The podcast in question is Deadly Manners, a fully-cast work of fiction about an upper crust 1950s dinner party that devolves into a murder spree. It was the cast that drew me in, which includes Kristen Bell, Denis O’Hare, RuPaul, Timothy Simons, Anna Chlumsky, and is narrated by LeVar Burton. It's a potent lineup for a medium that in most cases hasn't figured out yet how to make money, and it definitely got my attention.
You can also tell from that lineup that this thing is probably meant to be funny. The movie Clue, as a radio drama. Maybe that was the first problem, because Clue is a bit of lightning-in-a-bottle brilliance that seems difficult to recapture. But the second, bigger problem, is that it seems the podcast isn't always on that page.
Kristen Bell is playing a ludicrously self-centered socialite (think of her character on The Good Place, but rich). Timothy Simons has all the bluster and insensitivity of his Veep character, swapping obliviousness for drunkenness). Anna Chlumsky adopts a weird accent and just chews the imaginary scenery. But the script isn't feeding them material that works for how broad they're all playing.
Meanwhile, RuPaul is playing as though just being there is enough of a joke, and Denis O'Hare is actually playing it pretty straight (even though everyone who saw True Blood or American Horror Story: Hotel knows he can serve up a joke with tongue planted firmly in cheek). Then you've got LeVar Burton holding court over it all; it sort of sounds like now and then, he's got a twinkle in an eye you can't see, but he's generally reading with such gravitas as to throw another weird gear into the mix.
I suspect part of why it doesn't all gel is that it wasn't all recorded together. That's just the bizarre way of doing things when it comes to animation, audiobooks, anything that involves standing at a microphone in a studio. That would go doubly so for a low-budget enterprise like a podcast, which surely could never actually get a cast this big standing together in a room all at the same time. But it's the core of comedy (and in particular, of something like Clue) to feed off the energy of the other performers. Here, when no one really knew how anyone else was doing it, the results are a jumble.
Weirder still are the sound effects used throughout each episode of the podcast. LeVar Burton often narrates a noise about to be made when we wind up hearing it anyway a moment later. The sounds are always maxed out in volume and jarring -- a breaking champagne glass sounds like a shattering window, a slamming door sounds like a crypt being sealed. And several times an episode, character dialogue is inexplicably panned from one speaker to the other, implying movement even if the character isn't logically moving.
I really don't like it, to be honest. But before I had really figured that out, I was already enough episodes in that I knew I was going to have to see it through. It's a whodunit, after all... and now I've got to know whodunit. New episodes are released each Tuesday, so I guess I have 3 Tuesdays to go before I'm released from my self-imposed prison.
Alright, it's not that bad. (If it were, surely I'd be able to pull away.) There are moments where the different performers are clearly having so much fun that it pushes through the mess and puts a smile on my face. But I still wouldn't recommend it; this review is more to wave anyone off that may have heard of this thing. I give Deadly Manners a C-. (Though I suppose that could adjust up or down, depending on how worthwhile the mystery's resolution ends up being.)
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