Dirty Work: extremely clever, well-put together interactive gruesome comedy series

Elan Lee -- who has worked on several pioneering alternate reality games and similar media experiments, writes, "'Dirty Work' is a new online comedy that we just launched at Fourth Wall Studios. This multi-screening/phone-call-making/email-sending/transmedia-ifying/future-of-storytelling/world-peace-involving/bioremediation-engineering/folk-dancing shindig* is now live at rides.tv/dirtywork and completely free. (NSFW for language). The show stars Mary-Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from 24), Hank Harris (X-Files), Jamie Clayton (Hung) and Matt L. Jones (Badger from Breaking Bad)"

I watched this for about 40 minutes this morning and was really struck by how tight the production was, funny, well-written, well-acted, thoughtfully composed, with clever use of the "transmedia" elements. This is damned good stuff. The premise is superficially similar to Sunshine Cleaning, but all that similarity does is remind you that the same premise in two different hands can yield two totally different stories.

DIRTY WORK is a dark comedy that follows the gruesome misadventures of a Los Angeles based crime-scene clean-up crew. Each episode finds our team wading through the muck of a new assignment, a new location, and new set of toxic predicaments. Calling themselves “bioremediation engineers” is a just a fancy way of saying they scrape up brains for a living. But the carnage they’re mopping up is nothing compared to the wreckage of their personal lives.

DIRTY WORK is a gritty and immersive storytelling experience, delivered through Fourth Wall Studios’ RIDES platform. Each installment of the series is told through your computer and smartphone, a combination of video, audio, text and images – putting you, the viewer, in the center of the insanity.

RIDES | Dirty Work | Interactive Video Experience (Thanks, Elan!)

• [CaptainPedge]

  US only for full experience

  • [JontKopeck]

     Stealthy On!

    • [CaptainPedge]

       won’t work. You need a US phone number for all the features to work properly

  • [Cory Doctorow]

     Not really. You can get parts of the movie sent to your phone as audio, or you can play it through your computer.

• [CaptainPedge]

  won’t work. You need a US phone number for all the features to work properly

  • [JontKopeck]

     Currently seeing what you mean, all that stuff seems like a pain in the arse. Watching the first episode and it works alright as a standard show.

• [Pope Ratzo]

   The novel you want to read about crime-scene cleanup outfits is “The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death: A Novel” by the great Charlie Huston.It’s better than both Sunshine Cleaners and Dirty Work, though Dirty Work isn’t bad.Go read the novel though.  It’s really a good’n.

• [vertigo25]

  That was amazing. The extra little stuff was cute, but it totally works even without it. I found myself belly laughing out loud at a lot of the jokes. Seems like the three primary actors have some great chemistry. Really hope it continues (with or without the extra features).

  I do think it’s weird that no one gets any credit, though. Is that some kind of legal thing? I’ve never seen that before.

• [vertigo25]

  BTW, does anyone know if the actor playing Michelle is really trans?

  • [Jay Bushman]

    Credits are pending final approval from the Guilds – -it’s a process.  But there’sa little bit of info on the Wikipedia page, which should help answer your question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Work_(TV_series)

  • [Jay Bushman]

    P.S. Glad you liked it!

  • [gutrbal]

    Her name is Jamie Clayton and yes she is really trans.

• [Travis Plamp]

  I’m worried that someone’s going to find these text messages on my phone and wonder whether they know me as well as they thought.

• [Anton Zelinka]

  Wow, “crime scene cleanup” comedy TV series seem to be all the rage now. Last December, one launched on Germany’s NDR channel:

  http://www.ndr.de/unterhaltung/comedy_satire/dertatortreiniger101.html

  • [Amelia_G]

    Yes! the episode of Tatortreiniger that I saw was quite good.