Lost

"Hotels don't disappear."

Writer: Juno Dawson

Format: Audio

Released: April 2022

Series: Redacted 1.03

Featuring: Abby, Shawna, Cleo

Synopsis

Things are getting worse across the country as Abby identifies a series of disappearances. Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair, the Khan family, the Chandras... But people aren't just disappearing – they're being forgotten. And, side note, what on Earth has happened to Queen Victoria?!

Verdict

Lost was a very decent third episode to continue my way through the Redacted podcast series! This one seemed a little shorter than the first two instalments of SOS and Hysteria, but it was still a really good and strong listen even if it did feel a little bit like filler. There’s nothing wrong with that as it did advance the story along nicely as now even Abby and Shawna were starting to forget about the Doctor. The significance of Rani’s message to Cleo about tattooing ‘the Doctor and their TARDIS’ soon became clear as only she out of the three could remember the enigmatic figure associated with the blue box throughout history. Exploring more into the news reports of Graham and Ryan going missing was fun and having the latter’s friend of Tanya as a guest on the podcast worked well. Except she couldn’t remember ever having him despite her numerous social media posts, all of which had now been redacted. This idea is really strong and I’m excited that there are still seven episodes to go because there’s so much potential for guest characters too and those being impacted. Rani didn’t feature here which was a shame but her parents were detailed as going missing. The police were starting to notice now that those being reported as missing weren’t coming back as well which isn’t the norm. I liked the statistics that those reported as missing are usually found within 24 hours, but the one about someone being reported as such coming every 90 seconds in the UK was rather scary! That’s staggering. I liked touching on the relationship between Abby and Shawna and it seems that there’s an interest there in the former from the latter. I’ll be interested to hear how that develops, especially with Abby being in a relationship with a Craig whom Shawna didn’t approve of very much. I thought the connection to Queen Victoria in the episode was actually hilarious and should have been the full focus. Having a monarch of her significance redacted from history because of her connection to the Doctor really shows that nothing is off limits, not even across time. That was really fun and there being a mystery of the lost Queen for her was wonderful. I do hope more is touched on that going forward but I do have my doubts. Meeting Cleo’s mother briefly was good and she was predictably not a very nice character. That’s the intent and her not acknowledging her own child’s transition and new identity after five years by still referring to them as Jayden was a bit of a shame. I’m not sure there’s room to fix that relationship, but if they can come together then a strong reason would be Jordan going missing. That served as a good cliffhanger! I’m intrigued to discover what’s happened there because there wasn’t much indication of anything happening to him as a target, but the redacted nature seems to be taking over and Jordan has an obviously strong connection to Cleo by being a sibling. We didn’t get an actual podcast episode this time around but the conversation between the three hosts was good as Cleo tried to describe the situation with the hotel and it disappearing. They didn’t really believe him which was a shame given their podcast as you’d think they’d trust a fellow host and former university friend, but the redacted threat had reached them too. Overall, another good episode!

Rating: 7/10