Welcome back Wolf 359 friends and fans, to another installment of Wolf 359 Daily! It’s Mission Day 487, and we’ll be taking a look at Episode 4: “Cataractas and Hurricanoes” and Mission Mishaps 5: “Lights Out”.
“Cataracts and Hurricanoes” debuted on August 29, 2014, and was the first of Wolf 359’s biweekly releases, as the first episodes were dropped together on August 15. It’s one of a few episodes which doesn’t have a mission day mentioned either in the episode or in the recording script. While mission days are later brought up less and less when the show eventually breaks from the “audio logs of Doug Eiffel” format, most of the recording scripts still note the mission day on the cover page. If you’ve listened to Wolf 359 and haven’t taken the time to browse the recording scripts on wolf359.fm/extras, I highly recommend it. The additional writers’ notes and directions are pretty great.
Now, what would a sci-fi series be if we didn’t have at least one episode where a short, simple spacewalk goes horribly awry? Granted, Eiffel apparently was never trained for this, so, whoever could’ve foreseen this would go poorly. Perhaps it also should have been a red flag that, out of a three-person space crew, one of them was never trained... for spacewalks.
Still, I don’t know that many would expect to contend with the possibility of drowning in space. This element of the episode did make me wonder how someone could perform CPR in microgravity, which was pretty interesting. Astronaut Samantha Christoforetti shared a video in 2022 demonstrating the technique, where a person needing aid on the International Space Station would be strapped to a CPR bed on one wall, while the person providing aid could use a restraining strap or brace themselves against the opposite wall for resistance to actually perform chest compressions. Otherwise, they’d just end up just floating away across the room. Fortunately, Christoforetti reports that no one has needed to use the CPR bed on the ISS, but it’s cool to see the solutions to space’s problems.
With “Cataracts and Hurricanoes,” I really want to quickly shout out Alan Rodi and Wolf 359’s original soundtrack. The tense music in this episode after Hera reveals they can’t just wait for Eiffel to crawl his way back up the tether is just so good. I’m a big fan of soundtracks, it can really make or break my experience with podcasts, movies, or video games. My top artist on Spotify for the last ten years has been Gustavo Santaolalla just because the soundtrack for The Last of Us hits me so hard. And Wolf 359’s soundtrack is absolutely among my favorites, and a big reason I fell in love with the show. I believe the track in this scene was “Some Dudes Arguing Over Something Dramatic Like A Cliff” from Wolf 359 Soundtrack, Vol. 3. Rodi really knocks it out of the park with every track, not the least of which for the titles. Among his compositions are such classics as “My Dear, We’re Out of Bagel Bites and the Airlock Has Decompressed” and “That Feeling When They Take Two Seconds to Respond to One Text But Two Hours for Another”. I seriously recommend looking Wolf 359 up on Bandcamp to check out the soundtracks if you haven’t yet.
I also love this episode because we get a solid Badass Moment™ from Minkowski. This time she’s not having to be a hardass about the rules that Eiffel never read or flagrantly disobeys, nor is she getting surprised by a space mutant plant monster cropping up in the greenhouse. She’s got a crisis on her station, she’s got a way to fix it, and she’s not gonna let anyone tell her that any kind of “unacceptable risk” should keep her from saving her crew. Such a good, good episode, and showcases Minkowski’s skills and her principles.
Now, let’s talk a little bit about our second episode for today, “Lights Out”, which definitively occurs on Mission Day 487! “Lights Out” debuted on November 7, 2017, as part of the run of “Mission Mishaps” mini-episodes. These mini-episodes were released on the off-weeks of Wolf 359’s regular bi-weekly schedule, as a reward for reaching a monthly fundraising goal on Patreon. Though this was released very near the end of Wolf 359’s run while “Cataracts and Hurricanoes” is very near the beginning, both episodes deal with troubles from Wolf 359’s flares.
This is a fun little mini-episode, I always enjoy it when the Wolf 359 writers give us a little tension. Audio fiction can work so well for horror because it lets the listener fill in the scariest things they can imagine. It also works really well for comedy, as a reveal can cause you to instantly recontextualize whatever you had previously imagined, as we get with the reveal that Eiffel’s killed the station’s one maintenance drone, not some kind of monster. Though, this mini-episode does occur five days after the plant monster was released into the air vents... love that Eiffel assumed Hilbert had just loosed another Lovecraftian rogue experiment on the station.
Alright, thanks again for joining me to talk about “Cataracts and Hurricanoes” and “Lights Out”! You can give these episodes a listen on wolf359.fm, or your podcatcher of choice. You’ll find “Lights Out” down in season 4. I hope you’ll join us again for Episode 5: “Cigarette Candy” on September 26.
Today’s reject Pryce and Carter tip from Wolf 359’s Twitter:
Blasting "Thus Spake Zarathustra" after finishing routine engine maintenance is funny once. Don't push your luck.
Wolf 359 Daily is written and recorded by Rina Cerame.
Wolf 359 is a product of Kinda Evil Genius Productions. More on the show can be found on their website at wolf359.fm
We hope to see you again on September 26 for Episode 5: “Cigarette Candy.” Thanks for listening!
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