I'm sorry for my nearly two months of absence but you know how time school is- time consuming. And this blog isn't at the top of my priority list right now. So, what has AIO been up to meanwhile? Not much. I suppose we are just in the lull between two albums. Yes, there have been a few repacks, and some podcasts, but nothing very exciting.
  It's needless to say that I will not continue with the album reviews for "Clanging Cymbals and the Meaning of God's Love" But here are a few bits of information of my favorite and least favorite episodes (Not to say that I don't like them, but I have to be a little bit critical right?) and overall rating.

Favorite Episodes: You're Too Kind
                               Never for Nothing
                               How to Sink a Sub

Least Favorite Episodes: Forgiving More... or less
                                        Anger Mismanagement

Overall rating: 93%

"The Deep End" Album Cover

  The cover for "The Deep End" was released several days ago. It looks a bit weird to me. Whit is the only one who looks normal, but it looks like they put the original drawing of Whit and stuck him in the water. The other characters look strange; Connie's eyes look much too large for the size of her face, and Eugene looks just plain creepy.
  I must however give them credit for originality, there hasn't ever been an album cover where the characters were swimming. It will definitely stand out, and so do the vibrant colors. But in the end the album cover really isn't what matters, it's what we hear in the episodes. So, I am still hoping the best for this album.

 

Reveiw: The Amazing Loser

Summary:

When Whit's End sponsors a band camp, Matthew, Jay, and Barrett compete in a musical scavenger hunt.

Review:

This episode to me was enjoyable; still not my favorite in the album, but I liked it fine. It was very detailed with all of the extremely complex clues for the scavenger hunt and we got to learn something about the geography of the "new Odyssey". The episode had to require much music knowledge from the writers that were involved. I'm very surprised that so many of the kids in Odyssey are so musically talented, I mean those clues and questions are not something that your average kid-who-plays-an-instrument would know. I have played the flute for six years and I had no idea what the answers were to any of those questions, but then again music is by all means not my forte.

  Has anyone else noticed that bullies, or Odyssey bullies at least, always call kids by their last name? Such as Jay calling Barrett, Jones rather than Barrett, and calling Matthew, Parker rather than Matthew;  just as Rodney used to call Alex, Jefferson. Just an observation.

  I just listened to "Game for a Mystery" for the first time in a long time, and I cannot believe how different Barrett’s voice sounds. It must have been a little gradual, because I didn't think it was that big of a difference before, but now it sounds like a totally different person. At first I wasn't too sure whether I liked it or not but now I am. It sounds so much better. If you haven’t listened to "Game for a Mystery" in a while I would recommend going back and taking note of how different his voice sounds.

  All through the episode it was predictable. I could tell that somehow Barrett was going to win, at the end I was wondering how, when the odds seemed to be so much against him, but I knew that justice would prevail as it always does in Odyssey.

I was very surprised to see Matthew and Jay paired up although I'm sure Jay wasn't Matthew’s first choice. In fact I was surprised to see Matthew there at all, and doing so well since Emily said in "Stage Fright" that she and Matthew didn't have musical talent. But with Matthews’s knowledge about seemingly everything and by reading the music book, I guess he would do well.

  So yes, in all this episode was very enjoyable and entertaining.

Rating: 4/5



Review: "A Penny Saved"

"A Penny Saved" wasn't the episode that I was expecting it to be. It was something that gave us a sort of resolution to the previous album. I think it was probably to hold us over and keep our minds somewhat on the story line of the "Green Ring Conspiracy," since we will be continuing that story line later on next year.

I was expecting that it would be covering the false Christianity that Penny and Dr. Trask were a part of, but I guess that we will have to assume that they got that sorted out in between the lines. Rather than being saved in matters of salvation she was saved in that she was given a place to live.

There was also the return of two characters that I wasn't expecting. There was Ted Humpfries, a news reporter and Detective Polehaus. I am assuming that these characters will be as others have previously, they will show up every once in a while, but enough so that we will view them as consistently occurring characters.

In "Wooton Knows Best," Wooton was more of a wise/extremely odd person that he used to be, but again he went back to his rambling that serves as more of a distraction than a help or a character. He sounded like just background noise that added clatter to the scene.

When I heard the plot of the story starting to close my thoughts were, "That was an episode?" It didn't seem like there was much to it. It left me not knowing what happened, I mean Penny was lost and then they found her, it seemed like there should be more to it than that. I wasn't sure of what the moral was either; so I looked it up on the back of my album and it said, "Love always protects." I guess it is fitting, Connie and Wooton were showing Penny love by looking out for her, it might not be strong but it fits.

Rating: 2.5/5

Review: Wooton Knows Best

Summary:

Wooton needs a camp assistant and Olivia Parker and Matthew Parker compete to be Wooton's What-A-Nut Camp assistant. Wooton doesn't know who will be his camp assistant so he says he's going to give them a test, and whoever succeeds with the test will be his camp assistant. So Wooton takes Olivia and Matthew to Sunday school for kids to show them what they are going to do being doing: listening to kids and answering their questions.

Review:

The episode "Wooton Knows Best" was simple, having only one conflict through out the story, rather than the normal two, but at the same time was attention holding and age appropriate, giving kids entertainment and a lesson at the same time. Last season it seemed like sometimes  the episodes were geared more for entertainment than the moral value.

  Kelly Stables who also voiced Jill Segler has started to play Olivia. I actually didn't notice until half way through the episode. So obviously there are only subtle differences in their voices, and honestly I don't have a preference between the two, but I think that she is a good replacement.

I enjoyed Woonton a lot more, than in albums 51-53. He was absolutely ridiculous as he normally is,telling the chicken stories, but he also showed that he had wisdom, like he did previous to album 51.

In the end, Olivia did get to meet Melissa Siphers, and in my opinion she sounds like she made a complete fool out of herself. By screaming and freaking out, it sounded kind of weird to me.

Rating: 4/5