Welcome To Night Vale: Episode 2 Review

The second episode of Welcome to Night Vale is titled Glow Cloud. At the beginning of the episode there is discussion of a Visitable Night Vale campaign by the Night Vale Tourism Board to get people to visit Radon Canyon. It is given the slogan: the view is literally breathtaking and there is a promotional giveaway of plastic sheeting and rebreathers. We then hear that the farmer John Peters reports that the glowing cloud is moving in from the west, glows in a variety of colors, has a low whistling when it draws near, and while so far only one death has been attributed to it, it’s probably nothing.

While the first episode is an introduction to the town and a few of its residents, the second episode goes more into the happenings. I enjoyed this episode a lot more because it involves a lot more entertaining events that occur. One such even is a cat hovering about 4 feet off the ground next to the sink in the men’s bathroom at the radio station. The announcer claims that he seems unable to move, but happy and healthy and that he purrs and rubs on you if you pet him. He says that they are feeding him and that even though he is floating, no pet is perfect.

This episode goes more into the dry humor that is a running theme of the podcast and something I enjoy. Another example of this is “city council in cooperation with gov’t agents from vague yet menacing agency, questionnaire tonight at elementary at seven involving mysterious sights no one saw and strange thoughts that occurred to no one, if you see something say nothing and drink to forget”. Its these types of quotes that I believe brings people back to the show. While the humor is odd, you can’t help but find yourself laughing at it.

This episode concludes with the calendar for the week. “Saturday public library will be unknowable, citizens will forget from 6 am to 11 pm, under a sort of renovation, unimportant what kind. Sunday is dot day, red dots on what you love, blue dots on what you don’t, mix ups can cause permanent consequences. Monday Louis Glasgow is offering music lessons in back of music shop despite the fact that it burned down years ago and Louis skipped town with the insurance money, bring instruments to ashy shop and pretend he is there teaching you, 50 bucks per lesson. Tuesday, PTA is holding bake sale to support citizens for a blood space war, proceeds will go to support neutron bomb development and deployment to our outer solar system allies. Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error. Thursday is a free concert.”

I highly recommend this episode.

 

 

 

Podcast Review by Alexis Baxter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Serial: The Alibi

The first episode of the podcast Serial is about the alibi of Adnan Syed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. What stood out to me the most about the first episode is how invested in the case Sarah Koenig is, despite the fact that her only connection to the case is an article she wrote about Adnan’s original representation being known for throwing cases to make more money in appeals. There is an obvious lack of reward for solving the case yet Sarah doggedly goes after the evidence she is given or finds in the process. Sarah proceeds to investigate Adnan’s case, making multiple trips to Baltimore to see Adnan’s friends who continue to claim his innocence, as well as speak with potential witnesses in Adnan’s favor.

We get to hear snippets of interviews with all of these people as well as the police interview with Adnan’s friend Jay, his statement that Adnan being guilty is the only piece of evidence in the state’s case against Adnan, and how he told the police of his involvement with the murder of Hae Lee that day. Later on we get to hear recordings of phone conversations between Sarah and Adnan himself. From how casual he talks about the whole thing, it isn’t hard to imagine that he is truly innocent and wants whoever the real killer is to be caught. We find out about an alibi from a girl he ran into the day of Hae Lee’s murder named Asia. It takes a long time for Sarah to finally get ahold of her after being led to believe that it was possible Adnan’s family coerced her into signed the affidavit that could’ve been a major help in the first trial not to mention Adnan’s appeal.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode of Serial and am fully willing to admit that I am now hooked just as I was when watching How to Make a Murderer on Netflix. Sarah managed to suck me into the case and I am desperate to know if they will find some type of evidence to prove Adnan’s innocence or whether he has played so many people in his life by convincing them that he is innocent when in fact he cold-bloodedly strangled his ex. I loved that the interviews were included because it gives a sense of realness to the whole story. Having someone read a transcript of an interview isn’t as genuine. It would be far too easy for someone to change what they are reading whereas the interview recording can only have pieces cut out, not changed in a grander sense.

There were a few things about the format of the podcast that I did not enjoy. One of which was the music in the background. In the beginning of the episode I understand that it’s meant to be used as some form of theme song or some such thing, but later on there would be music that was clearly used as an effect. I don’t know if it was the choice of music or the seriousness of the situation, but I did not appreciate the sound effect music that was chosen. In my opinion it was completely unnecessary.

Overall I would recommend this podcast to anyone who enjoys television shows in the theme of criminal justice and/or cop shows. I really enjoyed the first episode and plan to listen to the rest of them to find out what happens.

Podcast Review by Alexis Baxter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Dark Hooded Figures

Welcome to Night Vale

Title: Welcome to Night Vale

URL: iTunes or Stitcher or Libsyn or any podcast app or Soundcloud

Going since: June 15th, 2012

Written by: Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Starring: Cecil Baldwin

Welcome to Night Vale is a Podcast about a fictional town known as Night Vale presented as a radio show. It currently has over 80 episodes. The description listed for it is “twice-monthly community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide. Welcome to Night Vale.” While the writers describe it as comedy I would describe the Podcast as a satirical sci-fi story. If you have a unique sense of humor, this is the Podcast for you. Each episode is an average of twenty-minutes long and I hope you all will at least listen to the first episode which can be listened to for free on  iTunes or Stitcher or Libsyn or any podcast app or Soundcloud.

Night Vale has gathered an international cult following and has its own website which can be found here: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/. The show was written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor and is narrated by Cecil Baldwin. They even have a novel that the two writers of the Podcast collaborated on. You can buy all kinds of Night Vale inspired merchandise from a link found on the website as well as donate to the Podcast which is also available on the website.