The Society looks to the stars with “Cold Equations,” an episode of X Minus One! Based on a short story by Tom Godwin, this is the tale of a pilot on the frontiers of space who suddenly finds a young woman stowed away, forcing him into a moral quandary. What mechanical computational process will determine her fate? Is there any way to save her? Why is Eric judging people’s DVD purchases? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think!
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I loved this episode. I loved the ending, even though it was pretty grim. The final stoicism of the character was gut wrenching. Thanks for doing a sci-fi episode! Now if only there had been more commerce…
Thanks for listening! There’s just too much amazing sci-fi from that era– we’re sure to be doing more!
This is now one of my favorites. Really, on the money perfectly done.
I’m with the other commenters here- this is outstanding. I turn to old time radio for a variety of things but an important one is originality in the ideas and writing and this story certainly has it. It’s impressive what it manages to explore in such a short time frame. It also has the horror-show aspect when she realizes what’s going to happen to her: “well I’ll die! I’ll explode!” This sci-fi story is an amazing exploration of meaning, longing and fear but it’s also top-shelf vintage radio horror when she realizes she’ll get turned inside-out, and then the pilot… Read more »
Fantastic story. The ending was a down note but X -1 wasn’t always about happy endings. As soon as I heard the setup – only enough fuel for one try etc. I knew she was a “red shirt”.
This was terrible writing. What story did the author want to tell by setting this up? This isn’t sci-fi. The author tries to box it in that there isn’t enough fuel and blah blah blah, but it doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. The fuel is used to get the rocket up to speed, so, since they are over the weight limit, the extra fuel has already been burned. This is just from the narrative setup. There are two way more interesting setups. 1) the stowaway is the pilots son, unknown to the pilot until the end. 2) this is… Read more »
I just heard a remake of this and had to come and comment here. It was some show called Si-fi Radio I think, it sounded Canadian. It was nowhere near as good as this version.