Voices in the Cold: The Doom That Came to Rod Serling

One of my favorite books growing up was a very well-worn copy of At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft. For those of you that have never read H.P. Lovecraft…we will need to have a proper sit down soon. For the sake of expediency, I’ll give you a short synopsis:

Professor William Dyer, a professor at the great bastion of knowledge called Miskatonic University, travels to Antarctica for a geologic survey. During this survey, Dyer and his team discover the remains of ancient organisms. Neither wholly plant or animal, this discovery leads Dyer and a graduate student named Danforth on a jaw dropping excursion over the mountain range and into a vast city of unimaginable horror and age.

I tell you this to give you an idea as to my thought process while listening to this AD. Something is very wrong in the very-down-under, and it seems none too friendly. I get a very Lovecraftian vibe from this AD, though that may just be my bias showing. I feel that I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the elements of his work I see in this AD, and I would ALSO be remiss if I didn’t mention this to a good friend of the blog, Seesar of Father Dagon. Found you another one, Seesar!

So let’s get right into it, shall we? Fix your fleece and pull your Polar Parka close, this is Voices in the Cold.

Six episodes in, one season down, and I’m already hooked. The first season is only five episodes long, but there’s enough in them to get your mystery gland a-tingling without overloading you. There have been a few ADs that seem to do this. Great stories, but MASSIVE amounts of exposition do tend to water the excitement down. With VitC you’re not given TOO much, but you’re also not thrown in with nothing like a Malazan novel.

Ron Difio is the janitor at Pennhurst Station, a research outpost in the deep tundra of Antarctica in 1965. I like to think of Ron as the poor man’s Rod Serling. No, he sounds just like a young Rod Serling, no joke. Ron begins to broadcast quips of life at the station. All seems well, as the only real oddity is these strange shapes out in the distance of the vast, cold wasteland. Written off as possibly penguins or seals, life goes on with no concern…which means that the whole thing goes completely ass over teakettle.

Season 2 kicks off at a complete 180 from season 1. In this season, a descendant of Ron Difio, named Rob Kinneson (Gods I hope I’m spelling that right) has discovered the recordings from Pennhurst Station in the attic. Rob speaks to his great aunt, who was Ron’s sister, and we find out that this whole thing has been seen as a family joke. Ron never went to Antarctica, this is an elaborate hoax, and that these recordings are just a part of the ruse…yeahno. Rob decides to dig deeper into this mystery and find out what really happened.

The story is quite a good one, to put it simply. At first the narrative switch did throw me off, but once I recovered I really started to enjoy the first season all the more. I had to go back and listen to it again just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, as I’m fairly certain a lot of what was said will carry over into the investigation of season 2. VitC doesn’t feel like The Black Tapes or Tanis or Rabbits, but in a good way. You’re not slammed with exposition saturation and definitely not inundated with Bombas Socks ads…ugh. It’s a really easy AD to pick up and binge, which I recommend IMMEDIATELY.

There are very few Voice Actors in this show, but what they do have is talent in spades. Like I said earlier, Ron Difio is easily top running for Rod Serling sound-a-likes, and so far the rest of the cast gives a great performance. Rob Kinneson’s aunt is an absolute treat to listen to, I can’t help but smile when she speaks.

Voices in the Cold brings you an amazing first person narrative in the first season, and seems to show great promise as a mystery drama for season 2. There’s only one episode out for season 2 at the time of this writing, so I can’t say for sure just how far season two will take things. I’m expecting to hear great storytelling and amazing acting from this show, and go check it out for yourself!