Up and Vanished

It’s so good. Payne & team are the masters at crafting high quality true crime podcasts. Payne narrates the investigation as it unfolds and I’ve never been so gripped by a story before. And to a reviewer that says “it sounds like AI”.. what are you talking about? 🤔 You’re wrong. Anyway you won’t be disappointed by In The Midnight Sun! Highly recommend listening to this.

This isn’t just a missing person/true crime podcast. This is a stand alone, world class, phenomenal investigating. Season 4 last episode? Chilling. Gripping! Breathtaking. I’m on the edge of my seat. Keep going! I hope the team knows just how special this is. I hope they are very proud. They should be. And thank you. Such a gift to us all.

Hell ya Payne, I’ll be honest I was getting a little confused with the starting and stopping of the In the midnight sun season but this last episode is what it’s all about. Not just telling an interesting and tragic story but actually gaining some traction and answers for these families and victims. I’m all for it, even if we have to wait some time to hear what happens next. I truly believe in “ethical true crime” and Payne and his team does an incredible job of keep these podcasts focused on the victims and their families and not reducing these tragedies into entertainment. Love good investigative work and am excited to see what your hard work turns into for these families! They deserve answers and justice. Get ‘em Payne!

I’ve listened to and enjoyed Up and Vanished for many years and always found it to be very well done and interesting. But the last two episodes of In the Midnight Sun just sound like AI now. I can imagine AI would be super helpful in a workflow for a show like this, but the end product sounds like an AI script Payne is reading, which is disappointing and distracting…it’s like some of the lines make me literally visualize them in a chat bot window. Leaving this review in hopes that the team will rethink their AI use.

I listened to all seasons and season 4 has got to be the worst. I like the story telling on previous seasons but season 4 is just all over the place, it’s very hard to find just regular episodes because there are all these 3 minute “preview” and bonus episodes… why? And then a new episode months later repeating the same thing and constantly switching up between two stories but never actually finishing or going deeper on one story. Why not just have separate seasons for the two stories, it gets very confusing. And constant repetition of the same recordings etc , I feel Like I listened to an entire season but didn’t really get any new info. Used to be my favorite podcast but now ready to give it up, it’s been too annoying.

Season one was good, season two was okay, but seasons three and four were all over the place. It was hard to follow, constantly bouncing between two storylines. I kept trying to find a connecting thread, but there really wasn’t one. There was a lot of repetition and very little substance. I thought I’d at least listen to the finale, but since it’s been almost two years since the story started, I got lost in the characters and fake drama, lost interest and turned it off after about 15 minutes. Good luck on the families. Hope they find some answers.