Welcome back Wolf 359 friends and fans to another installment of Wolf 359 Daily! Today is December 22, and while this episode doesn’t have a defined mission day, my birthday gift to myself is getting to talk about Wolf 359 Episode 11: “Am I Alone Now?”
That AIAN? fits as well as it does as a set-up to Deep Breaths and Gas Me Twice is nothing short of a minor miracle. As I've mentioned a few times, the original plan was for Extreme Danger Bug to be Episode 11, leading up to the season finale in 12. The original concept was for what eventually become "Happy to be of Assistance" to be our Season 1 finale, ending with the dramatic revelation that not only had there been a previous Hephaestus mission but Hilbert had been a part of it. (If you know where to look, a lot of Season 1 was really building up to that revelation, which was its original intended end point.)
But then Zach Valenti convinced me to instead do a season finale that ended things where they began - the radio transmissions. (And he was right about that, as he almost always is! It was the right call!) And Michaela Swee was a little too busy to record a full episode, but she could maybe record a few pages on the one night she was free, which led to the conceit of doing monologues. And once we knew we were doing a weird experimental episode, the idea came about to have Alan do original music for it, which is why the order was switched around. EDB became 10 and the Alone Monologues became 11 so he could have extra time to compose a bespoke score to these four odd, stark solo plays I wrote.
All of which goes to say, AIAN? was written blisteringly quickly, on the heels of not just one but two sudden production reversals. The result was a lot of "first thought, best thought" when it came to throwing things into the pot. Which, err, leads to some embarrassing howlers that haunt me to this day. (A terrarium is a small glass container for a small amount of vegetable life - I clearly meant a greenhouse or arboretum and nobody caught it, least of all me.) But it also lead to the episode's uniquely compelling, intuitive association approach to content. Why was it right for Hilbert to be confronted by a mysterious door only he knows about? 2014 Gabriel couldn't have told you, beyond vaguely gesturing at it and sort of knowing in my gut it felt right. Needless to say, once the dust had settled on these monologues, it then became a game of figuring out how to plug a lot of the strangeness this episode had raised into the existing plot scaffolding. Retroactive cleverness was, as it almost always was, the order of the day!
Wow, it's great to see you doing this Rina! I love Wolf 359 with all my heart and it's really nice to discuss the episodes with someone again. "Am I Alone Now?" really does work perfectly as a setup for the next 2 episodes. As you mentioned, it's the first real break in form for the show (and I feel like the next 2 episodes definitely push the show in a direction that it never returns from).
One thing I really like about the episode is that you really get a good sense of the distance between the characters. At this point in the podcast we *know* that they don't really get along all that well but this episode really highlights how lonely and divided they are. It's incredible to see how drastically their interactions and relationships change throughout the course of Wolf 359. I love the Hephaestus crew so much.
I'm glad that you linked Alan Rodi's score for the episode here. His work adds so much to the podcast (I never shut up about "Remember When We Used to Pretend to Have Direction?" haha) but the fact that he scored the entire episode is incredible. And as far as I remember I don't think any snippets from that particular track ever end up reused in any other episodes. So he really put his heart into something that only served as a one-time use. I just think that's neat :>
I've seen you make some posts about The Danse Macabre- I'll have to check it out!
The Am I Alone Now music shows up in exactly one more episode, 50 chapters later!
A remastered version of the Hera movement of the suite plays over Pryce's opening monologue in Brave New World, and the music from Minkowski's section plays over the final scene, as Minkowski moves through her last conversations with Jacobi, Lovelace, Hera, and Eiffel!
Haha but in all seriousness, that's awesome. I haven't listened to the finale in forever... knowing that Minkowski's bit plays in the final scene is just *chef's kiss*
That AIAN? fits as well as it does as a set-up to Deep Breaths and Gas Me Twice is nothing short of a minor miracle. As I've mentioned a few times, the original plan was for Extreme Danger Bug to be Episode 11, leading up to the season finale in 12. The original concept was for what eventually become "Happy to be of Assistance" to be our Season 1 finale, ending with the dramatic revelation that not only had there been a previous Hephaestus mission but Hilbert had been a part of it. (If you know where to look, a lot of Season 1 was really building up to that revelation, which was its original intended end point.)
But then Zach Valenti convinced me to instead do a season finale that ended things where they began - the radio transmissions. (And he was right about that, as he almost always is! It was the right call!) And Michaela Swee was a little too busy to record a full episode, but she could maybe record a few pages on the one night she was free, which led to the conceit of doing monologues. And once we knew we were doing a weird experimental episode, the idea came about to have Alan do original music for it, which is why the order was switched around. EDB became 10 and the Alone Monologues became 11 so he could have extra time to compose a bespoke score to these four odd, stark solo plays I wrote.
All of which goes to say, AIAN? was written blisteringly quickly, on the heels of not just one but two sudden production reversals. The result was a lot of "first thought, best thought" when it came to throwing things into the pot. Which, err, leads to some embarrassing howlers that haunt me to this day. (A terrarium is a small glass container for a small amount of vegetable life - I clearly meant a greenhouse or arboretum and nobody caught it, least of all me.) But it also lead to the episode's uniquely compelling, intuitive association approach to content. Why was it right for Hilbert to be confronted by a mysterious door only he knows about? 2014 Gabriel couldn't have told you, beyond vaguely gesturing at it and sort of knowing in my gut it felt right. Needless to say, once the dust had settled on these monologues, it then became a game of figuring out how to plug a lot of the strangeness this episode had raised into the existing plot scaffolding. Retroactive cleverness was, as it almost always was, the order of the day!
Wow, it's great to see you doing this Rina! I love Wolf 359 with all my heart and it's really nice to discuss the episodes with someone again. "Am I Alone Now?" really does work perfectly as a setup for the next 2 episodes. As you mentioned, it's the first real break in form for the show (and I feel like the next 2 episodes definitely push the show in a direction that it never returns from).
One thing I really like about the episode is that you really get a good sense of the distance between the characters. At this point in the podcast we *know* that they don't really get along all that well but this episode really highlights how lonely and divided they are. It's incredible to see how drastically their interactions and relationships change throughout the course of Wolf 359. I love the Hephaestus crew so much.
I'm glad that you linked Alan Rodi's score for the episode here. His work adds so much to the podcast (I never shut up about "Remember When We Used to Pretend to Have Direction?" haha) but the fact that he scored the entire episode is incredible. And as far as I remember I don't think any snippets from that particular track ever end up reused in any other episodes. So he really put his heart into something that only served as a one-time use. I just think that's neat :>
I've seen you make some posts about The Danse Macabre- I'll have to check it out!
Thank you!! honestly half this project is giving myself an excuse to gush about Wolf 359 for two years straight 😂
But yes, Danse Macabre is AMAZING, I am loving it so much, I hope they make more seasons!
The Am I Alone Now music shows up in exactly one more episode, 50 chapters later!
A remastered version of the Hera movement of the suite plays over Pryce's opening monologue in Brave New World, and the music from Minkowski's section plays over the final scene, as Minkowski moves through her last conversations with Jacobi, Lovelace, Hera, and Eiffel!
GABRIEL URBINA??? POG
Haha but in all seriousness, that's awesome. I haven't listened to the finale in forever... knowing that Minkowski's bit plays in the final scene is just *chef's kiss*