For reasons unknown (alien invasion?) KUOW ran next week’s WNYC-produced Radiolab, a live show recorded in front of a loving audience in Minneapolis, tonight.

The show uses Radiolab’s signature overlapping audio, which to my ear derives most directly from Altman and Firesign Theatre, to explore the production and legacy of the storied Mercury Theatre on the Air “War of The Worlds,” to great and personally moving effect.

I have been familiar with Radiolab, and its’ leading light, Robert Krulwich, for years. While generally I have admired both Krulwich’s reporting and his commitment to puyshing the mediujm as an aspect of his reportage, Radiolab did not sell itself to me. Overlapping found and reported audio accompanied by well-informed commentary was, it seemed, not enough for me.

Given that Krulwich’s grail is indeed as it has seemed to me for some time the transformation of the reported story into dramatic and audio entertainment, it’s only natural that one would expect him to explore the October 31, 1938 Mercury Radio Theatre on The Air broadcast of their adaptation of The War of The Worlds.

Without going into detail, it is clear to me that the show I have just listened to achieves the goal of transforming reportage into something new, not news, not drama, not anecdote. The show conveyed new information regarding something I have been fascinated with since childhood, entirely new and unexpected fallout from the broadcast, and direct, thoughtful commentary from the hosts on the topic at hand.

It was fantastic, and if Krulwich can find the correct choices to address moving forward with the show, new ground has been broken in three disciplines: radio, journalism, and drama.

I suspect that this may be what the guy’s been after for umpteen years. I’ve been listening, and I never heard it click previously, although I always appreciated Krulwich’s aggressive pusuit of the edge.