The following article originally appeared in Juniata High School's newspaper The Arrowhead.

One of the first of its kind, Lore, available to stream on Amazon Prime, is a TV show whose origins lie in a podcast. Fittingly released on Friday the 13th in October, each of Lore’s episodes are based off of a topic that has sparked urban legends. The episodes tell the stories of the people that sparked the tales we tell and fears we have, and visually dramatize them for your viewing pleasure. For example, one episode was about the life of the man who invented the icepick lobotomy, while another was about werewolves (which featured the background of the famous tale of Little Red Riding Hood). There is no storyline to the show, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order of the episodes.  

I don’t listen to podcasts, and, before watching Lore, I didn’t think I needed to listen to the specific podcast that the show was based on. Luckily, I think I was right. There wasn’t anything confusing about the actual adaptation of things, but it got boring very quickly. The narration (done by Aaron Mahnke, the same man who does the podcast) is extremely monotonous. I can’t remember a single time in all six episodes that I heard emotion in that man’s voice, and frankly, I don’t know if I could sit down and actually listen to the podcast alone. 

Additionally, I was also not a fan of how Lore mixed animation and live acting. In the first few episodes, animation was used rather often as part of the storytelling process, but seemed to fade away toward the end. The one thing that made the viewing experience worth it was the stories and topics themselves. For some people, the episode about dolls coming alive would have them turning their TV off. Personally, though, I think that these tales are fascinating- and even more so because you find that some of them are rooted deep in history. 

Lore is definitely not the best new series to be released this year. However, if you enjoy folklore and don’t care as much about who is telling it to you, then these six episodes could be your next infatuation.