Limetown: Episode 1: What We Know

September 21, 2015 1:17 PM

Ten years ago, over three hundred men, women and children disappeared from a small town in Tennessee, never to be heard from again. In this seven-part podcast, American Public Radio host Lia Haddock asks the question once more, "What happened to the people of Limetown?"

Limetown is a fictional podcast from Two-Up Productions. Limetown follows journalist Lia Haddock as she investigates the infamous disappearance of a doomed research facility.

posted by yasaman (25 comments total)

Assorted people on Twitter mentioned this as being The X-Files meets Serial, or Serial meets Welcome to Night Vale, which definitely got me interested. Despite that, I definitely had a moment of "...this is fiction, right? Right?!" in this first episode, because the production in the first few minutes was sufficiently realistic to make me second guess myself. (It is totally fiction, btw.)

Anyway, I fucking love this genre, by which I mean the genre of spooky shit happens and someone investigates, bonus points for documentary style or having plausible media/documentation backup like news stories, interviews, reports, etc. I think Limetown is a great example of it, and I'm totally hooked by the mystery of what happened to Limetown's residents, and invested in Lia's investigative journey. There were a few moments where the production/voice acting rang false to me, but overall, I think this is a well-produced and very promising new podcast. Plus it's delightfully creepy. It will run for seven episodes this season, apparently, with no set release schedule for new episodes.
posted by yasaman at 1:36 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ooh, sounds neat and I've been looking for a new podcast to listen to. Thanks, I'll post again when I've listened to it!
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 4:02 PM on September 21, 2015

Well, I listened to the first episode, and I can certainly see the comparisons to Serial and WTNV. Specifically it sounds like someone doing an investigative report on the town of Night Vale from the outside. (Interloper!)

I agree that some of the voice acting was rough in spots, but it seems to have a pretty large cast so I assume some of those were amateurs - it was well produced, overall, and the foley work was quite good, which WTNV sometimes has problems with. Music and all was very nicely mixed in.

The content was... creepy at times. It's not soothingly creepy, like WTNV can be - I got goosebumps once at the beginning and once towards the end. Definitely not going to be my "falling asleep" podcast. I am very interested in what has happened to the town though - and I have my theories.

Overall this was a very good podcast, I look forward to listening to episode 2 (tomorrow, when it's light out.)

Thanks very much for posting about it, I don't know if I'd have heard of it otherwise - I'm going to try to convince some WTNV fans I know to give it a listen.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:02 PM on September 21, 2015

Hah - the Night Vale guy is not impressed

https://twitter.com/PlanetofFinks/status/645940345482682368

"I listened to both of the recently produced podcasts that seem like super-calculated mash-ups of Serial and Night Vale."
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:05 PM on September 21, 2015

He then said that one was a lot of fun and he was unimpressed by the other. Didn't specify, but I'm gonna guess LT was the fun one (because oh my god is TBT pointless and wooden).
posted by Etrigan at 8:51 PM on September 21, 2015

The X-Files meets Serial, or Serial meets Welcome to Night Vale

As a long-time fan of The X-Files and Welcome to Night Vale, and someone who tried to be a fan of Serial (and gave up around episode 5), I'd say it's a lot closer to the former than the latter. WTNV does a pretty good job of balancing creepy/funny — with a lot of the humor coming from just how mundane the creepiness is to Cecil and the other townspeople. TXF was more creepy/mysterious and rarely went for humor (on a whole-episode scale, that is, not to say that TXF didn't sometimes have humorous moments within largely non-humorous episodes). I actually don't think WTNV is a good comparison for Limetown, unless we're going to be so broad as to compare any podcast with supernatural themes to WTNV.

It completely nails the Serial vibe, though, and I'm loving that aspect of it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:36 PM on September 21, 2015

oh my god is TBT pointless and wooden

What is TBT, so I know to either avoid it or at least approach with caution?
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:32 AM on September 22, 2015

Sorry, that's The Black Tapes, a similar "Serial meets X-Files" podcast that started up a couple of months ago. But it's not bad bad, it just suffers mightily in comparison to Limetown.

(Disclaimer: I have only listened to the first four TBTs, and it's much more monster-of-the-week, but they're hanging a lot of the burden on the host ("Alex Reagan") and the parapsychologist ("Dr. Richard Strand"), and their acting abilities are not coming off well.)

Further disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this and previous comments are solely the opinion of Etrigan and do not reflect the opinions of FanFare, MetaFilter, Limetown, Lia Haddock, American Public Radio, Joseph Fink, Welcome to Nightvale, the National Football League, or any of their sponsors.
posted by Etrigan at 6:50 AM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

I really enjoyed the first episode. The thing that I am hoping that Limetown manages to avoid is the trope in supernatural fiction that I can't exactly pinpoint on TV Tropes right now, but it's the thing where, when faced with a character involved with a massive unexplained event, the protagonist simply does. not. ask. the right. questions. Either they focus on details ("What are the numbers?" instead of "What are we doing on this island and how do we get off?") or they just let the person be vague and mysterious without asking followup questions ("Wait, who the fuck are these Others and how did they get on the island?") I'm optimistic that given the investigative journalism conceit of this podcast Lia will know to ask the right questions, but I guess Sarah Koenig wasn't always great at that either, so who knows.

The Black Tapes suffers greatly from that - Alex is happy to let Strand lead her around on a leash, investigatively speaking - most of the time.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:06 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

As a long-time fan of The X-Files and Welcome to Night Vale, and someone who tried to be a fan of Serial (and gave up around episode 5), I'd say it's a lot closer to the former than the latter.

Yeah, WTNV was one of the comparisons I saw floating around Twitter, and writer Zack Akers lists it as one of his influences, but I definitely see more X-Files than WTNV in Limetown. In interviews, Akers says that WTNV keyed him in to the possibilities of the podcast genre more than anything else, which I can definitely see. Aside from the difference in tone between Limetown and WTNV, one of the other big differences I see is that it seems fairly obvious that WTNV writers Fink and Cranor are coming from a theater background, while Akers is coming from a film school background. Just something about the way the scripts are structured, the voice acting/foley work, the worldbuilding etc are all subtly suggestive of the theater/film divide. I'm tickled that the creators of Limetown went from "it's too expensive/time-consuming to make a movie," to "so let's make a podcast." I think a process like that has the potential to do some new things for the podcast format.
posted by yasaman at 10:37 AM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

I actually really love both this podcast and The Black Tapes -- if anyone can rec any other 'serious journalism' podcasts about a paranormal event, I'm all ears.

So what is everyone's going theory about what actually happened to the people of Limetown? Zombies, alien abduction, mind control? Where did everyone go? Maybe it would be better to ask these questions once we're caught up, but I feel good about some baseless speculation. I'm not sure how to fit any of my current theories into the fact that they never found everyone's bodies.
posted by possibilityleft at 2:31 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's time travel. Don't ask me how I know.
posted by Etrigan at 3:35 PM on September 22, 2015

My completely WAG (and I haven't listened to ep 2 yet)...they were doing some sort of neurological research... perhaps they inadvertently created an artificial intelligence with not only sentience, but immense power? (A la Frederic Brown's short short story "Answer," although maybe not quite that powerful.) I don't really expect I'm right, just throwing the idea out there. Looking forward to the rest.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:57 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

This popped up in my FanFare Podcast Posts subscription, and I hadn't even finished reading the description before queuing it up! After the first episode, I'm not disappointed - well-produced creepy investigation FTW! The central mystery sends a bone-deep chill down my spine - I've always had a thing for vanished communities, and moving it into the 21st century with recorded 911 calls and everything adds hugely to the unsettling nature. This one is definitely a keeper.

My only beef as a wife-of-neuroscientist is the Magical Neuroscience stuff going on, playing on the "mysterious" brain. Especially when they mentioned the near-impossibility of doing "brain mapping". ...my office is right next door to the Brain Mapping Unit. It's pretty basic, mundane research at this point? Now, if they'd been studying consciousness... Anyway. It's fun enough that I'll file it under Science in Fiction (which is pretty much just plot magic) and keep enjoying it.

Adding my guess - I wasn't clear on whether their DNA was all missing, or if it was just that there was DNA but all the people were 100% gone? If their DNA is missing, they've either never been there (time travel), or their physical forms have shifted elsewhere (parallel dimension of some sort). But there's definitely something up with the caves, too - as a vehicle to make the disappearance happen? Or are they now home to the missing in some way?

I hope the plot keeps up this sort of tension. I quite enjoy The Black Tapes podcast, but as the whole setup there is one where only a few fringe figures will admit to believe in the central mystery I feel it keeps tripping up the creepiness with the faux-skepticism. It's another solid production, though, and while they owe a lot of their success to Welcome to Night Vale being such a hit I don't feel they have much in common at all. I don't care if it's not 100% original - more quality investigations into fictional unsolved mysteries can only be a good thing for my podcast listening!
posted by harujion at 2:47 AM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

Especially when they mentioned the near-impossibility of doing "brain mapping". ...my office is right next door to the Brain Mapping Unit.

And all we ever heard from harujion after that was a fragment of a 911 call...
posted by Etrigan at 5:41 AM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

"I listened to both of the recently produced podcasts that seem like super-calculated mash-ups of Serial and Night Vale."

What? That's absolute nonsense. Night Vale is a comedy. Neither of these are. Night Vale focuses on expanding the mythology of a single town, with heavy worldbuilding and character development. Black Tapes, at least, very much does not. Does WTNV just get to claim a blanket monopoly on "supernatural horror as podcast topic" now? Because if that's the claim I call the largest of shenanigans.

(Also I personally love TBT. The stories are interesting and well produced, and starting with episode 7 literally all the stuff that looked like monster-of-the-week in the first few episodes starts to get tied together in to an overarching narrative that works really well. And I never quite got why people hate so much on Reagan and Strand's voice acting)
posted by Itaxpica at 12:20 PM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

And I never quite got why people hate so much on Reagan and Strand's voice acting

Really? Okay. I get taken out of the action by a stilted line reading every few minutes. Maybe I won't notice by the time I'm caught up (currently on 105), but I think that'll be more because I just expect it from them than because they're getting better.
posted by Etrigan at 12:26 PM on September 23, 2015

I guess I can see where it's a little stilted, but honestly that's always upped the immersion for me. It feels like just the right kind of stilted - the kind of stilted you'd get from actual people talking on a podcast, not delivering recorded lines. The whole thing feels very very real to me, even in the ways it's unreal.
posted by Itaxpica at 1:23 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

harujion: My only beef as a wife-of-neuroscientist is the Magical Neuroscience stuff going on, playing on the "mysterious" brain. Especially when they mentioned the near-impossibility of doing "brain mapping". ...my office is right next door to the Brain Mapping Unit. It's pretty basic, mundane research at this point? Now, if they'd been studying consciousness...

Etrigan: And all we ever heard from harujion after that was a fragment of a 911 call...

Nah. If harujion disappears, the last recording we'll have will be a call from harujion into a pizza restaurant for a rather dull pizza delivery, as proof that there's nothing scary about brain mapping. Nothing exciting at all, just move along. But we won't let you enter harujion's office for a few weeks, just to clear the evidence air out the space because it reeks of garlic. That harujion sure loved garlic on pizzas, what a weirdo.

What, there was no garlic mentioned in the pizza order? He must have been a regular.

Anyway, after the first episode, I'm sure the caves have some deeper (dun dun DUNNN!) mystery to them.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:50 PM on September 24, 2015

Also, I always found Night Vale too twee (or college radio, or community theater, or something) in its presentation, though I love the mythologies and world building. I listened to a few in a row and was burnt out. I keep saying "I should get back into those" but something else comes up. This, on the other hand, there's enough polish and seriousness to this that I really got hooked. Then again, keeping it to seven episodes makes the world-building more manageable, so you don't end up with a world where everything from the SCP Foundation is running amok.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:57 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

What, there was no garlic mentioned in the pizza order? He must have been a regular.

I used to live in a hotel four nights a week (my unit moved a month after I arrived, about 2.5 hours farther away from my house). Every Tuesday, I would order General Tso's Chicken and an egg roll from the local Chinese place, right around the same time. After a while, they would pick up the phone and say "This Etrigan? Okay, be right there." And I could see the restaurant from the edge of the building, so sometimes I would run down there and see the guy already in his car after I called, heading toward me. By that point, they didn't bother with an order slip or a receipt or asking if I wanted my change or nothing. Just hand me the bag of food, I hand them the money, done and done.

When I went on leave for a month, my first Tuesday back, I called them up. They answered the phone, "This Etrigan? Where you been? We were worried. Don't do that." And sure enough, I asked the front desk, and the guy had literally gone to them with my order on that first Tuesday that I was gone and asked, "Etrigan didn't call. He okay?"

This has nothing to do with Limetown, but now I'm hungry.
posted by Etrigan at 1:10 PM on September 24, 2015 [18 favorites]

I listened to a few [Nightvale episodes] in a row and was burnt out.

I can't do that either. I have to space out any new podcast, no matter how much I like it.
posted by Etrigan at 1:10 PM on September 24, 2015

Also, I always found Night Vale too twee (or college radio, or community theater, or something) in its presentation

I've only listened to the first eight or so episodes of Nightvale (maybe it gets better?) but I keep getting tripped up by how every single line-reading is like this big winking to the audience. I suspect I'd like the same scripts a whole lot more if they played them truly straight.

Does it get better?
posted by nobody at 2:31 PM on September 24, 2015

Not really, nobody. That's part of what I mean about Night Vale very clearly coming from a theater place, the line-readings are always very deliberate in a way I associate with theater. That's part of what I find charming about WTNV, but ymmv obviously! Limetown mostly doesn't have that problem with the line-readings, and is more in line with what I'd expect from a radio investigative piece or documentary film.
posted by yasaman at 5:27 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I liked this OK. I currently prefer The Black Tapes, but that may change as I get to know Lia Haddock better.

I hope it's nothing as obvious as aliens or time travel. I'd like something really weird and only glancingly explained at the end of the season. Leaving stuff out of weird fiction is as important as putting creepy stuff in -- it's that feeling of standing on the edge of a vast emptiness.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:05 PM on September 26, 2015 [1 favorite]