[MTO INTRO MUSIC “STAR”]
Leeman Kessler 0:03
Moonbase Theta Out recap: Season One Roger is alone and sad and insufferable. Season Two: Roger is in the past and sad and insufferable. Season Three: Roger has friends and is sad and insufferable. Stay tuned for Season Four!
Beka 0:21
Hi, this is Beka, and this is my recap of Moonbase Theta, Out so far, I will try and keep it as short as possible. I feel like I’m probably gonna go over the five minutes. Oops.
Molly 0:32
Hello, Molly here. I absolutely have to do my recap here. I tried a test run of it. And I said half of what I wanted to say and I was already at six minutes. So I’m gonna have to [oomph] get down to brass tax.
Alice 0:44
Summarizing Moonbase Theta Out in just five minutes. All right, I’ll see what I can do.
AMC 0:52
Season One, Moonbase Theta Out –
Molly 0:54
Takes place in the year 2098 on the far side of the moon, not the dark side. It’s kind of bright sometimes.
Alice 1:01
It’s the future and shit’s fucked. Hold on – “refrain from using profanity. Your dialogue is automatically centered by corporate blah blah.” Oh, well, F you. It’s the future. And stuff is bad.
AMC 1:21
We have one narrator Roger Bragado-Fischer, who is a comms lead on Moonbase Theta
Beka 1:26
He sends reports back to Earth over the course of the 20 week shutdown sequence for the base.
AMC 1:32
At the end of each comms broadcast, Roger is allotted… I think it’s like 10 or 30 seconds of of chat to his husband back on Earth, in which we hear some just wonderful poetry. And also, I can’t remember if it’s in season one, but as time goes, we kind of realize that their relationship was a bit fraught before Roger went away, I think just to make it more tragic.
Alice 1:56
And along with the messages, you know, he just sneaks in a little bit of poetry and some love notes for his husband, Alexandre down on the earth still, which is very cute. They have two dogs. Their names are Castor and Pollux, which are the… BEST dog names. I love them.
AMC 2:13
He through his comms reports takes us through the base shutdown sequence. And as the season goes on, you kind of realize that there are some suspicious things going on.
Beka 2:23
He’s one of five crew members who are still left awake, the rest of the crew are in stasis.
Molly 2:28
So the consortium runs the many different Moonbases. Moonbase Theta is the last one to be shut down. The consortium has basically decided that it’s not worth the investment to keep the moon bases running. So they’re shutting them down.
Beka 2:45
Over the course of those 20 weeks, things slowly start to go wrong. And they realize that something’s not right. On the moon and back on Earth.
AMC 2:55
It’s not really going how Roger expected it to, and the communications he’s receiving from Earth are not helpful in the slightest.
Alice 3:05
People are going into cryo stasis for the trip home on the shuttle. But weirdly, the shuttles aren’t taking the crew in cryo stasis, instead they’re just taking more and more of what the moonbase has been mining. I forget what it’s been mining, it’s not really that important.
Molly 3:22
Brings us to our group. At Moonbase Theta. There were originally 42 persons, only five are active because the other 37 are in cryostasis, awaiting transport back to Earth.
Beka 3:38
So he’s also there with Nessa, Wilder, Michell and Ashwini. But he’s the only one that we hear from in the recordings.
AMC 3:48
Season two is genius, because it tells the whole same time sequence but through the perspective of other characters who we’ve only just heard about and then we get to really, like hear their personalities come into the fore.
Molly 4:03
It’s basically a rehash of season one, but with far more details. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. We introduce more characters, we get to hear from lots of other people. We get to find out the dynamics of the group, and the group is definitely splintered.
AMC 4:21
We have Wilder who she’s got her Eliza arm thing- is generally a badass
Alice 4:27
Wilder who’s like mechanic technician super cool and of course it prosthetic arm, Eliza I think? I’m bad with names pardon me.
Molly 4:34
We have Ashwini, Ashwini Ray, astrophysics.
Alice 4:39
Dr. Ashwini Ray creates an AI named Tumnus who is amazing.
AMC 4:44
My favorite scientist Ashwini and zir Artificial Consciousness, Tumnus, although you know could be argued that she doesn’t belong to anyone but herself. Ah, I love them both
Molly 4:57
Nessa Cheong, agriculture, very important, very important character.
Alice 5:03
We also meet Nessa who is canonically every character’s favorite person, and a botanist and a really cool person who unfortunately dies in a mining accident.
Beka 5:14
Seven or six weeks left before shut down. There was a tragic accident in one of the mines where the tunnel collapses and Nessa is killed.
AMC 5:24
And it’s like a one two punch because you already love Nessa and you know, she dies and then you actually meet Nessa and you love Nessa. And then she dies again. [laughs]
Molly 5:34
My boy, Michell L’Angois. Security. I love Michell.
Alice 5:40
Michell L’Angois a security officer who learns that being a security officer for the leopards eating people’s faces corporation does not prevent the leopards from eating your face.
AMC 5:50
Yeah, Michell, you’re like at first you’re like this guy’s a dick. But then you’re like this guy’s a dick… with issues. And you know, your relationship as a listener with Michell becomes, you know, quite difficult
Beka 6:05
Interpersonal conflict that’s happening on the moon, between Michell and Nessa, Michell and Wilder, Michell and Roger – is there a common thread there? There is a Rogue Transmission from one of the free holds
AMC 6:20
a very cryptic message from someone on Earth called Moddy Sarah, which they’re told to ignore, which they probably in retrospect, shouldn’t have ignored. [laughs]
Beka 6:33
there’s a fake asteroid report from Roger and Ashwini
Molly 6:36
decided to kind of shock people and get some attention, maybe prove that the moon bases are worthy. They hatched this scheme to say that, you know, there is a very large asteroid headed towards the earth and they know where it’s at. and yada, yada, yada. It’s not true. That was Roger and Ashwini. trying and trying to keep things going.
Beka 7:00
Following those events, things break down even more. Eventually, Roger takes a trip to the near side of the moon to try and reestablish communications.
AMC 7:08
Roger goes traipsing across the moon on his own! Mad lad. Don’t understand it, would – could never be me, but he goes for a traipse in a suit.
Beka 7:17
And there he discovers that all of the other crew members of the other bases are still on base and they’re stasis pods, no one has made it back to Earth.
AMC 7:26
And on base Gamma, question mark? um there’s been a critical failure in one of the stasis pods, which is not good news.
Molly 7:35
With all the Enclave politics that’s going on. The consortium has no plans of bringing people home. They’re just stuck. They’re marooned.
Beka 7:44
By the time he gets back to Moonbase Theta, the rest of his crew have gone into stasis, and he’s the only person left awake on the moon.
AMC 7:51
When he comes back, everyone’s gone into stasis and just left him. And it’s – I was actually quite annoyed at that. I thought it was selfish. [laughs]
Beka 8:01
Before we get into season three, we were gifted with a lovely mini series, flashing back to before the bases – or, before the moon. So we get to little peeks into the lives of our main characters before they went to the moon.
Molly 8:16
So we get to season three – TONS of characters drop in, it’s basically like an Avengers movie at this point.
AMC 8:23
Season three, so much happens. There’s a Cambrian explosion of characters in season three,
Beka 8:29
where there’s a lot going on, we’re finally moving forward from that ending point of season one and season two. So we see Roger, meeting Tumnus on the base and then working together to start to reawaken members of the crew to try and figure out how can they get back to Earth.
AMC 8:47
Alex, beloved, makes it to one of the freeholds and meet some lovely people and some people who I do not trust as far as I can throw them. Addie, I’m looking at you,
Alice 8:59
Alexandre is getting the heck out of dodge because it’s in the middle of a hostile takeover from another corporation. And by hostile takeover, I mean, private military, because there are no governments it’s all corporations. And Alexandre is on his on his way. He’s going out with the dogs and they’re going to find a freehold which is one of the few, like anarcho communes left in the world.
AMC 9:19
There’s a lovely scene where Alex is looking up at the moon and Moddy Sarah is like, you should look after yourself. And Alex is like, it’s my moon. I’m gonna look at it!
Alice 9:30
The freeholders have a plan. They want to go and live on the moon. Nessa had a plan for making that sustainable. Thankfully, she shared it with people and it didn’t die with her but still it’s going to be difficult.
Beka 9:43
the Free Folk there as well as the techno folks that they’re working with. They’re trying to build a rocket to get to the moon. We get to meet the science bros.
Alice 9:52
They’re very eccentric. Be nice to tardigrades and hedgehogs.
Beka 9:57
We hear from Wilder and Michell and Ashwini again,
AMC 10:01
Michell comes out of stasis and struggles. And I think it’s at this point where you’re actually like, Oh, Michell, oh, just could wrap you in a blanket and stop you being an asshole.
Beka 10:15
And all of the conflicts that come out of that and how things ended in the first two seasons,
AMC 10:20
We meet Jaxon, which is wonderful. Jaxon is a chef, who really just keeps morale up by feeding all these warring scientists that are brought out of stasis.
Alice 10:29
And there’s factions on the moon. The scientists mostly just want to do their science. Turns out if you’re passionate enough about science to go to the moon to do experiments, that – that’s kind of all you really care about, and they think they should be in charge because it’s like a science station.
Beka 10:45
We also get to hear from the Enclave officer, the mysterious enclave officer, we get to hear about their web of strings that they’ve woven throughout the world and on the moon, it seems.
Alice 10:58
And we learned that every executive on Earth thinks they’re the only person playing fifth dimensional chess, and have secreted away enough embezzled resources to lord it over all the other executives.
AMC 11:09
Enclave officer don’t trust him. Monica has a mountain [laughs] and also is Addie’s mum. So yeah, I don’t trust her either.
Beka 11:19
On the moon, where we end off is there’s been some conflict about who should be leading the reawakened crew members,
AMC 11:29
Roger’s trying to with the help of Tumnus, and kind of Tumnus and Wilder have teamed up for some hashtag girl power, and trying to use Roger as a spokesperson, but to achieve their own, you know, aims. For the – for the benefit of people.
Beka 11:45
There was some sort of attack or cave in that was caused by one of the science bros.
AMC 11:50
There is… an explosion. [laughs] in the bunk room,
Alice 11:55
there’s a corporate spy on the moon and they cause an explosion and we don’t get the aftermath. We’re waiting on the –what happened with the explosion?? That’s what we’re waiting to find out. It’s very tense.
Beka 12:07
And some talk about visiting other Moonbases to see what supplies they have and potentially look at reawakening other people
Molly 12:18
At the end of season three, basically we find out that Alexandre is headed to the moon. He has pulled every string he can to get ready to go to the moon for Roger.
Beka 12:32
And in the freeholds, they have launched a rocket to the moon, which has three passengers. So there’s Payload, one of the techno crew, there is Addie, who is one of the freehold members who turns out is the child of one of the higher ups in the Enclave. And then we have Alexandre, Roger’s husband, who has a heart condition.
AMC 12:58
Oh! on Earth, in the freehold, there’s Alex, is coming up in a shuttle. And I don’t want to give Deej any ideas. But there was a point in season three, where I was concerned that Roger – ’cause he says, at some point, like, I’m going to come back down to earth and find you no matter what – I was desperately fearful that Roger was going to come back to Earth, as Alex was on his way to the moon. And they could just like wave each other through the window. But that was not – that’s my intellectual property. Maybe and Deej can’t use that. [laughs]
Beka 13:28
And we’re left with the question of, is the rocket gonna make it? is Alexandre gonna make it? At the end of season three, we are given a few extra bonus episodes, where we get to hear a little bit more from Michell’s sister, Maria, before she went into shutdown on Moonbase Gamma. We get to hear from Dr. Day, who’s the one who caused the incident on the moon. We get to hear a little bit more from Tumnus and her kind of journey of self discovery, as well as another visit to the free zone just after the events of season three, where the Enclave is has come to take over the free zone. And we see many of our characters trying to escape including Moddy Sarah, Ahnung, Elena, Elio, Steven, the doggos… and that’s also where Moddy Sarah takes their last look at the moon.
AMC 14:32
I think that’s all I’ve got. Oh, I lied. It’s not all I’ve got. And at the end of every episode, we are strongly and increasingly threateningly advised to keep watching the moon, and also the theme tune was Star, by the band Ramp.
Beka 14:43
We’re also gifted with a lovely miniseries between seasons three and four, called All Your Base where we got to meet a member of the crew of each of the other Moonbases, before their shutdowns. I hope we’ll get to see a little bit more of each of those characters throughout season four. Whether they get reawakened, or we just get recordings. And that’s where we’re left with… a million questions, a million concerns and worries over all of these characters that we’ve grown to love, or love to hate.
Alice 15:25
But the scientists are fun. They’re really weird. All of them in their unique ways.
Molly 15:30
This show has so much heart. It’s so… moving.
AMC 15:35
There’s a wonderful scene. I think it’s in season two, where Tumnus is talking about, she’s kind of coming into her power. And she’s talking about like quorums and quora… and I remember exactly where I was – such a good scene, I remember exactly the place I was when I listened to it. And maybe it rewired the chemistry of my brain, I don’t know. But first and foremost, I love Tumnus and I need it to be known.
Molly 15:59
Thank you. Thank you to everybody who makes this show. It’s not just a podcast. It’s a human story. It’s beautiful. It’s inspiring.
Beka 16:15
I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes next. And… I’ll keep watching the moon. Thanks.
Alice 16:24
and I’m excited to see what go happens next. Tunnus is amazing. Okay, thank you. Bye.
Molly 16:29
Anyway, I cannot wait for season four. Oh, I love it so much.
Cass McPhee 16:37
The Moonbase Theta, Out recap – brought to you by Beka, Molly, Alice, and AMC (with an “introduction” by our own Leeman Kessler). A HUGE thank you to all of them – cutting this episode together was so, so fun. You can relisten to the first three seasons and two mini-series in full at MonkeyManProductions.com while you wait for Season 4’s premiere on August 14th. Want it even sooner, and weekly behind-the-scenes updates besides? Join us at Patreon.com/MonkeyManProductions. And, as always… [threateningly] keep watching the moon.
