Episode Description:
"After seeing the popularity of Valerie’s homespun music, Jules decides to start writing her own songs about what’s going on at her school. Soon a musical battle heats up between the two girls, catching friends in the crossfire."
Episode Review:
When I was young, I was known as the person who always had a story to tell as soon as I entered the front-door. According to others, I was able to observe something interesting happening throughout the day and turn that observation into a good story. In recent years, however, I started noticing a lot of my stories stopped being about my real-world experiences, but started to reflect what I was experiencing online -- about news articles I’d read, or youtube videos I’d seen. As a result, I’ve started to feel like a bit less of an interesting person. That’s sorta how I feel about what’s been happening on Adventures in Odyssey: in turning its attention from making observations about everyday life to making observations about online lives, they’re creating episodes that are far less interesting.
Sadly, “For a Song” is one of those uninteresting episodes. For much of its running time, characters are jabbering about their desires to post songs on “facespace”, about “clicks” and “growing viewership”, and about stolen smartphones and passwords. The episode even has its central conflict resolved by having Buck summarize Facespace’s terms and condition page. This isn’t exactly the sort of content I hope to hear when I turn on an Adventures in Odyssey episode. And while it could be argued that Jules and Valeries’ pursuit of “views” is a struggle that “everyday people” experience these days -- and is, therefore, “more relatable” -- it can also be argued that huge segments of the population aren’t wrapped up in the online world and those people will think -- as I do -- “this is all pretty boring stuff.”
This stories’ heavy reliance on social media might not have bothered me so much if it didn’t also feel like everyone on Odyssey is talking about the internet all the time -- in one episode, Jay has a food blog, in the next, Connie is worried about her crowd-funding campaign, and in the next, Olivia is trying to increase her video views. Remember how the show preached against over-relying on technology in “Time of Our Lives”, “My Girl Hallie”, and “Gloobers”? And whatever happened to characters -- like Tom, Bernard, and Connie -- who couldn't even turn on a computer? In the same way that The Andy Griffith Show was a contemporary show in the 1960s that evoked life from the 1930s, Adventures in Odyssey, in its early days, also evoked a small town from an earlier decade -- and I think it’s quickly losing that old-town charm by having so many of its characters becoming increasingly, episode after episode, wrapped up in these digital-heavy storylines.
The show just can’t have it both ways. It can’t make social media such a large part of episodes, then, every so often, throw in an episode that says “your social media goals shouldn’t overshadow your friends”. If it truly wants younger people to turn off its screens, then it should lead by example and 1) provide us with fewer storylines that involve social media, and 2) provide us with fewer parent-characters that seem so oblivious to their kids' uses of it . Think about it. Parents -- or any grownups for that matter -- are totally absent in “For a Song”. This doesn’t reflect reality -- where a large reason parents encourage their kids to listen to Odyssey is because they don’t want their kids to be glued to screens all the time.
But in its attempt to craft an episode that feels “au courant”, it fails to even create characters that remotely feel true-to-life. One of the most unrealistic moments happens when a character named Savannah talks about her experiences listening to Jules’ music. “I played it over and over [...] I feel like you played it just for me. Thank you for writing that song [...] I felt like I wasn’t the only one [...] I was afraid to let anyone know [...] But I feel like I can trust you.” Really? Does anyone in real life actually talk that way? Was Jules’ song that good? The show wasn’t even poking fun at Savannah -- we’re actually supposed to believe this is the way she felt. But all Jules did was write a song that contained the lyrics “The best you’ll get is another “C”. Perhaps I’m just cynical, but there were several times where the dialogue felt too hyperbolic and introspective for AIO.
From its unrealistic-sounding characters, to its musical fame-centered plot, “For A Song” felt like this was a recycled script from some other show. In fact, you could’ve taken this script word-for-word, changed the characters’ names, and it would have fit in seamlessly within any of the dozens of already existing kids shows on Disney+ or Netflix. There was very little about it, both regarding substance and worldview, that felt distinctly Odyssey-like. There weren’t even any self-proclaimed Christian characters in this episode (perhaps a first for Odyssey). It all felt rather hollow and without meaningful substance.
I was once told that there was an unwritten rule in Hollywood that big budget studio films should try to keep the presence of cellphones/smartphones to a minimum. The reason for this is because studios know that people are so glued to their phones in real life that, deep down, they don’t want to be reminded of their own addictions during -- what should be -- a time of escapism. I think Adventures in Odyssey should follow a similar rule when writing their own scripts. No matter how “common” or “relatable” storylines about “social media feuds” may seem to today’s youth, they won’t provide them with any semblance of joy when hearing about it. Rather, it’s just a reminder of how their favorite characters’ lives have become as uneventful as their own.
"After seeing the popularity of Valerie’s homespun music, Jules decides to start writing her own songs about what’s going on at her school. Soon a musical battle heats up between the two girls, catching friends in the crossfire."
Episode Review:
When I was young, I was known as the person who always had a story to tell as soon as I entered the front-door. According to others, I was able to observe something interesting happening throughout the day and turn that observation into a good story. In recent years, however, I started noticing a lot of my stories stopped being about my real-world experiences, but started to reflect what I was experiencing online -- about news articles I’d read, or youtube videos I’d seen. As a result, I’ve started to feel like a bit less of an interesting person. That’s sorta how I feel about what’s been happening on Adventures in Odyssey: in turning its attention from making observations about everyday life to making observations about online lives, they’re creating episodes that are far less interesting.
Sadly, “For a Song” is one of those uninteresting episodes. For much of its running time, characters are jabbering about their desires to post songs on “facespace”, about “clicks” and “growing viewership”, and about stolen smartphones and passwords. The episode even has its central conflict resolved by having Buck summarize Facespace’s terms and condition page. This isn’t exactly the sort of content I hope to hear when I turn on an Adventures in Odyssey episode. And while it could be argued that Jules and Valeries’ pursuit of “views” is a struggle that “everyday people” experience these days -- and is, therefore, “more relatable” -- it can also be argued that huge segments of the population aren’t wrapped up in the online world and those people will think -- as I do -- “this is all pretty boring stuff.”
This stories’ heavy reliance on social media might not have bothered me so much if it didn’t also feel like everyone on Odyssey is talking about the internet all the time -- in one episode, Jay has a food blog, in the next, Connie is worried about her crowd-funding campaign, and in the next, Olivia is trying to increase her video views. Remember how the show preached against over-relying on technology in “Time of Our Lives”, “My Girl Hallie”, and “Gloobers”? And whatever happened to characters -- like Tom, Bernard, and Connie -- who couldn't even turn on a computer? In the same way that The Andy Griffith Show was a contemporary show in the 1960s that evoked life from the 1930s, Adventures in Odyssey, in its early days, also evoked a small town from an earlier decade -- and I think it’s quickly losing that old-town charm by having so many of its characters becoming increasingly, episode after episode, wrapped up in these digital-heavy storylines.
The show just can’t have it both ways. It can’t make social media such a large part of episodes, then, every so often, throw in an episode that says “your social media goals shouldn’t overshadow your friends”. If it truly wants younger people to turn off its screens, then it should lead by example and 1) provide us with fewer storylines that involve social media, and 2) provide us with fewer parent-characters that seem so oblivious to their kids' uses of it . Think about it. Parents -- or any grownups for that matter -- are totally absent in “For a Song”. This doesn’t reflect reality -- where a large reason parents encourage their kids to listen to Odyssey is because they don’t want their kids to be glued to screens all the time.
But in its attempt to craft an episode that feels “au courant”, it fails to even create characters that remotely feel true-to-life. One of the most unrealistic moments happens when a character named Savannah talks about her experiences listening to Jules’ music. “I played it over and over [...] I feel like you played it just for me. Thank you for writing that song [...] I felt like I wasn’t the only one [...] I was afraid to let anyone know [...] But I feel like I can trust you.” Really? Does anyone in real life actually talk that way? Was Jules’ song that good? The show wasn’t even poking fun at Savannah -- we’re actually supposed to believe this is the way she felt. But all Jules did was write a song that contained the lyrics “The best you’ll get is another “C”. Perhaps I’m just cynical, but there were several times where the dialogue felt too hyperbolic and introspective for AIO.
From its unrealistic-sounding characters, to its musical fame-centered plot, “For A Song” felt like this was a recycled script from some other show. In fact, you could’ve taken this script word-for-word, changed the characters’ names, and it would have fit in seamlessly within any of the dozens of already existing kids shows on Disney+ or Netflix. There was very little about it, both regarding substance and worldview, that felt distinctly Odyssey-like. There weren’t even any self-proclaimed Christian characters in this episode (perhaps a first for Odyssey). It all felt rather hollow and without meaningful substance.
I was once told that there was an unwritten rule in Hollywood that big budget studio films should try to keep the presence of cellphones/smartphones to a minimum. The reason for this is because studios know that people are so glued to their phones in real life that, deep down, they don’t want to be reminded of their own addictions during -- what should be -- a time of escapism. I think Adventures in Odyssey should follow a similar rule when writing their own scripts. No matter how “common” or “relatable” storylines about “social media feuds” may seem to today’s youth, they won’t provide them with any semblance of joy when hearing about it. Rather, it’s just a reminder of how their favorite characters’ lives have become as uneventful as their own.
Writer: Abigail Geiger
Director: Nathan Hoobler
Producer: Dave Arnold
Post-Production: Nathan Jones
Music: John Campbell
Scripture: Philippians 2:3
Original Air-date: 10/24/2020
Date Reviewed: 10/26/2020