“Keyed In” is a weird episode. Not a lot of it is explained or even seems to follow much of a plot. I more mean this for the anthology story, but even the other stuff is kind of odd for a Magnus Protocol episode.
Tales of the Empire Tells Us Parts Of A Whole Story After having such a good time reviewing Tales of the Jedi, I figured that Tales of the Empire would be similar. That it would also contain a bunch of interesting looks at the history of various familiar characters. But I wouldn’t call these characters…
Welcome back, dear reader.
As you may recall, our protagonist has a problem. Two deadly machines called “Task-Shots” stand between him and preventing an explosion.
Artificial Condition continues my internal war with how I feel about The Murderbot Diaries. Despite it being more technobabble than almost anything else, the story remains intriguing and engaging off the back of the main conceit: what if a rogue AI designed to kill wanted to be left alone to watch television?
“Interruptions” doesn’t interrupt in the way I had expected. Given that the episode, for a time, kept flitting to different moments around the office, I had assumed that the entire runtime would take place there. No statement. No anthology elements. A true interruption from the status quo.
In our last installment of this tense, sci-fi adventure, our protagonist discovered that this wasn’t going to be a normal delivery. There’s more going on. But he doesn’t back down easily.
“Driven” is such an interesting episode because of how much it’s a different subgenre than is typical of The Magnus Protocol. Yes, the events are horrific in concept. Yes, there are some obvious parallels to the very first episode of Archives. Yes, it has cosmic elements. But the nature of the narrative is more like reading a paranormal investigation story.
“Catching Up” is such an improvement from the last two episodes. It’s weird and horrific and takes its time to build to the horror. And the horror story both informs the overall story and works on its own. It’s an excellent entry.
Today, dear reader, we have a science fiction tale for you. It’s full of worldbuilding, action, and a main character who can handle extremely dangerous situations.
In fact, that’s what makes him such a good pilot.
I didn’t like “Gut Feelings” all that much. I can’t say since “Pet Project” has an episode been this much of a dud. The premise is strong, the ideas—in theory—scary, and the writing certainly got across the ideas the episode wanted to achieve…but I just didn’t like it.
“Raising Issues” has three parts, and none of them feel all that connected to each other. The main thing is that they, yes, involve characters “Raising Issues.” I’ve been amused by the pun titles of The Magnus Protocol throughout, but this might be the most creative use of it.
Life on Earth can be weird, don’t you think? The idea of clouds up above and bugs in the dirt we walk on. We live with it because that’s just how Earth is.
