AGENT STOKER by Brian Nelson

At this moment, I’m in the midst of writing Season Five of paranormal horror for AGENT STOKER, the scripted fiction podcast that I co-created with actor Chris Conner – the show we pride ourselves on describing as “THE X-FILES with a drinking problem.” 
 
But how did this happen to me, given that when my oldest kid asked me in 2019 whether I’d ever think about podcasting, I spread my arms wide and shouted, “WHY?!!!”
 
AGENT STOKER really begins with Edgar Allan Poe.

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In ninth grade, I had an English teacher named Ron Smith, and he had us reading "The Cask of Amontillado" out loud in class.  When the climax comes, when the narrator is shackled against the wall of the wine cellar and then entombed behind a fresh wall of bricks.  Mr. Smith took one of the students by the hand, walked him over to a corner of the room, and started "walling him up" behind an improvised wall of school textbooks. 
 
It was the greatest, simultaneously funny and eerie.  We never forgot that story.  When I wrote an episode of the Hulu miniseries 11.22.63 where Stephen King’s hero Jake has to work as an English teacher, I wrote a scene recreating this moment to establish that Jake was TERRIFIC at his job.
 
In college I was lucky to take American Literature from the esteemed professor Richard Brodhead, who spoke marvelously about the role of architecture in creating the paranoid Poe universe.  As a podcast, AGENT STOKER by definition has no architecture, but thanks to our amazing sound designer Patrick Hogan, we do think a lot about the physical settings in which scary things take place.
 
Also in college, I was a programmer and projectionist for the Yale Film Society and we hosted a series of late-night horror films for which I was always present.  The film I remember most was Poe’s THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, but not for its titular torture trope.  In the final moment, the camera whipsaws to a character who’s been locked in a coffin, hearing that the authorities are shutting up this place forever.  No rescue will ever arrive.  The bulging eyes of someone realizing there’s no hope – that was horror.
 
Fast-forward many years, when I’m in Mexico City for a live stage adaptation of my screenplay HARD CANDY.  There’s a part of the city where the streets are named for cultural figures.  Goethe, Descartes, Euclid.  My wife and I are walking around and we find ourselves at the intersection of Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe.  Given that I’ve directed KING LEAR and acted in TWELFTH NIGHT and more, I make a joke that I’ve spent my life at the intersection of Shakespeare and Poe.  But is it a joke?  (BTW, this intersection gets a mention in AGENT STOKER Episode 301.)
 
Now we move ahead just a couple more years and I’m in the writing room for ALTERED CARBON, the Netflix science fiction series.  Set hundreds of years in the future, the show is adapted from a classic cyberpunk novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan. In the book, our hero Takeshi Kovacs stays at a hotel called The Hendrix, run by an AI who believes he’s Jimi Hendrix. 
 
But when we reach out optimistically to the Hendrix estate, we find we can’t afford to license his image or music. We discuss other alternatives ranging from Johnny Cash to Snoop Dogg. Finally we have to start thinking about what famous character we could get for free.  And in my recollection, it was our Executive Story Editor, Nevin Densham, who suggested: Edgar Allan Poe.
 
The hotel is thus named the Raven, and we start shaping Poe as a character.  Show creator Laeta Kalogridis knew that I was the English major with a gothic background, so she asked me to take a pass through all of Poe’s dialogue in the series to make sure it was appropriately arcane. (To be clear, this happens all the time in television – we all write parts of each other’s episodes here and there.)
 
And then we had to cast Poe.  And there was really only one choice. 
 
I remember when all the writers crowded around to watch the self-tape made by actor Chris Conner, who nailed it from the first take.  Between the haunted qualities, eyes that had seen too much, voice a bit gin-soaked but understanding both romance and death – it was obvious that Chris was our Poe.  He became the breakout character of the show, that supporting character you long to see more often, the one character to get more screen time in Season Two than in Season One.
 
Then came the pandemic.  Nobody was working.  We all stayed home, we wiped down all our produce.  What would happen to the industry amidst this quarantine?  There were no clear answers.
 
And that’s when Chris, who knew me as the guy who had run point on Poe, reached out to me to ask if I’d want to create a podcast with him.  In the midst of the pandemic, the idea offered a chance at community, at creative satisfaction amidst our Covid chaos. 
 
We talked about reference points for what we might want to make together:
 
BLACK MIRROR.  The old radio dramas of THE SHADOW.  The science fiction of Philip K. Dick.  The noir detective fiction of Raymond Chandler.  The monster-of-the-week thrills of both KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER and THE X-FILES.  But also, always, AGENT STOKER owes its legacy to Poe. 
 
We recruited the aforementioned Patrick Hogan, who’s been nominated nearly a dozen times for his sound editing of shows ranging from THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY to FIRE COUNTRY to ROSWELL.  We recruited Christy Carew to write original theme and background music, and producer Dana Brawer whom I’d met in the writers room of the Syfy space-horror series NIGHTFLYERS.  And we set to work.
 
It’s been a rewarding journey so far.  We’ve won Best Horror Podcast from the midwest’s PopCon Podcast Awards for our first two seasons – and then they gave our third season Best Sound/Editing, Best Entertainment Podcast and Best Overall Podcast.  Earlier this year we released Season Four, so fingers crossed as we submit that for awards.
 
But as much as anything else, it’s been great to build a little scary community online.  That community includes our listeners who loyally talk up the show on Reddit, and commenters who review us on any number of podcast websites –
 
And especially now, as I’m writing a new season and pushing the characters to the edge of their existence, it’s been tremendous to see how we assembled a cast of actors that span both the US and Europe – since we can record them wherever the live – and who always look forward to the accumulated spookiness we bring back into their creative souls each year –
 
Chris anchors the show with Agent Stoker’s wry, woeful nature, a man who’s committed to solving mysteries and averting the apocalypse, but who’s not sure he’s up to the job.  He’s faced ghosts, malevolent sentient AIs, elder gods, creatures of vodou, cranky vampires, self-medicating werewolves, and more.  He’s fallen in love and had his heart broken.  He’s lost comrades to death and watched them find new incarnations.  And in the fifth season, he’ll experience his own death – multiple times!  
 
Alongside Chris, we’ve tried to cast actors we knew from our careers, who brought great hearts, great curiosity, and great fun –
 
Emily Deschanel (BONES) as the stern leader of the Night Brigade for which Agent Stoker works –
 
Amy Hill (MAGNUM P.I.) as Agent Caliban, our hero’s partner who dies in the first episode but who is far from gone –
 
Ato Essandoh (THE DIPLOMAT) as EnGAGE, a neural network built from the memories of Charles Manson –
 
Tom Irwin (THE MORNING SHOW) as Agent Prynne, who’s sold his soul to make himself a better monster-hunter –
 
Joanna Going (THE PITT) as 27, a woman suffering from a Phoenix syndrome making her spontaneously combust and reincarnate –
 
Cliff Chamberlain (HOMELAND) as Connolly, a werewolf trying to regulate his condition with both drugs and technology –
 
Dina Shihabi (PAINKILLER) as Laila Zomorodi, whose sensitivity to the paranormal both attracts and threatens Agent Stoker –
 
Rose Portillo (ENCANTO) as Valentina, an Argentinian scientist metamorphosing against her will into a tree –
 
Hugo Armstrong (BOSCH: LEGACY) as the Passenger, the intelligence of an inhuman life form that’s taken over a dead man’s body –
 
And many many more – even just writing this list, I’m realizing new challenges that have to face these characters.  Damn, I’d better get back to work!
 
AGENT STOKER remains available wherever you get your podcasts.