I liked this episode!
I like that we hear Captain Absolutely again, who according to AIOWiki last appeared in “Push the Red Button” back in Album 56: The Grand Design. It’s very cool that Wooton’s comics are being turned into audio dramas.
It was good to hear Jay Smouse and Buddy Norman. I always enjoy hearing their interactions together. I’ve been wanting to hear more of it since their last appearance together in “The Revenge of Bigfoot” and “Please Adjust Your Frequency”, so I’m glad we got some more of that again in this episode.
Oh yeah, and we got the return of the secret knock when Buddy comes to Wooton’s house. I can’t recall the last time we heard Wooton’s secret knock, so it was good to hear it again.
Wooton’s illustrations on criticism were brilliant and very well-done. I really like how that came together! His three main points about criticism are definitely going to be used by me in the future when I receive criticism on something that I’ve done.
One thing that I think would have been good is if the episode also explained how to give criticism. Jay had some good points with his critiques, but he was pretty rude and demanding about it. (No wonder Buddy turned him down!) If the episode had included how to give your feedback with respect, I think that would have been even better.
I’ve only got one small nitpick here. It doesn’t affect my overall rating of the episode; it just slightly confuses me. Here it is: My question is, what was the point of the first set of training where Wooton had Buddy do with speed sketching, staring at blank papers, hand warm-ups of making lemonade, and drinking smoothies? Was there a point to it, or was it just general artist exercises? When Connie asks how it helps him, Buddy is like, “I have no idea!” Later, when Wooton gives Buddy the second set of exercises (tennis ball catching, pie choosing, and fake cakes) which represent how to handle criticism, Buddy voices his frustration of how he doesn’t get what they’re doing. Wooton has an explanation of this second set but doesn’t explain what he was doing earlier. Maybe the first round was just basic artist stuff, but to me it kind of felt a little random and disconnected that there is seemingly no point to the first round of training that Wooton gives Buddy earlier in the episode. But like I said, that’s just a tiny nitpick. Everything else was great.
Oh, and it looks like we have a new sound designer on the Odyssey Team: Zach Schneider! I noticed he first appeared in
a video on the official Adventures in Odyssey YouTube channel as an "Odyssey Sound Apprentice", and now it looks like he's begun doing the sound design for episodes that release this year. So far, he has done a good job on all the episodes he has done the sound design for, and I look forward to hearing more from him in the future.
I don’t have very much more to say about this episode, only that I liked it, and I look forward to hearing Abigail Geiger’s next episode!
Overall, a good episode.