“Social Stigma” is a great episode that not only entertains by itself but redeems the previous episode “Hard Reset.” I like to think of them as a two-parter now. We get a ton of buildup to that strange Isaac Newton stuff, and then a payoff with an extended conversation.
“Space Babies” doesn’t seem like an episode to start a season with. Doctor Who is no stranger to weirdness, not by a long shot—but this episode is not only weird, it’s also goofy.
When our main character started talking to a ghost, he probably didn’t expect to end up trying to save his whole city.
“Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach” is a fascinating, humanist piece of science fiction. Despite having almost no conflicts, barely anything that counts as a propelled plot, it’s intriguing all the way through. Reading it instills so many emotions: sadness, joy, wistful nostalgia, and the exact type of curiosity that incredible concepts have all the power to invoke.
“Hard Reset” is a weird, kind-of-bad episode. It’s obvious that it has great plot importance, and the few snippets of context we do get for “The Protocol” are interesting—but for the majority of the listening experience, it’s more befuddling than enjoyable.
A warning, dear reader. This story contains spiders—and if you have arachnophobia, at all, you may not want to read this one.
“The Long Game” is actually a story about very short periods of time and the exploitation of a species. Its title refers to one idea in the story, among a few different, some related, some not, concepts—and the greatest strength of this one, like “How It Unfolds,” is how interesting those ideas are.
“Solo Work” is a fantastic episode. The horror is weird and cosmic. The character work is great, and we get a lot of it—and there’s a cameo that made the ending all the better.
Imagine, if you will, a series of spaceships housing all of humanity.
Now imagine the level of work it would take to keep such locations livable and pleasant.
Do you like synergy? Do you like a deck where each and every card works well with every other card? Well, this is the deck. Literally months in the making, I have been tinkering with this land-based, Standard Bof1 deck that gets to play cards you’ve probably never thought could be this effective.
“Saved Copy” is a setup episode. It’s clearly about one plot point, and plants ideas for that plot point—and that’s the whole point of it. There are barely any asides that don’t deal with the concept.
We return to our supernatural tale, dear reader.
Now that our main character has finished talking to a ghost about the ghost’s troubles, there’s more to do.
