Some episode 3 easter eggs part 2

Here are all the various appearances of the dots representing earth in the night-sky of Mars. The last pic is not an easter egg as such, but it's a beautiful shot, and would make a good desktop background: (blogspot seems not to want to let me put any text between the pictures).

Some episode 3 easter eggs part 1

Well the blog has gone crazy since I posted that review!

Ok I've flagged up some Sound/music themes in this episode:

Walzer's stutter; Walzer's music and it's use in SETI; Vernon's radio interference; "I hope you like Motown".

Here are some visuals. First the newscasts: unlike episode 2 they seem to all be about the events occurring on the base. I an't see all of that headline, but I can read: C MILLER SHARPLY CRITICISED FOR INACTION

RCMP stands for Royal Canadian Mounted Police which makes sense. Sorry if you all knew that already.

Yuri's hospital label suggests episode 3 takes place on Sep 27th 2011, which would make Earthfall on the 24th. If there's ever a need for one I'll do a timeline.

That's all for now, will post some more easter eggs tomorrow, and feel free to request some in the comments.

Initial Review of Episode 3 - Me Looka, Me Laika

This is an initial review, just to get my thoughts out on the page before they fade. I'm not going to bother recapping, because if you can read this it means you have an internet connection and can watch it for yourself.

Out of the gate I want to say I loved this episode.

Watching this episode I got that feeling when you work somewhere for a few months, and then get to know your work colleagues and you realise what motivates them. Without descending into soap opera, we get to see extra sides to Taylor, Walzer and DiLeo. In Taylor's case we see his (ex-?) girlfriend and his aspirations there. For Walzer I enjoyed seeing his somewhat naive view of what the situation was about, especially after decades of frustration with the US view of manned Mars missions. We literally got to see a new side to DiLeo in learning his first name, taking him out of the realm of being predominantly comic relief (not that there's anything wrong with comic relief).

Another star of the show here was Jane, or rather the chemistry between her and Yuri. Laura Graham's depiction of an overwhelmed Jane attempting to apply things she knows in an extraordinary situation was genuinely moving. Somehow Yuri, who sits up once, screams once and says only one word manages to convey something meaningful in his attitude towards Jane, maybe because we know its possible that this is the only female he's ever seen apart from his mother.

The music in this episode was still beautiful but the quality seemed better and more integrated somehow. Just from having seen it once, I'm guessing any Easter Eggs here were mainly audio rather than visual. I'm primarily talking about the intentionally-unsubtitled Yuri's word which means 'Firebird', suggesting he speaks at least some English.

That said, and I'm far from an expert in these matters, the visuals seemed more proficient as well. More establishing shots and pans or something, I don't know.

"I can't imagine what your life has been like". With those words it occurred to me this is in some ways a series about human-alien contact, it's just that the alien both human and Martian (like the protagonist in Stranger in a Strange Land), and that communication is almost as difficult as if he weren't human.

Also nice to see Laika, Walzer's dog, enter the P1 canon, although readers of this blog would already have known about this. ;)

Each episode in this series -which started out great- has got stronger and stronger. If this trajectory is continued in episode 4 in three weeks I'll be a very happy man. I really hope they get the funds together to tell the story the show deserves for episode 5 and 6. But if you're reading this you've already donated for those episodes, right?

Discuss episode 3 here.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and discussions here. Initial review coming later today fingers crossed.

Episode 3 out now!

Episode three appears to be online a bit early. You can get it here. Click on download.

Time of Epiosde 3

According to this tweet, the show should be going up in a little over three hours now! If you're getting it on BT don't forget to seed.

Episode 3 in orbit today and some theories.

Well folks today is the day. I haven't been able to devote as much time as I'd wished to this blog in the run up to episode 3, but I'll be watching it tonight and posting a review as soon as I can. I'd invite people to post their thoughts and so on in the comments.

I just want to get a couple of things off my chest quickly before epi 3 comes out. There are two bits in episode 2 which I think may prove to be important. One bit is where Clive says that the shuttle approaching Earth was at a different trajectory on Wednesday and must have slowed down to catch Earth. This is overlaid by Walzer's discovery of a Martian rock, and I wonder if this isn't some deliberate misdirection to give us some information but make us forget it straight away.

The second part is at the end where Walzer says something like 'the evidence fits with the boy's story, but I can't feel like there's something big that I'm missing'. Combine this with Josh Bernhard's comments about episode 4: "The next episode is called "Alone in the Night" and we'll be spending a lot of time with Yuri, our supposed Martian cosmonaut." and I think we have a twist approaching.

Let me know what you think and don't forget to donate.

Casting Call for episodes 5 and 6

The casting call for some characters that will appear in episodes 5 and 6 have been posted on Craigslist. You can read it in the spoiler section.

'Gloriously Retro' Treasures of the Soviet Union's Space industry

BBC website have posted a great article about the Soviet space race with some great visuals here.

P1 discussed by Vodo at SXSW 2011

This is an interesting video from a guy behind Vodo, the promoters and distributors of Pioneer One and a number of other creative works, and all round P2P heroes. Pioneer One is discussed:

Episode 3 release date announced - March 28

Just got this email literally seconds ago:

We are pleased to announce the official release date for episode 3 of Pioneer One: Monday, March 28th. An official release date for episode 4 will be announced soon, but we plan to release it within weeks of 3.

We also have a start date for production on episodes 5 and 6: May 5. Whatever money we raise between now and then is what we'll have to make those episodes, so we're hoping 3 and 4 will get us some new fans who want to see more!

50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight.

The Guardian is a British newspaper and has a fascinating piece about Sergei Korolev, the man behind the Soviet Space Race. You can read the online version here. They also have a great gallery of Yuri related images here. Yuri is of course probably the inspiration behind the naming of Yuri in episode 2. Hopefully in 3 we will find out his real name.

Video Blog #18

The latest video blog has just been released about the music for the show. There are some very mild spoilers.

Some further episode 2 easter eggs

Here is the last batch of things I noticed in episode 2. You can click on any images to make them bigger.

Judging by the things on Tom's desk I'm guessing he's not got much of a home to go to:

I can't really make out much of this. It's some sort of schematic. I can read at the bottom:

Marc Gates / Please have this information verified or corrected prior to fabrication (all holes are 5/8'' or 1 1/4 slots) Call if there's ?s / Thank You / Frank M Amberg.

You'll be pleased to see the production team aren't wasting your hard earned donations on Windows Vista licences, but are using Linux instead. It's Gentoo, kernel 2.6.17. No idea what the command line stuff is about though. I also have no idea what operating system the DHS actually use.

Two envelopes addressed to Sofia and Tom. Sofia's one got a few seconds close up in an establishing shot.

Feel free to post any observations in the comments. Also if there are any other easter eggs out there I've missed then let me know.

Another update about releases dates

The folks at Pioneer One have just announced that episode 3 will be out by the end of the month (March), and episode 4 about two weeks after that:

http://twitter.com/#!/pioneeronetv/status/44465704543584256

Newscast Easter Eggs

Here is a list of the news items as appearing in the headlines during the press conference in episode 2. It's an election year, as mentioned McLellan.

They read:

CONTROVERSIAL INTRO 48 PASSES WITH MAJORITY VOTE IN COUNCIL

NEW GOP LEADER TO BE ANNOUNCED

TEA PARTY.....

RECENT POLLS SUGGEST THE TIDE HAS TURNED FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

NORTH KOREA AND SOUTH KOREA BEGIN PEACE TALKS

I'm not aware if these are taken from a specific point in time, it sounds like headlines from the possible near future to me. You can read about Intro 48 here.

Walzer's Diagrams

In the first of a few posts I'll be doing on easter eggs, here are some screenshots of Walzer's workings as seen in episode 2. I've no idea if any of this makes sense, so if anyone can knows please post a comment.

These two are the board in the abortive seminar:

Disclaimer: I love maps! This looks like an old-ish possibly Dutch map of Mars. You can see "Assumed 16th March 1983" and "too late" written on it. It has similarities with an 1883 map you can view here: they both have the names Mädler Land and Huygens Land. If anyone can find a decent copy of this map on the net, or identify it, please post in the comments. I'm going to be doing further research on this.

This is the diagram Walzer uses in the flashback. My favourite easter egg I think in this episode is the date: six days before 9/11. If the committee were wary of funding a Mars mission before 9/11 they certainly weren't going to do it after.

Please post a comment if you have any insights or observations.

Update on episode 3 and 4 release dates

Just a quick post to say that according to this Tweet the release dates for Episode 3 and 4 will be released in a few days, with plans for 5 and 6!

NASA investigates possibility of return trip to Mars

An interesting article on some of the difficulties involved in getting to Mars (and back) here.