Tonight, Critical Role Campaign 4 will hit a big milestone: The end of the campaign’s “Overture”. This means that, starting next week, the cast will be split off into three tables as part of the campaign’s “West Marches” format. Each has its own focus as part of the bigger tale. The only confirmed table so far is the Soldiers table, featuring Teor Pridesire (Travis Willingham), Thimble (Laura Bailey), Tyranny (Whitney Moore), Wicander Halovar (Sam Riegel), and Kattigan Vale (Robbie Daymond). The Seekers and Schemers have not been formally announced, but theories abound among Critters what these other tables will be composed of. Compared to the current setup, these tables will develop the story independently but as part of the greater whole. According to the cast, they did not know what other tables were up to when filming their table’s sessions…meaning only DM Brennan Lee Mulligan truly knew all. And we all know how much Brennan loves secret knowledge.
But before they split off to their separate corners, it’s time for the “Overture” to end in tonight’s episode. But why did they choose to use the term “Overture” for these four intro episodes? Luckily, the cast was quick to tie it to their love of theater.
Marisha Ray: Honestly, like the naming convention, we kind of have a problem at Critical Role where if you say something three times, then it just sticks and it exists in the world. It’s the Beetlejuice phenomenon. you have to be careful what you say.
I think you kind of nailed it, though, when you said operatic, like in a not too dissimilar way, we are going into a very long running soap opera like type of story. There’s always been very close parallels to what we do with Critical Role to live theater, kind of like what Robbie has kind of hinted at. But this was really our opportunity. We knew that we wanted to introduce everyone to the audience upfront. To have the understanding that this is going to be very different campaign than our previous three ones, because in a lot of ways the audience is going to be far more knowledgeable in terms of all of the different machinations going on across all of the world, far more than the players at the table. And I think giving them those little nuggets and like if something is mentioned at the soldiers table, the audience might be more informed into what that is referencing at a whole other table that another group is working on. We just wanted to kind of set the stage, set the scene before we dive into everyone’s missions.
Sam Riegel, naturally, had his own idea for what this introduction should have been called and rather than theater, I think he was more influenced by his favorite takeout menu.
Sam Riegel: I would have called it a Pu pu platter. You’re getting like a sampler of the themes, the characters, you’re getting a little taste of the world and it’s super tasty. And you want more, you want more of that poo-poo, but you’re just gonna have to wait for the main course to arrive.
Alexander Ward: Unfortunately, we only said it two times, so it didn’t stick.
Aabria Iyengar: The SEO for Pu pu platter was such that we went with Overture.
Campaign 4 Episode 4 airs TONIGHT, Thursday, October 23rd at 7pm Pacific on YouTube & Twitch (@CriticalRole). For Beacon Members: VOD and Podcast out Thursday, October 2nd at 7pm Pacific. Beacon members will also get exclusive access to all episodes of Critical Role Cooldown for Campaign 4, where the cameras keep rolling and you get a front row seat to the cast’s post-show reactions.
Visit Critical Role’s website or follow along on Instagram at @Critical_Role, TikTok at @CriticalRole, and Critical Role’s newsletter to stay up-to-date.
Images via Critical Role
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