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In season two of THE CONTROL GROUP (Civil Defense), the airwaves are filled with announcements of a nuclear attack on the United States. As panic threatens the community of New Canaan, a housewife (Tess Malis Kincaid) tries to protect her daughter (Allie Ficken) from both the atomic and the human dangers that surround them. Woven throughout the story are fragments of “Quasar-1,” an animated children’s television program about a space pilot (Hannah Fierman) assigned to protect a distant planet from self-destruction.
Six inches of concrete overhead, and you are still worried about the man with the gun.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grieving signal opens into a chilling case for saving a planet by ending its people.
The Control Group finds its chill in a signal that will not fade. The Queen keeps calling Quasar One through days, weeks, and longer silences, while Septron floods Helios 3 with transmissions in the hope of reaching her daughter.
A bunker built for safety turns into a fight over who gets to define it.
A bunker should make safety feel settled. In this episode, it does the opposite. Noonan hears gunfire in town, panics, finds his truck at the bunker, and comes in armed, turning a place built for protection into a test of nerves.
A shelter survival plan curdles into coercion when Noonan casts Becky as part of rebuilding the population.
The episode turns a shelter into a moral snare, as Noonan wraps his pursuit of Becky, Miss Langford's 15-year-old daughter, in Genesis, duty, and the need to rebuild the population.
A time-travel rescue becomes a tense family argument about trust, duty, and whether Quasar One can come home.
A rescue mission turns into a family argument stretched across impossible time. Quasar One is sent 250 years into Helios Three's past to try to prevent the destruction of life there, even as her mother pleads with her to abort before the launch is locked in.
Dice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
A housewife tries to protect her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with fragments of a children's space show and a ferryman guiding spirits.
A supernatural audio thriller about a curious stranger in a small town with hidden secrets and a murder.
A housewife tries to protect her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with fragments of a children's space show.
A fictional audio drama about a housewife protecting her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with a children's space cartoon.
The Control Group’s S2 E5, “The Fortress,” moves between Montgomery, CONELRAD, and a Helios 3 mission that is “250 years in the past.” Emily Oster and Perry Wilson do not appear in the drama; the transcript instead follows civil-defense radio, a bunker argument, and a sci-fi rescue attempt.
Noonan uses Genesis to argue that Becky should “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”
Helen Huntley and Wayne Langford open an EOC supply closet and uncover the “L-M-O-E” disc labeled “Elmo,” which Langford defines as “Last Man on Earth.” He says Project Elmo spreads about 200 launchers across the country and is built around “Mutually Assured Destruction” and “Automatic Mutual Annihilation.” Langford then says the attack may be “all theater,” naming the military exercise Rule 65 and a controlled crash at Baker’s Ridge.
Dory discovers that civil-defense shelters are divided by neighborhood and race during the catastrophe.
The Control Group’s “Red Alert” places Wayne, Dory, and fifteen-year-old Becky Langford in a Cold War emergency involving Soviet bombers and civil-defense shelters.
A housewife tries to protect her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with a children's space cartoon.
In a nuclear attack scenario, a housewife tries to protect her daughter from atomic and human threats, interwoven with a children's space show.
A scripted audio drama about a housewife protecting her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with a children's space cartoon.
A scripted audio drama about a housewife protecting her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with fragments of a children's space cartoon.
A housewife tries to protect her daughter during a nuclear attack, interwoven with fragments of a children's space show.