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danielpowell · 3 years

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Okay, I'm making the show post cause I have to put my thoughts in one place. Warning you that this is full of spoilers, so don't get mad and say I didn't warn you. This very well could change on a re-watch, honestly. These feelings are rather fresh.

Pros:

The theme visuals look pretty.

Wardrobe is great- I genuinely want Dan's shirt and cardigan look, the film bar one.

Lots of sets look really nice and packed with detail- there's even nods to the podcast and the miniseries.

Certain tracks are nice and the sound design is well done for the most part.

Expanded backstory of the two mains we don't get in the podcast- while I don't necessarily like the ones they are given because of the aspect of ~ they were connected the entire time ~ it was nice to see any at all.

Expanded backstory and personality of the two supporting characters for the main- Mark feels far more involved and while I do think he's supportive and caring in the podcast, I do think the show does a great job at showing his ride or die attitude. Annabelle, Alexa's replacement, is still very queer ! She's a very fun character too. I think her actress did a fantastic job in this role. I would have loved to see her in a relationship with Melody outside of roommate and best friend.

Ratty is there and far more realistic in depiction. Dan barely fighting anything Ratty does is hilarious. He's a disgruntled roomie and puts up with it. I find this dynamic way more enjoyable than in the podcast, in all honesty.

The film restoration bits are sexy. The tech is on point and the tools are pretty fucking accurate if you ask me. Thanks for wearing gloves, Dan. More than I can say for Daniel Powell who doesn't even say the right model and doesn't prep the tapes before playing them.

Speaking of, they have the Otari MX5050 Bii model in the background at one point. Kudos.

The mold is kind of cool, actually. I think it would have worked better if he had noticed it on the tapes sooner. More Mold, please.

I wanna say that many of them give great performances, but genuinely it's hard to tell what I think is bad or good because the writing or directing hinders it. They did a good job with what they were given.

It is apparent they listened to the podcast by all the homages and references thrown in.

They have a Magnetic Fields track in there. It's short, but it did get me as it's one I put in an Archive 81 playlist.

The short segments at the start of each episode are reminiscent of the tapes and in-show ads from the podcast. I thought the killer clown movie one was hilarious and I kind of want to see it.

Mark bludgeons Davenport, go king go.

I'm in the unpopular crowd here, but I'm glad Rat isn't in it. People can't be normal about him. I think if he was people would have rioted anyway.

Cons:

They did in fact erase the sapphic relationship and instead have them as platonic. While Annabelle is unabashedly queer, is teasing and flirty towards Melody, and is present through a large amount of the show, there is nothing that states, alludes, or cements a romantic involvement between her and Melody which is a grevious offense.

Melody mouth kisses Samuel on screen after flirting with him. They go on a date. It's kind of implied they were going to drink and maybe do stuff in the privacy of her apartment. It's very uncomfortable paired with the fact she is now not sapphic.

There is zero confirmation she is a lesbian or sapphic in any way. If anything, it's the opposite.

They do make Cassandra Wall a lesbian, but it's done so in a way that feels... icky. I can't speak much on it as I am neither a woman nor a lesbian.

Melody is now kind of incompetent and a damsel in distress, which is so far removed from the original. She has to be rescued.

She also has a fight with her best friend and gets told she is smothering people for trying to help them. It was very upsetting to witness.

Jesse is both aged down and changed to a girl, for some reason. I think it's to further connect Dan as he has a sister in this portrayal, but it rubs me the wrong way. There are certainly some improvements when it came to antiblackness, but maybe replacing the teenage black boy with a younger girl (with lighter complexion) isn't a good look.

In that same vein, while Jess still runs errands for Visser residents, they completely get rid of any mention of Why. This snippet was supposed to give hints to people gathering ritual components and more importantly, touch on disability and the fact that there are disabled and elderly residents and that the programs in place for their food deliveries suck. It was an important detail to me, but instead it's utilized as an excuse to have Jess around and help groom her as a sacrifice for the cult.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I found the scenes of her in pain distressing and unnecessary.

Oh yeah. And she lives unlike in the podcast, but she's a nun now :/

On that note, they change the genre from found-footage weird fiction with comedy and cosmic horror elements to a religious horror mystery drama that made me more angry with each bastardization of the religions in question. It feels very satanic panic and uninspired at best and lazy and offensive at worst.

The backstory for the mains quite frankly suck. The connection and involvement between them was wholly unnecessary. I don't care if it makes their connection deeper or whatever. The point was that Dan was isolated and didn't know these people. He was an observer that got strung in thanks to his obsessive and curious nature. Trading this for a tragic backstory and a family connection to Melody was a poor decision to me. I was not a fan.

The dog being the same is dumb ! That's the most generic dog with a red collar I've ever seen. Dan, what the hell are you talking about ?

Melody is a witch now, I guess ? The whole thing with her mom was just, bad. It's bad. I hate stories that try and do genetic witch shit. I'm Irish Pagan and it's by choice, it's not a hereditary thing.

Also, making it to where Melody is instead trying to track down her mom rather than simply gathering stories and staying because she cares and it's her job is a choice they made. It's not a good choice. Isn't Melody supposed to be a social worker ? Or was that not good enough for this re-envisioned story ?

Also, she stays in Visser in this portrayal and doesn't even live in New York. They could have easily kept it to where it was her act of recording and taking the tapes with her that give her a connection to Visser and its Weirdness. But they don't! In fact, the recording only feels important for the sake of letting Dan watch it and go :0

Dan's dad is her therapist because sure, why not ? Let's add threads where there didn't need to be.

Dan also has a history of mental illness and they shove this down your throat many times by having people constantly ask him if he is having a mental health emergency. It feels very modern, I'll give them that, but it only infuriates me further as:

Why the hell is LMG name-dropped in full and why did they try and make them seem any kind of caring ? They are a face-less, heartless corporation.

Dan can get groceries and leave whenever he wants. They eliminate isolation, poor living conditions, and poor nutrition. These were huge factors for his mental decline, why axe them ? You wouldn't have had to rig all the family history and trauma if you had just stuck with this. In fact, it would have been enhanced !

Dan's kind of a huge asshole to Mark for seemingly no reason ? To me, Mark was shown to be supportive and present for Dan when he needed to be. Why is Dan saying to not do stuff for the podcast, you only care about the podcast, when it doesn't look like it was, ever ?? I feel like I missed a scene or a conversation or a line somewhere. Please correct me if I did miss something cause it was not at all spelled out to me. It felt out of place, like they wrote this scene for the end but forgot to actually bring any conflict.

They do scenes where Dan and Melody interact and talk with each other and they are So Awkward. There is no chemistry here, I'm sorry.

For some reason they turned Dan into solely a techie nerd and instead gave the hipster qualities to Thomas (?) and MELODY. If they were trying to make a connecting factor with them, it failed miserably.

Dan finds out he's being watched early on and navigates this by 'hacking' so he can find blindspots. He later destroys the cameras. He is never reprimanded for having visitors or other things, I don't know why this was done at all, please help me understand, this show is somehow so stupid and so convoluted at the same time.

Something about sending both Melody and Annabelle to psych wards "for safety" really doesn't sit well. Like, um, it's pretty obviously bad ? It's bad, right ? Pairing this with people constantly thinking Dan is just having a mental breakdown feels very wrong and kinda ableist. I don't know if that's just me or not.

Ratty was an afterthought. I loved him being there and alive, but he does nothing except serve as a treat for podcast fans. He's barely there. If this was so Rat, could actually be Ratty, that would be hilarious to me.

The theme song sucks, there I said it. I found it boring and even annoying when they played it in scenes. The shrill tones, yuck.

Some tracks are actually painful to listen to. There's one in particular that would trigger headaches. It was also paired with flashing lights at one point which is just asking for trouble.

The dialogue is Bad. It's very stiff and unnatural. Boring, even.

There is some gore and the blood looks like corn syrup. It's not good special effects. At least they had sfx.

The magic CGI also blows.

The sex scene is sudden and unnecessary.

There is one archive and it never said to be the 81st. The title has no relevance to the series.

The last shot where you can see the twin towers reflecting in the windows is COMICALLY BAD.

Overall, I was bored to tears. I multitasked at points and was still wishing I was watching something else.

TL;DR [too long, didn't read]

It's a very bland and uninspired adaptation that makes very bad, stupid decisions for plot and only has a few good things going for it.

I'm proud of Marc and Dan for getting to this point, and I want to support them, but if you are a fan of the podcast I have a strong feeling you won't enjoy this show. But hey, you just might.

Edit: [March 30th, 2024] I'm actually a fagdyke, so this is funny to look back on.

Also, for reference, I now have the screen worn film bar shirt. Huzzah.

#archive 81 netflix #mel talks a81 netflix #a81 netflix spoilers #spoilers #antiblackness tw #homophobia cw #misogyny cw #unsanitary cw #ask to tag #long post #ableism tw #medical cw

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