Untrue Stories begins in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 1948. The writers H.G. Wells and George Orwell have both booked the same cottage for a vacation. The two men cannot stand each other, as they have very different views of the future. However, Wells has an ace up his sleeve. He has invented a bicycle with the ability to travel through time. Wells is determined to settled the debate once and for all. He accidentally travels to the year 1984 after taking a wrong turn. Wells discovers a future of totalitarianism and oppression. A boot to the face forever. Wells befriends a young woman named Julia. She is none other than Orwell’s granddaughter. Together, they conspire to change history for the better. But the Thought Police are hot on their tail, and are determined to ensure that the future of Oceania comes to pass.
This is another review where I was asked by the creator to review it. Series creator Robin Johnson contacted me on Reddit. He said that he had enjoyed my previous reviews, and seen on Twitter that I review audio dramas. I assume he was referring to the Twitter thread that Arielle Nissenblatt (rhymes with this and that) made to showcase several podcast critics, including me. I said yes, and here we are now.
There have been times in my life where I briefly pondered whether H.G. Wells and George Orwell ever met each other. It was merely idle curiosity due to their similar names. Well, as it turns out, they did indeed meet in real life. George Orwell invited H.G. Wells to his London apartment for dinner, and they had a lively discussion about whether or not alone science would create a better world. Wells had full confidence that science would inevitably create a utopia. Orwell, by contrast, believed that science was certainly useful, but that it was necessarily for society to be guided by more than just science alone. The two men vehemently disagreed, and parted on less than amicable terms. Quite ironic, as they both democratic socialists, and otherwise had rather similar political views.
There is the minor issue that H.G. Wells died in 1946, but the audio drama takes place in 1948. But I’m willing to let that slide. We can chalk it up to time travel shenanigans. Speaking of which, it appears that Wells never published his famous novella The Time Machine in the world of Untrue Stories. He never makes reference to the novel. Or maybe he’ll go back in time and inspire his younger self at some point?
Wells also travels to the year 802,701 at one point, and encounters a Morlock, but he doesn’t know what it is. I liked how the Morlock was portrayed as being quite intelligent. I mean, the Morlock aren’t just dumb brutes. They build and maintain machines and clothing. And let’s not forget that they’re the ones keeping the Eloi as cattle, not the other way around. The way the Morlock is described is evocative of the 1960 movie adaption of The Time Machine. Wells says that exiting the time bike’s chrono bubble mid-journey will cause you to age into dust. This is probably a nod to the 2002 movie adaption of The Time Machine. On the one hand, the 2002 movie wasn’t very accurate to the novel, but I did love it when I was a kid.
George Orwell’s depiction as a bit of a jerk might strike some people as odd, but it has some basis in reality. Orwell once compiled a list of suspected communist for the British Intelligence Forces. Among other things, he considered Charlie Chaplin suspicious for being a Jew, and deemed Paul Robeson to be “anti-white.” For reference, Paul Robeson was a black American musician who was also involved in civil rights activism. Oh, and during Orwell’s boarding school day, he was a prefect. He used his position of authority to rat-out any boys he suspected of being gay. Well, they often say to write what you know. It would seem Orwell put quite a bit of himself into Nineteen Eighty-Four.
On a lighter note, the original plans for Nineteen Eighty-Four were also slightly different. For starters, it was going to be called The Last Man in Europe. It was also going to be set in the year 1948. So, I guess that would have made it an early example of alternate history. This is highly amusing, as Nineteen Eighty-Four is quite popular within the alternate history community. However, Orwell’s publisher deemed this too confusing, and convinced him to set the novel in the future. He thought about 1980 or 1982, but then he flipped the last two digits of the current year, and got 1984. Of course, in Untrue Stories, the joke is that the initial version that Orwell comes up with is basically what the year 1984 was actually like. He predicts a world of aviator sunglasses, neon-colored clothing, Rubik’s Cubes, and unrestrained capitalism. Though, to a socialist like Orwell, that would all probably sound pretty dystopian.
Okay, I’ve put it off for as long as I can. I’m just going to be brutally honest here. I did not enjoy Untrue Stories. Let’s get into the full postmortem.
The first strike was the theme music. I’ve listened to many wonderful audio drama themes over the years. The theme music for Untrue Stories, however, is not one of those cases. It reminds me of those toys that are supposed to play music, but what they actually play is basically just electronic screeching. I always tried to fast forward through the theme music whenever possible. Okay, so how was the voice acting? In contrast to the theme music, the voice acting wasn’t bad. Overall I found the performances to be fairly decent. I found Orwell’s voice to be a bit irritating, but I think that might have been deliberate.
Untrue Stories features cameos from numerous 20th Century science fiction authors. Unfortunately, these appearances are little more than cameos, and Untrue Stories doesn’t really do anything creative with them. They basically amount to “Hey, look, it’s Issac Asimov! He wrote I, Robot! Boy, he sure likes to talk about robots!” or “Over there! It’s Ursula K. Le Guin! Ooh, she’s got a secret message codenamed Omelas! Just like the short story she wrote! How wacky is that?!”
These scenes felt like a cutaway gag from an episode of Family Guy. On that topic, I found the humor to be incredibly lowbrow, and at times bordering on sophomoric. The main attempt at humor was making historical figures act like jerks. Almost all of the jokes failed to get even the slightest chuckle out of me.
We learn that Orwell is destined to become Big Brother himself in the dystopian future of Oceania. Orwell finds out, and thinks that this sounds swell. So, he recruits a team of dystopia writers, such as Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood, to help make the future as dystopian as possible. If nothing else, they’ll be able to brag about how they tried to warn everyone, but nobody listened. Now, this could have been potentially funny. Have them all act like over-the-top Saturday Morning Cartoon villains, or something similar. Unfortunately, the actors playing the dystopia authors all gave very subdued performances. They all seemed to be under the impression that they were in a completely different audio drama than Untrue Stories. Bit of a missed opportunity there.
Now, I do have to give some moments of praise to Untrue Stories. There is a bonus episode that takes the form of an in-universe television program about how to speak Newspeak. I found this bonus episode to be genuinely funny and clever. I also liked the episode where Wells and Julia change the future into the 1984 of our world. However, they don’t actually travel to the future to see it for themselves. Julia’s clothing changes to a punk style. She and Wells assume, based on this, that they’ve turned the future into an irradiated post-apocalyptic nightmare. Wells then places a computer chip into a Sony Walkman. Said chip is from the far future, and any machine it is placed into turns sentient. The Walkman can only communicate using songs from the 1980s mixtape that it has in it. This leads to several amusing moments. As an aside, I agree with Wells, tea always goes in the cup before milk. That way, you can better control how much milk you add.
So, the team behind Untrue Stories are capable of being legitimately funny when they put their minds to it. I feel, perhaps, that Untrue Stories could have benefited from some more edits and revisions before it launched.
Now, comedy is a highly subjective genre. One of the most subjective, in fact. Untrue Stories had its moments, but overall, I just didn’t care for it. It failed to make the most of a potentially interesting premise. So, unfortunately, I cannot say that I recommend it. But perhaps you feel differently. If this all sounds entertaining, and something you’d like to try, then good for you.
Well, I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.
There have been times in my life where I briefly pondered whether H.G. Wells and George Orwell ever met each other. It was merely idle curiosity due to their similar names. Well, as it turns out, they did indeed meet in real life. George Orwell invited H.G. Wells to his London apartment for dinner, and they had a lively discussion about whether or not alone science would create a better world. Wells had full confidence that science would inevitably create a utopia. Orwell, by contrast, believed that science was certainly useful, but that it was necessarily for society to be guided by more than just science alone. The two men vehemently disagreed, and parted on less than amicable terms. Quite ironic, as they both democratic socialists, and otherwise had rather similar political views.
There is the minor issue that H.G. Wells died in 1946, but the audio drama takes place in 1948. But I’m willing to let that slide. We can chalk it up to time travel shenanigans. Speaking of which, it appears that Wells never published his famous novella The Time Machine in the world of Untrue Stories. He never makes reference to the novel. Or maybe he’ll go back in time and inspire his younger self at some point?
Wells also travels to the year 802,701 at one point, and encounters a Morlock, but he doesn’t know what it is. I liked how the Morlock was portrayed as being quite intelligent. I mean, the Morlock aren’t just dumb brutes. They build and maintain machines and clothing. And let’s not forget that they’re the ones keeping the Eloi as cattle, not the other way around. The way the Morlock is described is evocative of the 1960 movie adaption of The Time Machine. Wells says that exiting the time bike’s chrono bubble mid-journey will cause you to age into dust. This is probably a nod to the 2002 movie adaption of The Time Machine. On the one hand, the 2002 movie wasn’t very accurate to the novel, but I did love it when I was a kid.
George Orwell’s depiction as a bit of a jerk might strike some people as odd, but it has some basis in reality. Orwell once compiled a list of suspected communist for the British Intelligence Forces. Among other things, he considered Charlie Chaplin suspicious for being a Jew, and deemed Paul Robeson to be “anti-white.” For reference, Paul Robeson was a black American musician who was also involved in civil rights activism. Oh, and during Orwell’s boarding school day, he was a prefect. He used his position of authority to rat-out any boys he suspected of being gay. Well, they often say to write what you know. It would seem Orwell put quite a bit of himself into Nineteen Eighty-Four.
On a lighter note, the original plans for Nineteen Eighty-Four were also slightly different. For starters, it was going to be called The Last Man in Europe. It was also going to be set in the year 1948. So, I guess that would have made it an early example of alternate history. This is highly amusing, as Nineteen Eighty-Four is quite popular within the alternate history community. However, Orwell’s publisher deemed this too confusing, and convinced him to set the novel in the future. He thought about 1980 or 1982, but then he flipped the last two digits of the current year, and got 1984. Of course, in Untrue Stories, the joke is that the initial version that Orwell comes up with is basically what the year 1984 was actually like. He predicts a world of aviator sunglasses, neon-colored clothing, Rubik’s Cubes, and unrestrained capitalism. Though, to a socialist like Orwell, that would all probably sound pretty dystopian.
Okay, I’ve put it off for as long as I can. I’m just going to be brutally honest here. I did not enjoy Untrue Stories. Let’s get into the full postmortem.
The first strike was the theme music. I’ve listened to many wonderful audio drama themes over the years. The theme music for Untrue Stories, however, is not one of those cases. It reminds me of those toys that are supposed to play music, but what they actually play is basically just electronic screeching. I always tried to fast forward through the theme music whenever possible. Okay, so how was the voice acting? In contrast to the theme music, the voice acting wasn’t bad. Overall I found the performances to be fairly decent. I found Orwell’s voice to be a bit irritating, but I think that might have been deliberate.
Untrue Stories features cameos from numerous 20th Century science fiction authors. Unfortunately, these appearances are little more than cameos, and Untrue Stories doesn’t really do anything creative with them. They basically amount to “Hey, look, it’s Issac Asimov! He wrote I, Robot! Boy, he sure likes to talk about robots!” or “Over there! It’s Ursula K. Le Guin! Ooh, she’s got a secret message codenamed Omelas! Just like the short story she wrote! How wacky is that?!”
These scenes felt like a cutaway gag from an episode of Family Guy. On that topic, I found the humor to be incredibly lowbrow, and at times bordering on sophomoric. The main attempt at humor was making historical figures act like jerks. Almost all of the jokes failed to get even the slightest chuckle out of me.
We learn that Orwell is destined to become Big Brother himself in the dystopian future of Oceania. Orwell finds out, and thinks that this sounds swell. So, he recruits a team of dystopia writers, such as Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood, to help make the future as dystopian as possible. If nothing else, they’ll be able to brag about how they tried to warn everyone, but nobody listened. Now, this could have been potentially funny. Have them all act like over-the-top Saturday Morning Cartoon villains, or something similar. Unfortunately, the actors playing the dystopia authors all gave very subdued performances. They all seemed to be under the impression that they were in a completely different audio drama than Untrue Stories. Bit of a missed opportunity there.
Now, I do have to give some moments of praise to Untrue Stories. There is a bonus episode that takes the form of an in-universe television program about how to speak Newspeak. I found this bonus episode to be genuinely funny and clever. I also liked the episode where Wells and Julia change the future into the 1984 of our world. However, they don’t actually travel to the future to see it for themselves. Julia’s clothing changes to a punk style. She and Wells assume, based on this, that they’ve turned the future into an irradiated post-apocalyptic nightmare. Wells then places a computer chip into a Sony Walkman. Said chip is from the far future, and any machine it is placed into turns sentient. The Walkman can only communicate using songs from the 1980s mixtape that it has in it. This leads to several amusing moments. As an aside, I agree with Wells, tea always goes in the cup before milk. That way, you can better control how much milk you add.
So, the team behind Untrue Stories are capable of being legitimately funny when they put their minds to it. I feel, perhaps, that Untrue Stories could have benefited from some more edits and revisions before it launched.
Now, comedy is a highly subjective genre. One of the most subjective, in fact. Untrue Stories had its moments, but overall, I just didn’t care for it. It failed to make the most of a potentially interesting premise. So, unfortunately, I cannot say that I recommend it. But perhaps you feel differently. If this all sounds entertaining, and something you’d like to try, then good for you.
Well, I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.
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