Personal Highlights
Lost Terminal: 10.4 – The experiment has been a qualified success. A few weeks have passed since the previous episode, and this passage of time allows the story to jump to the conclusion of the first mushroom harvest. The episode’s title reflects Seth’s optimistic nature, but eventually even he can’t deny the gravity of the situation the Omerov family are in. We’ve seen how his being unable to help his friends in the past weighs on him heavily, but here he has a fear that we haven’t seen him acknowledge with such honesty before. There’s also another strange and intriguing encounter with NANA, the creepy AI who we met last week, whom we still have a lot to understand about.
InCo: Episode 62 – Blackmail. Nova’s favourite trashy TV show, Artina, is always a pretty solid indication of her mental state. The framing at the beginning of the episode is very interesting, the reminder of who’s funding the episode, the reason why she needs the escapism in the first place. The episode takes a turn I really enjoyed, as the conversation turns to Wilm – Hatov’s brother. Wilm mysteriously left the palace before Hatov did, and while his departure has been talked around by many, the possible motives behind it have not been explored. It’s another one of the royal family’s secrets, another uncomfortable truth they don’t want to face, and it looks like it’s another one Nova will want to investigate.
The Vesta Clinic: 13 – Hermit Reflex. Oof. The truth has come out about Faye’s partner. A truth she didn’t want to talk about, that we began to understand though what Sec was saying and what she didn’t say; and fittingly we find out exactly what happened from two of her colleagues. It’s an aspect of the story that Faye had always tried to keep in the background, but it gradually started to intrude on her professional life, and here it’s the most important aspect of the episode. Yes, there’s the letter about another patient, but the focus is on Faye and how she dealt with both the actual patient at the time and the writing of the letter itself. I’m glad she has people on the satellite that want to help her and look after her.
The Tower: II – End Of The World. This episode of The Tower brings some very interesting insights into the wider world of the story. It opens with a poignant monologue from Kiri, which I thought contrasted nicely with the monologue towards the end of the episode. The two monologues both deal with the themes of change and loss, and how those feelings are dealt with, with a distinction between personal feelings and collective inaction. I also enjoyed the contrast between how the lack of new research which is able to be made about the Tower is presented in this episode, and the mystery around Ike and their phonecalls. There’s so much that isn’t understood about the Tower in academia, and Chris has been writing much more about it than anyone has for a while, by all accounts. This lack of interest by the powers that be in this society, the ones that would give academics the funds for new research, added a lot to my understanding of the story and the world it’s set in just from that one detail; while also echoing the mass disinterest and apathy described in Kiri’s opening monologue.
Debuts
The Boar Knight is a new all ages fantasy podcast from Fool & Scholar Productions. We meet Nathaniel, the boar Knight, when he is woken up by Huey the hedgehog. It turns out that Nathaniel has lost all his memories, and so begins the mission to recover them from the Mischievous Memory Mining Moles.
Trailers and Prologues
Fantasy crime procedural Darkstead released a trailer ahead of the continuation of its first season. The podcast’s first episode had been released last October, to coincide with a crowdfunding campaign, and the show is due to continue this Halloween. The trailer contains some intriguing clips from the story, which promises an investigation into a local woman’s disappearance, in a strange town where humans and non-humans co-exist.
Returns
The Earth Collective returns for its fifth season with a tense episode. It’s been a while since Joseph last made a recording and uploaded it to the Orbiter 1 satellite, for whoever may find the files in the future, and there’s a certain amount of catching up to do. He recounts a terrifying series of events, as the Warmind steps up its threats towards Joseph and the whole of the Earth Collective.
We’re Alive is back for part 2 of the first season of Descendants, with the first two parts of Chapter 6. Set 18 years after the original We’re Alive series, the story introduces us to a new generation of survivors and the dangers they face in this post-apocalyptic world – both from zombies and other survivors. As we saw in previous episodes, a disturbing form of entertainment has developed in one community, and the story picks up with the Guardians fighting for survival.
A Sky Full of Pods 