The Midnight Gospel

The Midnight Gospel is this cute and weird mix between cartoons that we all love, and podcasts about religion, existential questions and general beliefs. The animation is great, and the colours are pleasing to the eye. The topics are enticing and the voices seem to know what they are talking about, but it's also about not having all the answers. If you like podcasts, give it a go. I do think the episodes might be a bit too much and too long at times, but to each their own.

Do you enjoy podcast like Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Joe Diaz but are not able to sit through them wether due to its length and or lack of visual stimulation? Well this is an amazing middle ground. This show has some excellent conversations with very interesting people and some great animation to go along with it. The way they handle the conversations and the events happening around the characters are amusing to say the least. I highly recommend checking it out. Edit: When I made the review I just finished the fourth episode. After finishing the series I realized that this is something special and I really mean what I say. This is something that's going to stay with me for a while. The last episode had me tearing up it's absolutely incredible.

It's basically an animated podcast. There's not really any plot just some guy interviewing people about....things but the animation is not related to the thing they're talking about at all. It's certainly unique and weird and...good? I...don't know. I mean I don't hate it but I'm just simply not interested about the topics and the conversations around those topics. They talked about life and death and god and spiritual things. Some people might considered their conversations deep and profound but I really don't. Maybe because I feel like I've listened to podcasts or interviews around these topics that's pretty much the same or even better. They just don't have the means to put it in animation. You really have to watch it yourself. I don't think there's definite good or bad about it. It's a conversation, you listen to it and you think about it and that's it.

If The Midnight Gospel was an acid trip, then Duncan Trussell and Pendleton Ward are your spirit guides. This show is about sharing the personal lessons you learn alone in the dark. Adult themes are amplified here; gore, violence, drugs, and nudity are all amped to the nth degree. Beneath the fever dream is a prayer to human connection. For The Midnight Gospel, there is no such thing as small talk. Trussell's warm ability to connect with his guests on their most personal levels disarms you. Pendleton Ward's ability to weave a universe out of what is essentially a series of podcasts is masterful. The two, in harmony, balance each other perfectly. Here, Ward and Trussell succeed so often and in so many ways it's hard to unpack everything without wanting to sit back in for a second viewing.

From the trailers I was expecting something more like King Star King.

I have done no research on this show but what I guess they have done is record real interviews, transcribe them and then adapt them into a workable script.

I have never seen anything quite like this. Reminiscent of its creator's other show, Adventure Time but very much a fresh experience, the episodes lose nothing from eschewing conventional plots in favor one long dialogue (in the Socratic sense) about various things we experience in our life from cultural perspectives on drugs to death to parenting. You hear a lot of opinions but it's never preachy or sanctimonious. Each episode was enriching and I'm tempted to say they basically just got better and better.

One episode actually does have a regular type plot and it's pretty fun.

These dialogues are always cast against astounding surrealist backdrops that are immense but never garish or excessive. Any lulls in the quality of discourse are barely noticeable against fabulous imagery that may or may not have a hidden meaning but is none the worse for that.

I didn't love the certainty that one shouldn't lie to the dying but that's not exactly a cross I'm going to die on.

One particular episode I suspect they had the main actors actual mother as an interviewee. I am very cynical about that kind of thing but it is one of the most moving things I have seen recently.

A triumph of experimental television.