Well, joy of joys: it’s finally here! The last season of the current LA By Night chronicle airs on Friday, 3 September at 8PM PST (that’s today if you’re reading this hot off the press). LA By Night, for those unfamiliar, is a streaming show set in the World of Darkness. Specifically, it’s a group of actors and a designated “Storyteller,” playing the game Vampire: The Masquerade on camera. They roll dice, improvise, and act out their characters’ actions just like regular tabletop RPG groups do, but their performance is geared more towards telling an entertaining and compelling story to watch than it is towards “winning” at a game.
The format’s long been popular with RPG gamers and streaming fans, but LA By Night’s subject matter and stellar cast make it one of the most compelling versions there is. Watching humans pretending to be monsters is what got me through 2020. I interviewed fan-favorite cast members Erika Ishii and B Dave Walters, who play Annabelle and Baron Victor Temple respectively, to find out how they felt about the upcoming season five debut. First off, the excitement was so thick you could feel it despite the fact we were on a video chat. Both actors asserted that they were looking forward to being as surprised by the events of the season as the rest of us. Ishii warned me that, after such a long absence, “a very different Anabelle comes back,” and Walters boomed out a prophecy in Victor’s deep voice that “things happen.” As for what’s changed, the actors promise big shockers throughout the season, but there are also subtle things that even they don’t know about yet. This season was pre-taped, so the actors are done with their part, but as Walters told me: Vampire puns aside, the big idea here was a combination of COVID safety – Ishii said they were “very, very COVID conscious” – and storytelling ambition. When I asked if this season would have more gravitas than previous seasons, Walters laughed and said “you could describe it as weighty.” Ishii just said one word: “intensity!” If you’re looking to get caught up, the first three seasons are available on YouTube via Geek and Sundry and the fourth season is on the World of Darkness channel. Tonight’s season premiere debuts on Twitch, but will be made available on YouTube… sometime after.
