March 25, 2014 by

For those of you who are unaware, the great sire Mr_Jellyfish has crafted a unique new podcast series with his fellow gents over at Gorilla Film Magazine. This new series is titled....The Bunker.

The Bunker is essentially an old-school radio show, only the hosts are living in a presumably post-apocalyptic world in the year 2414. The three Brits sometimes discuss the exterior wasteland, without really giving much context as to what happened in the before-time (the time before whatever caused the apocalyptic event). Sound familiar?

The primary difference between The Bunker and the radio stations featured in the Fallout series lies in the simple fact that The Bunker focuses on storytelling, as well as inviting guests to discuss creative endeavors. Of course there are probably some other inspirations behind the development of the series, but such a list would be tedious to uncover when the brilliance of the series should probably be analyzed piece by piece (figuratively, mind you; if I wanted to analyze the whole thing I'd need to listen to each episode multiple times, and then write a 10,000 word essay on the subject, and I seriously don't want to exceed 700 words on this little blog).

Structurally, an episode will open up with an introduction of the three wonderful hosts, including our very own Jellyfish (one of the Davids). They discuss the current events of the wasteland, whilst providing something of a schedule of what to expect over the course of an episode. The stories told by the hosts and some of the guests are....quite unconventional. Attempting to describe them would be the equivalent of attempting to decipher the meaning of the "funniest joke ever written" from that one episode of Monty Python.

Between the stories are bits of ambient music, similar to what one might expect from an incredibly slow post-rock song by Sigur Ros, or someone similar. I appreciate the tone of these bits of music, but sometimes I feel like the length of these bits of music between the separate stories/skits can be maybe 30 seconds too long. I understand that it's probably to negate the process of setting up people being in a recording room, but I figure editing can help this out as well.

As for the humor: I mentioned above Monty Python, and this being British humor (humour, however you wanna spell it), it runs along that same line of silliness. In fact, during the Tea and Biscuit segment of the first episode I nearly choked on my food because I laughed so damn hard! I managed to swallow my food, and then continued to laugh for another five minutes or so. It's been a really long time since I laughed that long, so the humour was much appreciated!

Now, Mr_Jellyfish has said that if I have any comments on the show (presumably other than "wow, I loved it so much") then I should feel free to let him know not just how I feel, but probably offer a suggestion here or there. I already mentioned above how the ambient bits of music could be cut down just a tad bit, but not by too much; the feeling of terror and the scope of the wasteland come hand in hand with those little bits of music. However, that's not all I'd offer. The series focuses on storytelling, and considering how hilarious the stories are, that obviously shouldn't change. Yet the sections featuring the Bunker Boys (I just coined that) are without a doubt the best written and the most laugh out loud moments of the series, whether it's simple discussion, or the Tea and Biscuits segment. Please, please, please, please feature more of that. A whole episode dedicated to stuff like that, whilst featuring improv storytelling, could go a long way. The storytelling could focus on something like....well consider how in the Fallout series the "facts" of supposed history are super distorted. Maybe fiction could be written in as though it were actually fact. Or something along that line. I don't know. I just like to think of the possibilities.

To the boys over at Gorilla, keep doing whatever brilliant nonsense it is that you do.

For the rest of you reading this, you can listen to The Bunker on itunes. Jelly can provide a proper link for that. Here's some other important links:

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