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.