Reviews
for
"The Malted Milkball
Falcon"
[#677]
*All
ratings are based on a 5 star scale unless otherwise noted.
Review by aiofan
Rating:
I LOVED THIS!,things i liked:,-that Emily
seemed human not perfect ,-that Jay and Pricilla were in
it,-the story was one of the best of 52,-the characters
seemed more like the old characters,-i liked the line about
the movie being unrealistic because the ship could not have
survived the attack from the jelly monster, Things i
disliked:,-i have heard all the kidsboro boy characters but
this would have been a good episode for Valerie to be in.,
,over all i would give this 5 out of 5.
Review by Bob (Town of
Odyssey)
Rating:
Without revealing too much of
the plot, the premise of the episode is that several of the
Odyssey kids (Matthew Parker, Emily and Barrett Jones, Jay,
Priscilla Peterson, and Nelson) are going to do an all-night
Rockathon for an orphan charity. As an extra incentive for
the kids to do a good job, the pastor has bought a piñata in
the shape of a falcon, and filled it with bags of milkballs,
with one stipulation: To take a swing at the falcon, you
must have been awake all night. By the end of the night,
however, the milkballs have all gone missing! Emily wants to
investigate, in spite of Mr. Whittaker's request that they
all come back in the afternoon, after everyone's had some
rest, and settle matters then.
This takes the basic premise
of the detective agency episodes and neatly subverts it, by
the same method that one of Agatha Christie's most unusual
stories is renowned for. It offers up a truly interesting,
and seemingly impossible crime -- I was genuinely eager to
find out how someone could steal a piñata's worth of
milkballs, and not be detected, even when they're in a room
full of people to observe the crime. This episode also
teaches a message that the listener never would've seen
coming, with just what they know from the beginning.
All of the characters have their moments to shine. I once
said that Matthew Parker was the "useless sidekick", but now
I think I might have perceived things the wrong way; he's
really more of an unwilling sidekick. He simply doesn't
strike me as being as passionate about the entire
crime-solving gig as Emily is. It seems more like he's just
in it because, for whatever reason, he considers her to be
one of his best friends, and it's something she wants to do.
Emily is passionate, as usual, to solve the mystery, but
once again, like in "Square One", her own failings prevent
her from coming to the right conclusion.
When I first saw Jay on the show, I figured he was just a
stereotypical bully, but now that he's actually appeared in
several episodes, I can see that they have something
different in mind for him...here he appears to be just "one
of the guys". While his seemingly random accusations are
over the top, that's perfectly fine; I get the idea he
wasn't entirely serious about everything he said. Jay's
niche in the show right now seems to be comic relief.
Barrett is his usual, average-guy self. I'm not sure his
voice is entirely the same as it was in some of the last few
episodes, but it was still basically recognizable.
Mr. Whittaker plays a key part in this episode, and cleverly
traps the children into confronting their failure. I was
overall very pleased with how they wrote him in this
episode, and with Andre Stojka's performance. While it's
true that Andre doesn't sound a lot like Hal Smith, Katie
Leigh was right in that he seems to have a lot of the same
spirit, and I think that anyone who judges him based solely
on the fact that his voice isn't a carbon clone of Hal's or
Paul's could be making a big mistake.
Nelson is shaping into a great new character. When I first
heard Kidsboro, I thought, "Great, another throw-away three-parter
that will never be of use to Odyssey again, just like
Passages", but the Odyssey team's done a great job of
merging the Kidsboro characters in to the town of Odyssey.
Finally, Priscilla Peterson is the subject of the one
complaint I have to make about the episode...when I first
heard her voice, I didn't initially catch that she was a
distinct character from Camilla or Olivia Parker, to the
point where I wondered why Matthew and Emily had to climb
her tree to talk to her -- since she's Matthew's sister, he
ought to be able to see her any time. It was only after I
realized that her name was different that it came to me who
she really was. While I admit I should have been more
observant, the fact is that this wouldn't have happened with
any of the old female child characters; Melanie Jacobs is
clearly distinguishable from Robyn, or Lucy, or Donna. It
would be nice to see the Odyssey team try a little harder in
the future to make the girls sound more distinct -- except
for Emily; they've done fine with her so far.
All in all, a strong episode, that highlights a lot of
what's right with this new take on Odyssey. While I'm
reluctant to pass out high ratings -- I don't think this is
equal to, say, Clara, or a lot of other old episodes that I
would give a rating of 5, I do think that it is better than
Square One, which I gave a 4.
Therefore, we get 5/5. If it was a scale of 0-99, it might
be more like 85/99
Review by EMBEE (Town of
Odyssey)
Rating:
I thought this episode was
great. I loved the whole idea of the Rock-a-thon. In some
ways, it reminded me of the lock-ins that we have with my
youth group. Jay is becoming one of my favorite new kid
characters. I thought this episode was very well written.
Review by Marvin D. (Town
of Odyssey)
Rating:
(out of 10)
This was an...interesting case
to say the least. The rockathon was a cool idea. I've heard
of jumpathons before, but never this. It actually sounds
fun, in theory. *in a Matthew voice* I'd sleep through the
whole day. The scene where Jay and Barrett and the guys were
watching the movie seemed like sometime familiar to me. I
don't know why, just because.
I happened to see a remark about this episode being similar
to "Broken Window". I didn't make the connection that it was
similar to what Whit had done earlier (namely, steal the
candy and see what the others would do). I figured that out,
at the end. Genius.
I'll be a little briefer on this episode. Whit seemed like
the more normal Whit, probably because it was similar to
what he did previously. I really enjoyed that aspect,
though.
I'm glad we're not going to kick out characters like Nelson
and Priscilla though--it's nice to have characters stick
around instead of using them for one or two episodes and
kicking them out (like Tony and Erica in the Novacom saga).
I hope we hear more of them, even though I think Priscilla
sounds a little...upper class? for her age. Maybe it's just
me.
And about Matthew, I really wish we'd hear him helping Emily
a bit more. He seems almost as though he absolutely detests
it, and is really just...thrown in for it. Either let him
help, or let him go through the back door, imo.
Emily, as usual, is always raring for another case. A little
annoying, at times. There's no need to make a full-blown
problem on this, is there? And because of this, the wrong
person is blamed. I did enjoy the twist ending, however.
There were a few clues in the episode which led to my
figuring out that it might be not what we thought it was.
Namely that everyone was asleep, and even Jay admitted to
it. But, I didn't put two and two together (to equal four)
and figured it out. Sad for me.
In the conclusion, it turns out Jay's finally told the
truth! Huzzah! He's done the good deed. *pats Jay* It won't
last long, kiddo. Moral? Rather simple. I wish Nelson had
told the whole truth instead of not telling everything. All
in all, this was a nice story, better than I expected.
Review by Mrs Jason
Whittaker (Town of Odyssey)
Rating:
I liked this one. Made me
hungry for maltballs.
I don't like rockathons...just saying. If you're going to
sponsor a child to do something by the hour, why not make it
something productive, like nursing home visitations, or
baking cookies for an elementary class. But rocking? Ok, I'm
off the soap box now.
It was a fun mystery with a twist at the end. It also made a
good point.
And I'm beginning to really like Jay. Not your average
bully.
Review by Taw (Town of
Odyssey)
Rating:
Wow!
- Novel idea:
Rock-a-thon. It's different.
It's believable. It's fun.
- Excellent
message: Honesty. Not just
tacked on at the end, but taught
in the very framework of the
story. Plus Psalm 139 is one of
my faves.
- Whit as
culprit: We've seen this before
(Broken Window, anyone?), but it
worked well again.
- Kids gelling:
Okay, we've gotten to know the
six kids (Emily, Matthew,
Barrett, Priscilla, Jay,
Nelson), and they worked very
well combined; each one's
personality contributed to the
story. I haven't been a huge fan
of Emily's sleuthing thus far,
but she did really well as
narrator! Matthew's blow-up
cushion was consistent with his
inventive mind, and I
appreciated Nelson's large
functional coat. A couple of
Jay's humorous comments really
spiced up the episode, such as
when he suggested "Throw away
the key!" and remarked at the
end that he was the only one who
told the truth at first. A
demure Priscilla and brother
Barrett provided two great
suspects to involve in Emily's
search. I really enjoyed the
search, the flashbacks, and how
we were brought up to the
present.
To sum up, the Malted
Milkball Falcon is absolutely my
favorite kid-centric episode since
the reboot. I've been listening to
the new episodes weekly, but this is
the first time since the inception
of the season (The Mystery of the
Clock Tower, Parts 1 and 2) that I'm
excited about Odyssey. I'm telling
my siblings to listen to this
episode posthaste!
By the way, did everyone notice
Chris' line at the very end after
the credits? "Is anyone gonna eat
that last maltball?" A nice touch!
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