Minkowski Presents: The Harbingers & Pod's the Thing
November 13, 2025·4 min
The episode opens with Minkowski monologuing to herself about a backlog of station tasks she has been putting off: star chart updates, engine calibrations, life support resets, and comms panel maintenance. She asks Hira for help but remembers Hira is rebooting her vocal program. Checking the nav terminal, Minkowski finds a Deep Space RSS feed acquisition program running at 82% of the station's power, which accounts for the week's lack of hot water. The program was authorised by Radio Cool Cat 88, confirming it is Doug Eiffel's doing. Reading the queue, Minkowski finds Eiffel was downloading The Harbingers, described as a new audio fiction series by Gabrielle Urbina and Audacious Machine Creative, the team behind Unwell. The show follows Adam Blackwell and Amy Sterling, the first two people in the modern world to discover how to do real magic, who are also former romantic partners from grad school. Minkowski describes it as part political thriller, part modern fantasy adventure, and part personal drama, then decides she will listen to an episode before getting back to work. She then finds a second title in the queue: Pods the Thing, a Shakespeare podcast made by actors. Each episode combines conversation with live scene performance, working through one Shakespeare scene at a time with hosts and a rotating panel of guests covering language, historical context, and acting experience. Minkowski notes she would prefer a Sondheim podcast but acknowledges this one sounds worthwhile. She reads the cast—Wooden Overcoats' Beth Eyre and Felix Trench, classically trained actor Calder Schilling, and Emma Scherzarko—and pauses on the last name, saying it sounds familiar but unable to place why. The episode closes with Minkowski giving up on the star charts entirely and committing to at least one episode of each show, followed by release schedule details for both.
