Trope springs eternal
Oakbridge review
Production company – 97toNow
Rating – 
Occasionally, I go back to the darkest depths of my podcast subscriptions to rediscover shows that intrigued me at the time, but ultimately got left by the wayside. This is one of those. It sounded familiar, and I wasn’t sure if I’d already listened to it, but I needed to give it another go. So, dear reader, we find ourselves ready to dive in to another show and dissect it.
So what’s it about?
Strange things are afoot in the small town of Oakbridge. At first, the rather meagre police force only had to worry about kids fishing where they shouldn’t, and that’s how they like it. Life moves slowly here, you could almost say that it was boring. Soon though something emerges from the woods, and it’s hungry. Fobbed off as nothing more than a hoax, it soon becomes all too apparent that it is very real indeed.
With a rising body count, the race is on to find out what exactly is going on, and will this sleepy town ever be the same again?
Is it any good?
Well… not really.
You could draw up a bingo card of tropes aimed at Gen-X geeks, and you’d be calling “house” before the end of episode three.
It seems that 90% of the budget was spent on music and sound design rather than getting top class voice talent. That’s where the show fails. DOn’t get me wrong, it sounds amazing. Although it does seem that they got overly enamoured with the crackling of someone smoking a cigarette. Seriously, it sounds like someone sucking on a drainpipe filled with kindling.
As I say, the acting leaves a lot to be desired. I’m not joking when I say that the most convincing effort so far is the bloodcurdling screams of horror. The actor really throws themselves into it with gusto, and this is by far the most believable part of the series. You can usually tell when voice actors are in an environment where noise might be frowned upon. Not so here, I would be amazed if the police weren’t called during the recording. In this era of podcasting, there really is no excuse for bad acting. There are some real no budget shows that will blow you away talent wise, and no end of fancy sound effects will plaster over unconvincing acting.
There are some very obvious nods to Stranger Things too. This is a shame, because it isn’t as good as that (even the last series of ST which was pretty poor). It just seems like they had a brainstorming session and for whatever reason aimed the show at a certain demographic (which I will include myself in). The lack of originality just gives the show a predictability that hampers it.
Final thoughts
If you’re not too put off by bad acting, then you’ll probably enjoy this show a lot. It is reasonably well written (despite the aforementioned tropes). Particularly if you’re really missing the vapourwave nostalgia of Stranger Things.
As for me, I stuck it out for my regulation then episodes, and I don’t think I’ll carry on. With so many shows to get through, I do have to prioritise somewhat.
You can get Oakbridge here:
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