Rivers of the Mind: Season One - Audio Drama Reviews

Rivers of the Mind creator, Timothy Vilgiate knows how to rock a metaphor, but gets lost in the abstract more often than not. His main character, who he also voices, spends the bulk of his time in thoughts that are more confusing than the concept of love. Perhaps that’s the point, however. This story is meant to be weird and trippy. Sometimes seeing the forest instead of the trees in a story is hard. The language Vilgiate uses makes this even more difficult as the majority of it is navel-gazing.

Navel-gazing is a term in fiction writing where a character is deep in their own thoughts and nothing external happens. Sometimes these last for a paragraph or half a page. Any longer than that and an editor might ask you to trim it back. Rivers of the Mind goes up the nasal cavity and into the brain, staying there for at least eleven episodes.

What’s the Pot of Rivers of the Mind?

Defining the plot of Rivers of the Mind is easy. It’s about a young adult who takes acid and can then read people’s thoughts. It’s not quite telepathy, but there are certainly similarities between it and other stories dealing with the power to read minds. Where Rivers of the Mind diverges is in how the story is told. The sound effects and filters applied to the voices of this small cast can be irksome.

In their defense, the mixer did a great job at creating the world which the main character of John inhabits. “World” in this sense being the drug-induced trip, which may or may not real. The audio drama plays with the idea in the same way a film like Inception does. The difference is that all the special effects are more akin to the movie Limitless.

Cool, but Incomplete

Near the midpoint of the first season, there’s a slight increase in interest as a farmer John befriends becomes more of a character. He’s introduced as a stereotypical redneck but turns into a person with a backstory that most people wouldn’t expect. Once his children come onto the scene, things get complicated.

It got the point where you couldn’t tell what was going on. Perhaps that was the point, but holding out for the season finale in hopes it might clear some things up was not a good idea. There were more questions about and during the final episode than the rest of the story combined. It felt like the start of a new story when the one the listener had followed was only 95 percent completed.

4/5 Stars