This is a serial radio-style dramatic play about a plane that goes missing between Heathrow and JFK. Kaitlin, a woman whose twin brother was on board, does not accept the official explanation of the plane having been downed by a bird strike and seeks the truth.
I have listened to the first two episodes (which are all that have dropped so far) on the strength of a recommendation by podcast host Dallas Taylor of Twenty Thousand Hertz. I have a mixed review.
It starts with a conceit that is already a bit tired–ordinary citizen doubts government, launches a one-woman crusade to Find The Truth, though she has no evidence (at least not yet). The problem here is that she doesn’t even have a particular reason to believe that the government’s official explanation is the least bit fishy. Yet she pursues this doggedly, obsessively.
The co-pilot was an American Muslim, and far too much is made of the suspicions cast on him simply because of his religion, and the resentments of those suspicions. This facet of the plot is something that has been hashed and rehashed to death since 9/11; they are just too late to bring anything fresh to the issue.
Because it’s audio, all of the action takes place in the form of conversations. The acting is uneven, and the dialog is unnatural in many places–people just don’t talk like that. Also, character behavior is sometimes inexplicable; Kaitlin visits the co-pilot’s widow unannounced, and her visit is not welcome, in fact resented. Yet the woman reveals a very private detail about their marriage, that they were separated because her husband had been sleeping with a prostitute in London during his layovers. Why would she reveal such a personal and painful thing to someone who she felt was intruding on her privacy?
The plot is interesting enough to wonder what happens next, though there are a couple of investigative dead ends that just fall off a cliff, with a character off-handedly saying, “Oh, it’s not her.” Which Kaitlin summarily accepts. You don’t get the sense of the frustration that someone would feel after following a lead to find it’s a dead end, or even the reason why Kaitlin would be willing to simply drop a lead so easily.
The strongest acting was by the actor who played the Bulgarian sister of a passenger who was on the flight, although I have been unable to find which actor played which role except for Kaitlin.
The production values are superb. The sound engineering does put you wherever they want you to be.
It’s an easy listen and a change of pace from the newsy podcasts I tend to listen to, but a step below a broadcast TV network drama in terms of getting immersed in the story and relating to characters. If this were Rotten Tomatoes I’d give it 3-1/2 stars.