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* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: [[spoiler:Kaelego]]. For whatever reason, its statue the splash image for the series on the Netflix interface.

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* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: [[spoiler:Kaelego]]. For whatever reason, its statue the splash image for the series on the Netflix interface. A HumanoidAbomination from another dimension.
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Disambiguated.


* DaylightHorror: Aside from a few scenes regarding nightmares, most of the events of the series take place during the day (although you may not be able to tell since the research facility is really short on windows).



* DroneOfDread: Three quarters of the soundtrack.
* EvilTaintedThePlace: [[spoiler: The mold]].

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* %%* DroneOfDread: Three quarters of the soundtrack.
* %%* EvilTaintedThePlace: [[spoiler: The mold]].
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''Archive 81'' is a an adaptation of the podcast of the same name produced by Creator/{{Netflix}} and starring Mamoudou Athie, Dina Shihabi, Evan Jonigkeit, Julia Chan, Ariana Neal, Matt [=McGorry=] and Martin Donovan. The debut season premiered in 2022.

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''Archive 81'' is a an adaptation of the podcast of the same name produced by Creator/{{Netflix}} and starring Mamoudou Athie, Creator/MamoudouAthie, Dina Shihabi, Evan Jonigkeit, Julia Chan, Ariana Neal, Matt [=McGorry=] and Martin Donovan. The debut season premiered in 2022.
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* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In the penultimate episode, Lukas Vos decides he's had enough and walks out right before the Vos Society carries out its summoning ritual. However, we never learn what happened to him afterwards, and as far as any effect on the rest of the plot is concerned, he might as well have died in the fire which killed the rest of the Society members.

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* EvilTaintedThePlace:[[spoiler: The mold]].

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* EvilTaintedThePlace:[[spoiler: EvilTaintedThePlace: [[spoiler: The mold]].



* SpookySeance: One is held by the Visser residents during a dinner party. It even [[GoneHorriblyRight goes horribly right]], twice!

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* SpookySeance: One is held by the Visser residents during a dinner party. It even [[GoneHorriblyRight goes horribly right]], twice!twice!
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On March 24th, 2022, just two months after the show had aired, it was announced that it had been cancelled after just one season.

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* AdaptationOriginConnection: Dan and Melody have nothing but the tapes in common in the podcast. Here... Not so much.

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* AdaptationOriginConnection: Dan and Melody have nothing but the tapes in common in the podcast.podcast, and Dan was merely unlucky in getting the job. Here... Not so much. [[spoiler: Dan's father was Melody's therapist and involved with Visser. Dan himself immediately recognizes the BrownNote as the song his sister was playing on the piano the day his entire family perished in a house fire, and was recruited specifically because of his father.]]


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* ClosedCircle: As in the podcast. The facility is isolated, with the only vehicle Dan has available being a bike (not optimal in chilly upstate New York), and the only way to contact the outside world without being monitored by LMG is to hike a significant distance to get a cell signal.

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* {{Bizzarchitecture}}: The Visser's basement floors, as well as some parts of the research facility once [[spoiler:Dan finds the hidden rooms]].

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* {{Bizzarchitecture}}: {{Bizarrchitecture}}: The Visser's basement floors, as well as some parts of the research facility once [[spoiler:Dan finds the hidden rooms]].


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* EvilTaintedThePlace:[[spoiler: The mold]].


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* RoomFullOfCrazy: Annabelle's drawing studio in the Visser devolves into this at one point. [[spoiler: A lighter version occurs in her psych ward when Dan finally meets her in 2021.]]

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Archivist and tape restoration expert Dan Turner is contracted by the CEO of a vague corporation to restore a series of Hi-8 tapes - recordings made in 1994 by a grad student named Melody Pendras ostensibly to document the lives of the residents of a historical New York building. As he works on them, however, he discovers, just as Melody does, that both the building and the people living in it are more than meets the eye.

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Archivist and tape restoration expert Dan Turner is contracted by the CEO of a vague corporation (and shipped out to a remote research facility in the Catskills) to restore a series of Hi-8 tapes - recordings made in 1994 by a grad student named Melody Pendras ostensibly to document the lives of the residents of a historical New York building. As he works on them, however, he discovers, just as Melody does, that both the building and the people living in it are more than meets the eye.


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* AnachronicOrder: Almost entirely omitted in the adaptation, as all the tapes Dan interacts with in the show come either pre-sorted in chronological order for some reason or clearly labeled, but he receives sets of tapes with some temporal skips back and forth.
* AnalogHorror: The adaptation upgrades it from audio tapes to Hi-8 but the purpose (and the nightmares) remain largely the same.
* ApocalypticLog: Melody's tapes serve as this for most of the plot, since the fire at the Visser is a foregone conclusion.


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* {{Bizzarchitecture}}: The Visser's basement floors, as well as some parts of the research facility once [[spoiler:Dan finds the hidden rooms]].
* BrownNote: The ubiquitous melody, as heard by Melody and Dan just on the edge of hearing. And the series' soundtrack too.


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* CreepyBasement: Everything about the Visser's basement is not right.
* CreepyCathedral: The research facility has one, abandoned much like the rest of it outside of the few rooms Dan uses.
* CrustyCaretaker: Mister John Smith, the Visser's caretaker, ''looks'' normal, but acts like people skills is something for other people.
* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: [[spoiler:Kaelego]]. For whatever reason, its statue the splash image for the series on the Netflix interface.
* DaylightHorror: Aside from a few scenes regarding nightmares, most of the events of the series take place during the day (although you may not be able to tell since the research facility is really short on windows).

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* GhostAmnesia: Invoked and later used by Dan [[spoiler:when he decides that the Melody he sees is a ghost]], but it turns out that the truth is more confusing.



* SpookyPhotography: A major plot point for the 1930s storyline.

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* SpookyPhotography: SpookyPhotographs: A major plot point for the 1930s storyline.storyline.
* SpookySeance: One is held by the Visser residents during a dinner party. It even [[GoneHorriblyRight goes horribly right]], twice!

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* AdaptationalGenderIdentity: Jessie the 17-year-old dude to Jess(ica) the 14-year-old girl.



* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: In making Melody straight and replacing Alexa (her girlfriend) with Annabelle (her BFF with an unrequited crush on her), this is the largest points of contention with the show that the podcast fans have unrelated to the Visser.
* AdaptationalSexuality: Unexpected for a Netflix show, but Melody is straight in the series.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: Kharonite.



* CometOfDoom: Invoked and discussed in relation to Comet Kharon from which kharonite supposedly originates.



* NothingIsScarier: Both at the Visser and the research facility, long pannijg shots of empty hallways are used to induce anxiety in the viewer.

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* NothingIsScarier: Both at the Visser and the research facility, long pannijg panning shots of empty hallways are used to induce anxiety in the viewer.viewer.
* PaintingTheMedium: PlayedWith. With all the various tapes and formats of video recording that show up and are processed by Dan, each bears unique quirks and quality shifts and even when the point of view dips through the fourth wall, e.g. by showing us what was happening to Melody as she was filming something, the sound remains muddled as still coming from the recording.
* PosthumousCharacter: Early on, we learn that the tapes Dan is handed were damaged in a fire and that 13 people died in it. The uncertainty of which characters in the 1994 storyline died and which lived is part of the mystery for the 2021 storyline.
* SequelHook: Dan waking up [[spoiler: in 1994, three weeks after the Visser fire and considered to be one of the survivors of it]].
* SpookyPainting: Annabelle draws multiple once she is drawn deeper into the plot. Unusually for this trope, they are a ''positive'' plot device and not a malicious one.
* SpookyPhotography: A major plot point for the 1930s storyline.

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[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]

''Archive 81'' is a an adaptation of the podcast of the same name produced by Creator/{{Netflix}} and starring Mamoudou Athie, Dina Shihabi, Evan Jonigkeit, Julia Chan, Ariana Neal, Matt McGorry and Martin Donovan. The debut season premiered in 2022.

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[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]

[[caption-width-right:350:How do you help someone you can only see through a screen?]]

''Archive 81'' is a an adaptation of the podcast of the same name produced by Creator/{{Netflix}} and starring Mamoudou Athie, Dina Shihabi, Evan Jonigkeit, Julia Chan, Ariana Neal, Matt McGorry [=McGorry=] and Martin Donovan. The debut season premiered in 2022.



* NothingIsScarier: Both at the Visser and the research facility, long pannijg shots of empty hallways are used to induce anxiety in the viewer.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: All over the place. The BrownNote melody that triggers seizures in certain people, [[spoiler: the shadowy figure that Dan and Thomas see in their respective tapes]].

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* NothingIsScarier: Both at DreamWithinADream: Dan has several, one of which features waking up in different locations.
* DroneOfDread: Three quarters of
the Visser and the research facility, long pannijg shots of empty hallways are used to induce anxiety in the viewer.
soundtrack.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: All over the place. The BrownNote melody that triggers seizures in certain people, [[spoiler: the shadowy figure that Dan and Thomas see in their respective tapes]].tapes]].
* MissingReflection: A FreezeFrameBonus, but when Melody keeps trying to break into the cabinet in Cassandra's apartment [[spoiler: that she saw the Kaelego statue in earlier]], when she is caught, in the mirror behind Cassandra we can see that the cabinet has no reflection.
* NothingIsScarier: Both at the Visser and the research facility, long pannijg shots of empty hallways are used to induce anxiety in the viewer.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p21140888_b_v13_aa.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]

''Archive 81'' is a an adaptation of the podcast of the same name produced by Creator/{{Netflix}} and starring Mamoudou Athie, Dina Shihabi, Evan Jonigkeit, Julia Chan, Ariana Neal, Matt McGorry and Martin Donovan. The debut season premiered in 2022.

Archivist and tape restoration expert Dan Turner is contracted by the CEO of a vague corporation to restore a series of Hi-8 tapes - recordings made in 1994 by a grad student named Melody Pendras ostensibly to document the lives of the residents of a historical New York building. As he works on them, however, he discovers, just as Melody does, that both the building and the people living in it are more than meets the eye.

The series has been met with mixed reactions across the board: people and critics unaware or unfamiliar with the podcast mostly praise it for its slow-burn horror and mixed-media story delivery, while fans of the podcast almost unanimously deride the changes made to the source material.

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!!The show provides examples of:

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Dan is a lot less of a nerdy stereotype in the show, from the way he acts to his dress sense.
* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: Crosses over with ArtifactTitle, the reason the show is called Archive ''81'' is excised in the changes made to how and why Dan is put to work on Melody's tapes.
* AdaptationOriginConnection: Dan and Melody have nothing but the tapes in common in the podcast. Here... Not so much.
* ArtifactTitle: There is only one ([[spoiler: actually two]]) archive in the series, so the 81 is never explained.
* CatapultNightmare: Dan and Melody both start having these as they delve into the mysteries of the Visser.
* DiegeticSoundtrackUsage: The {{Leitmotif}} for the show uses the same melody as the weird chant that first tips Melody off that something weird is happening at the Visser.
* NothingIsScarier: Both at the Visser and the research facility, long pannijg shots of empty hallways are used to induce anxiety in the viewer.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: All over the place. The BrownNote melody that triggers seizures in certain people, [[spoiler: the shadowy figure that Dan and Thomas see in their respective tapes]].

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