Album 17: On Earth as it is in Heaven: I almost hate to criticize this album, because there is a lot to like here -- it even had an episode which used Danny Schmidt pretty well, which is amazing considering how almost everyone hates him.
Nevertheless, it isn't perfect. "The Power" in particular is very flawed, for several reasons. Let me try to count the ways:
First, its protagonist is very badly characterized. Isaac is basically an anti-hero... if it wasn't for Sam, and the implication that we should know who the main character is, Isaac would be completely unrecognizable from the guy we've seen in every other episode. He's downright ruthless here, basically messing around with Charles for no good reason, and honestly you can't help but feel by the end of the episode that Isaac really does deserve to get beat up on, whether by Nicholas or somebody else.
Second, Nicholas isn't at all where he should be; this is Nicholas Adamsworth, last seen running from Eugene in the Imagination Station, but he is now inexplicably out of the college program, wasting his time dominating in middle school (which makes no sense, since we know that he already graduated at a younger age, much like Eugene once did).
Frankly, the character I like the most in this episode is Rusty, and while that isn't as much of a leap (since Rusty is always portrayed as a "cool", intelligent bully, after his inglorious debut in "Our Father") for me, I don't get the impression that's what the writers were trying to do here.
Album 18: A Time of Discovery: "The Case of the Delinquent Disciples" is a good idea that's rendered just a bit creepy by having a middle-aged man investigate... if I was any of those kids' moms, I'd be half-inclined to call the cops.
"Family Values" is silly. Same deal with "My Fair Bernard". In fact, this album probably has more silly episodes than any album before it -- but if you've had your head under a rock for the past fifteen years or so and think this is the silliest this radio drama could get, that it can't possibly go downhill from here, all I can say is, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Album 19: Passport to Adventure: "The Bad Hair Day". If you've listened to this episode even once, in your entire life, you know why it's on this list. It's... bad.
"Aloha Oy" is three consecutive silly episodes in a row, which I think has to have set a record for Odyssey at the time. Likewise, "Truth, Rivia, and 'Trina" is a little silly as well -- and so is "Naturally, I Assumed".
Album 20: A Journey of Choices: I don't think many of the episodes in this album are bad, per se, but the average silliness quotient (for any episode that isn't intended to be silly) hits a very high average, and that doesn't change much over the next few albums. I take a sort of twisted pleasure out of "Fences", but I have to admit that it is a bad episode... the idea was there, and there's some funny dialogue, but the planning and development fell all the way through the floor.
Album 21: Wish You Were Here: Some silly moments, but this was really a pretty good album on the whole... I'll point out one moment I like about one episode that defies writing stereotypes: In "The Election Deception", the principal is actually a clever man, and helps solve (or tries to solve) a problem, something that has happened in only one other Adventure in Odyssey episode I can think of, "Mike Makes Right".
Album 22: The Changing Times: "Siege at Jericho" would have been better without the modern commentary. "Unto Us a Child is Born" has some good moments, but the silliness overwhelms things... Red Wagons and Pink Flamingos is silly, and gives us the idea that Jason really just doesn't have a clue.
Album 23: Twists and Turns: A good album with a lot of great ideas, that nevertheless could have been better implemented. "St. Paul" would have been better if it wasn't in the Imagination Station... A Victim of Circumstance is a little silly (but nevertheless a good episode). At the church I frequent, the youth sit either with their parents or in the front, so it strikes me as interesting when we see that the Odyssey church does it differently, in "Preacher's Kid"... and see that it doesn't work very well.
Album 24: Risks and Rewards: I like "Top This", but it's undeniably a silly episode. "Poetry in Slow Motion" has some more gratuitous Charles-bashing, and Lawrence is pretty clueless in "Subject Yourself"... it's not all bad, though, because this album has more great episodes than possibly any other album before it, with "The Underground Railroad", "Where Is Thy Sting", "A Touch of Healing", and "The Turning Point". It's the perfect lead-in to "Darkness Before Dawn".
Album 25: Darkness Before Dawn: I don't think anything needs to be said about the quality of this album, or the episodes therein. It speaks for itself.
Album 26: Back on the Air: "Hidden In My Heart" is silly, but that's okay, because it's a radio program inside a radio program -- not real events. I can't think of anything else that this album does that's wrong, except for "Easy Money", which basically tells us that gambling is okay, just as long as you know when to stop. Still, this period, in my mind, represents a high point in the Odyssey team's writing abilities -- from album 24 to 29, the vast majority of episodes are gold, and the plotting is more complex than in virtually any other point of Odyssey history.
Album 27: The Search for Whit: "What Are You Gonna Do With Your Life?" is silly. Likewise, "With A Little Help From My Friends" has a few weak points... most notably Courtney Vincent, a former protagonist, turning to the Dark Side over hamburgers.
Album 28: Welcome Home!: "The Right Choice" is Silly. With a capital S. "It's A Wrap" was a bad idea, and foreshadows the stories that're going to come up in the late 90s. Nevertheless, with "Clara", and "The Other Woman", you still have two great episodes to bail the rest of the album out.
Album 29: Signed, Sealed, and Committed: This album is split into two halves -- the last part of Odyssey's golden age, fighting for survival, and the silly, silly late '90s-style episodes. The conflict between these two sets the tone of this album and what is to come.
This has one of my all-time favorite three-parters in "For Whom The Wedding Bells Toll", and has some more good episodes with "The One About Trust" and "The Painting". Nevertheless, "Just Say Yes" is a little silly, "Best Face Forward" is also pretty silly, and "Viva La Difference" is very silly. Don't get me wrong, just because it's silly doesn't necessarily mean it's bad... but just wait and see what's coming up. The quality of episodes (QEP) generally goes down when the average silliness quotient (ASQ) is raised.
Album 30: Through Thick and Thin: "No Bones About It" is silly. Jephthah's Vow is yet another story that could have been great, if only it wasn't in OT Action News. "Poor Loser" is silly and probably would've been better to focus more on the volleyball angle. In fact, probably the vast majority of these episodes are pretty silly... they aren't necessarily bad yet, but we're getting there.
Album 31: Days to Remember: One of the last great Odyssey albums of this era, the silliness quotient is way down and there are no really obnoxious episodes in this entire collection.
Album 32: Hidden Treasures: Aside from the silly Mulligans and B-TV episodes, this is actually a good album; "Malachi's Message" is a nice, serious set of episodes, "Buried Sin" has some sting, and even Gloobers is a memorable jaunt. Better enjoy it, though, because after this album begins what most Odyssey fans will remember as the "Dark Ages"... if you aren't happy with my inability to find bad episodes in this post, don't worry because this next section is gonna be a shooting range.
-- 01 May 2011 01:58 pm --
Catspaw wrote:Bob, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but with a few of these, I'm not sure why your reason makes it a bad episode, or at least that I would disagree with your reason or point.
I know that not all of these episodes were really
bad episodes, per se, but for me, it's hard to find stuff to dislike about the older ones, and I needed to have something to tide everyone over until we get to some of the more obvious ones -- like the episodes in "Virtual Realities", or "My Favorite Things", which is a good ways after the Novacom saga.
Maybe this was the point?
Kids aren't always rational when they choose stuff to pick on people for. Being a little slow and a tad overweight could be all somebody needs display their meanspiritedness.
I agree that that probably was the goal, but frankly it doesn't seem that Charles gets a lot of support from the writing staff either, when even Chris refers to him as "Chunky" after the episode is over. I think his character could have been handled a little more sensitively... it's an issue of support. I don't mind his classmates tearing him up (since that probably is how it would work in real life), but I do think that the writers could have given him a little bit of help after the story was over, and there was no excuse for Eugene (an allegedly mature character) to go off on him the way he did either.
Bob wrote:How many times have people tried to help with good intentions but didn't have it work out the way they wanted it to? A lot. This episode isn't even about Whit as much as it is about the response of his friends to his heart attack.
I agree that it wasn't a terrible episode -- and that it even had a lot of stuff that was right with it. That said, though, I don't give sillier episodes as much leeway as other reviewers do, and I don't think you can honestly classify Best Intentions as being anything but silly.
That got longer than I expected it to
but anyway, some of the reasons that an episode in "bad" just didn't sit right with me. We all have differing opinions, but to me, there's a difference between "That was a terrible episode" and "That was a weaker episode."
It's no problem; all of my posts go on for ages.
A lot of these episodes, like I said, aren't terrible per sé -- but we don't get to a lot of the really bad ones until relatively late in the series' run, and I figure that we might as well cover some of the less publicized bad episodes too while we're at it. Just because it doesn't have bratty kids running amok like the Washington episodes, or because it isn't as obnoxiously pointless as Fairy Tale-e-vision, doesn't mean that it wasn't a bad episode in its time, and that it doesn't deserve a similar level of infamy.
I think that, in general, a lot of episodes are overrated -- there's a lot of different reasons for this, like nostalgia, or so. I don't think there's anything wrong with people looking at the older episodes with rose-colored glasses, on the whole, but if you're going to criticize them, it makes sense to go after all the episodes, not just the more recent ones.
No hard feelings here or anything; I just figured it might be interesting to dissect a few of the older episodes along with the newer ones (which I hope to post about very shortly).