“Breaking Ground” is another exposition episode, mainly serving to establish a few more pieces of information about the “Protocol” that we’ve heard so much about. This doesn’t make it a bad episode—or even a mediocre one—just that it doesn’t have much in the way of a self-contained story. It doesn’t have the time to build to much tension.
“What?” I asked the figure, not sure what I was hearing. “What do you mean—?”
There was a rush. The ground met me, and I kept going.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
To review “Anti-Social,” I need to make some assumptions. I need to assume our main character, Madam Electrum, is an accurate representation of a type of internet personality/celebrity.
“Well Run” is a chaotic, disjointed, flawed, but ultimately enjoyable episode of The Magnus Protocol. The main horror story is riffing on a classic concept that’s been explored in many other places but is still effective for a reason.
“Pet Project” is so short. I’m convinced that it exists to introduce one piece of lore and that’s about it. Time will tell, but this is likely the most succinct review of an episode I’ll maybe do for the whole series. What is there to say about this little vignette besides that it was, indeed, a horror story?
Spookiness abounds, dear reader.
Something is in our reality that wasn’t there before.
“Futures” is not only one of the most unique horror stories I’ve experienced, but it’s also a great one. From concept to execution, there are only a few hiccups along the way, and none of them glaring enough to even be considered a distraction.
