AIO Thought of the Week: So back in the day we had Rodney’s gang and Jack/Jason/Whit’s End’s gang
Today we have Vance’s Team and Emily’s Team
So here’s what I’m thinking:
Would you consider The Team to be a spiritual successor to the Israelites? And does that mean Emily is in a gang?
Over the past several months, you may have noticed this site’s newsletter content drying up. Indeed, this has felt like one of the slowest seasons for AIO in a very long while. Spreading out releases has felt like a necessity to keep a bimonthly weekend newsletter going. You must then imagine my shock when, one after the other, news has fallen into our laps like dirt on a coon dog, to borrow the colloquialism. With all of that said, let’s get into all that has happened in the Odyssey fan community over the past week.
Content of the Week
“Value of a Buck” Taught Us More About Moral Dilemmas Than Rydell and Renee Ever Did.
Two weeks ago, Adventures in Odyssey concluded the two-parter that placed a keystone in both Buck and Jules’ stories. In this review, we discuss what AIO did phenomenally, what they could have done better, and what that means for other storylines. This was a review written in between multiple plane rides and two holidays, so while it took a while to get out, hopefully it is insightful. Read it right here at aiowritersblock.com!
From Elsewhere on the Block
The Ultimate Adventures in Odyssey Christmas Episode Guide (2025 Edition)
We’ve made small changes to the biggest Adventures in Odyssey Christmas guide anywhere on the internet! Like all of our episode guides, this one comes complete with Club episode links for easy access to all content included.
“Face the Unknown” Instant Reactions
The reaction article to the first two episodes of “Face the Unknown” have finally dropped. It’s a short set of paragraphs, focused especially on the moral of the episdoes. Give a read today!
Jay and Zoe Find That They’re Cousins in Latest Club Episode
When I first heard that “The Smouse Family Christmas” was the name of December’s Club episode, the only thought that was running in my mind was “they’re gonna find out they’re cousins or something, aren’t they?” That was a meme idea blown into SONN article. I hope you find it as laugh-out-loud as I did.
What’s New in Odyssey?
Internal Announcement
Since our official transition to aiowritersblock.com in May, the Odyssey Central site no longer picks up the web feed from our main platform blog. Odyssey Central is a major source of traffic for us and many other Odyssey fan brands, so the website has returned relatively lower website traffic since the transition. To remedy this, posts here will be available as links on the WordPress.com blog until the problem is resolved. This site will still be the home of all original content.
Adventures in Odyssey Releasing 2026 Film
News of a movie premiering next fall rocked the Adventures in Odyssey world this past week. Announcements related to this topic are ones this website has loosely followed for years now, first with a story found in a 2022/2023 Focus on the Family news artifact. That story, as you may recall, detailed a $1.8 million objective to create three TV-length episodes with “2D graphics rendered to look like 3D, similar to the lighting and shading found on Netflix’s original film KLAUS”.
The goal of the animated program was explicitly to attract more consumers into the fan base. The way the newspaper presented it, it seemed like we’d get an announcement within a few years out of 2022, and in the eleventh hour of this year, it has arrived. AIO’s team expanded on it through a podcast, which was first released as a video and then made available on audio platforms.
Alongside this refresh comes a logo refresh and new trading cards reflective of the designs. Those are both viewable on the official Instagram and Facebook pages. There was also a short teaser clip on the Adventures in Odyssey Club, which shows the active renderings of certain characters. One has to note, these characters look quite unlike the designs in that newspaper. This isn’t where I’ll give my personal opinion on this endeavor; that should be reserved for a different post. For now, you can read the news in a flash article posted the morning of the announcement on this website.
Album 80 Underway
Four out of the six episodes in Adventures in Odyssey’s final CD release (and the final era five album) have finally been released. Reviews and reactions for all four are available above. For the first time in long time, as many have noticed and we’ve stated, this album will not see January, and a winter release will barely touch winter. Once again, this sort of dynamic release schedule is certainly emblematic of the sort of change AIO wants to incorporate as they transition to Club-only.
Conclusion
It’s so good to have a pile of content to include in this newsletter again. Lots is cooking in the final moments of 2025, so expect frequent publications from here until the end. We’ll see you soon!
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