Welcome to Night Vale is one of the podcasts that defines the medium. The mix of horror and SF tropes, absurdist humor, paranoia, and the day-to-day annoyances of running a community radio station — all brought to you by the relentlessly cheerful and long-suffering announcer Cecil — has millions of fans and has been listened to 180 million times. And now, television has come courting, in the form of an FX series.
The series will be overseen by Better Call Saul‘s Gennifer Hutchinson, with the podcast’s creators Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor working to keep the show on tone. It’s unlikely Cecil will turn up except in cameos or as part of the sound mix. When Night Vale has hopped media in the past — via books and a live tour — it’s shifted protagonists and perspectives to better suit it. But every incarnation has stuck closely to the established mythology, so we won’t be seeing any dogs in the dog park and the house that doesn’t exist will still not exist. Well, it wouldn’t exist anyway even though it doesn’t exist because the show is fictional and therefore nothing in it exists exactly as depicted, but you know what we mean.
It’ll be an interesting fit for FX, which has some impressive genre bona fides with shows like Legion and American Horror Story. As for how the podcast will translate, we’ll just have to see; the show is just getting started.
(via Deadline)