Nighthawks at the diner

Excuse Us review

Rating –

[NOTICE: NON-URGENT COMMUNICATION – PROBABLY FINE]

Dear Podcast Geek,

We at Blind Corp™ recently became aware of a situation. It involves a town (Joiceville), some regrettable experiments (ongoing), and an audio drama called Excuse Us that someone definitely should’ve redacted by now.

Unfortunately, our PR team is… well, missing. So we’re pivoting to “independent reviewer outreach,” which is just like damage control—but trendier.

We’d love for you to review the show. Not required, of course. Just highly encouraged. Like those fire drills we no longer run, vitamin C, and the second Evil Dead.

Contains mild psychological collapse, light corporate dread, and one very questionable breakfast menu. We think it’s right up your alley.

Thanks in advance for whatever you decide (but ideally a review).

 Yours in policy and pancakes,

 Blind Corp™

 “Still (legally) a company”

Well, dear reader, after receiving a message like that, what could I do except subscribe immediately and check the show out. 

So what’s it about?

As you probably gleaned from the opening communique, Excuse Us concerns the weird goings on in the small town of Joiceville. The town nestles in the shadow of Blindcorp, a mysterious organisation that may or may not be responsible for the recent “misfortunes” that have befallen the locals.

The inhabitants of the town are colourful to say the least. Life seemingly revolves around the Super Awesome Diner (that’s the name, not a description), in more ways than one, as it also plays a pivotal role in the dark machinations of Blind Corp.

Told in both past and present tense, the story unfolds and you slowly uncover the truth to just what the hell is going on.

Is it any good?

This is a very idiosyncratic show. Therefore it will no doubt be polarising in general opinion. The story, while interestingly written, is not exactly original. The concept has seen a boom recently, since the events in a certain town called Hawkins got Gen-X all misty eyed. 

The voice acting isn’t amazing. Well, some of it is. Some of it is a bit patchy in places. And there are sections where people talk over each other. This may make some parts hard to follow if things like that are distracting for you. The weird thing is, all of the voice talent is computer generated. Looking at the credits, it is just Rodrigo Pool and some AI voice modulation software. Now, I take a very dim view of AI in the “creative” realm, and the fact I didn’t realize just goes to show how far the tech has advanced, even as far as making dodgy actors! This really conflicted me. I wanted to penalize the show for this, but it is very well written. I would say that it is so well written, it wouldn’t have lost anything as a story told by a single narrator. That’s just the opnion of an old luddite though.

Despite knowing what the show was about (from the original message) you don’t actually get to the story proper until episode ten. The previous episodes set the scene and provide backstory for the various characters. So much so, I had pretty much forgotten what the story was actually about. This isn’t helped by the fact that one character actually has two roles, one in the past and one in the present. This confused me on my first listen through.

Final thoughts

The thing is though, that doesn’t matter at all. Not one little bit. The story and the production as a whole is so gloriously unhinged that you are just swept along with no way to get off. Imagine taking a hyperactive, sugar filled child to a theme park, and being dragged by the hand from ride to ride, and the feeling is similar.

This podcast isn’t going to be for everyone, and that’s fine. It’s confusing and hectic, and very, very funny. I haven’t heard many people discussing this show online, and I think that’s a shame. No, it’s not perfect. Yes, there are better shows out there. This one stands alone though. It’s weird and proud and loud and I love it.

After listening to the first ten episodes (twice), it did jump to the top of my list because sometimes the reviews seem to write themselves (almost literally in this case going off the introduction).

You can get Excuse Us here:

https://pod.link/1776520879

For more great reviews, I recommend GreatPods