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March 28, 2024, 05:30:29 PM

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The Whisperer in The Darkness - BBC Podcast Adaptation of Lovecraft stuff

Started by Consignia, December 31, 2019, 04:29:50 PM

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Consignia

Not sure if this should be in this forum, but it's quite tied to the Literature discussion and at the very least better than sticking at the bottom of the old Lovecraft thread.

Following on from the brilliant adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward last year, the BBC have followed it up with a direct sequel; The Whisperer in The Darkness. For the unitiated, it follows a true crime style podcast where a pair of amateur sleuths happen upon the case of a Lovecraft story. For Charles Dexter Ward, I believe it's a very loose adaptation, and indeed the Whisperer in the Darkness is equally loose, as the original stories aren't linked and other Lovecraft bits and bobs are mixed in.

I'm only about halfway through at the moment, and it's still very enjoyable. Being a direct sequel, it doesn't hold off on weirdness early, which is a bit of a disappointment as the first story slowly builds up to the madness, where as here the second episode already is filled with supernatural spookiness. It's still really well done though, and I'm enjoying listening to it whilst out running. Don't know where it's going, as again I'm not au fait with Lovecraft, but I'd recommend giving the series (with Charles Dexter Ward first if you haven't listened) a go if you fancy a spooky old story to listen to, told in an innovative way.

Consignia

Just finished this now, certainly enjoyed. I think it gets a bit too "out there" towards the end, and doesn't have the more subtle investigation themes of the previous one. In fact, the pair of them lean a bit too heavily on the Cthulu mythos, when I don't think it's particularly heavy in the originals nor was Lovecraft particularly interested in linking all this stuff via a shared universe. It also get's a bit too "X-Filesy" at parts, which was more subtly and better done in the Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Still it ends on a hook for a potential sequel, an adaptation of the Shadow over Innsmouth. If they can do that without too much Shub-Niggurath's actually running a shadow government operation there, it potentially could be quite interesting.

petercussing

Thanks for highlighting this, just listened to the first 2 eps of Dexter ward. I'm liking the true crime podcast stylings of it. Will report back once i've binged this ish.

Pingers

Quote from: Consignia on January 03, 2020, 12:32:10 PM
Just finished this now, certainly enjoyed. I think it gets a bit too "out there" towards the end, and doesn't have the more subtle investigation themes of the previous one. In fact, the pair of them lean a bit too heavily on the Cthulu mythos, when I don't think it's particularly heavy in the originals nor was Lovecraft particularly interested in linking all this stuff via a shared universe. It also get's a bit too "X-Filesy" at parts, which was more subtly and better done in the Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Still it ends on a hook for a potential sequel, an adaptation of the Shadow over Innsmouth. If they can do that without too much Shub-Niggurath's actually running a shadow government operation there, it potentially could be quite interesting.

I felt the same, the whole massive conspiracy thing wasn't as effective as the lower-key creepiness of Charles Dexter Ward. It was still good though, and some of the audio was properly creepy

Consignia

Quote from: Pingers on January 05, 2020, 04:28:29 PM
I felt the same, the whole massive conspiracy thing wasn't as effective as the lower-key creepiness of Charles Dexter Ward.

Yeah, there was conspiracy elements in Charles Dexter Ward, but it was really just like one or two powerful people covering up their family's dirty secrets. I don't think it was completely needed, the story could have been framed slightly differently and focus more on the local occult aspect. The UFO angle made it slightly tricky not to put any Government stuff in, but I don't think gelled well with the original story.

Quote
It was still good though, and some of the audio was properly creepy

That's very true. The sound director has been active on Twitter talking about how he captured some of the sounds; see this tweet about some of the forest sounds for example: https://mobile.twitter.com/SounddesignerUK/status/1211958116729999360 It's a shame they had to put the explanation of the creepy 9th episode out there so quickly, but I would never have heard the hidden message without it, so I guess they had to do it.

petercussing

Yeah, binged both of these series now and really liked them.

I agree to some degree with the consipracy stuff, but didn't think that it failed to work entirely, it's just a bit of a mcguffin sometimes.

And yeah, ceraintly is spooky at points. The forest bit at the end was.

Even though it's difficult to try and link this stuff together credibly, as if it's a real podcast, they did it pretty well and they've got some decent mcguffins of crazy shit like her just waking up next to recorder in the forest and the gov. peeps keeping giving back their recorder to them.

Certainly sets up tons of strands for series with allusions such as the name Tillingast (sp?) being the surname of the main guy in From Beyond, potential the Hound and Pickman's Model, as well as obviously Innsmouth which was alluded to.

I guess spoiler so don't read if you ain't listened:


I was a little dissapointed that they didn't do the head in jar stuff from Whisperer along with the idea of the intergalactic race using that to allow humans to travel through space, but i guess if they are going for the idea that they could be an illusion or naughty minions then that makes it more difficult to make it be part of the story if they are going in the route that this is the truth.