“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.
“A New You” is, ultimately, a familiar trope played mostly as expected. But it’s also somehow a lot bleaker in its implications and uses the multi-media format of The Magnus Protocol to add subtle storytelling. This may be my favorite use of the “social media post” format.
Today’s story is weird. It has no answers, only nightmarish and inexplicable things.
Tilly is a waitress at a downtown diner. She works there to pay for her apartment until her lease runs out. And sometimes her days are hard.
It’s been a few weeks since I reviewed another episode of The Magnus Protocol and I’m so glad that “Mixed Signals” is the one I returned to. This episode is fantastic, and it’s mainly due to such an interesting, novel, and evocative horror concept.
There are not many answers. There’s a quick shift in tone. And we never learn anyone’s name.
“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.
