Voting for the 2026 Avery Awards for albums 79: Eleventh Hour and Album 80: Rewritten is now open! Go to the latest episode of the Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast to cast your votes!
Voting this year has the following categories:
Best Actress
Best Sound Design
Best Actor
Best Script
Best Scene
Best Musical Score
Most Surprising Return
Most Powerful Salvation Story
Best Overall Episode
And as usual, there’s a space at the end to write down the things you liked and didn’t like about Albums 79 and 80. Be sure you give your feedback!
I am very happy to see some unique categories to vote for this year! I always enjoy voting for the unique fun categories, so I am usually very disappointed when there is nothing specific to vote for like Lesson Learned-est Moment. This has been the case in recent years. But now we have a couple of new categories for these albums, and I am happy!
Have you voted yet? I just did! What did you vote for? I will post about my votes in the future. Anything you hope will win? Anything you don't want to win? Let’s discuss!
“We have it translated in every language (กฎของเอมิลี่, Emily es la mejor, 艾米莉规则, Emily Quy tắc!, エミリーは最高です, emilyyay ulesray!, Эмили Правила!, Emily é a melhor, एमिली नियम!, Emily est la meilleure!, إميلي هي الأفضل!, Emily Kuralları!, אמילי שולטת!, Emily Regeln!, 에밀리 담당!, Si Emily ang pinakamahusay!, എമിലി രാജ്ഞിയാണ്!, એમિલી નિયમો!) that Emily RULES!”~The E.R.K.
I made a lengthy reply on your blog lately and thought I'd cross-post it here.
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It has been some time since I voted, so I can’t tell you exactly how I voted at the time, but I’ll tell you who I’d vote for now and hopefully my logic and reasoning will be close enough to overlap!
= Best Actor =
I don’t know that I’d vote against an actor *solely* on the grounds that they frequently win awards, but I have to say I don’t think Whit, Buck or Morrie stood out enough to give them the credit here.
I think Paul Castro Jr. would be a great choice, because this particular episode features him in a life-and-death situation and he shows a great deal of emotional range. I thought it was realistic and convincing, which is what ‘best actor’ is about. (Now, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if I voted for Mike Shapiro again, because he lost last time and I felt he was “robbed” then.)
= Best Actress =
I sympathize with the frustration about some actors or actresses winning awards because they’re popular, but the fact that they won a lot of awards in the past doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t get credit when they really do have a terrific performance. I don’t think I thought about it this way until just now, but really, that’s the same kind of bias in reverse.
I think if there was ever a time in the history of the Avery awards to give one of them the win, it’s now; these episodes are plausibly Shona’s best performances ever up to this point, and Katie Leigh is pretty close to peak too, which is saying something when she’s been at it longer than I’ve been alive. I don’t know which of the two I voted for – more likely Shona – but I think either one is entirely defensible.
= Best Script =
I believe Jules’ quartet is the best set in this album, but we have to pick one pair over the other. “Crossing the Line” had to do the legwork to get the plot where it was going, and that involved some pretty drastic steps along the way. But you can start off an episode or series great, and the whole effect be wasted, if you don’t close well, so I have to take heed to the Scripture when it says the end is better than the beginning, and go for “On the Edge”.
= Best Musical Score =
Honestly I have to say I don’t remember the scores very much at this point. I don’t remember which one I voted for, I don’t want to guess, and I don’t want to go listen to them all again to give a fair review. ;-) It was probably in one of the multiparters but I can’t say which for sure.
= Best Sound Design =
The “Face” three-parter, no doubt about it. The I.S. scenes have impeccable sound effects – the snippet from the ‘hellish’ scene still stands out – and although Leonid’s voice shift has been done before, it was nearly as effective this time as when it was first done.
= Best Scene =
These are frustrating because the scenes they pick are rarely the scenes that I would pick. I think I probably picked the confrontation when I voted, because it was such an intense scene and something we hadn’t really heard in Odyssey, at least not in years and years. But I can see the poignancy of Skint’s last scene. I don’t have a problem with that choice.
= Most Surprising Return =
These were all surprising to some degree or another, but the one that was surprising in the most literal sense of jaw-dropping, ‘never even imagined it happening’, was Dirk. I expected it to be some totally new guy, and then, what a surprise!
What’s even more surprising is that he then operates in a totally different register than in all of GRC; he was surly and guarded throughout all of the former and is light, familiar and jokey here. I suppose the context (being injured and with people he doesn’t like or trust) made a big difference.
= Most Powerful Salvation Story =
Certainly Jules Kendall. It’s the most developed of the group, and I believe, as with the Olivia arc, that they are probably some of the best episodes AIO has ever put out.
= Best Overall Episode =
On The Edge, Parts 1 & 2.
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I think Leonid’s appearance made perfect sense in principle, but I don’t think it was properly handled in the episode. The previous episodes with Olivia established that “Leonid” is almost certainly an evil spirit. So the parallel of him appearing to Renee at the same time that Malachi is with Connie makes sense. I speculated at the time that the “Mortal Coil” program didn’t work properly (being made long ago for a very different version of the I.S.), and instead of being on a proper I.S. trip, Renee actually opened herself up to being hijacked in a dark spiritual encounter. This would explain Leonid’s appearance, the reason why it worked so differently from Whit and Eugene’s much earlier trips, and why her initial repetition of ‘end program’ didn’t work. I don’t recall that anything specifically rules this interpretation out. However, this was never addressed in the closing episode, so we’re left with the assumption that it was a ‘normal’ I.S. program gone awry, which is a little anticlimatic.
I don’t have any problems with these episodes. Suzu’s heel turn is surprising, but the previous episode didn’t end well for her either, and people do spiral sometimes. The trouble is that we don’t get any of her in between so it seems like it’s out of the blue when it happens.
I do wonder how the driver in “Two Steps Forward”… is going to get by in the long run if he keeps his promise to never drive again. I recognize he was in an emotionally distraught state, and intended to make a major life decision to change, and it’s easier to take the steps to guarantee you won’t drive than to try to promise that you won’t drink. But there’s a lot of places where not having a car would severely curtail your ability to work a job or to do pretty much anything. Now, I suppose if he lives in Odyssey, he can probably get by, since it seems to be the kind of town where you can walk or bike most places.
While we may not agree on everything (or even a lot of things), we do agree on some of the biggest ones, even if not for the same reasons.
But now we have a couple of new categories for these albums, and I am happy! 
