610: "Hear Me, Hear Me"

Episode Reviews -- Spoilers inside!

Archived reviews of Adventures in Odyssey episodes!

What'd you think?

5 stars: Dearest, loveliest El--I mean, Episode
3
8%
4 stars: How many ways are there to say great?
12
32%
3 stars: The good, the bad, and the beautiful...or just somewhere in between
13
34%
2 stars: I've got a bad feeling about this
8
21%
1 star: Any choice is better than this!
2
5%
 
Total votes: 38

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snowflake
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Post by snowflake »

i agree about wooton and evelyn..."that was seven!" lol

the ep was okay, but not one of the best...not as bad as some of ya'll are making it out to be though, i don't think
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dsheets
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Post by dsheets »

What's up with Eugene? Doesn't he have a family and a ministry to take care of? In my opinion, Eugene needs to spend more time with his wife and less time with Connie. Katrina should be with Eugene when he's talking to Connie. "I Slap Floor" was confusing enough. We don't need something like that now that Eugene's married. Evelyn also drove me crazy, though the conversation (or lack thereof) with Wooton was great. I think it would have been funnier to have Bernard and Connie having the argument and Eugene judging the science fair--dropping Evelyn and Whit's characters completely. If it weren't for the odd assemblage of characters, I think this would've been a great show.
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Oba-rai
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Post by Oba-rai »

dsheets wrote:What's up with Eugene? Doesn't he have a family and a ministry to take care of? In my opinion, Eugene needs to spend more time with his wife and less time with Connie. Katrina should be with Eugene when he's talking to Connie. "I Slap Floor" was confusing enough. We don't need something like that now that Eugene's married. Evelyn also drove me crazy, though the conversation (or lack thereof) with Wooton was great. I think it would have been funnier to have Bernard and Connie having the argument and Eugene judging the science fair--dropping Evelyn and Whit's characters completely. If it weren't for the odd assemblage of characters, I think this would've been a great show.
I agree about Eugene and Connie conversations. It always gives me a weird feeling when Eugene, who is most definitely married, talks with Connie as though he's not. Not that it's bad or something, but ... yeah. Katrina deserves more existence in these episodes as well.
Maybe I should transcribe the episode, rewrite it, and send it to AIO. ;)
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Ruthie
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Post by Ruthie »

The ending conversation between Eugene and Katrina was very strange for me- I expected to hear an expression of "I love you.". Which- isn't good. :noway:


I don't mind the other conversations, the bickering and what-not, but I do think Katrina should be included in a bit more. Does she simply stay home all day creating spectacular bake-goods?

When I first heard Trent- I thought, "Hey! His voice is changing!". I like his voice now---it got annoying before. :anxious:

I really hope Trent doesn't leave though, I enjoy him as a character. He's taken the place of Jared nicely in my mind. :)

I enjoyed this episode...sort of... :-k

Because, I thought it was comical to have the 'old' Eugene and Connie bickering back, but I also thought that it did degrade their character development. This wasn't quite as 'kiddish' as say- Fairy-Tale-E-Vision (ugh) but, it was geared more toward the younger audience.
I'm afraid I have to say that this was a failed attempt by Focus on the Family to bring back the 'old' Odyssey. This isn't the 'old' Odyssey. :noway: Bennet sums it up nicely:
Bennet wrote:I think the writers mis-understood the fans. When we said, "We want Odyssey to be back like what it was when it was Old", we didn't mean Connie and Eugene being behind the counter bickering like the old days, with no other employees.
I also agree readilty with Bennet on another point- the music has gotten increasingly 'bouncy', and that is something that I am beginning to detest. :anxious:

I'm anxiously awaiting "The Top Floor", I'm hoping it will be more of an 'adult' episode than this one was.

All in all, Two stars out of Five. **/*****
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Jonathan
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Post by Jonathan »

dsheets wrote:"I Slap Floor" was confusing enough.
heh, well, I don't know if I would compare the two. I Slap Floor was before Katrina and Eugene were married, and it was so outrageous it had to be fake.

To use a really old term, I was so wigged out the first time I listened to it I felt dumb when I got to the end and realized it wasn't real ;)
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Post by Ruthie »

Jonathan wrote:
dsheets wrote:"I Slap Floor" was confusing enough.
heh, well, I don't know if I would compare the two. I Slap Floor was before Katrina and Eugene were married, and it was so outrageous it had to be fake.

To use a really old term, I was so wigged out the first time I listened to it I felt dumb when I got to the end and realized it wasn't real ;)
I agree- you cannot really compare the two. One, because Eugene and Katrina weren't together, but also two, it was in the context of 'old' Odyssey. When, it was the norm for Connie and Eugene to be like that.

Jonathan, don't worry, I was wigged out the first time I heard it too. ;)
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H Tide
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Post by H Tide »

From hearing the previews, I thought I'd enjoy this episode more than I did. I was eager when hearing about Connie and Eugene's game show. But I was disappointed to hear how they kept bickering throughout the episode. If they had just stayed with the game show the whole way, I would've liked it more, rather than them calling off the game, and then calling it back on again. I did enjoy the Trent/Liz storyline, although it was rather simple. But Trent's imagination scenes did made me laugh. Finally, I thought the Whit/Evelyn part was unnecessary. Yes, it was important for Whit to make a speech about listening, but I don't think they needed such an over-the-top character like Evelyn.

Overall I'd give this episode three-and-a-half stars out of five stars. I enjoyed it, but I thoguht it could've been a lot better.
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Post by KODY 105 »

I liked this episode for the (somewhat) funny game show contest Eugene and Connie participated in. Wooton's fitting seven words between Evelyn's was funny as well. Overall though, this episode gets old after five playbacks. Wooton needs to show more serious characteristics. In this episode, he only was goofy. I'd rather see him when he is serious, such as in "Wooing Wooton." 4/5 jars of tabasco sauce
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Post by acbulldog57 »

I really enjoyed this episode. It reminds of some of the earlier episodes where Eugene and Connie always fought and i think that the ending was really well put together and emotional. I think that there could have been a little more development to certain aspects of the show but altogether i give it a strong 4/5. By the way Wooton would make an awesome game show host.
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Post by TigerintheShadows »

EDIT: Review that is actually sensible.

I agree with those who discussed the lack of character development; all three storylines went nowhere for the characters. The thing about learning a lesson is that it should actually apply to the characters. We should see them begin to grow and learn from their mistakes--within the episode short-term, in later episodes long-term. This episode did not accomplish that.

All that needs to be said for the Whit/Evelyn storyline is that it was wholly unnecessary and did nothing for either character. Evelyn did have some short-term development at the end when she realized that she had interrupted Whit with her incessant chattering, but is that really of any consequence when you're dealing with a one-shot character about whose development no one will care? (Speaking of which, if Evelyn's husband "uses masking tape" to shut her up, shouldn't she have recognized by that point that she had a problem and been working to rectify it?)

The Connie/Eugene story was okay on its own, but as far as character development is concerned it was most certainly a regression. As Bennett and Jonathan both remarked, Connie and Eugene have become very close friends, almost like siblings--they've earned each others' respect and have put their days of childlike bickering behind them. Why, then, are they arguing over who's the better listener? Fortunately, the continuity nods, Wooton's antics, and the scene between them at the end make up for the quality of the story itself, but it's like they're character-development bungee jumping--they're at the top of the development canyon, and the ravine at the bottom is their original states; they've jumped off the top, hit their original selves, and sprung right back up again at the end of the episode. Any amateur character writer will tell you that this is hardly the way to write developed characters, and you have to respect the development through which a character has gone before you write them--the writers are now more limited in the sense that they have to write stories that respect Connie and Eugene's sibling-like bond of understanding one another, rather than simply tossing the two into a circumstance and letting them bicker it out like they used to.

On to the Trent/Liz storyline. Now, anyone on here who knows me knows that I absolutely adore Trent DeWhite. He's intelligent and a bit socially awkward, fairly witty, kind-hearted, and a loyal friend. So why is the kid who hated the fact that he had to lie to Mandy about the valentine he delivered to her suddenly disrespecting Liz's instructions and lying to her about it? Why is a focused student who is known to care more about getting a job done diligently than about his own glory suddenly fantasizing about the attention paid to him in a grossly unrealistic situation?

EDIT: The above is now redacted. Yeah, I love Trent DeWhite, but I love him as a well-rounded character, and well-rounded characters sometimes act in ways that we don't like—they're not always perfect, straight, predictable lines of character (because people don't always act in perfect, straight, predictable lines). His behavior, while still kind of weird and cringe-y, is at least consistent with his tendency to wander off into his own little world, and he's been known to be disrespectful to people he's supposed to be deferring to in the past (see "Think on These Things"), so I'm actually cool with it now. I love this character, and as a result, I want him to be flawed and three-dimensional, especially since the above criticism seemed to be under the impression that he was behaving this way intentionally when he wasn't.

And that aside, on a practical level, if Trent is really so off in his own little world that he can't even pay attention to what Liz has to say, wouldn't she have done more than to take him at his word when he says he's heard what she said, especially after he already screwed up the first time? It was out of character for both of them--and both of these characters deserve better.

Now, as a standalone episode, I'll listen to it again. The game show thing was really funny at times, and Wooton trying to get four words past Evelyn was one of the highlights of the episode. In terms of character development, though, it's pretty poor. I mean, if you stripped away the continuity nods from the game show, all of the characters with the exception of Whit and Wooton are just generic shells. There's nothing in Trent to make him act like Trent, Liz could be anyone who doesn't like someone drifting off while they're talking, and Connie and Eugene could be any pair of bickering siblings--they could have been replaced by, say, Marvin and Tamika and there would be little difference development-wise. An episode in a continuity heavy show that only respects previous events and not previous development is not a very good episode of a show with a long-standing history.
Last edited by TigerintheShadows on Thu May 05, 2016 10:41 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Woody
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Post by Woody »

Connie and Eugene pitted against each other is always funny. =D> Eugene accidentally calling Connie fat is funny. :lolsign: http://thetoo.com/posting.php?mode=smilies&f=68#
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