Beyond my paygrade
SCP Archives review
Production Company – Bloody FM
Rating – 
Who out there remembers Stumble Upon? It was a randomised search engine, where you would select your interests and it would bring up a random page based on what you liked. Anyway, back when I was still spending hours online trawling the internet for anything interesting, I came across a very strange website about a mysterious government department called SCP (short for Secure, Contain, Protect).
The heavily redacted files hinted at an almost alternate reality, filled with strange entities, dimensional abnormalities and everyday items that could destroy the world. They were certainly authentic looking, and along with some weird pictures to accompany the stories, suspension of disbelief was easy, and I was soon down the rabbit hole of reading about what “really exists” in our world.
So what’s it about?
The SCP Archives are the podcast version of the website. Cases are narrated and expanded upon from their original entries on the website. The episodes are a mix of narration and dramatisation that keep the heavily redacted nature of the original website posts.
As I alluded to in the preamble, these cases vary wildly from coffee machines that aren’t what they seem, to bizarre lifeforms with all manner of weird properties and motivations, to entire areas that are somehow corrupted. The latter features a story about an infinite branch of IKEA that is impossible to escape from. Although I don’t think that particular one is very far-fetched!
A few years ago, there was a trend with fabricating shady government/military stories that this was certainly a part of. Along with stories like 9mother9horse9eyes9 (and it’s weird relative Stranger Things) and more recently Kane Pixels excellent Backrooms videos. All these hint at things that we don’t know (and certain parties who want to keep it that way)
Is it any good?
While entertaining enough, on the whole, no. If you don’t know anything about the project, then this podcast will remind you of many other shows out there. It is, after all, a rich seam to mine for fiction. Having said that, some episodes are a lot better than the original. A case in point being SCP-1867 “ A Gentleman”. This was my introduction to the legendary Graham Rowat, and a character so brilliant that I named one of my Call Of Cthulhu characters Sir Henry Blackwood in his honour.
Being a production by Bloody FM, you should know what to expect here. They make plenty of good shows that cater to all manner of weird tastes, but unfortunately there is nothing that truly stands out as great.
Final thoughts
This is a good entryway into the world of SCP, but unfortunately it can’t compete with the original website. If you ignore the source material and imagine this as an unconnected podcast then it’s ok. There are certainly worse ways to get through the day. Adapting source material as venerable and multifarious as The SCP Archives, is a practically impossible task, as this podcast shows.
You can get The SCP Archives here:
For more great reviews, I recommend GreatPods