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A review by billyjepma
Impact Winter season 2 by Travis Beacham
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.5
Man, what a bummer. I quite enjoyed the first story—both because I’m a sucker for an audio drama and because it was genre comfort food—but the sequel barely did anything for me. It’s not even that long of a listen, but I had to force myself back to it because the storytelling was so inert. I like Beacham’s ideas and think he has a really solid grasp of genre, but I also think his imagination isn’t deep or original enough to sustain a trilogy. I get it; the middle of a story is challenging, and I want to be forgiving of how much meandering, idle place-setting this does for what I imagine will be the proper finale. But come on, you gotta give me something! There’s no real character growth, no sense of tension, and even the character deaths that should’ve been notable—because they were cool characters in the last one!—lack any bite because of how nonchalant and borderline disinterested the execution was.
The production quality remains solid, even if there are some questionable choices made (i.e., for the love of god I do not make me listen to kissing sounds), and the voice cast is decent to actually quite good. Special shoutout to Ralph Ineson, who chews through every line with more gusto and tonal self-awareness than the character deserves. I’ll probably show up for Chapter 3, despite it all, because the “twist” at the end—which was so obvious for so long I was just glad to have it over with, honestly—is cool enough in theory that I want to see if they’ll actually commit to it.
The production quality remains solid, even if there are some questionable choices made (i.e., for the love of god I do not make me listen to kissing sounds), and the voice cast is decent to actually quite good. Special shoutout to Ralph Ineson, who chews through every line with more gusto and tonal self-awareness than the character deserves. I’ll probably show up for Chapter 3, despite it all, because the “twist” at the end—which was so obvious for so long I was just glad to have it over with, honestly—is cool enough in theory that I want to see if they’ll actually commit to it.