Reviews
for
"Sergeant York"
[#708,
709,
710,
710]
*All
ratings are based on a 5 star scale unless otherwise noted.
Review by
Bryce
Rating:
In 2002, AIO released their first four-parter,
Plan B, a fast-paced Novacom episode with dramatic twists
and turns and lots of action. Now, AIO returns to the four
part episode with a simple idea: A Kid's Radio episode about
a World War I hero. Naturally, I was skeptical. I wasn't
sure that Kid's Radio would be the best format for a four
part historical drama. I've always enjoyed Kid's Radio's one
part parody more. I believe storytelling would be a better
way to present this. But I have to say, Dave Arnold did a
pretty good job. Once again, he does some heavy research.
Sergent York is certainly just as thought-out as The Jubilee
Singers or The Amazing Loser with all it's musical trivia. I
admire all of Arnold's hard work when he writes an episode.
Now, to the episode itself. I was rather annoyed at the
pairing of Eugene Meltsner and Red Hollard. I felt as if AIO
was trying to rekindle humorous friendship of Eugene and
Bernard Walton with an imposter by the name of Red Hollard.
Perhaps if Red didn't have to be every conceivable way, I
would like his character more. Will Ryan's acting is as
usual, quite good. I enjoyed Eugene's narration quite a bit
more than I enjoyed Red's, mostly because of the reasons
above. The story begins with Alvin York, a trouble-making
man living in Tennessee. He's walking with his friend,
Everett. They see some beautiful young lady and try to flirt
with her, though they do not succeed. They soon realize that
she goes to church, something that they think is beneath
them. Alvin is a carefree man, living for the moment. I
enjoyed Jon Curry, a newcomer to Odyssey, as Alvin York. His
tone matches the Southern fighter that York is quite well.
But, unfortunately, Alvin's friend Everett gets in a bar
fight and dies. That kind of disturbed me. AIO has dealt
with death before, (Karen, Greater Love) but with Never For
Nothing fresh in our minds, do we really need to hear about
another rather unrealistic death? Honestly, the man who got
cheated in cards, Frank, didn't seem angry enough to through
someone to the floor. Also, I felt it was too quick to kill
someone. For crying out loud, we haven't gotten to the war
part! But you can't change history. If that's what happened,
it happened. They could have at least shone some other
scenes with Everett before they killed him off. He was in
about three or four scenes. The character of Arcie Pyle is
an interesting one. Almost a grandfatherly figure, Pastor
Pyle helped Alvin come to Christ. Gracie Williams, the lady
in the first scene, is happy that Alvin turned to Jesus, so
that they can court with no guilt. I resented Gracie
Williams at first, as it seemed she didn't care enough about
the massive spiritual significance of turning to Christ.
Towards the end of the episode, Alvin is told that he will
be drafted for World War I. He says he won't go. But he has
no choice. All in all, it was a relatively good first part,
though it might not live up to the other episodes in Album
55. I'm not as eager for the next part as I was during The
Labyrinth, but I still believe this will end up being a very
valuable addition to The Deep End. Classic Odyssey is back.
The best is yet to come.
Part One
Review by Bmc
Rating:
Absolutely LOVED these episodes. The only
problem I had (and its a very small tiny problem) was Red
Hollard. I know, so many fans like him but frankly I have no
idea why. Have I missed an episode he was in or why does
everyone love him so much? No I don't HATE him, he's ok I
guess but he's just kinda, I dunno ... Mye... I dunno.
Something about him isn't right. But don't go by me; anyway
Sargent York was awesome. I'm VERY interested in the army
and shooting, and loved it. 5 stars from me!
Review by Joy
(Town of Odyssey)
Rating:
It was great to hear from
KYD's radio again! I thought this was a great episode! Fun
to listen to, interesting. I thought Gracie? was a good
character. All in all, good fun!
Review by
Blitz (Town of Odyssey)
I enjoyed it immensely. The
southern accent were mostly good and it was fun to hear from
Red.
Review by jennifertwt
(Town of Odyssey)
A great episode, I look
forward to hearing all four parts together when the album
becomes available to Europe.
Review by
Jesus' Princess (Town of Odyssey)
I really liked it I liked
Gracies character, and it reminded me of the old Odyssey
more. Excited for part two!
Part Two
Review by
manfrednissley (Town of Odyssey)
York's commander was taking
old covenant principles and overwriting new covenant
principles and denied the power of God and prayer. If one
were to look at what the early Christians did they would
discover something interesting! Those Christians would not
fight! Rather, the early Christians would kneel down on the
battlefield and pray!
Have the Odyssey writers so easily forgotten the story they
did on Telemachus?
Review by
Astronomer (Town of Odyssey)
I liked this episode as a
historical story, but I disliked the theology. Still, the
story itself is well told. This is better than the last
episode. I hope it gets better as the serial continues.
Review by
Jimmy Barclay Fan (Town of Odyssey)
I really liked the episode. I
liked how Alvin York made good friends so quickly and how
the Commander was not sure of him at first but warmed up to
him and wanted to help him. It was good and I am ready for
part 3.
Review by
The Top Crusader (Town of Odyssey)
I'm really enjoying the York
story so far. Well done and I like its getting into some
pretty serious theology. Even though York is wrong and
should be ripping Germans apart with his bare hands.
Part Three
Review by
manfrednissley (Town of Odyssey)
York's commander was taking
old covenant principles and overwriting new covenant
principles and
Review by Jesus'
Princess
(Town of Odyssey)
I like it, but I feel like
this should have been a three parter, instead of four. They
played so many commercials during this episode, I think just
to fill the time.
Review by
Marvin D.
(Town of Odyssey)
So many commercials. .and the
plot was kind of simple
Alvin goes home and decides to fight. They fight.
That was literally it.
Review by American
Eagle
(Town of Odyssey)
Wow, this episode was so hard
to understand! It was like plot twist after plot twist! The
depth of the storytelling was mesmerizing...
...not. As Josh said, the episode was so incredibly simple.
I think it should've been trimmed and made into a three-parter.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed this episode.
Part Four
Review by
The Kings Daughter (Town of Odyssey)
That is one of the best
episodes I have heard in a very long time. o.O I'm going to
be re-listening to it..
"Blow that whistle or you'll hear the angel Gabriel blowing
his horn." or Red Hollard's scaring Eugene was good too.
Review by
Marvin D. (Town of Odyssey)
The whistle line was probably
the best, but they downplayed Robert's death. .it didn't
seem as if he died or anything, really It was an average
episode, which I think might have worked better as a
3-parter, or even a 2-parter, depending how it was done.
Review by Jesus'
Princess
(Town of Odyssey)
I really liked this episode, I
love the history episodes, and the Alvin York story was such
a great one. The whistle line was the best.
Review by
Christian A. (Town of
Odyssey)
Well here we are at the end of
Odyssey's first four-part episode (unless you count Plan B,
but I don't, because it had separate subtitles for each
episode ). My knee-jerk reaction is, I really, really liked
it. Album 55 continues to get better and better.
At first I thought that a series of Kid's Radio broadcasts
was a weird way to frame the episodes, but it grew on me. It
was nice to have little snippets of film reel or radio that
explained the parts that would be weird in dialogue. And I
liked the way Eugene and Red were able to recap everything
at the beginning of each episode instead of there being a
"Previously on Adventures in Odyssey..." segment. But one
problem I had was that I didn't think the chemistry between
Red and Eugene was very good. They were polar opposites in
their presentation, and while others may view that as a good
thing and that it was good to balance out Eugene's
boringness, I'm still not that big a fan of Red. But I have
to admit, Red was probably a better choice than Wooton, who
may have been the only alternative. I still don't like his
accent very much though.
More than anything, I think I enjoyed the overabundance of
references to God and the Bible throughout these episodes.
It's been a looong time since we've had such a
spiritually-oriented group of episodes. The Jubilee Singers
came close, but I don't think it was anywhere near as deep
as these. The AIO team decided to discuss a touchy subject,
and I applaud them for it. I like it when difficult subjects
are touched on, even when I know people will have many
varying opinions. I think it's better that AIO take a side
on an issue than to just leave it undiscussed. I personally
think they took the right side, but even if they didn't, I'm
glad they took a step in the direction of controversial
subject matter. We haven't really seen any controversy since
Album 49 when the writers discussed abortion, gambling, and
divorce all in the same collection. I thought it was very
reminiscent of the "old days" to have a character figuring
out his own convictions based on what he read in Scripture.
What a concept! Using the advice of the Lord of the universe
to help you make a difficult choice.
The scene at the end of the second episode was my favorite
of the whole four parts. It was very good to have an older,
wiser character giving biblical advice to a younger, more
ignorant character. Verses were used from both the Old and
the New Testaments, which is always good. The scene even
impressed my dad, which is very hard to do these days. ;P We
need to have more scenes like that featuring Mr. Whittaker.
The only thing I think we've had so far since the relaunch
that was similar to this was Mr. Parker's conversation with
Olivia in Wooton Knows Best. And you all know how much I
loved that scene.
All the action in these episodes was great. The war scenes
were very realistic; they were great food for the
imagination. And they even got a little intense. It was
great to have Dave Arnold introducing the last two episodes
because of that intensity. It's been a long time since we've
had a parental warning on an episode. I'm thinking
maybe...somewhere in Album 49? It made me feel like I was
listening to "the old Odyssey" again. It was sad when
Alvin's two friends died: Robert and Murray. I was glad that
Harry didn't die. He was my favorite of Alvin's friends. He
reminded me of Liz Horton's brother Mark in Room Enough for
Two. I think he may have been played by the same actor. Oh,
actually, AIO Wiki says that he was the voice of Dirk Beggs,
but not Mark Horton. All the same, he had a great voice, and
very genuine emotions.
I was planning on addressing the historical accuracy of the
episodes, but I don't know how much I can, since I hadn't
read or heard anything about Sgt. York before the episodes
aired. (I actually had it in my head that he was an officer
during the Civil War, not WWI!) But I've heard enough from
my brother and my best friend who have read York's journal
to know that it was pretty close. They both liked the
episodes a lot, so it must not have been that terrible of a
deviation. They said that the army commander was portrayed a
little poorly at the beginning of the second episode. He
wasn't really that hard on Alvin. But they said that the
discussion about the Bible verses was very accurate. As Red
mentioned in Episode I, the book doesn't really say too much
about Gracie, so most of the scenes with her were
speculation, but I was okay with that. His interactions with
her before his salvation went far to show how depraved his
heart was.
At the end of it all, I was surprised and amazed at the big
accomplishment York made in capturing such a large squadron
of German soldiers. I don't know what part that played in
the overall ending of the war, but I can imagine that he was
heralded as a hero in the hearts of many Americans. You have
to do something pretty big to get a letter from the
president.
So as you can see, I very much enjoyed these episodes. There
were a few quirks, but the good far outweighed the bad in
this case. I can't wait to see what is in store for us in
the coming final weeks of Album 55!
Review by
Sapphire (Town of Odyssey)
I really liked this episode. A
satisfying ending. I love it when AIO does a story from
history!
Review by
Blitz (Town of Odyssey)
I loved this episode. I
already knew what would happen [comes from studying
history.] The battle scene is one of the first [at least
modern wars] in AIO history I think.
Review by
Stop Wooton' Around (Town
of Odyssey)
Focus on the Family had
started to turn things around with the Green Ring Conspiracy
and they have found their groove again. I loved this episode
and the series but my favorite was part 3.
Review by
Shennifer (Town of Odyssey)
Having heard this saga a few
times *since downloading it* I can say that even though it
was a bit long, and probably could've been a 3 parter, I did
enjoy it a lot. I was excited before about these episodes
because I remember learning about Alvin York when I was in
high school; we even watched the movie about him (old, black
and white film, made in the 40s). I think these episodes was
a slightly different than the movie, but I don't remember
all the details.
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