Moonbase Theta, Out review
Roger Bragado-Fischer has twenty weeks to help close a lunar base and fifteen seconds at the end of each broadcast to send his husband a message. The first report sounds like work, down to an inventory of supplies. Then Roger gets to the personal message and asks Alexandre to give Castor and Pollux a treat. That’s how D.J. Sylvis’s audio drama introduces the distance between the two men.
“Twenty” is the first episode
The title counts the weeks left until the shutdown. On the official Season 1 page you can play the Supercut in story order, which starts with the prequel “Twenty-One,” or begin with the original first episode, “Twenty.” The archive has individual transcripts and a PDF for the whole season. This is a quieter kind of space drama than Starship Q Star, where the fun comes from hearing a crew full of strong personalities share a ship.
When the report turns into a letter
In “Sixteen,” Roger describes how the base farm helps keep the air and water systems running. When he gets to the personal part of the broadcast, he’s remembering an evening in the garden at home. He asks Alexandre to write back and reads a poem from a book Alexandre sent him. Season 2 revisits the same weeks through other voices and private recordings, so some of the people in those early reports finally get to speak for themselves.
Peter Chiykowski designed the cover.
Anabel’s take
Start with the separate episodes and give it until “Sixteen.” I liked how quickly the first script established Roger’s routine. The garden is where I felt the cost of it. He has enough time to tell the company how much water is left. When it’s his turn to speak, all he wants is to hear from home.