And lots of people don't realize it's still ongoing! [Spoilers: Cecil and Carlos are married and have a young son, angels are fully acknowledged, Cecil and Steve Carlsburg are friends, Khoshekh the station cat has an absolutely wild backstory, Night Vale is canonically in our world now and Joseph is stuck there, time works correctly, and MORE!]
WTNV is the Foundation of every queer audio drama, and for good reason. It was revolutionary to have that kind of explicit, loving, gay relationship with the main character - I've had the "I know two things" audio post pinned to my blog since 2019 for good reason, because every time they reaffirm their love a part of my soul heals.
Because I saw Cecilos content everywhere on tumblr, and naturally assumed that it was the popular non-canon ship that had subtext at best but was mostly exaggeration - because anything more than that was unthinkable at the time. And nothing prepared me for Cecil dropping the BOMB of "He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly." in EPISODE ONE. And as the podcast went on and it developed from a crush to a flirtation to dates and them moving in together - it took a long time for me to be completely confident that yes, they are serious about this. They aren't teasing, they're not going to take this back by breaking them up, things are sometimes rough but it only gets better and the love keeps growing.
Cecil Baldwin, an HIV+ gay man, said that the character Cecil Palmer should be gay, and Joseph and Jeffrey agreed, and that was an Enormous risk to take before their story even started, and long, long before they built up a brand and a fanbase. They were pioneers in the early days of audio dramas and established that podcasts as a creative medium didn't have to be restricted by the same conventions of TV shows run by corporate overlords. Their success set the precedent that's allowed so many queer stories to flourish.
And the validation is only one part! The story itself has an easy-to-understand premise and framing device: a small-town radio show, something that built off the tradition of actual radio shows that were popular before TV. (Video killed the radio star, but podcasts brought 'em back!) What passes for a plot often seems completely nonsensical - and sometimes it just is! Not everything has a reason to exist. Especially in the beginning, the writers were just throwing spaghetti at a wall, but pretty much everything introduced in episode one ended up getting expanded on and contributing to the story of the town. It builds on itself and grows and feels like a living, breathing town. It's designed so they can pluck any one-off weirdness and turn it into its own story, because the possibilities are quite literally endless. This show is why queer horror audio dramas is a weirdly popular niche.
I lost the post, but someone talked about how the increasing quality of the show can be read in two ways. From a Doyalist perspective, our protagonist Cecil goes from purposefully neutral to full of personality as the writers and actors settle in and figure out what they want the show to look like. Cecil doesn't even have a name for the first few episodes! But from a Watsonian perspective, Carlos, our inciting incident, fills Cecil's life with joy and made him come alive. Early Cecil sounds like NPR, a faceless narrator that's bored of the weirdness that's become mundane, and current Cecil is vibrant and opinionated, engaged with life and his town in a way he wasn't before, because a particular beautiful scientist came to town and started asking questions. That progression was amazing to watch unfold.
It's fine if WTNV isn't your cup of tea. Surrealist horror with an extremely loose plot can be a bit of an acquired taste. If TMA is your frame of reference and season one was your least favorite, you probably won't vibe with it. There aren't neat categories to sort Night Vale phenomena into. If your first podcast was something that's a tightly written story, WTNV might seem boring and hard to follow at first and takes a bit to pay off.
And I also understand that it's intimidating to get into when there's more than a decade of content! But you don't have to know everything or memorize the life story of every side character. Most of them come with a moniker to tell you who they are ("John Peters, you know, the farmer") and ongoing stories are often prefaced with a short summary - because like in real life, these things happen over a period of weeks, months, and sometimes years. It's not something you can or even should binge all in one go. It's not about devouring the content so you can "keep up" and making a spreadsheet to keep track of everything, and it's not a book with a set beginning, middle, and end (though it does have its long-term arcs). It's more like receiving a postcard twice a month, it's a walk through downtown, it's checking up on the neighbors, it's visiting a hometown you've never been to.
I'm not gatekeeping audio dramas from you if you haven't listened. It's not required listening by any means. I'd just like people to understand and appreciate the roots of this community and why WTNV is so popular and ongoing and fandom olds won't shut up about it.
But I still encourage you to give the show a try! If you want a taste of a complete story arc (though be prepared for plenty of "filler"), Episode 19A: The Sandstorm kicks off the Strexcorp arc that runs through Episode 49 - although loose threads left from that kick off their own stories and the cycle continues. And if you're an old fan that fell off the bandwagon - it's never too late to get back on.
Anyway, that's my WTNV manifesto. TL;DR: WTNV was revolutionary and helped kick off the queer audio drama trend, the show was and is still good, there's a lot of content but you should have fun with it, these characters have been my friends for years, and I look forward to every 1st and 15th of the month to see how their lives are going.
