Gaslight District, The
Entry updated 5 May 2025. Tagged: TV.
Australian/Canadian CGI animated webseries (2025). Glitch. Created, directed and written by Part Time Seagull (Nick Szopko). Voice cast includes Allanah Fitzgerald, Jason Marnocha, Gianni Matragrano and John Whinfield. One 27-minute episode to date. Colour.
We are shown a submerged city (see Under the Sea) as the narrator reports "The world as we know it came to an end eons ago" (see Disaster); our view rises to another City floating on the ocean, where "humanity, twisted, bent and misshapen by hubris have entered a golden age of never-ending life" (see Immortality). The architecture is a combination of the strange and urban decay: a claw-shaped glowing symbol with an eyeball features prominently: "praise the Black Hand!". The inhabitants are known as Rotlings, former humans living a life of grubby decadence with one big fear: "the beast whose blood runs black ... the human born of the Angel's egg" (Rotling blood is purple), prophesied to end their immortality. The Narrator, now a little overwrought, declares "Welcome to the Gaslight District. Abandoned by God! The denizens of this land are left to rot! ... until the prophesied human decides to show its face".
As well as the Gaslight District, the floating city includes Paradise Lost, within which is the stairway to Heaven, and is inhabited by haloed crows and vultures, called Angels, and the Virtues – who are Cyborgs, their bodies mainly mechanical but with human brains. Despite the names the setting does not appear to be literally Heaven and Hell. Rotlings and perhaps the Virtues can regenerate from any injury; the Rotlings are described as Zombies despite being fully cognizant.
The Smoking Dead are a "local crime family": father Ken (Marnocha), brother Mud (Whinfield), son Breadhead (Matragrano) (who literally has a loaf of bread for a head) and daughter Melancholy or Mel (Fitzgerald) – who has black blood. Mel wants to steal an Angel's egg from Heaven, claim it contains the unborn human and smash it for everyone to see: thus she will no longer have to fear being exposed as the human – or at least, not for another 10,000 years, when the next one will be laid. Though trespassers into Heaven are sent to the Inferno (see Crime and Punishment), Ken (who knows his daughter's secret) reluctantly agrees. The heist succeeds, though the gang's experiences – including Ken taking time to attack Temperance, the Virtue doctor present at Mel's hatching, ripping out and swallowing his brain (which does not seem to kill him) – begs many questions. Unfortunately the egg hatches before it can be destroyed, revealing a crow chick and incensing the crowd. A "Prophetic Threat Alert" (see Paranoia) seen at the pilot's end suggests that Mel's and Ken's deed will be deemed terrorism.
The pilot sets up many mysteries, including the world's and Mel's origins; what was Temperance working on when Ken attacked him; and how – and why – is a human supposed to end the Rotlings' immortality? As with the same company's Murder Drones (they also produce The Amazing Digital Circus) the pilot is fond of the "blink and you'll miss it" Infodump. Whilst the Smoking Dead are a little Clichéd as a crime family, the pilot is very good indeed overall, with imagination, Humour, Horror and impressive animation. Premiering on YouTube on 18 April 2025, it garnered over 12 million views in the first ten days. [SP]
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