A while back, I gave Critical Role a listen. I drove a truck, had plenty of time to kill, and I had heard a lot of good things about the ‘show’. I made it three or four episodes before stopping. At first, I thought it was the length of each episode they are three hours or more. I also thought it might be the fact that starting with season 1, which is 121 episodes long, might have intimidated me. Season 2 was already underway, and well over 100 episodes, so I wasn’t going to start that. I figured I’d wait on season 3.
Before that happened, they did Alexandria Unlimited, and it would only be eight episodes. That was going to be perfect.
I shut it down halfway through the first episode and finally understood something about me and stories. I’ve already stated I’m not a fan of comedy as a writer because of how difficult it is to pull off. As a reader, I’m more lenient, but comedy still doesn’t rank high on my list of preferred genres.
And that, it turns out, is the problem I have with Critical Role. For as serious as the stories can be, the storytelling itself isn’t.
And I understand why. They aren’t a group of friends sitting down to craft a serious story. They are getting together to have fun. And that shows. Watching them, on Youtube, you can see just how much fun they are having, but it leads to a type of storytelling that isn’t serious, no matter how serious the story being told is.
And that is what I discovered. I need my storytelling to be serious. You can make me laugh within the story, but if you aren’t taking the telling seriously, it becomes difficult for me to stick with it.
As a side note, I am looking forward to the animated series of the adventures of the characters from Season 1 of Critical Role. I am hoping to get the story, without all the out-of-character humor that makes it so fun for the players to participate.
As usual, if you have questions, please, ask them, they give me something to talk about. If you don’t feel comfortable asking them here, you can email them to me at: S.Stpierre@thetigerwrites.com
