"Take Every Thought Captive" (867) is an exclusive AIO Club episode. Episode Description:
"Mean girl Valerie Swanson visits a strange city that's oddly familiar, yet unlike anything she's ever experienced." -AIO
Episode Review:
How does the Inspiration Station work? That’s the question that’s been on my mind ever since the machine was introduced nearly ten years ago. In its introductory episode, “The Inspiration Station 1+2”, Connie used the machine to wander nature and later described that this experience made her feel “blissful”, “serene”, and “really close to God”. Matthew Parker, on the other hand, used the machine to meet a character named Mortimer who persuaded him to keep inventing. By the time the episode ends, the audience has been shown two starkly different experiences within this machine. “What will future adventures in this machine look like?”, the audience wonders, with some confusion.
We receive more information about the machine years later in “Walter’s Flying Bus” when Whit and Camilla meet a young kid named Walter and, altogether, go on an adventure and encounter various animals. Here, Whit provides us with this clearer statement about the invention: “The Inspiration Station can head in any number of directions, depending on who’s experiencing it. You and I are in Walter’s dream [...] Your inspiration determines how this adventure plays out.” At this point, we’re given the impression that the invention features adventures that rely more heavily on the user’s imagination than the manipulations of a programmer (i.e. Whit). However, we wait in anticipation for the next episode to shed more light.
However, in “Take Every Thought Captive”, the machine is neither depicted as a singular location that makes us feel “serene” or closer to God, nor a library governed by a man named Mortimer, nor even a machine where the user’s inspiration/imagination controls the experience, but, rather, a machine quite similar to The Imagination Station -- in other words, the subject enters, experiences an adventure programmed by Whit, and leaves having learned a timely lesson. It certainly begs the question: Why couldn’t Valerie’s adventure just have happened in The Imagination Station? The Imagination Station, after all, has been used for plenty of non-bible/history based adventures, as seen in “A Touch of Healing” , “Think on These Things, or “Things not Seen”. So what on earth is the point of this machine?
This is only one of many frustrations I had with “Take Every Thought Captive”. It’s an episode that needed a few more behind-the-scenes discussions about a script that, as it is, is laden with poor, nonsensical decisions. From its decision to comment on way-too-many-themes like addiction to technology, responsible social media use, self-worth, dreams, and bullying...to strangely cramming in nods to both “Inside Out” and “Blade Runner” ...to plotting a story containing as much world-building information as seemingly possible, “Take Every Thought Captive” tries to do way too much and, as a result, is often confusing.
The entire episode is basically just nonstop exposition with characters relaying information about “thought detectives”, how their job is to bring “dangerous thoughts” before a senate for judgement, how dangerous thoughts are also known as “lies”, how these lies have told Valerie -- for some unclear reason -- that she doesn’t have a love for painting, how the senate is made up of different senators with -- albeit vague -- roles (bias, value, desire), how a “Senator of Memory” once went missing causing everyone to forget (even though all these characters, mostly remember everything just fine), how “love of painting” also went missing, how it turned out that it actually didn’t go missing, how the lies are serving a bigger master powering the whole city, how everything is solved as long as Valerie just chooses to remember her love of painting (what does her love of painting have to do with the initial problem - i.e. that she’s a huge jerk?). Furthermore, the listener must carefully keep track of all of these “rules” while also being asked to figure out how it’s all one big metaphor for how sin affects our thoughts.
It didn’t help that I had trouble imagining what this fantastical world even looks like. At the train station, what exactly does Valerie see exiting the train? Is she seeing thoughts shaped like humans? Or humans with thought-bubbles above them? And if these thoughts do look like humans, then what do the thought-detectives and senators look like? And, since the senate members appear to be watching TV at one point, are they just staring at people-shaped thoughts standing in front of them? I know it must have come across clearly in the writer’s mind, but I honestly had a hard time imagining it all.
By the time the episode ended, I was reminded of my review of “Drake and the Time that Time Forgot:”
“Although “Drake and the Time that Time Forgot” features a world – and characters –that I wouldn’t mind revisiting, these types of episodes must learn to balance its creativity with the parameters of the show’s format: audio drama. Listeners are impaired because we cannot see the action; therefore, it must always strive, first and foremost, for clarity – especially when depicting an unfamiliar setting.”
While it’s certainly possible to have high-concept, futuristic stories coherently depicted in 25 minute episode -- as seen “Gloobers” or “Someone to Watch Over Me” -- it can only be done while keeping the story as simply as possible. Although there are a lot of good, imaginative ideas here, not all of these ideas needed to be crammed so heavily into one story. In fact, there's a whole lot that needed to be discarded here.
"Mean girl Valerie Swanson visits a strange city that's oddly familiar, yet unlike anything she's ever experienced." -AIO
Episode Review:
How does the Inspiration Station work? That’s the question that’s been on my mind ever since the machine was introduced nearly ten years ago. In its introductory episode, “The Inspiration Station 1+2”, Connie used the machine to wander nature and later described that this experience made her feel “blissful”, “serene”, and “really close to God”. Matthew Parker, on the other hand, used the machine to meet a character named Mortimer who persuaded him to keep inventing. By the time the episode ends, the audience has been shown two starkly different experiences within this machine. “What will future adventures in this machine look like?”, the audience wonders, with some confusion.
We receive more information about the machine years later in “Walter’s Flying Bus” when Whit and Camilla meet a young kid named Walter and, altogether, go on an adventure and encounter various animals. Here, Whit provides us with this clearer statement about the invention: “The Inspiration Station can head in any number of directions, depending on who’s experiencing it. You and I are in Walter’s dream [...] Your inspiration determines how this adventure plays out.” At this point, we’re given the impression that the invention features adventures that rely more heavily on the user’s imagination than the manipulations of a programmer (i.e. Whit). However, we wait in anticipation for the next episode to shed more light.
However, in “Take Every Thought Captive”, the machine is neither depicted as a singular location that makes us feel “serene” or closer to God, nor a library governed by a man named Mortimer, nor even a machine where the user’s inspiration/imagination controls the experience, but, rather, a machine quite similar to The Imagination Station -- in other words, the subject enters, experiences an adventure programmed by Whit, and leaves having learned a timely lesson. It certainly begs the question: Why couldn’t Valerie’s adventure just have happened in The Imagination Station? The Imagination Station, after all, has been used for plenty of non-bible/history based adventures, as seen in “A Touch of Healing” , “Think on These Things, or “Things not Seen”. So what on earth is the point of this machine?
This is only one of many frustrations I had with “Take Every Thought Captive”. It’s an episode that needed a few more behind-the-scenes discussions about a script that, as it is, is laden with poor, nonsensical decisions. From its decision to comment on way-too-many-themes like addiction to technology, responsible social media use, self-worth, dreams, and bullying...to strangely cramming in nods to both “Inside Out” and “Blade Runner” ...to plotting a story containing as much world-building information as seemingly possible, “Take Every Thought Captive” tries to do way too much and, as a result, is often confusing.
The entire episode is basically just nonstop exposition with characters relaying information about “thought detectives”, how their job is to bring “dangerous thoughts” before a senate for judgement, how dangerous thoughts are also known as “lies”, how these lies have told Valerie -- for some unclear reason -- that she doesn’t have a love for painting, how the senate is made up of different senators with -- albeit vague -- roles (bias, value, desire), how a “Senator of Memory” once went missing causing everyone to forget (even though all these characters, mostly remember everything just fine), how “love of painting” also went missing, how it turned out that it actually didn’t go missing, how the lies are serving a bigger master powering the whole city, how everything is solved as long as Valerie just chooses to remember her love of painting (what does her love of painting have to do with the initial problem - i.e. that she’s a huge jerk?). Furthermore, the listener must carefully keep track of all of these “rules” while also being asked to figure out how it’s all one big metaphor for how sin affects our thoughts.
It didn’t help that I had trouble imagining what this fantastical world even looks like. At the train station, what exactly does Valerie see exiting the train? Is she seeing thoughts shaped like humans? Or humans with thought-bubbles above them? And if these thoughts do look like humans, then what do the thought-detectives and senators look like? And, since the senate members appear to be watching TV at one point, are they just staring at people-shaped thoughts standing in front of them? I know it must have come across clearly in the writer’s mind, but I honestly had a hard time imagining it all.
By the time the episode ended, I was reminded of my review of “Drake and the Time that Time Forgot:”
“Although “Drake and the Time that Time Forgot” features a world – and characters –that I wouldn’t mind revisiting, these types of episodes must learn to balance its creativity with the parameters of the show’s format: audio drama. Listeners are impaired because we cannot see the action; therefore, it must always strive, first and foremost, for clarity – especially when depicting an unfamiliar setting.”
While it’s certainly possible to have high-concept, futuristic stories coherently depicted in 25 minute episode -- as seen “Gloobers” or “Someone to Watch Over Me” -- it can only be done while keeping the story as simply as possible. Although there are a lot of good, imaginative ideas here, not all of these ideas needed to be crammed so heavily into one story. In fact, there's a whole lot that needed to be discarded here.
Writer: Sam Suksiri
Director: Nathan Hoobler
Executive Producer: Dave Arnold
Sound Design: Jonathan Crowe
Music: John Campbell
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 10:5
Original Airdate: 06.01.19
Review Date: 07.01.19