Review of The Midnight Gospel

I mean this without exaggeration- this show absolutely destroyed me. The beautifully animated, simply colored scenes not only offer visual appeal for the eye, but serve as metaphors for the topic Clancy and his guest are discussing. I've never seen a show that so candidly talks about the harder parts of life and philosophy, and now that I've gotten a chance to experience that, I love it. People who leave negative reviews of the show have some points, they're just points I disagree with. If you aren't a fan of the animation style, you don't have to watch the show; it's different than any traditional style (almost certainly due to the influence of the amazing Pendleton Ward) and better for it. If you aren't a fan of philosophical or spiritual talk, then again, this might not be the show for you; it's not a show with much drama or action or long-standing character development. As others have said, it's a podcast with a show constructed around it. If you look into the show's backstory, it has never pretended to be anything else. But to people who say there's "no story" in the show: did we watch the same eight episodes? Sure, a lot of each episode is taken up with a podcast conversation with today's featured guest, and not a lot of plot threads come together, but the ones that do really count; I'd compare it to, for example, Miraculous Ladybug, where the structure is formulaic and the characters stay by-and-large the same, but the plot is developed at least a bit every episode. Clancy grows as a person from his experiences throughout the show, as seen when he orders a meal platter for a hospice after talking to Death and facing the void. He's a person, too, not just a blank slate for the podcast host slash voice actor: he has his own problems, and he's a dynamic character that has the capacity to change. His struggles throughout the season with anger and frustration and guilt all culminate in the final episode, which I won't go too in-depth on here, but suffice to say it deals with loss, and the love that's behind all grief. In conclusion, in order to enjoy this show, you need to interface with it on its level. If you're unwilling to listen to what the guests have to say, or think of it as boring conversation, then you won't enjoy the podcast, because the conversation is the most important and meaningful part of the show. If you refuse to think about philosophy and death in ways other than a general apathy and atheism, you won't like listening to people talk about their views on death, and God, and where humans fit in consciousness. And it's okay if you don't, you don't need to watch the show. But if you want to watch the show, and enjoy it, and be fundamentally changed in your perspective and way of life, you gotta meet it halfway.