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Re: Blackgaard's Revenge -- A hit or miss?

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:32 pm
by Bob
Listening to it again some time back, I think it's a two-parter driven mainly by Earl Boen's acting ability. If it was any other villain it would have been a disaster, but with Blackgaard it becomes surprisingly compelling at parts.

The writing for the good guys and their acting are all relatively weak this episode, although I thought Paul Herlinger did a pretty good job in the climax.

There are a lot of cheesy things and weaknesses in the plot (the big one being, as someone pointed out in a post years back, that the analogy they're driving at falls flat because Whit didn't personally sacrifice anything), but one other part where I think they drop the ball at the end is when Connie asks something like "Is Blackgaard truly dead now". I think Whit commented on this earlier in the episode, but it was forgotten by the end: the real Dr. Blackgaard died years ago, at the time this episode is portraying. The virus might have something like his personality or memories but his soul is long gone.

That said, whenever Earl Boen is "on screen", the episode magically becomes interesting. I remember being appropriately scared when I was a kid listening to the Civil War scene at the beginning, and I think he did a good job in the climax as well.

Some people look at it as a lowlight in Odyssey history. They have some good points, but I'd urge them to look at the bright side -- they could have brought Blackgaard back to life and made DBD completely pointless. Instead of that, we got this. It's a very flawed two-parter but I think it's enjoyable if you make the effort.

Re: Blackgaard's Revenge -- A hit or miss?

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:40 pm
by Kungfunaomi
*Barfs*
I only listen to it to hear Earl Boen. Everything else was awful, in my opinion. The premise, especially.

Re: Blackgaard's Revenge -- A hit or miss?

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:26 pm
by Conniekendall fan
yeah i agree it wasn't the best even though i voted hit.

Re: Blackgaard's Revenge -- A hit or miss?

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 3:00 pm
by Shadow
To be honest, I think my opinion on this episode has gone down with time - I use to think it was mediocre, but now, it just feels worthless. It's an episode that makes Blackgaard's end goal in Darkness Before Dawn make no sense. Why would Blackgaard try to possess someone with the Imagination Station when he was going to blow Whit's End to the ground? Hell, why did this virus not activate at any time before this convinent episode? Why is Aubrey the character here? What the heck is the Vortex of Time? Why does this episode exist and have Aubrey want to go to the crucifixtion when she's not a believer and doesn't become one until The Big Deal? Why do you seemingly have this episode as a part of Aubrey's journey to salvation when ultimately it offers nothing to said journey and can be taken out of her journey with barely any changes?
Blackgaard is well acted, but he can't carry a broken episode. Especially with his non-sensical plan and the entire episode making barely any sense. And on top of the terrible writing, the acting for everyone not named Blackgaard is hilariously awful, which only serves to make a broken episode worse. Yes, the sound design is good, but it's Odyssey, that's. . .kinda expected. As well, you have an entire episode about Blackgaard's final conflict. .and don't put in Jack Allen, the person who confronted Blackgaard in his last moments and who had a intruiging dynamic with him. That just doesn't add up to me. Or even Tom doesn't show up here, which also doesn't make much sense considering his connection to the Blackgaard Saga.

0.5/5. Terrible episode that has no reason to exist and is a stain upon the Blackgaard's Saga's conclusion.

Re: Blackgaard's Revenge -- A hit or miss?

Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:35 am
by djchatswithu
I believe that there are no bad ideas, it's just the way they're developed. The idea of Blackguaard having some kind of contingency plan does make sense for his character, and using the imagination station wasn't necessarily a bad plot idea. Here's a possible explanation of how this might have come about. I can't recall the odyssey team officially saying 'Dr Blackguaard is officially dead', so maybe he survived and somehow took some computer courses, (which is why it happen so long after the final conflict) hacked into the system and inplanted the virus. I don't believe this is true of course, but it would sort of make some sense, after all, if he did barely survive the explosion, he probably wasn't in the best state of mind.

Re: Blackgaard's Revenge -- A hit or miss?

Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 1:39 pm
by Shadow
I mean, it still ruins the ending of The Final Conflict because it ruins the effect of Blackgaard's death in that episode, and the emotional pathos that we get from it.