566: "A Most Extraordinary Conclusion"

[Laurie]

If you want these episodes on CD you can get them by calling Focus on the Family.

[Frodo]

If I remember right, they used to have a Bible verse which was what the whole thing was about at the end of each Odyssey. What happened to that?

[Jonathan]

If I remember right, they used to have a Bible verse which was what the whole thing was about at the end of each Odyssey. What happened to that?

Another thing I miss about the old Odyssey.

-Jonathan

[Frodo]

If I remember right, they used to have a Bible verse which was what the whole thing was about at the end of each Odyssey. What happened to that?

Another thing I miss about the old Odyssey.

-Jonathan

It's sad...

[Jeremy Cartwood]

I gave it four stars... for about the first 12 minutes I thought, "Really! Come on! So he tries to blast himself; there's only two outcomes. Either it works (not very climactic), or it doesn't work (what I was sure would happen). Like I thought, it didn't work, but I didn't expect God to come into it, and I'm very glad they made that a central focus of the last part, at least for 5 minutes. Well, yeah, at least my favorite character is back, even if he was acting pretty lame at first, he'll get back to his normal self soon enough.

[Jonathan]

Using technology to heal mental problems. And I'm not talking about modern medicinal technology, I mean using a machine to 'stimulate' memories from one person and having the second person view those memories. I might be off my focker, but that's toying with something we should leave to God, I believe that's going too far. In fact, I was greatly surprised Whit went along with it. And along those lines, aren't we toying with God's timing to do stuff like this? Where was the stuff saying God works on his own time (that we often can't see) and to trust him? That he was working through it for the ultimate good of Eugene and the gang (Romans 8:28, a verse often used in Odyssey)? Yes, we heard it eventually, but too late in my opinion.

I just thought of something. Wasn't this type of behavior^ comdemned the moment it was brought up in A Touch of Healing?

-Jonathan

[Me]

This episode, to me, was a mixture of good and bad. The first few scenes were good, the conversation with Tom, and everything after Eugene got out of the IS were excellent. The episode did, however, seem rushed. It also lacked some of the emotional impact it could have had. While there were many excellent scenes, the episode, overall, was sort of dissapointing. On the bright side, Eugene is back, and that is enough to give the ep 4 stars.

[Dr. Watson]

The prayer scene. It's been a long time since we've heard fervently and passionately pray like that, and I loved it. It was heart-warming, a relief after several episodes with virtually no mention of God in the midst of a crisis. When they came to the end of themselves, they fell to their knees.

Agreed! It seems like that recently, whenever the characters start to pray, the music fades in and the prayer fades out. We never get to hear them actually praying. It was heartning to hear the increased dependance on God in this episode.


Cheerio

[EugeneFan]

My review of the entire trilogy is now available at Eugene Forever.

[JesusFreak777]

Does anybody have an answer to my earlier question?

have a question I have been wanting to ask. At the very end of Exit, the last time we actually hear Eugene-although I'm sure it's pieced together like Whit's was in ...But not Fogotten-is on an answering machine,it seems that Eugene knows who Whit is and what happened. He also mentions returning to Odyssey, having many questions, and ends by calling Mr. Whittaker "Whit." so my question is, did all this happen before Eugene lost his memory, or wasthere a major goof?

[Jonathan]

Does anybody have an answer to my earlier question?

have a question I have been wanting to ask. At the very end of Exit, the last time we actually hear Eugene-although I'm sure it's pieced together like Whit's was in ...But not Fogotten-is on an answering machine,it seems that Eugene knows who Whit is and what happened. He also mentions returning to Odyssey, having many questions, and ends by calling Mr. Whittaker "Whit." so my question is, did all this happen before Eugene lost his memory, or wasthere a major goof?

I shall attempt to clear things up. First, Whit's lines were cut and paste in conversation in Gone. He was cut and pasted on the answering maching in The Time Has Come.

As for Eugene's lines, here is what happened. First off, you are correct, his lines were pieced together in Exit, as well as Plan B. This was due to the fact that Will Ryan wasn't available (and hadn't been for over 2 years at that point).

As for a 'goof', simply put, there is none. Eugene called Whit right after Andromeda was stopped. His exact words were:

"Greetings, Mr. Whittaker. It is I, Eugene. *sigh* Well, I'm certainly glad everything's settled. I, I blame myself for this mess, I really do. Somehow, it seems like it's part of a bigger plan, a greater purpose. I was just entertaining the idea of returning to Odyssey. Perhaps I will, one day, I can't honestly say. I'll explain later. Deep inside I have questions that only time may answer, and I expect to ask a lot of questions on this trip. So uh, farewell wherever you are, Whit."

Notice he says that he will explain later, and I hope in an upcoming episode this happens, as there are still unanswered questions. It will also give the series more continuity and make Eugene's disappearence seem like as big a deal as it was. You also mentioned that he called Mr. Whittaker Whit, and that might be b/c of memory loss. It was not, he was just being informal, saying good bye to his good friend.

Like I said, he called right after Andromeda was stopped. In our time, that was the summer of 2002. According to the last three eps, his memory was not lost until several years later, which for us would probably have been late 2004, early 2005.

All this to say, there was no goof.

-Jonathan

[Trent DeWhite]

Agreed! It seems like that recently, whenever the characters start to pray, the music fades in and the prayer fades out. We never get to hear them actually praying. It was heartning to hear the increased dependance on God in this episode.

Exactly what I said in my review (located on page 1):

Thumbs up to AIO for keeping the whole prayer and not cutting the scene off mid-prayer, which they have done in past episodes. While doing so was effective in past episodes, I appreciated the fact the writers didn't cut off Whit's prayer in this episode. If I remember correctly, we haven't heard a full prayer in quite a while. I was really wondering how Eugene would eventually be healed, and kudos to AIO for focusing more on the prayer as opposed to what the machine did.

[JesusFreak777]

thanks for clearing that up jon. I didn't hear the novacom stuff till it was on an album so I wasn't sure about the timeframe.

[Thursday Next]

Using technology to heal mental problems. And I'm not talking about modern medicinal technology, I mean using a machine to 'stimulate' memories from one person and having the second person view those memories. I might be off my focker, but that's toying with something we should leave to God, I believe that's going too far. In fact, I was greatly surprised Whit went along with it. And along those lines, aren't we toying with God's timing to do stuff like this? Where was the stuff saying God works on his own time (that we often can't see) and to trust him? That he was working through it for the ultimate good of Eugene and the gang (Romans 8:28, a verse often used in Odyssey)? Yes, we heard it eventually, but too late in my opinion.

I just thought of something. Wasn't this type of behavior^ comdemned the moment it was brought up in A Touch of Healing?

-Jonathan

What Jason was doing was not stimulating memories but having Zach imagine what it would be like to walk again and through the program and in his imagination Zach was able to "walk" again. Zach always had a hard time accepting his disability and would much rather have the instant gratification that the imagination station provided. The other person who experimented with the program was Jenny and it didn't work for her because she had pretty much learned to deal and accept her blindness.

I don't know if Whit would have been informed about what Jason had tried to do previously. The only other person who knew was Jack and as we all heard Jack and Jason were not included in this episode. However I'm not surpised that Whit went along with it.

For us longtime listeners I believe we have come to expect certain things from the characters. However these characters are still human and lible to mess up and misjudge. It was time for Whit to learn the lesson that Jason had learned a long time ago.

[Catspaw]

I'm glad that Eugene and Katrina are finally back, but it felt incomplete. I hope that the next several episodes give us more details about what's been happening and stuff. I loved the part at the end where Eugene wanted his ukulele! I was disappointed that we didn't actually get to hear him play, though.

I agree with some of the criticisms that have been made of these three episodes, but I also recognize that no matter how Eugene's return had been handled, there would be problems. We as fans have been waiting for this moment for so long that we've built up hopes and dreams about what could/should happen. There is no way that a real episode could live up to all of those expectations. While the episodes had their faults, I think that it's the future episodes, with the "real" Eugene, one who is himself again, that will be what we should have been looking forward to - not the return, but the regular presence of Eugene.

That said, I'd like to share an idea that I had thought of you Eugene's return. I had it all worked out: Eugene would return to AIO during Connie and Joanne's road trip! The reason that Mitch had seemed preoccupied during his letters and calls was because he was desperately working on a way to let Eugene and Connie meet for a while. Mitch understood how much Eugene meant to Connie, and wanted to use his time away from her to do something that would bring her joy. That was why he was in a hurry and acting distracted when Connie and Joanne meet him at his apartment - he was almost ready for Eugene and Connie to have a chance to talk! Then Mitch would ask Connie to meet him for lunch at the FBI training headquarters, and make sure that Eugene was on the elevator that Connie got on, and it would be a parrallel scene to the one in The Search for Whit. Connie and Eugene would get to talk, and Eugene would say stuff about where he'd been, and say an approximate time of when he could return to Odyssey. Then everyone would live happily ever after. Oh, the pipe dreams of the rabid fan! The way that AIO did it worked too!

[StupendousMan]

I'm really happy eugene's back and now I hope things can get back to semi-normal All I can say is, with eugene back the new episodes should be dramatically improved

[shasta]

It literally was a surprise! I cannot believe their weak writing, and all the times they wasted gem moments while drawing out nonsensical ones. The pathetic writing, and consequent lacking storyline especially floored me.

I thought this review was extremely unfair ... The expression "Missing the forest for the trees" comes to mind -- so caught in the details that you miss the wonder of what's there.

‘It’s Maude on the phone.”
This is the worst scene. It is worthless to storyline. It is not funny. It is not serious. It makes Bernard look like a half-wit, and his wife half that. Which is pretty bad. It also makes this episode, well, half-witted.

I loved this scene! Great way to get all the main characters involved, and tell exposition (which needed to be done) while still lending some humor to it. Cynicism gone overboard, perhaps?

don't trust whitsend.org promotions any more.

If Eugene coming back isn't "Something Big", I don't know what is. Gotta love how easy it is to be negative.

-shasta

[Jonathan]

I think the point is the 8 week promotion raised everyone's hopes to an un-realistic level. From the beginning I questioned the wisdom of such a move, and the result is reactions like this. Yes, Eugene returning is something big, but it would've been much more of a shock if the 8 week promotion hadn't happened.

-Jonathan

[Flyah]

Well said

[Me]

Indeed, but it was still worth some of the hype.