An Imperfect Body, Part I

We finally made it to the new season! Or should I say, the new season finally made its way to us? Either way, I'm very glad that it's finally here. It seems like it's been a really long time since Album 55 started airing. Yet, at the same time, it feels like it was just last week. I don't know. I guess that's usually the way things are. Anyway, I think I may be looking forward to this album more than any album since the relaunch. Now, it's easy to say that, since it's the one I'm currently excited about, but I really do think this album seems to have more potential than any that's come so far since Album 51 began. I can't wait to see the different directions all of the episodes will take and how they will utilize Whit's many inventions.

But, no matter what the rest of the season holds, if it's anything like this first episode, I will be greatly pleased. I loved this episode. But I loved it in a different way than I've loved episodes that have come before. In previous seasons, I've appreciated episodes because of how they furthered character development, or how they had entertaining story lines; but this episode was incredible, because it took its general story from the Bible! And, like all the Imagination Station adventures we've come to know and love from Odyssey's past, it made the stories that we read in the pages of Scripture, which may at times seem dry and static, come to life! It was amazing to see/hear so many different accounts that I've read and heard over the years come together into a unified whole to tell the story of the early church. It makes me wish that this episode wasn't only two parts, but that it filled the whole album and covered the entire Book of Acts!

See, I'm sort of a Bible geek. Before moving to the church that my family are currently members of, I was known as the "smart kid" because I knew so many facts about the Bible and the accounts it contains. I did Bible quizzing for a number of years, and for a couple of those years, the book we studied fairly extensively was Acts. So I know a lot about the characters and events of the early church. Therefore, this episode was all the more meaningful to me. It was great to see how different parts of the story found their ground in major parts of the book, as well as to pick up on how minor plots tied in with more generic parts. For example, I thought it was very clever to have the main characters, Seth's family, be the ones who bought the land of Ananias and Sapphira and gave them the money, which, as most of you will know, they dealt with dishonestly, and they later paid the price for it. This aspect of the storytelling also makes it nice, in that we don't have to wonder so much about what's going to happen in the next episode. However, at the same time, the writers took enough liberty in creating the different story elements that we have a good amount to speculate and wonder about--such as what's going to happen to the church now that Saul is in the picture.

I'm also wondering how far ahead the next episode is going to go, because in Acts 12, when Peter has escaped from prison and he comes to the door of the house where members of the church are praying for him, he encounters "a servant girl named Rhoda." That was immediately who I thought of when Rhoda appeared in this episode. I doubt it's a coincidence that she has the same name as another character of her age in the Book of Acts, so I think either the story will jump ahead a little bit and give that account, or it will at least be hinted at, so that we know that Rhoda actually fits in in Scripture somewhere.

Well, all that said about the story, I'll go on to the characters and the acting. I thought the acting was very top-notch. Usually, with Odyssey, we're used to hearing the same actors voice the same characters week in and week out. But the great thing about Imagination Station adventures is that we get to hear a variety of more general actors who we don't hear nearly as often, and they always do an excellent job voicing their individual characters, even though they don't get much air time. I was particularly interested with the lame man who was healed by Peter and John, because I thought he sounded very much like a mix between Tigger from Winnie the Pooh and King Lawrence from Darien's Rise--meaning then that he could only have been voiced by one person: Jim Cummings! It was cool to have him back, albeit for a short amount of time. But that's what I'm talking about. These actors are talented enough that they bring a superb performance and life to their characters in only the short amount of time they are given.

It was interesting to hear from the actor who played Sue in "The Labyrinth" again. I thought she did a very nice job. Obviously, I could tell it was her, but she pulled off the American accent very well (unlike when she tried to impersonate an American in the previously-mentioned episode :P). I thought she had a very sweet-sounding voice, and the chemistry between her and Matthew was pretty good. Though, at times, she reminded me of Emily, so at those points I wasn't appreciating her voice so much. ;)

I'll touch on this a bit more later, but I thought Eugene was a very good narrator. I didn't find myself missing the old, computerized "Mabel" voice at all. Will Ryan did a great job, and I would hope to hear more from Eugene in this role in the future. Then there's Whit. You all, I'm sure, know how I feel about Andre Stojka doing the voice of this timeless, beloved character. But actually he wasn't all that bad in this episode. Granted, he only had a few lines at the beginning (which I thought was for the better), but he actually did pretty well with what he had. I didn't feel so much like I was hearing Andre, but more like I was hearing Mr. Whittaker. I surprised myself. We'll see how he does in the coming episodes later on this season.

Moving on to the workings of the new Imagination Station: I was impressed. Although there was a somewhat radical change in the way things operated, I really liked it. The changes felt more like an update to the machine, rather than a fundamental adjustment. As I said before, I really liked Eugene as narrator at the outset, and then as a general commentator throughout. I laughed the first time he cut in, with the definition for "Gentile," and throughout the episode it was a believable way for Matthew to receive necessary information on the culture and the era, rather than being completely confused like some characters have ended up in the past. In addition to Eugene's overall narration, I specifically appreciated his reading of Scripture at the beginning. I thought that was very powerful, and I would definitely like to hear more of that in the future.  Oh, and then one more thing. I also liked how the Imagination Station transferred Matthew from one setting to the next. It reminded me of Kelly's adventure in "The Imagination Station, Revisited" with the doors; but this was even better. I chuckled every time Matthew was hurled about through time and dropped into each particular environment. Hopefully all of these modifications to the Imagination Station will stick around through the rest of the season.

Well, I guess I should bring this review to a close, as it's become quite lengthy. We hadn't heard an episode totally devoted to an Imagination Station adventure since the close of Album 50, and the only other episode it's been a part of since the relaunch was "Fast As I Can," where many fans complained that it just wasn't the same, that it was operating differently that it always has over the years. It has also been referenced briefly in a few episodes over the more recent seasons, one of the more notable ones being "Child's Play," but this is the first time we've really seen it since Odyssey was "redesigned." And it was a very refreshing reminder of the past. However, at the same time, it wasn't stuck in the past. It was definitely an improvement on adventures that were previously experienced within the doors of the machine. The writing and dialogue were excellent, and the correlation between the plot and the accounts in the Bible, as I mentioned, were wonderful as well. I was also very impressed with the variety of great themes touched on in the episode. Among the things briefly mentioned were the inexplicable blindness of the hearts of the Jewish leaders, the inevitability of persecution of Christians, the inclusion of the Gentiles, speaking in tongues, Jesus taking God's wrath on the cross, and the conundrum about Jewish traditions and the Law of Moses. All of those things are very important, so it was great to see the Odyssey writers incorporate those themes into the story.

That's just about all I have to say about the episode. Hopefully that wasn't too long. I hope you enjoyed it! I look forward to hearing and reviewing next week's episode. I think we can expect some good action--probably along the lines of the trailer for The Lyin' Thing in "I Want My BTV." There may also be some sober plot elements as well, as the death of Stephen and the great persecution of the church come in Chapters 7 and 8 of Acts.  Anyway, thank you so much for reading my review! Please tell me what you thought about it in the comments. And be sure to come back next week for my analysis of Part II!

--Christian

Push the Red Button!

I can't write much, since my allotted Internet time is almost up, but I thought you guys deserved something from me, since I haven't written anything in a couple of weeks.

I was on AIO Wiki just now and saw this new episode title and summary that have been released:

Push the Red Button:
Eugene creates an invention that will merge all the programs into one...and something goes wrong.

This sounds exciting! And I really love the title. I hope we get some more titles and summaries in the near future!


Oh, and for those of you who would like to take advantage of it, AIO Wiki has a link on the main page to a free download of an Album 56 episode called "Happy Hunting." I won't be downloading it, but if you'd like to, feel free. :)


--Christian

Parent's Work

I guess I'm finally going to get around to reviewing this episode. I probably shouldn't have read so many others' reviews before I decided to review the episode, because now I'm afraid my thoughts aren't going to be very original. But I'll do my best to at least put things basically in my own words.

However... I will start out with this quote from Ben Warren from his review at The Changing Times. I thought he summed up my core feelings about this episode very well in this paragraph:

Ultimately, "Child's Play" is significant because it delves a little more into Eugene and Katrina's married life, and these sorts of stories are always more worth telling than stories about children or characters we may never hear from in 5 years. It also included scenes that highlighted the beauty of marriage; there's something very nice about listening in as they sit in their bedroom, getting ready for bed, discussing their concerns and fears with one another. That's the point where Eugene and Katrina feel, not only interesting, but real.

And that's what I thought made this episode another great story to add to the other excellent stories in Album 55. We haven't had an episode totally focused on Eugene and Katrina since their wedding episode "For Better or for Worse" in Album 44. And I thought it was very nice. The episode was slow-paced, and it gave us a look at what Eugene and Katrina's relationship is like behind closed doors. We got tastes of this in "How to Sink a Sub" and "You're Two Kind," and we got a closer look in "To Mend or Repair," but since this was a whole episode dedicated to their experience with babysitting children, it felt different, like we got to learn more about them than we have in a long time.

I really liked the kids in the episode. They were both very realistic, and they had great actors. Unless I'm a terrible judge of this, I was pretty certain that adult actors were not used for the kids. ;) That was a great choice. I don't think I would have liked the episode as much if the kids weren't played by real kids. I also liked the distinct, different personalities each kid had. It was a humorous situation for Eugene to have to keep up with such an active Kyle, and it was an interesting challenge for Katrina to stay sane while Joy asked her so many questions.

I thought Wooton was great in this episode. For once, I didn't think Wooton was annoying. He did his part, and he didn't intrude into anyone else's part. He felt like the old Wooton to me. You know, the one that was around at the same time as...Cal Jordan! Oh, it was so great to hear an old character mentioned! No longer do we have to think that all of the people at Whit's End suffered some sort of amnesia that caused them to forget everything and everyone that came before Album 51! But, yeah, it was nice to see that nod to the last generation of Odyssey kids...even though Cal's record was beaten about five minutes after we know it existed.... :P

Connie was also interesting. I thought it was, again, realistic, that she got tired of Joy's questions really fast. I would have been the same way. Which is why it was all the more admirable that Katrina was able to cope with them for so long. It almost leaves you wondering why the writers teased us with this episode, when you know the Meltsners won't be getting any kids of their own, apart from a miracle. Eugene and Katrina seem like they'd be so good with kids, but they can't have their own kids, so what's the point of knowing that?

But aside from that, I really liked this episode. It was entertaining, and yet not silly or too fast-paced. Just seeing a husband and wife, whom we've grown to love over the years, grow together and love each other was material enough for a superb episode. I hope there are more stories like these in the future. But...then again, I don't, because I think it was the uniqueness of this episode that made it so good. :)

What did you think of the episode? What did you think of what I thought of the episode? I'd love to hear about it! You can write me at Adventures in Odyssey Colorado Springs, Colora.... No wait, you can write me right under this post! ;)  Please comment!

The Results for the Second Semi-Annual Avery Awards Are In!

I'm going to post the results here for those of you who may not have time to listen to the podcast, but if you'd rather hear the podcast first, don't read on. : )

The award for Best Sound goes to:

The Mystery of the Clock Tower Parts I and II.

I voted for Wooton's Broken Pencil Show, but I guess it's okay that this one won. I've only actually heard each episode once, so I don't know if it really was superior or not. I'm looking forward to actually owning the album.
__________

The award for Best Scene goes to:

Clock Tower Meetings--the story of the clock tower meetings from The Mystery of the Clock Tower.

Now with this one, I can't say that I am very happy, because I, for one, thought that this part of the episode was pretty mature for the 8-12 year old target audience. But apparently it was popular, and, again, since I've only heard it once, maybe it was really good.
__________

The award for Best Actor goes to:

Will Ryan as Eugene in Fast As I Can.

I pretty much agree with this choice, although I actually picked Whit Hertford as Jay in The Malted Milkball Falcon. Mr. Ryan continues to do an amazing job as Eugene for someone who is actually way older than his character. And he especially did well in this episode at the times when Eugene was trying to keep his words at two syllables or less. He had me laughing out loud a lot.
__________

The award for Best Actress goes to:

Katie Leigh as Connie in The Mystery of the Clock Tower.

I did vote for this one, and I'm glad that she won, because in my opinion, all four of the other nominees weren't very good at their parts. So I'm glad that Katie Leigh was rewarded again, becuase she, just like Will Ryan, continues to do an excellent job at playing a character way younger than herself, and I hope God allows her to do it for a much longer time.
__________

The award for Best Script goes to:

The Mystery of the Clock Tower.

I actually did vote for this one because from what I remembered about the episode, it had a great plot, and it was a good mystery that kept you guessing. I think Paul McCusker definitely deserved this award, and I am very much looking forward to his work on the full-album mystery coming up in the next season.
__________

And the award for Best Overall Episode goes to:

The Mystery of the Clock Tower.

This didn't surprise me that much since this episode also got awards for Script and Sound, but again, I didn't think that it was the best of the season, just because of the slight matureness in the overall plot behind the plot. But I guess it was well-deserved, and since the fans were so pleased with this episode, hopefully they'll feel just as well about the upcoming season.

Thank you for taking the time to read. I'd very much like to hear your thoughts about what I said, and what your votes were. Please comment!

P.S. Luke from the Odyssey Times discovered a new website called AIOIFA (AIO Information for Anyone). It is a miniature version of what many websites like The Soda Fountain and AIO HQ offer. It looks really good, and seems to be promising. Go check it out!

Mr. Meltsner (Jr.)

Eugene Meltsner--probably Odyssey's most popular character next to Wooton Bassett. Probably because he is so extremely unique. We'd never seen anyone like him before, and haven't seen anyone else like him yet (unless you include Katrina and/or the "Room Full of Eugenes".) He is a know-it-all who can be arrogant, but he has a big heart, and has gone through some big changes throughout the years. Although I wish I could, I won't be able to cover all of the many adventures he has with Bernard and Whit and Connie, but I'll try to hit the biggest highlights.

We first meet Eugene in Connie, Part I, when he is looking for a job for credits at Campbell College. And he shows us his geekiness when one of the first things he does after getting the job is to computerize everything in the shop, even things Whit didn't know could be computerized. He soon gets everything back to normal, but that episode introduced us to aspects of his character that are still going strong after over 20 years.

As the years go by, one of the biggest parts of Eugene's character was his argumentative nature, especially around Connie. That received two kinds of feedback from fans of the show. Most people really liked those parts of the show, when he and Connie would go on and on about ridiculous things, and have to be stopped by Whit. But some people, like I mentioned in Connie's review, didn't like it that Connie, a brand-new Christian, got into so many disputes with Eugene that ended up coming to nothing; and they never seemed to learn! I don't really mind the arguing. I'm often very entertained by it, and it reflects a lot of how my younger brother and I argue some of the time, so I don't think it's necessarily un-Christian.

The first big event in Eugene's life as we know him comes in Truth, Trivia, and 'Trina, when he meets Katrina Shanks at the college library. They immediately hit it off when they realized that they both had heads full of knowledge about the same nerdy things. However, later in the episode, Katrina is annoyed with Eugene's trying to impress her with all his knowledge. And she continues to work on him for the many years to come as their relationship develops. Katrina cuts off the relationship when she becomes a Christian, and realizes that she cannot continue with Eugene as long as he isn't a believer. These events along with many other things said by Whit and Connie lead to Eugene's conversion during the dark Album 25, Darkness Before Dawn. And slowly, he and Katrina get back together. But in Album 28, after Eugene comes back from his trip to the Middle East, they have a big misunderstanding, and Katrina starts seeing a different guy. By the end of the two-part episode, Katrina is going back home to Chicago, and she has said that her heart wants her to be with Eugene, but her head wants her to be with Brandon, but she tells them both that she will not marry them. But by the end of the next album, she is back with Eugene, and they get engaged after she has an accident with a football and a German toddler.

Their marriage takes place under very suspicious circumstances when Katrina's father is on his deathbed after a very sudden struggle with a mystery virus. Eugene believes that his father-in-law's death was a result of his support of Eugene's work at Campbell County Community College. He was working on a top-secret project that involved experimenting with turning brain waves to radio waves. But Eugene, through Armitage, discovers a plot to reverse the process with the ultimate goal to take over the world with mind control. So the night of Mr. Shanks's death, he goes back to the college, steals all the research and puts it on a disc. Then he mails it to Jason Whittaker in Alaska and goes into hiding. The rest of the Novacom saga goes on without him, but later we learn that while the gang at Whit's End is solving that dilemma, Andromeda seeks him out, and tries to give him the same virus as killed Armitage Shanks. It results in Eugene developing amnesia, and he has to return to Odyssey under the cover of darkness, looking for help from Mr. Whittaker. After three very moving episodes that are some of my personal favorites, Eugene's memory is restored, and he and Katrina stay in Odyssey.

Very soon after that escapade, the writers introduce the first few episodes in a fairly long series about Eugene's father, Leonard, called Prisoners of Fear. In these episodes we learn many things about Eugene that were only touched upon in past episodes. His father and mother were archaeologists near the Ashanti tribe in Africa, but were then kidnapped and forced to be slaves to Dalton Kearn, a rival archaeologist. While at the site, both Everett, Eugene's younger brother, and his mother are said to have died in captivity. But Leonard devised an escape plan and has gotten away just three months before Eugene and Katrina's visit. This saga continues for five albums, and we learn that Leonard believes both his sons to be dead, leaving him alone in the world, so he retires to be a homeless man in Connelsville where his father recently died (Last of a Long Line). Throughout Album 47, Leonard is living in hiding from Dalton, and he and Eugene find each other, eventually leading to Leonard's moving in with Eugene and Katrina. In Album 48, Eugene's relationship with his father deepens as they go on an adventure with Whit and Jason to New York to retrieve a crucial video recording from Dalton's house. Throughout these episodes, Leonard confronts Eugene about his religious beliefs, and tries to convince him to trust science, rather than a "mythological God". And Eugene tries to witness to his father and show him that Christianity is not just a superstition. Also in this episode, we find out that Everett did not actually die in Africa, and the family is reunited after Dalton Kearn is convicted and sent to prison. Then at the beginnning of Album 49, we learn a lot more about Leonard and his struggles between archaeology and family. In fact, this struggle was so strong that he almost made his wife abort the child that was to be Eugene. This fact rocks Eugene's world, but when his father falls very ill because of a bad kidney, he decides to undergo the operation to donate his own kidney to his father. This act of sacrifice, especially in light of what has just been revealed about his early intentions, changes Leonard's heart, and he surrenders his life to Christ. And he decides to use his life for the Lord as a missionary to the Ashani tribe.

After this saga was over, the Best Small Town album aired, and Eugene was very involved with getting the town ready for the judges and convincing Mayor Faye that Mr. Whittaker owned the land where Whit's End sits. But in the newest albums, the writers seem to have nothing for Eugene to do. Especially in Album 51, he appears in only a few episodes, and doesn't seem to be doing much of anything anymore. At the beginning of Album 52, in The Mystery of the Clock Tower, he is the main character in a very engaging mystery, but after that, he is not present, or a very small character. I'm hoping that he gets to play a big part in The Green Ring Conspiracy.

So, in summary, Mr. Meltsner Jr. is an amazing character who has grown greatly as he's been on the show, and I look forward to seeing him grow more in the future. Please comment!