Review: Push the Red Button

Andre Stojka, Will Ryan, and Zach Callison

At the end of the day, "Push the Red Button" is a difficult episode to review primarily because I know fans will have vastly different opinions of it. There are those who were familiar with,  and entertained by, the "25th Anniversary Birthday Bash" show in Texas that will enjoy owning this professionally recorded, abridged version. And then there are fans who will listen to it without ever knowing that a live show version ever existed. They're the ones I think will be confused and, ultimately, disappointed.

The episode starts off with Eugene is trying to unite all programs under one system - even though he's already learned the consequences of doing such a thing back in "A Bite of Applesauce". Meanwhile, Penny ventures off to find inspiration watching Michealangelo paint the Sistine chapel, and Wooton Bassett sets up a Captain Absolutely KYDS Radio adventure. At this point in the episode -- although there may have been too many story-lines for my liking -- I'm still involved and listening.

What happens next, I never would have imagined. You can imagine my surprise when the programs start to merge together in completely illogical ways. How on earth can KYDS Radio merge with the Imagination Station? Why is it that this merging affects Wooton Bassett's voice? And why is it that Imagination Station was affecting real-life historical events? The more I listened to the episode, the more my heart began to sank and the angrier I became. They ruined Odyssey...I started to think. They completely ruined it...

You see, I hadn't seen the live show or heard much about it before listening to "Push the Red Button". I didn't know what to expect at all. I should have been smart enough to think, This is a dream. I did hope it was a dream; however, there were simply no real clues to tell one way or another. After all, this is the same show that once let a goldfish narrate its own episode ("Sunset Bowlawater") so it was always in the realm of possibility that it would someday double dip into the bowl of ludicrousness again.

While Adventures in Odyssey is certainly allowed to have mindless fun every so often, the reason I believe "Push the Red Button" fails as an Adventures in Odyssey episode, is that it didn't properly frame its story. As some of you may know, framing is a literary technique used to set up a story-within-a story. It can be a useful tool in both literature and, in this case, audio drama.

Townsend Coleman, Jess Harnell, and Chris 

Adventures in Odyssey episodes that have border-lined on ridiculousness have succeeded through properly framing their story. "Mandy's Debut", for instance, was able to get away with having Whit slide across a waxed floor and Eugene getting electrocuted by placing those stories inside a stage-play setting. We weren't bothered by the moments of unrealism and preposterousness because we knew that those events weren't happening in real-life Odyssey.

Likewise, in "I Slap Floor", we could take comfort that Eugene probably hadn't really married Connie, or that Edwin Blackgaard hadn't really become engaged Margaret Faye, because facts were given second-handedly, through story form, which allowed us to automatically doubt the validity of Bernard's claims throughout the entire episode. Storytelling also worked wonders in episodes such as "Snow Day" and "Called on in Class", because, even though these moments are dramatized for us, we can automatically choose to dismiss the episode's unrealistic moments and, at the end of the day, attribute them as products of Alex Jefferson and Trent DeWhite's imaginations.

Because "Push the Red Button" holds off until the end of the episode to tell us these events were part of Wooton's dream, it never allows us the pleasure of enjoying the ridiculous moments and the wonderful voice acting as they happen. Instead, I was all too busy worrying about whether these events are real or not. Like those other sillier Adventures in Odyssey episodes, I would have preferred it if the story was told through someone's narration, or that the listener knew that it was a dream from the beginning.

Wouldn't that have taken away from the ending? Of course. However, as it is, "Push the Red Button" is like when your family decides to pretend to forget your birthday all day long until 11pm when they jump out and surprise you. You've spent the entire day moping around, feeling miserable, and thinking nobody love you for only a few minutes of redemption at the end. Likewise, the surprise ending in "Push the Red Button" is more of a sigh of relief.

I would have preferred it if they'd recorded the episode Live during the "25th Birthday Bash", along with the laughing audience, distancing this show completely from the show's cannon and providing it as more like a "500" or "Inside the Studio" or "Live at the 25" sort of episode. Not even Chris explains the context of the episode in the wrap-up, which would have been nice.

Dave Arnold tap dances.

As a re-creation of the live show, "Push the Red Button" also inadvertently strips away a lot of what made the live show work so well. Some of the original script's best gags were the visual ones -- watching the sound designers making sound effects out of simple items, seeing the actors interacting and laughing with each other, and watching their facial expressions as they'd disappear behind each ridiculous character. The story actually works wonders for a live audience, giving actors various situations to flex their vocal muscles. There's also a lot of great lines in there, too ("She's like melted butter on the croissant of life").

As an actual Adventures in Odyssey episode, I thought the story works only mildly well. Because I'm not watching it as a performance, I'm more focused on the story. I liked the overall message -- that inspiration can be found through prayer to God, but I was bothered by how Truth, Goodness, and Beauty was described using paintings, architecture, and good-looks. It never really discussed the meaning of those words in any real depth.

Again, someone not knowing about the live show will have a totally different experience from someone who does. In my opinion, there are more better, more entertaining ridiculous episodes out there -- such as "Wooton's Broken Pencil Show" and "A Thankstaking Story", more recently -- that both show off the voice actors' talents and provide us with a more suitable-for-radio story. Although, I wonder, how many of these kinds of episodes do we really need?

"Push the Red Button" will be enjoyed by younger listeners who enjoy hearing pure, mindless chaos featuring their favourite actors. There's certainly a group out there that likes that sort of thing. As a listener who enjoys hearing from the grounded, believable, and relatable town of Odyssey, this episode isn't my cup of tea. But, I'll be the first to admit, once you know the surprise of the end, the second and third listens are more, well...relaxing, than the first.

RATING:

Review: Home Again

It's January. It's time for you to head back to school. You're really excited about seeing your group of friends because you had such a blast with them last year -- the pranks you guys played, the chemistry you had, the overall group dynamic. However, this year, you noticed things have changed. Why? There's a new kid at school. She's started to hang out with you and has become "part of the gang". Your friends seem to like her, but things just don't feel the same anymore. For one thing, everything revolves around her now. And now you're wondering, "Why can't things just go back to the way they used to"?

This is how I felt while listening to "Home Again", the long-awaited episode about Jason's return to our lovable town of Odyssey. I was happy to hear that an old group of friends had finally gotten back together: Jason, Whit, Connie, Eugene, Joanne, Jack. I had even accepted that Wooton was now part of that gang, too. And as the episode starting rolling, it felt like old times. Unfortunately, the magic of the reunion was destroyed by the show awkwardly trying to stuff Penny Wise into it.

The biggest mistake this script made was giving Penny so much attention in an episode that should have focused on the people who knew and cared for Jason the most. Did Adventures in Odyssey populate the episode "Welcome Home" with characters like Jared, Cody, or Mandy? Of course not! It wisely brought in characters that had previously interacted with Whit and/or great stakes in his return. In the same way, "Home Again" should have made characters who were emotionally invested in Jason's return drive the action. I wouldn't have minded Penny's presence if she hadn't driven the action as much as she had.

You see, I couldn't really buy the character's motivations from the start. From the beginning, Penny asks Connie, "So, when do we see Jason? I don't think it's very nice of him to come back and hide under your nose. [...] I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you happened to drop by." Penny admits that she doesn't know who Jason is, yet continues to speak of him as if she does for the remainder of the episode. Since she had barely any interaction with Jason in the past -- and was even told by Connie not to go look for him-- I kept wondering why on earth she was so eager to go look for him throughout the entire episode. Was she simply bored? To me, this obsession rang false from the start.

You would have thought that an episode about re-introducing Jason back to the show would have made Jason the star of the episode. Honestly, the sub-plot involving Eugene and the diamonds evolved into something greater than I expected it to. And it turned out to be more distracting than entertaining. In an episode that was supposed to be about Jason returning to everyday life, I wondered why it was necessary to have him get entangled with another mystery -- especially since it had very little to do with the main story, at all. It felt like Jason's desire to rehabilitate into the world of Odyssey should have been its own one-parter episode while Eugene's crisis with the Karazinsky boys could have been its own thing.

So, forgetting everything else, what do I think of the Jason that is given to us? If you're a habitual reader of my reviews, you'll know I've often reviewed episodes featuring Jason with a degree of frustration. In my review of "The Green Ring Conspiracy", I wrote: 

As most fans may remember, what made Jason Whittaker such a strong, memorable character wasn't his run-ins with villains, or his Indiana Jones-like persona, but his need to suppress his inner recklessness. [...] we see how Jason's inability to see straight when his own emotions got in the way made him such a fascinating character. Whatever happened to his missionary gig? Why has Jason returned to being Agent Ethan Hunt in "No Way Out", "The Top Floor", and the atrocious "Accidental Dilemma"? More importantly, whatever happened to the conflicted Jason who once had to wrestle with his inner demons? 

A year later, in my review of "The Labyrinth", I wrote: 

I was looking forward to "The Labyrinth" because I expected the episode to finally explore Jason on a more intimate level than it had in the past 10 years since "Shining Armor" or "Sheep's Clothing". Once again, however, Jason's personal story arc wasn't touched upon in any way until the end of the episode once Agent Billings forces Grote inside the coffin and Jason is forced to talk with Dale about what happened. Up until this point in the episode, he's really just your one-dimensional action hero.

Time and time again, I've criticized the way Jason's character was been handled. It's not that I don't like the action-packed episodes, it's just that incessant action and little character development gets repetitive for over ten years. Although Jason yet again fails not to get involved in a sinister plot, we see how "Home Again" got things at least half-right; Jason literally had to struggle with "suppressing his inner recklessness" in the cabin while trying to spend time with God. These are nice scenes -- although, somewhat reminiscent of moments in "Solitary Refinement". At long last, I felt like I had gotten a glimpse of the old Jason we used to know and love, and now that he's armed with the keys to the J&J Antique shop, I'm sure we're going to witness all sorts of neat adventures in the upcoming years.

The episode's most memorable moment is certainly worth mentioning. "Home Again" signified the departure of characters Jack and Joanne, two of the show's greatest characters. It was bittersweet.  I assumed the reason Jack Allen was "off visiting relatives in Scotland" had something to do with the actor's availability; the truth is, Alan Young and Janet Waldo are getting older -- like we all are. The last scenes with all of the characters huddled around the phone is one I'll remember for a long time. Although I certainly hope this isn't the last time we hear form these two characters, it's a fitting end to their time on the show. After all, most departing characters don't get to have the luxury of even having an ending.

Having Jason, Jack, and Joanne together again helps us to ignore "Home Again"'s inadequacies. It's just too bad there are so many distracting bits that pull us away from getting to the meat of the episode. It's entertaining, and there are some nice moments here and there, but I found the finish line much more rewarding than the journey. At long last, welcome home, Jason!

RATING: 

Review: Groundhog Jay

The kids have carried this season. Although last season we mostly followed the escapades of Jason, Eugene, Katrina and Sergeant York, this season's most interesting characters have been Matthew Parker ("The Perfect Church"), Emily Jones, ("Great Expectations") and Barrett Jones ("For Three Dollars More"). Once again these kids have been given smart, relatable issues to deal with -- not the sort of insignificant problems they had back in "Take it from the Top". With Jay Smouse now at the helm, "Groundhog Jay" concludes the season's run of leading, full-fledged child protagonists.

Thinking back, a more appropriate title for this episode would have been "Smouse Code". If "The Eternal Birthday" was a knock-off of the 1993 film "Groundhog Day", then I'd say "Groundhog Jay" more closely resembles the 2011 film "Source Code". Much like today's episode, "Source Code" tells the story of a man forced to relive the same period of time over and over again while solving a mystery. Jay steps into Jake Gyllenhaal's shoes, wondering what this time-loop means for him. If I hadn't seen that movie before, I might have thought the idea of turning the "Groundhog Day" concept into a mystery was absolute genius. That said, seeing "Source Code" beforehand did not prevent me from appreciating the episode's strengths.

One of the things that made "Groundhog Jay" feel fresh was finding out that the mystery Jay Smouse had to solve was one in which he initially caused. If you think about it, there's plenty of logistical issues the writers had to figure out to make that work; for instance: how much of the action should take place before the actual episode, and how much should the listener know before Jay enters the Room of Consequence? How on earth do we get Priscilla -- a character solely needed for Jay to communicate his thoughts to -- to enter the Room of Consequence with him? What sort of "crime" does Jay commit, and how do we prevent characters like Harry from coming out and telling Jay outright what he did? From deciding that Harry thinks that Jay is Barrett the whole time, to deciding Jay that believes Barrett programmed the show for himself, there were so many details that they had to get right during the script-writing process. Though, in the end, the entire set-up and overall structure was very well done.

That said, I sometimes wish these high-concept episodes had matching high-concept stories. It wasn't until a few hours later that I wondered whether they could have created a larger pay-off than simply Jay stealing a bike. Don't get me wrong, I liked the ending, and I enjoyed it when Jay decided to set things straight with Harry; however, in same way the neat concept in "Someone to Watch over Me" matched the severity of Jimmy Barclay's situation, I wondered if the crime committed by the protagonist in "Groundhog Jay" should have felt bigger. I feel like complex, high-concept projects like this one automatically warrant a story with greater importance and/or significance.

The greedy overly-critical side of me felt like the writers were practising restraint. For one thing, I wondered whether they could have made this episode into a two-parter. The fun of the "Groundhog Day" and "Source Code" concept lies in witnessing the character reliving the same event over again, making different decisions, and interacting with people differently, either changing or repeating the outcome each time. Here, the only experience that Barrett was re-living was the birthday party -- a nod to "The Eternal Birthday", it seems -- and the arrival of the bully. That was it. For an episode which claims such strong ties to "Groundhog Day", the concept is used preciously little. In fact, it's almost abandoned at the halfway mark. A two-parter might have allowed the episode to have more fun with it.

Another concern -- and one I discussed in my review of "For Three Dollars More" --  is how Barrett Jones was able to orchestrate this whole mess. In other high-concept episodes such as "Gloobers", "Hindsight", and "Another Man's Shoes, I bought that Whit and Eugene took the time to program complex adventures in order to help kids learn valuable lessons. Can I really buy that Barrett was even partially behind the idea of creating this elaborate Room of Consequence adventure? Not really. Furthermore, I think there's also a danger in taking away "powers" of characters such as Whit and Eugene. Is Bruce Wayne really needed to save Gotham if all his tools/weapons are given to the boy wonder, Robin? Likewise, aren't we taking something taken away from the roles of Whit and Eugene if some 12 year old kid can suddenly program machines and teach other kids lessons? Yeah, I think so.

It's much easier to point out an episode's flaws, but what's certain to me is that "Groundhog Jay" is a courageous effort. This is a fun and engaging little episode. And while it doesn't quite embrace its concept as much as it could have, I found myself pulled in by its inventive story and humour.

RATING: