Ratings

[Mr. Tweedy]

I wanted to make a brief comment about the G rating for "8 Episodes," especially in relation to the R rating of the last story, "The House Beyond Your Sky."  IMHO, thinly-veiled references to oral sex and a main character who divorces his wife to spend long evenings with three mistresses are not general-audience material, even if the descritpions are not explicit.  I'd actually be a lot more concerned with my daughter hearing this G rated story than the R rated "House."

Hearing "8" would raise fun questions like "Why was the lady wiping her mouth?" and "What's are mistresses?"  In contrast, "House" contained nothing worse than the F-word, which she hears anyway every time someone drives by with their gangsta rap blasting.

I think both stories warranted a "PG" rather than the rating they got.

[ClintMemo]

I think House's domestic violence would rate it an "R", or at least a "PG-13" (if escape pod uses that).
I agree about "8 episodes."  It didn't change my enjoyment of it, but a PG might have been more appropriate.  I would definately not rate them the same.

[Mr. Tweedy]

I agree, but Escape Pod doesn't have a PG-13 (at least, I don't think so).

[ClintMemo]

I don't know. I just think it's cool that they rate them at all.

[Listener]

When I used to post stories on one of my now-defunct websites, I used a mix of TV and movies and video games:

E - Everyone
PG - Parental Guidance
14 - 14 and over
R - 17 and over
MA - Mature audiences (meaning: explicit sex)

*shrug*

I would have to have given 8E at least a PG.

[SFEley]

I wanted to make a brief comment about the G rating for "8 Episodes," especially in relation to the R rating of the last story, "The House Beyond Your Sky."  IMHO, thinly-veiled references to oral sex and a main character who divorces his wife to spend long evenings with three mistresses are not general-audience material, even if the descritpions are not explicit.  I'd actually be a lot more concerned with my daughter hearing this G rated story than the R rated "House."

Actually, Mr. Tweedy...  Good point.  I'd forgotten about that when I was posting the episode and thinking about a rating.  Another listener raised a similar point in e-mail yesterday.

I've just changed it to PG and altered the warning in the blog post slightly.  Thanks for raising the question.

[Russell Nash]

I wanted to make a brief comment about the G rating for "8 Episodes," especially in relation to the R rating of the last story, "The House Beyond Your Sky."  IMHO, thinly-veiled references to oral sex and a main character who divorces his wife to spend long evenings with three mistresses are not general-audience material, even if the descritpions are not explicit.  I'd actually be a lot more concerned with my daughter hearing this G rated story than the R rated "House."

Actually, Mr. Tweedy...  Good point.  I'd forgotten about that when I was posting the episode and thinking about a rating.  Another listener raised a similar point in e-mail yesterday.

I've just changed it to PG and altered the warning in the blog post slightly.  Thanks for raising the question.

Forum post has also been changed.