Sorry for My Absence... Hopefully This Makes It Up to You a Little...

Yeah.... So, if you hadn't noticed, I've been slightly less than active on this blog. xP  You can blame life for that. *nods*

However. I haven't forgotten about you people! At least.... I remember you about once every few weeks or so. =P  Anyway, two of my little siblings got Albums 56 and 57 for their respective birthdays, and I've been listening to the episodes the last couple of nights... and I realized that I sorta dropped the ball at just the wrong time.

Those albums were *really* good. With the exception of the Penny and J&P episodes, nearly every single one has made me seriously think about something, or has really entertained me. The writers worked really hard to give us entertaining, yet meaningful episodes these last couple of seasons. We saw episodes about prayer, true repentance, tithing, Scripture, and even one where a girl who grew up in a Christian home realizes that she needs to make the faith her own and trusts Jesus for the first time! And as if that weren't enough, a subsequent episode deals with her struggle to keep her newfound faith alive! I don't know if I could have asked for anything better, really.

I don't want to presume upon anything, but.... I think I will anyway. =P  During the Green Ring Conspiracy episodes, I couldn't stop whining and complaining about the lack of solid biblical truth in the episodes; and I was especially disturbed by the less-than-adequate descriptions of sin and salvation that I was hearing. Several times, I believe, I made sure I said that I believed a person is truly saved when they repent of their sins and trust in Christ for salvation. And at that time, I don't think AIO had ever featured a description of conversion in those specific words.

But then fast-forward to The Bible Network. In the first sequence, "Who's the Real Sheep?" we are given a precise definition of how to be saved: "by repenting of our sins and trusting in Jesus." Exactly. What. I. Asked. For. Does anyone think that could be more than a coincidence? Like I said, I don't want to presume that the writers read my blog faithfully and take into account everything I say.... but whether or not that's the case, I have seen a very evident change in the content and focus in many of the episodes.

Just last night I was listening to Disc 2 of Album 56, which has "The Holy Hoopster" and "The Lost Riddle" on it. Both of those episodes explicitly and repeatedly have characters saying "Jesus" and/or "Christ," names that I had felt were conspicuously absent from Odyssey for a long period of time. And even though it wasn't the primary moral of the story, "The Lost Riddle" had a very strong message about the Providence of God. Even though Kenny did wrong to Dale and thereby got a headstart on his career that should have gone to Dale, God worked through it, and Dale says that he wouldn't have it any different even if he could. I was very touched by this episode. And it's even a Jones & Parker episode! I couldn't believe it. xD

All this is to say.... Well done, Odyssey. I complained for a long time, and you didn't have to deliver, but you did. Even though some things don't totally line up with the specifics of what I believe (see my review on The Bible Network for that...), I think what we've been given is much better than what we had been getting. And given the fact that AIO has to cater to a huge audience, made up of people from all kinds of denominational backgrounds, I think they've done an excellent job. I've seen the gospel several times over the last two seasons. In The Bible Network, in Your Servant Is Listening, and even in Life Expectancy. I could hardly be more pleased.

Well, hopefully this hasn't been too long. That's another thing that I needed to work on back when I was on here more regularly: shorter reviews. xP  I don't know how active I'm going to be in the future--actually today I was only planning on giving you a preview of this article and writing the whole thing out at a different time--but I hope you can relate to what I said. =)

TL;DR: Odyssey is awesome. Thank you.

Two New Episode Titles

I was browsing the Town of Odyssey recently and saw a thread discussing the release of a new episode title and summary on the Album 56 page on AIO Wiki. The episode is called Home Again, Parts I and II, and the description is simply "Jason returns to Odyssey." As a warning however, I would highly advise you not to find out too much about this episode, because I already had a surprise spoiled for me by viewing that thread. I'm not sure how big a surprise it was supposed to be, but someone clicked past the spoiler alert and declared to everyone what he found there. So if you don't want to know, don't go looking, and be careful. ;)

In addition to that episode title, I also found out some information about Album 57 on the "Future" page at AIO Wiki. Do you guys remember the "Odyssey College Writer's Scholarship Contest"? I don't know if I ever said anything about it, since I didn't think many of my readers were eligible for the contest, but it was a contest for college-age kids who wanted to write a script for an Odyssey episode, to be used in a future album. Well, there's a winner named Angela Phillips from Minnesota, who won first place with the episode script called "A Jay in the Life."

Both of these episodes sound interesting to me. I can't say I'm as excited for these upcoming albums as I was for Album 55, but with all of the information that has been released so far, I'm looking forward to Album 56. I'm especially looking forward to this episode: "An episode takes place in the future with Jay, Matthew and Katrina, Jeremy Pessoa (Andy Pessoa's brother) player older Barrett and an actor from the past plays old Matthew." I had forgotten about that story until the other day when I was looking at the future page.

Anyways, what are you looking forward to in the future of Odyssey? And what do you think about these three new episodes? Please comment and let me know!