solar was about the deep space mission to the sun, about the disaster that happened there, and the two survivors unravelling the mysteries, dealing with conspiracies behind the mission and trying to survive. The core question was, what was the true purpose of this mission? But I never felt that anything was really answered, and while a second season explaining more would be appreciated, by its very nature, it would end being more about another crew, another mission and ... just add more questions. Meh.

Last Known Position, QCODE

For example, this entire story is told from the point of view of the last survivor of a seabound expedition to find.... well, it becomes pretty obvious even if you don't pay attention to the "cover art" -- a kaiju in the middle of the ocean. Or, at the very least, a sea monster. BUT, as expected, it ends with them finding it and then... well, it could go many ways.

But I get ahead of me, as I am wont to do.

Mikaela Soto (Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin) is a deep sea vehicle (mini sub) pilot hired by a billionaire to help him, and his very limited team (see the comment on limited casts above), find ... something. Well, technically they are hired to find the remains of a plane that went down, a plane upon which the billionaire's (James Purefoy, Hap and Leonard) wife & daughter were onboard. They are all on a mostly automated mega-yacht, a boat filled with tense assholes of one specialty or another. They are all dealing with the vague nature of their expedition, but the money offered is too good to deny.

So, from a plot structure point of view, we know the season has to end with them finding it. Sure, we can be happy without many answers as long as the characters meet the tentacle-y sea monster and confront it to some degree. But what if it is popular? Do they defeat the sea monster or are they all killed, but one to tell the story, and if the latter, what then? Of the handful I have listened to, this one did do the best at leaving room for an entirely different, but connected, new season, something I would be open to listening to, should it come about, a new season based on world-building the possibility of a sea filled with kaiju. Buuuut I almost wished they had gone the short story route and just ended once the monster did its monstrous business.

Quiet Part Loud, Monkeypaw

Meanwhile, this podcast kind of ended properly on an end note. The goal of the series was to defeat a monster, and they did that. But you know how monster (horror) stories go -- the last few seconds hint at it's return, a head rising out of the water, or the body of the fallen villain has disappeared? So, yeah that. Hints. 

Quiet Part Loud comes from the production company led by Jordan Peele. It is one of the few that really used its soundscape (literally) to its advantage, as it was all about a monster that hid in transmitted audio. Rick Egan (Tracy Letts, Lady Bird) is a right wing radio-show host who fell from grace after something tragic happened as he tried to generate anti-islamic hysteria against a trio of teenage boys, all to benefit his fame. He now makes a buck doing the con circuit (RWNJs [Right Wing Nut Jobs] never go away) while trying to maintain a relationship with his daughter Becca (Milly Shapiro, Hereditary). He hooks up with a random woman (Christina Hendricks, Firefly) at a bar, who drags him into a conspiracy involving an ancient entity that lives and thrives in hateful communication. It wants Rick to rise up again, through his broadcast voice of hatred & xenophobia, which leaves Rick torn between getting back on top or fighting real evil. You see, Rick is not a true evil xenophobe, just a standard model asshole who knew the RWNJs could win him some fame.

Through recordings that Rick is making to himself, which he believes will be edited into a podcast, as well as phone calls and other recordings, we get the story via the media which is the food and means of survival to the creature. It is ancient, initially living on the voices of those who spewed hate, eventually finding its way to radio (and hinted that it was primarily responsible for the first two world wars) it was briefly defeated and now hopes to find its way back to power over podcasts, amidst the current, very loud wave of hatred. Rick, along with the kids he originally denigrated, have to find a way to contain and destroy the creature.

The sound production is, as expected, top notch. The mostly unknown (to me) voice actors are spectacular and the tension is the kind that would have me stop mid-walk to get past a story point. If they do find a way to a Season 2, I will be there.

Chrysalis, DUST

Finally, we have a podcast that had a very interesting origin. It started life as a Reddit post, a spontaneous bit of writing by someone, to get a story idea out of their head and "onto paper". It generated enough positive feedback, he continued with the story which was not quite enough for a novel but was picked up & expanded into a radio drama. Given its origins of written word, it often glides between the realms of audiobook being read out loud, over to proper dramatic radio drama, and back again.

The story is of an AI that awakens from slumber in the glass-ed rubble of a destroyed Earth. An alien attack happened which ended the planet some unknown number of years prior. When this AI awakens, it believes itself to be the "last human alive" given its nature of having once been the memories of a man. That aspect is not explored, unfortunately, as the story moves towards the mostly contained AI (a server farm buried deep beneath... London?) and its drone based ... senses, towards it expanding itself into a massive, SUPER massive entity hell bent on revenge against the alien lifeforms that ended Earth.

The story is not often story, more postulation of how an AI would expand itself, while still struggling with its state, and what it is. But the writing does an admirable job of making all the exposition dramatic and compelling. Then again, this is the kind of stuff I do in my own writing, which is pretty much me telling me about the cool stuff going on inside my head, and not really ever  telling a story. I have ideas and conversations, but rarely plots. But, obviously enough people thought this was interesting, to have produced a radio drama from it.

The story has the AI discovering the alien race that destroyed Earth, learning of its origins as part of a galactic empire, and of its methods of interspace travel, using everything it learns to become a vengeful force that no one can stop. And then it shifts to the other side, where we learn the attack on Earth was just a minor blip in a failed imperial expansion, in a vast society where one lonely planet not connected to the stars would not be, and was not, missed. Sure, the deaths of billions of people is horrific but the society thinks of people on the galactic scale. Until "the last human" arrives and forces them to consider the actions of the ancestors and deal with it.

It ends properly. There is confrontation and resolution. Oh you could shoe-horn in another story, but, finally, we have something that ended.