I'm Not Sure How Official This Is, But...

We may have a summary for Album 56! A girl over at the Town of Odyssey got an early hard copy of Album 55, and inside on the insert was a summary of Album 56. According to her, this is the summary:

"It seems like everyone in Odyssey is looking for something. As Emily pursues her hopes and dreams, she journeys in the Imagination Station to see Whit as a young boy. Penny goes hunting for happiness but her search makers her miserable. And Jay must figure out a strange program in the Room of Consequence that could lead to an unwanted ending. Through his invention and wise counsel, Whit guides the folks in Odyssey along the right path."

I don't know about you, but this is starting to get me very excited for the future. The story about Penny doesn't sound all that intriguing, but Emily's and Jay's adventures sound great! It'll be very nice to hear about the Imagination Station and the Room of Consequence again. And it seems like there could even be some new inventions in store for us as well. :D'

I'm starting to become pretty optimistic about the future of Odyssey. I think I would say that the shows have consistently gotten better with every season since the relaunch, with Album 55 being my favorite so far. I can't wait to see what the writers will have for us as the years progress!

EDIT: Okay, I just saw that AIO Wiki posted this same summary five minutes before I did, so I guess it must be official! Yay!

Understood as Evil

I probably shouldn't have read Ben Warren's review of this episode at The Changing Times before I tried to review it, because he said everything that I wanted to say, and I might sound like I'm ripping him off, copying everything he said. I'll try to keep this all original, but I'll give the credit to him for bringing most of these thoughts to the forefront of my mind. It has been several days since I read his post though, so I think this should be mostly from my mind.

I really, really, really liked this episode. From the very beginning of the episode, I knew I was going to like it. The episode summary gave away that it was going to have a single storyline, without trying to meld two or three together for a singular moral. Therefore, I had high expectations, since I tend to like singular stories better. And the episode definitely met my high expectations. It was high in entertainment value, it definitely held my attention, and it had a great lesson to be learned.

The plot for this story was very original and genius. Not only have we had very few episodes in nursing homes in the past, but we've never had an episode where someone is cheating one of the residents. I think this is what made the story so emotionally engaging. Two teens stealing money from an old lady is something we can all see as deplorable and evil. So from the beginning, we are genuinely disappointed and frustrated with Jay for taking the money, and then we can later sympathize with him when Vance forces him to keep doing it with blackmail.

The characters and actors were all amazing in this episode. Kelly Stables again did a wonderful job as Olivia. I'm glad the directors decided to keep her on, instead of going back to Hope Levy. Ms. Stables makes her a much more likeable character. Whit Hertford, as always, nailed Jay's character and emotions. Vance's actor gave him the perfect sinister sound. Mrs. Kramer was true to the character we've grown to like over the last few episodes she's been in. And even Andre Stojka surprised me by doing a very good job as Whit. He was only in a couple of scenes, but he seemed much more like Whit than he has in the past. It was great to have him in that climax scene where Jay gets himself caught.

On that note, I don't understand why so many people were confused by Jay's actions in that scene. It totally made sense to me that he was giving himself away. He had already demonstrated that he didn't want to ask for the money anymore, so when he did ask, I knew exactly what he was doing. And I thought it was a very intelligent move. It was a great resolution, and it was what made the episode so great. Jay listened to his conscience and showed us that he is able to do the right thing, even when it meant getting Vance totally ticked at him. And he was content to take the punishment for what he did wrong.

Well I'm running out of time to write this morning, so I'll say, I really loved this episode. It was a true slice-of-life episode, the likes of which we haven't seen for a long time in Odyssey. It was great to hear of places like J&J Antiques and other places around Odyssey that we've known and loved for years. I very much hope that the writers will give us more episodes like these in the future.

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!