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What do you think of Sagas or just one episode? I like sagas or two part episodes!

Sagas rule but do too many and they lose their specialty.

Sagas are the best but you need regular episodes to keep them special.

2-parters are good, but sagas rule on my list.

There are pro's and con's to both. I like the one episode because the problems are solved that episode and you don't have to wait until next time to hear the end!

Let's put it this way: sagas are infinitely better than slice-of-life episodes, but without slice-of-life episodes, AIO would fall into ruin.

Sort of like the checks-and-balances system of government. If one were to ever usurp to much authority, our republic would fall into ruin. Thus, each branch of government is given a certain amount of power (as well as the power to override each other in certain circumstances) so that no certain branch can have too much control and destroy the way of life as we know it.

(Who ever thought that Adventures in Odyssey could be used as symbolism for our government?)

But the question is, which branch is which?

I would say sagas are senators and regular episodes are representatives; or Sagas are executive or judicial, and regular are representative.

Or sagas would be executive, making crazy new changes every now and again and being best remembered (as our nation's Presidents are remembered in constrast with senators or justices), and slice-of-lifers being legislative and judicial, since new characters and plot twists can be entered slowly and methodically in those episodes, as bills in Congress; and because a crazy idea brought in during a saga can be overturned by reasoning or just disuse over a period of normal episodes, just like the Supreme Court can render an executive or legislative decision null and void.

I like what they did in albums 44 to 49. They had several different sagas that were the focus of most of the episodes, but spread out overtime. Each saga would have been one album long on its own, but separating them out helped to instill the feeling of time passing, and let you focus on another storyline for a while.

Now it seems they are going to be using sagas more.

What a complex and fascinating analogy, TOJ.

I agree with Gooey98. Albums 44 - 49 had a beautiful little routine going there for awhile. There were 5 continuing story lines during that period, not counting the little Trandy episodes Tigershadow treasures so much. They would give us an update on each storyline every album, and then wrapped all of them up in Album 49, paving the way beautifully for Album 50. I think it'd be interesting to see AIO do that again, since I think that's the only time they've ever done it.

And in some ways, Album 50 was kind of like an epilogue to some of those stories. We see where Grady and Carson are after "The Highest Stakes"—rebuilding their relationship, and not doing a bad job of it. We see where Mandy is after her parents' near separation—happy again, and now up to performing for an audience again as well (remember, in "The Family Next Door" she mentions that Mrs. Nietchew was kicking her out of the play for not being on the ball about her part). We see what finally ends up happening to Jason, for the time being, when he (briefly) retires from the Agency in a quite dramatic way. And we also get some nice wrap-up for Kelly; not only is she happy with the Washingtons, but she begins a new life as a Christian as well.

Yes, that's true. That's why I like Album 50 so much. It's not frantic or rushed, it has that laid back feeling of things settling down, but it's a wonderful feeling.

ArnoldtheRubberDucky wrote:Yes, that's true. That's why I like Album 50 so much. It's not frantic or rushed, it has that laid back feeling of things settling down, but it's a wonderful feeling.

Agreed, that's why Album 50 shall always be my favorite. If only they could have continued with albums like 40-50 instead of rebooting. >_>

Okay, this off topic, but name one thing significantly different between the 40s and 51. Not characters or music style or anything like that of course. A change in quality. What was poorer handled? The plots? The characters? The acting? If so, in what way and in what episodes?

As for sagas. Why do you fellows say they are better? How so? Do you just mean they are more exciting and with sweeping plot-lines and serious morals and such? If so, then does that really make the sagas better? It seems that's like saying Dracula is better than Winnie the Pooh. They're both masterpieces, the absence of either would leave a hole in the world. But adventurous genres aren't better than calmer stories.

They butchered Wooton. They took him from a silly guy who loved kids and loved God, to a hyperactive 5-year old in a man's body. They butchered the plot of the Ties that Bind. It was full of dangling ends that were never resolved, and that atrocious proposal at the end with no signs that Wooton was thinking about it, or even that they were romantically involved in the first place.

Pound Foolish wrote:As for sagas. Why do you fellows say they are better? How so? Do you just mean they are more exciting and with sweeping plot-lines and serious morals and such? If so, then does that really make the sagas better? It seems that's like saying Dracula is better than Winnie the Pooh. They're both masterpieces, the absence of either would leave a hole in the world. But adventurous genres aren't better than calmer stories.

I agree, on the whole. I don't think one is inherently better than the other; Odyssey's done subpar sagas and unparalleled slice-of-life eps. Obviously, people will have their preferences, but I tend to prefer them both at different times. It just depends on what you want. Most of the time, I like slice-of-life better, because I want the whole story at once so that I can hear (admittedly for the millionth time) how characters get themselves out of the mess they're in, and I don't always exactly have boatloads of time on my hands to listen to sagas.

Pound Foolish wrote:Okay, this off topic, but name one thing significantly different between the 40s and 51. Not characters or music style or anything like that of course. A change in quality. What was poorer handled? The plots? The characters? The acting? If so, in what way and in what episodes?

When album 51 first came out, I had mixed feelings about it. At first, I thought it was pretty bad. Then I decided that I was wrong, and it was just because I wasn't used to the new characters. (I even wrote a blog post about it at http://where-theresawill.blogspot.com/2 ... yssey.html.) However, now that it's been a few years, I've had a chance to re-evaluate this album. And I've decided that it is, in fact, an inferior album to the others, for several reasons.

First, it introduces a bunch of new characters. Instead of slowly integrating new characters and phasing out old ones, they bring in a lot of characters at once, and get rid of all the old ones. Neither the audience nor the writers nor the actors are familiar with any of these characters. Secondly, they got a new actor for Whit, who was also unused to the character. And then as Mr. WE so aptly pointed out, the character of Wooton seemed quite different. He lost the wisdom he formerly had.

So we have several actors who don't know their characters, and only a few well-established characters. I think the biggest problem with Take it From The Top is characters.

I don't think it's ever a wise idea to "take it from the top" in any situation. In my opinion, the first 50 episodes of AIO feel like they're finding their footing. And they wasted a whole album by taking it from the top and almost entirely destroying their footing. The only solid ground they had was Connie, Eugene, and Wooton. And it seemed to me that even they acted out of character.

I wrote this whole thing off the top of my head, so please forgive any errors in accuracy or reasoning.