REDACTED Narrowly Avoids Being Easy To Forget REDACTED is an audio fiction podcast that takes a very well-worn concept and adds just enough twists on the formula to make it interesting again. How well-worn, you may be asking? Well, how about a secret organization that deals with supernatural threats? You know, the premise of hundreds… Read More »
“Deep Trouble” Has Two Great Ideas Put Together I loved “Deep Trouble” in theory. I liked it in practice. There’s a difference between conceptually enjoying the decisions made and having the delivery be only okay. Let’s take the fear domain, for instance. Somehow, a submarine going through the ocean managed to combine so many different… Read More »
“Pipelines” Somehow Isn’t A Bad Magnus Episode Let me be clear. I hated three big things about “Pipelines.” I hated the re: being repeated so many times in a row. Some of the emails are so short that it’s actually ridiculous to include those—damn any verisimilitude. Secondly, I hate that the actual horror moment, the… Read More »
“Temporary Positions” Is Great For Mystery Lovers Maybe this is just because I’ve listened to a lot of Magnus, and am going off patterns, but the series does have a habit of outright stating something after it was possible to mostly have figured it out. And that’s what “Temporary Positions” feels like. It’s a clarifying… Read More »
“Repetitive Strain” Doesn’t Have Enough Runtime “Repetitive Strain” is mostly only brought down from excellence by the statement not having enough time. I love that the episode keeps matters mostly focused on one plotline, while also progressing it, but I was intrigued and increasingly horrified—and then the story stopped. Like, I don’t recall many Spiral-style… Read More »
“Slipping” Is An Offputting Episode Of This Series “Slipping” takes the format of Protocol and pushes it to the absolute extreme. There’s implying a horror story through the medium of whatever technology or multimedia thing we’re exploring that episode, and then there’s burying it so deep in that framework that it feels like a twist… Read More »
“Transferal” Gives Us Some Critical Worldbuilding “Transferal” picks back up a plotline that I had—admittedly—forgotten about. It hadn’t really been referenced since season one, and, thinking on it now, had seemed mostly handled. It’s possible there was a throwaway line where Celia was still dealing with being pulled back to the Archives universe—but I can’t… Read More »
“Back to Basic” Has Two Important Conversations “Back to Basic” is an odd episode to talk about. It’s not really an episode; it’s exposition. The statement is barely a statement. The conversations don’t feel like conversations. The whole point of the runtime is just to teach us some worldbuilding elements. And thank god. As soon… Read More »
“Sink or Swim” Actually Gives Us Many Plot Clues “Sink or Swim” is a disturbing, creative episode that would’ve likely creeped me out if I weren’t very used to these kinds of stories. Sometimes, horror media still “gets me,” and I jolt a little, but I was mostly just enjoying the little clues that I… Read More »
“Hostile Workplace” Has Reveals Protocol Needed Why wasn’t “Hostile Workplace” the episode we got when the series returned from a hiatus? It’s much, much better than “Internal Investigation,” and reveals a ton of plot information without giving the game away. A single speculation from Sam about how alchemy works was honestly enough to make my… Read More »