podcast review: archive 81
overall rating: 7.3
synopsis: this oneās a little difficult to really... sum up so iāll split it a little bit. seasons one and two follow av nerd dan, who has recently been hired to document and organize an archive of tapes for a mysterious company- he discovers something is not quite right, and consequences ensue. season 3 seems initially completely separate from these other two, following a pair of half-siblings as they maneuver through an intricate set of esoteric rituals left to them by their shared father.
thatās... really the best i got on that. ah ha. also apparently thereās going to be a netflix show? i literally JUST found this out during a cursory google search and iād definitely be interested in that. i think it might work better as visual media rather than audio-only.
writing: 4/10
alright, this is my biggest gripe with a81 and the only reason i have a hard time with it. the writing is definitely good, but i think itās almost too good. i will admit i had a very difficult time following the story and kept holding out and sayingĀ āoh, maybe next season will make more senseā but honestly? it never really did. itās incredibly obvious that the whole thing is meant to all resolve at a later point and that the threads that tie seemingly disjointed pieces together will become more prominent as the story continues on. i like to think i am not an idiot, but listening to this podcast kind of makes me feel like one. thereās a huge undercurrent of things bigger than ourselves and all that, which i definitely am a fan of, but having it constantly framed in the sense that it will always be too big for the fragile human mind to comprehend is... well, not exactly always nice. there is some incredibly interesting philosophy involved and i do love the different things the podcast does with music and our perceptions of it, but it can definitely be a bit much and doesnāt seem to be well suited to my kind of casual listening. i definitely want to give it another listen through sometime and see if maybe things change but since my main reason to listen to podcasts in the first place is to not be bored as all hell when iām working, that might take some time. i will also say that this one first came onto my radar as a highly recommended visceral horror story and while there are definitely some scary bits and some body horror and such, it feels... very light for something thatās generally touted primarily as horror. in my own personal opinion iād call it more a philosophical sci-fi comedy with a strong horror flavor, but this misrepresentation (for the lack of a better term) essentially meant i was also a bit disappointed from the get-go. i wanted to feel my heart race while listening and i most definitely did not get that.
in short, i really want to love this because itās SO up my alley but i just CANāT
acting: 8/10
okay! ripping time is over! while i was initially not impressed with some of the acting in season one (primarily dan, imho he just wasnāt quite convincing enough) that quickly turned around as more and more characters were introduced and i understood that at least for my standards, dan was an exception and not the rule. he was also stepped way up in season two and i have nothing but mad respect for that, because it essentially means i got to watch an actor grow into his role and his own right. which is pretty neat.
aside from that, thereās not really much i can say on this. the acting is mostly pretty good, no emotions or accents felt too exaggerated and it was clear that there was a fantastic focus on having a diverse cast, which i also highly applaud. without going into detail, the highlight of the acting in the podcast is a certain character that features in season two that has to display an incredible amount of range in tone and articulation and that one left me supremely impressed. well done, a81 cast.
production: 10/10
okay iām giving this an honorary 11/10 because this is where a81 truly outdoes almost everything else iāve listened to thus far. the sound design and editing are i n s a n e. between there being a need for lots of tape noises and distortions (which were incredibly well executed) thereās a huge amount of original music and all sorts of weird supernatural noises that really help to bring the script to life. sound effects during action scenes are well done and itās all balanced fairly well for a good listening experience- aside from some of the occasional distortions, but thatās kind of the point of them. so no negative points for that even though itās jarring and i definitely would not listen if i already felt a headache coming on (which, without going into too much detail, did make my initial listen through pretty difficult since i have chronic migraines)
general conclusion is a81 pretty great itās just not entirely my thing, but god do i want it to be. i will definitely keep listening to it because i am a horrible completionist and really want to get to a point where it makes sense to me lmao
















