Tag: Toronto

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article, Podcast

Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season Three

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The twelve episode 2007-2008 season of the Red Panda manages to do two things at once. Most episodes represent good standalone stories. However, several built towards long-term arcs and thematic points as well as developing the relationship between the Red Panda (Gregg Taylor) and Flying Squirrel (Clarissa Der Nederlanden Taylor) as they continued their adventures in 1930s Toronto..

Among the series highlights, “Tis the Season” is a fine Christmas special, writer/star Gregg Taylor made clear he wanted to match the tone and feel of Will Eisner’s Spirit Christmas stories and this story hits the spot nicely. In “the Callahan Mob,” Toronto is besieged by a new protection racket and there’s only one way to stop them and that’s to beat them at their own game. Easily the funniest episode of the season. “The Empty Box” is a great Shadowesque story with a series of creepy, unexplained murders of a jury who was promised revenge by a killer.

Two stories teased what’s to come in the rise of evil forces and the Nazi threat in “The Opening Gambit,” and the series finale, “The Field Trip.”

“The Field Trip” is probably my favorite episode of the season as the Red Panda went to New York City and found local superheroes having formed a bureaucratic organization that he has to go around to fight a dangerous Nazi scientist. This episode moves the relationship between Rad Panda and the Flying Squirrel in a new direction. It works really well because it laid the foundation throughout the season.

There were a couple episodes that didn’t work for me. The idea of “Now, the News,” was to offer three shorter adventures of the Red Panda that would have been features in newsreels. It’s not a bad idea, but the three stories weren’t connected and none were compelling on their own. “The Red Squirrel” finds the “Flying Squirrel” wondering who’s been impersonating her with seemingly superior technology. I won’t reveal the person’s identity, but she really is a bit of a Mary Sue in this story and for her to appear in this way needs more justification than we get.

Overall, this was another solid season. It managed to continue to offer new adventures in the style we’ve been accustomed to while advancing character arcs and continuing ongoing plots in a way that makes me ready for Season 4.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5.

Season 3 of the Red Panda Adventures is available to listen to for free online here.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Except the Dying

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Except the Dying is the first of Maureen Jennings’ novels featuring Detectives William Murdoch, a Victorian-era Toronto police detective. Three of Jennings’ novels would be adapted as made-for-TV movies and a TV series would be filmed based on characters from the book.

Except the Dying is quite different from the popular TV series. It’s a straightforward procedural mystery without the bells, whistles, and flaws that define the TV series such as guest appearances from historical personages, new (to the Victoria era) investigative techniques and gadgets being deployed to solve cases and characters with cultural attitudes that no one living at that time had.

Acting Detective William Murdoch is called to investigate the case of a woman found dead and stripped nude. The post-mortem examination reveals she was pregnant and died of exposure after taking a large amount of opium. Murdoch has to discover who killed her and why.

This is is a well-crafted procedural mystery. Murdoch is given lots of suspects and a few red herrings to sift through. Jennings does a great job capturing a sense of life in Toronto in the late Nineteenth Century. It captures all the religious and economic complexities that Toronto had to offer. The story has a grounded and realistic feel to it.

As a character, Murdoch is written in a three dimensional way. He’s intelligent, a Catholic, and learning to dance in hopes of getting an opportunity to meet women again after the recent death of his fiancée. He’s a good cop, but he’s no genius. The rest of the characters are not deep, but they do feel authentic and believable for the era.

Readers looking for a cozy mystery should not expect this book to have a family-friendly feeling. Crimes and vice are described realistically with some violent scenes and harsh words and the case leads Murdoch into contact with ladies of the night. However, while the book is realistic, it’s neither gory or salacious.

Overall, Except the Dying is a solid first novel, a good procedural, and a fine introduction to Jennings’ famous detective.

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