I Don't Get It · 3:06am Jun 17th, 2014
So, I listened to a couple episodes of Welcome to Night Vale. And... I'm not feeling it.
I mean, I get that it's funny for maybe fifteen minutes to have a stereotypically deep voiced radio announcer talking about various horrible things as if it's mundane. "And, next Tuesday, the secret police will be executing citizens who failed to take out the garbage! Oh, those cads!" But after that fifteen minutes, I don't get what else there is of interest. That kind of story, to me, could use either a plotline about exploring the town and actually trying to solve its mysteries, or a plotline about fighting the various depravities of the town. As it is, there doesn't really seem to be a plotline, except for the recent 'vs Strex Corp' thing... which doesn't work for me, because they could have done a vs plotline with the Town Council or the Sheriff's Secret Police or any other of the fascist or monstrous things in town; it feels manipulative to suddenly say, "Wait, they really are heros! Look, here's some brand new bad guys whom Cecil and the others will oppose!" when they haven't really done anything heroic in the past.
What's frustrating is they have Carlos, the scientist character, and I feel like a much better story could be told if Cecil were instead made a field reporter and permanently attached to the science team. Then you can have a consistent plot, exploring the mysteries one at a time, maybe even solving one now and then, and slowly filling out the world in spare moments. Instead, the episodes I saw were shotgun blasts full of random worldbuilding details, with no buildup to anything and no indicator that the story is progressing.
But it's crazy popular. So I guess I'm asking, to any fans of the series... what am I not getting?
I'm right with you on this one Grass. I got about fifteen minutes into the first episode and I ended up snapping it off.
I get that it's a kind of a surrealist humor thing, but its a brand of that humor that just runs completely over my head.
I haven't listened to any yet but I'm curious to give it a listen. I'll report to you once I've done so... I guess.
In the meantime this might help:
As an aside, maybe you just don't enjoy radio drama style podcasts? I know it's not a medium for everybody as I tried, and failed, to get many of my friends hooked on Decoder Ring Theatre.
Personally, I just enjoy surreal things presented in a very matter-of-fact way. The juxtaposition of utterly weird and utterly banal. I'm not a huge fan of the series in any sense. Just enjoy it from time to time for the atmosphere. Though I haven't gotten more than a dozen episodes into it.
Some things just aren't for everyone. To this day I have never been able to watch more than a few moments of the fandom famous "bananas" video.
I actually listened for about 30 episodes and then simply stopped because I realized it was just like Lost, the X files, Claremont's X-men comics, Heroes, and a lot of other series;
What happens, is that with those kind of stories, a huge fanbase is built up very very quickly, in a "viral"* way, solely on the strength of the premises. Which are actually quite cool, in most cases.
And then the producers don't actually know what to do with them, never having anticipated the possibility of being successful (I'm over-generalizing and being mean here, but you get what I mean) and then the story just dies out a long, drawn out death.
The problem is that lots of people keep tuning in due to simple...affection for the show I think? And keep giving it more and more second chances, which I don't know how to feel about
I really enjoy the show myself. I just think it's interesting and does neat stuff with its world. I can understand if you're not into it though. It could just come down to personal preference.
It just has those deep monologs that are abruptly cut off by something utterly unrelated or mundane, and that appeals to me. Plus I think the deepening mysteries being developed are interesting.
I get what you mean that it feels like they could do a lot more with the premise. I listened to a number of them, and the town of Night Vale feels to me like a cool setting I'd like to tell a story in, or run a rp game in, but the show itself doesn't really do much with its setting besides exposition on how generally random and creepy it is. For a lot of people that alone is enough. I mean, I can't deny the show has a lot of atmosphere, and Cecil's voice is pretty dang hypnotic, but yeah, I feel like it could use an actual story taking place.