Welcome back Wolf 359 friends and fans to another installment of Wolf 359 Daily! It’s Mission Day 581, December 26, and time for “The Kumbaya Approach.”
And by time, I mean it’s six in the morning. I’m queueing this up to release at six in the morning. I sincerely hope you’re not listening at six in the morning, the day after Christmas, and that you hopefully had a nice day off and slept in, maybe. It’s just very important to me that you know why this episode is up at six in the morning, and it’s because according to the script, that’s when Mr. Cutter arrived at his office and began recording that horrifically chipper memo. 6:00 AM. The day after Christmas.
If we didn’t already know that man was evil, this should have been our sign.
Anyway! “The Kumbaya Approach.” We have entered season 2 and we’re treated to the vocal talents of Scotty Shoemaker! Scotty’s such a delight and such a talent. As much as Cutter’s just an awful guy, I adore Scotty’s portrayal of him. Just that obnoxiously polite boardroom voice as he’s telling Rachel how he’ll have her thrown off the roof. And since we know Goddard’s got contingency plans that include wiping out an entire station crew, it seems like that might not be hyperbole.
Oh, by the way, first mention of Rachel, as well as David. Though David only really appears in the special episode “Volte Face,” and Rachel’s not going to become a voiced character until the mini-episode “Meanwhile.” Here we do get a little glimpse of one of the naming themes of Wolf 359. The crew members tend to take their surnames from historical mathematicians, AI units, ships, and stations are often named for Greek or Roman gods, and Goddard employees tend to have biblical names. At this moment, David, Rachel and Saul. Though I’m not recalling if Saul ever comes up again, I think this may be his only mention.
The episode picks up near where we left off, with Eiffel and Minkowski waiting to receive the return call from command following Hilbert’s mutiny. And it goes about how one might expect when you find yourself on the line with your boss after just learning that boss was totally fine with scenarios where your coworkers murder you for Christmas. And I really just can’t get over Scotty’s performance. There’s just something so creepy and slimy about how casual and familiar Cutter is with the crew. He refers to Eiffel, Minkowski, and Hilbert by first name, while in return they only call him “Mr. Cutter” or “sir.” He’s one of those characters that you can just hear that he is smiling non-stop, even when making casual threats or telling them to shoot Hilbert. Kind of reminds me of Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale. You just sound so pleasant, I hate it.
So, Cutter grills the remaining crew about why they’re even aware they have a pulse beacon relay. They somewhat unconvincingly tell him they don’t know why Hilbert flew off the handle and tried to kill them, and in return Cutter refuses to let them abort the mission, despite it being pretty much impossible for two people to manage a damaged space station without the help of their mother program. I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise, given the contingency plan intended for them to be dead, but it’s still upsetting to hear it.
If the introduction of Mr. Cutter wasn’t enough, this episode also has us getting a proper introduction to Captain Isabel Lovelace. We heard bits of her final transmission back in “Super Energy Saver Mode,” mostly distorted, and saw her name mentioned in “Extreme Danger Bug,” but now we get to really hear her. And man, what a message. The hits just don’t stop coming. Lovelace tells them how her crew had slowly died, or disappeared, and she left that warning against the chance that another crew would be sent away to Wolf 359 as an expendable experiment.
It’s awful to get the warning only after you’ve already found out the hard way.
But, with the fresh mystery of Lovelace’s doomed mission and the abandonment of Goddard command hanging over us, we’re on to season 2! I’m so looking forward to going through this season as we begin to unpack Lovelace’s story and what’s up with Hilbert’s research. This is a shorter season in terms of the timeline, as it’ll take us here from December 26 to March 21. We’ve got just one more episode to look at before the new year, Episode 15, “What’s Up, Doc?” on December 28. Hope to see you then!
Today’s rejected Pryce & Carter tip:
If you truly want to know what someone’s like, secretly isolate and destroy their source of caffeine.
Wolf 359 Daily is written and recorded by Rina Cerame.
Wolf 359 is a product of Kinda Evil Genius Productions. More information on the show can be found on their website at wolf359.fm
We hope you’ll join us on December 28 for Episode 15: “What’s Up, Doc?” Thank you for listening!
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