With the rise of YouTube as an entertainment platform, the rise of the YouTube celebrity was the inevitable next step. This has led to the creation of movies and television shows featuring these creators. Some more recent television shows of notoriety being Colleen Ballinger’s Haters Back Off, and Lilly Singh’s A Little Late with Lilly Singh. Other notable YouTubers such as Logan Paul and Shayne Dawson also starred in their own movies, but these movies were enjoyed mostly by their loyal fanbase, receiving little attention from outsiders. Additionally, YouTuber entertainment that veers from their usual content is often not as good.
Not Cool, Shayne Dawson’s film was released at arguably the peak of his YouTube career in 2014. While the critic’s score on Rotten Tomatoes currently sits at 70%, many YouTube commentators criticized the movie, commenting on how bad the overall writing and character portrayals were.
In sharp contrast, Markiplier (Mark Edward Fishback)’s works have been received favorably, with one of his more recent works, In Space with Markiplier, receiving a score of 9.1 out of ten on IMDb. Instead of making movies and short films for the sake of making money, Fishback does it for the love of the craft. In his video titled The Plan, “I know what I want to make next before the current one is even done because I want to take all of the lessons that I’ve learned and apply it to something bigger.”
Fishback has been a YouTube creator since May of 2012. Over the years, as his audience grew, he branched out from Let’s Play content to work on other, more creative projects. In 2017, Fishback posted a four episode mini series, Who Killed Markiplier, which garnered 9.2 million views, and an interactive choose your own adventure video series, A Date With Markiplier garnering 24 million views. Later in 2019, he released another interactive video experience titled, A Heist With Markiplier, which garnered closely followed by In Space With Markiplier in 2022.
In 2019, Fishback played the lead role in The Edge of Sleep, an audio drama from QCode Productions. On October 15, 2024, a live action adaptation of the same name was released on Amazon Prime Video where Fishback reprised his role as the main protagonist, Dave Torres. The success of this production could make or break Fishback’s latest project, Iron Lung. “If Edge of Sleep can get into the top ten, then that can open doors.” Fishback said in his video titled The Plan. “The doors [that will open] are going to open for Iron Lung.”
The Edge of Sleep follows four main characters as they fight to stay awake and stay alive. Overnight, it seems like the whole world went to sleep and never woke up, and it is up to them to find out what is going on.
Overall, this production was well paced. The transitions between past, present, and dreams flowed smoothly, keeping audience members engaged throughout this short season. Additionally, the video adaptation was enhanced by having a visual element, artistically bringing to life the elements from the audio drama. While the show may have benefitted from being a few episodes longer, these six, twenty-minute episodes that make up season one allows busy viewers to watch each episode in a single sitting.
Performances by this show’s limited cast were engaging. Most notably, Eve Harlow – best known for bit parts in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and The 100 – played burnt-out night shift nurse, Linda Russo. Harlow played her role well, being able to quickly shift from an emotional outburst to stoic and level-headed in a single scene. While Russo was portrayed as a manic, unstable character, she was the most level-headed one in the group. Much like Harlow, the other two main members of the show, have had fairly small acting résumés, with Lio Tipton being best known for Two Night Stand, and In Space with Markiplier, and Franz Drameh being best known for voicing Firestorm in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
Season one of The Edge of Sleep ends with a cliffhanger, leaving audiences to guess what will happen next. While a second season of the Prime Original has not been confirmed, director Jake Emanuel, confirmed on Twitter – also known as X – that a second season of the audio drama has been fully written, and will span 11 episodes. There is not a release date confirmed for this season, but fans of the show will have something to look forward to in the coming months or years.
Olivia Zachman is a senior English major and editor for the Arts and Culture section of The Retriever. Contact Olivia at z59@umbc.edu