I haven't listened, yet, but I'm super excited to see Nicola Seaton-Clark narrating here!
Update:
I do love an alien story with
alien aliens - we've discussed before how hard that is to pull off (I think in the
Way of the Needle thread, and more recently,
The Hunter Captain).
As always, it's difficult to really create sympathetic characters belonging to a truly different race with truly different culture based in a completely alien physiology. In this story, I actually felt like I related more to the troubles that Irdl had relating to Joolie; when she dropped social and cultural clues, I couldn't always understand her. I couldn't really tell at some places in the scenes with Joolie's father whether it was Irdl missing information or me!
Coincidentally, Invisibilia's episode this week explored
Frames of Reference, focusing on a woman who didn't recognize emotion and social interplay until she participated in a neurology experiment that gave her a glimpse of what that is like. Listening to her story reminded me of Irdl, a bit.