"Afterlife" TV show interview

[Big Les]

This is disappointing to me for two reasons:

1) Although I enjoyed the series in a sort of guilty-pleasure-for-sceptics way, I really thought they should leave it where it ended and not do a second series. They have.

2) The creator talks about becoming less sceptical since starting the show:

"When I was doing publicity for the first series, I was very blunt about saying I was much more like Robert, really - my approach to the supernatural is very sceptical. All the reading I've done on parapsychology has always erred on the side of claiming it rather than experiencing it, if you see what I mean. I'm very analytical... like Robert, quite dismissive of it, even though I love the genre of ghost stories. I think in a funny kind of way, I've lost some of the edge of that sceptic viewpoint, maybe because I've started to see the world of afterlife from Alison's own point of view. I occupy more the middle ground now, the more I explore it."

This Stephen Volk guy also did the infamous Ghostwatch hoax back in 1992.

 

[desertyeti]

Like many people who realize that there's a tremendous audience and potentially, lots of $$$ for those who futz around with the supernatural and fringe-topics, this guy's buying in. Anyone with a bit of shrewdness, some flair for the artistic, and a smidgen of knowledge about human behavior can cash in with the rubes who'll line up to be fleeced. More power to him.

 

[Big Les]

This is fiction, so he's not taking anyone for a ride in the way you imply. He might be using a "you never know, wooooo!" approach to "woo" more viewers. But whether he expresses scepticality or belief in an interview like this is going to make bugger all difference to the viewing figures.

I just think it's sad that he seems to be convincing himself of his own fairytales; having walked an interesting line between scepticism and belief (Mulder and Scully style), the ending of the first series showed its true colours as being all about the "bleevers". Not a surprise, but I resented the way in which they not only completely undermined the main sceptical character's position, but actually had him become what he'd spent his life professing didn't exist. A "shark jumping" moment for me.