Grandpa's Winter Vacation

Sorry I didn't get a review out any earlier. My family went on a trip on Saturday that didn't give me enough time to listen to the episode and write a review.

Usually I can listen to the episode once on the radio and then again before I write the review, but something's wrong with the media player on the FOTF website, so I can't listen to it again. Therefore, since it's been two days since I've heard the episode, this probably won't be all that great of a review.

It was nice to hear from Grandma Lucia again, but it was really weird that it seemed like the kids had totally forgotten that they were supposed to call her "Abuelita". When they introduced her or talked to her, they always called her Grandma or Nana. I don't know why it changed. But she definitely stayed true to character, having an emphasis on tradition, although this time she was asked about her tradition before she could force it on anyone.

Ava stayed very true to character as well. Although in this episode she didn't end up working up the courage to tell her mother her opinion about the tradition. She just went along with everything and didn't voice her views like she did in Grandma's Visit. But she still did a great job, and was a wonderful Mom character.

The Parker kids were pretty good too. I was very glad that Olivia was to be the one paired up with Barrett rather than Priscilla Peterson. But then that didn't even happen, so that was even better. The game show was interesting. I used to watch Let's Make a Deal a little at my grandparents' house, but not anymore. I liked that show a lot, but the AIO version didn't seem to have much of a point. I liked how the prizes ended up holding more valuable things in them. My brother pointed out that eight-track tapes must be pretty bad for Matthew not to want to tinker with it. Plus, there's an older AIO episode where Bernard Walton remarks to someone, "You're about as interesting as an eight-track tape!"

Connie seemed a little out of character because of all the yelling she did. We haven't seen her in charge of something since For Better or for Worse, I think. But even then she wasn't an obnoxious-sounding, loud, movie-director type of organizer.

Eugene was funny when we heard him. I loved the scene where the smoke/fog machine makes everybody start choking and gagging.

I didn't so much like Whit's part in this episode. Even though he's made a good narrator in the past, I didn't like him so much as the commentator or whatever you want to call it.

So, yeah, I really don't have much to say about this episode. It had a good story premise, but I don't think that the writers did that great of a job with it. Hey, at least they mentioned Jesus! And Chris went into what the "real reason for the season" is at the end, so Brittini got her wish.

I give the episode a 5/10. Please comment!

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do throughout the winter until Album 53 airs. I may continue with the character reviews as some have suggested I do. And I'll keep up with any news that may come out about the upcoming season, as well as new podcasts. Thank you for being faithful readers throughout Album 52!

P.S. I've updated the Episode Reviews page for any of you who want to go back and read any previous reviews from Albums 51 or 52. While I did that I realized that I wasn't correct when I said that The Malted Milkball Falcon was the best episode of the season, because I saw that I had given Fast As I Can a 10/10.

Also, I started a new page called Special Pictures in order to give Mark/Reddo the pictures he wanted, and I may be putting more AIO-related things up there in the near future. ; )