22. The Perfect Club
Why you should join the OAC if you can.
By David Hilder | January 10, 2015
Why you should join the OAC if you can.
By David Hilder | January 10, 2015
In my first editorial about the Odyssey Adventure Club, called For Fifteen Dollars More, I talked about the fans who have invested in purchasing all the Adventures in Odyssey albums and for whom it may not be cost-effective to join the OAC. I also made a comparison between the club and a money-making scheme worthy of Bart Rathbone, which I’ll admit was not exactly fair. In my second editorial on the club, called The OAC Problem, I talked about the fans who may want to join but simply cannot afford to pay the subscription fee. Now that the OAC experiment has been around for a year, I thought I would revisit the issue in a third editorial. In the past I focused on the potential negatives of the club, but today I take a look at the OAC from another perspective.
Without ignoring the fans I’ve already mentioned, it’s also important to consider that not every AIO fan fits into those groups. There are people who want to get into the show but aren’t sure how to go about it. In 2010 the Odyssey team released Album 51 as a starting point for new listeners. That was four years ago and now The Ties That Bind is the new release that’s being promoted in stores. And although Album 58 is great, to be perfectly honest it is not the kind of story that you should start off with if you’re a new listener. The series includes a warning from executive producer Dave Arnold due to the issues it brings up which parents may not be ready to discuss with their younger children. Plus, the characters of Buck and Jules have important backstories which should be known beforehand. If a fourteen-part story isn’t the best place to begin, what are new fans to do?
With a show that’s lasted as long as Adventures in Odyssey has, there is now a vast archive of content that has accumulated over the years. In the show’s hundreds of episodes there are so many characters, story arcs and themes explored that it can be overwhelming at times, for new fans especially. And with new episodes still being released all the time, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. One solution is to slowly build up your collection, buying a few albums every year. But this can be a very slow process. The other solution, of course, is the OAC. The Odyssey Adventure Club is the perfect opportunity for people to dive deep into the show at a more convenient pace.
The OAC will dramatically change the experience of new fans, giving them access not only to exclusive episodes, but to something I like to call “the elusive episodes.” Before the club, people would listen day to day and week to week to the episodes that aired on the radio or online. But there would always be a whole bunch of episodes that would elude people, either because they missed them when they aired or because they don’t air very often. The episode titles among the elusive episodes are different for every fan, and it can be frustrating to find oneself relistening to shows you’ve heard a hundred times while at the same time knowing there are some shows you haven’t heard even once. It is incredibly difficult to listen to every single episode if you are relying completely on the airing schedule. There are some episodes I never heard after years of listening until I actually bought the albums for myself. And after getting the albums you discover how much more you were missing, since the album version of episodes are often longer and include extra lines and even whole scenes which had to be cut for time from the radio airings.
But OAC members don’t have to go through all that. They can listen to episodes chronologically, in the order that they were originally released. That means no more turning on the radio and listening to an episode halfway through, let alone a saga halfway through. No more desperately waiting for the next part of a multi-part episode which might have originally come out ten years ago. Instead, fans are now able to hear every single available episode on demand. And they don’t have to go and buy all the albums at once to do it. Before, you might have been an Odyssey fan for years and never have heard Whit’s Flop. Now people will be much more likely to listen to the early episodes and follow all the way through to the end instead of skipping around a lot and never getting the full story.
Speaking of the full story, that was something that seemed to be missing in 2013 when only twelve episodes were released. But now the launch of the club has allowed Adventures in Odyssey to resume producing twenty-four episodes a year. And technically it was actually a total of twenty-six episodes that were released in 2014 due to the extra two included on Album 58. Exclusive episodes also place a new focus on missions, allowing the pilot Jeff Lewis to return during Wooton’s trip to Alaska in the second season of the OAC. And if Connie’s first love can come back in the OAC, what’s to stop old friends like the missionary Dan Isidro, Leonard Meltsner or Wooton’s grandparents from making the occasional appearance as well?
How will this all affect the new content AIO produces? Being optimistic, I think the club could give AIO the place to experiment more and try new things, improving the show as a whole. Besides using exclusive episodes to go on worldwide missions, which I imagine might get repetitive after a while, the club might be the right venue to try out new projects and different formats. That kind of thing is only possible when you have a solid fan base behind you and the OAC is a way of ensuring that support will be there from month to month.
Let’s just say you happen to be an Adventures in Odyssey fan who is both interested in hearing the OAC’s exclusive episodes and can afford the cost. Should you sign up? If you’re looking for a perfect club, the answer is no. A more ideal version of the club would have different tiers of membership, the least expensive one being just the exclusive episodes, instead of making people buy a bundle of products which they may or may not want. A perfect club would have truly international membership and not just be available to people with an address in the U.S., an Android app and not just cater to Apple users, the ability to permanently download a greater number of episodes on a regular basis instead of having to rely on a constant internet connection, and the option to purchase a single membership rather than having to buy a family package which includes multiple users. And of course, in a perfect world the exclusive club episodes would eventually release for sale to fans without a club membership.
The OAC only went online a year ago. I have little doubt changes will be made to the club as time goes on, but that doesn’t mean you should wait for a few years before checking it out. If you or your family cannot afford the club, then don’t feel pressured to join. You can continue to support the show in many other valuable ways. But if you can afford it, and that’s the key here, then by all means join the Odyssey Adventure Club and support missions, support Focus on the Family, and support the future of Adventures in Odyssey. It’s by keeping this new endeavour alive that it will be able to grow and improve over time. The input and involvement of the fans is crucial to making AIO a success and for working towards a more perfect club.
Without ignoring the fans I’ve already mentioned, it’s also important to consider that not every AIO fan fits into those groups. There are people who want to get into the show but aren’t sure how to go about it. In 2010 the Odyssey team released Album 51 as a starting point for new listeners. That was four years ago and now The Ties That Bind is the new release that’s being promoted in stores. And although Album 58 is great, to be perfectly honest it is not the kind of story that you should start off with if you’re a new listener. The series includes a warning from executive producer Dave Arnold due to the issues it brings up which parents may not be ready to discuss with their younger children. Plus, the characters of Buck and Jules have important backstories which should be known beforehand. If a fourteen-part story isn’t the best place to begin, what are new fans to do?
With a show that’s lasted as long as Adventures in Odyssey has, there is now a vast archive of content that has accumulated over the years. In the show’s hundreds of episodes there are so many characters, story arcs and themes explored that it can be overwhelming at times, for new fans especially. And with new episodes still being released all the time, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. One solution is to slowly build up your collection, buying a few albums every year. But this can be a very slow process. The other solution, of course, is the OAC. The Odyssey Adventure Club is the perfect opportunity for people to dive deep into the show at a more convenient pace.
The OAC will dramatically change the experience of new fans, giving them access not only to exclusive episodes, but to something I like to call “the elusive episodes.” Before the club, people would listen day to day and week to week to the episodes that aired on the radio or online. But there would always be a whole bunch of episodes that would elude people, either because they missed them when they aired or because they don’t air very often. The episode titles among the elusive episodes are different for every fan, and it can be frustrating to find oneself relistening to shows you’ve heard a hundred times while at the same time knowing there are some shows you haven’t heard even once. It is incredibly difficult to listen to every single episode if you are relying completely on the airing schedule. There are some episodes I never heard after years of listening until I actually bought the albums for myself. And after getting the albums you discover how much more you were missing, since the album version of episodes are often longer and include extra lines and even whole scenes which had to be cut for time from the radio airings.
But OAC members don’t have to go through all that. They can listen to episodes chronologically, in the order that they were originally released. That means no more turning on the radio and listening to an episode halfway through, let alone a saga halfway through. No more desperately waiting for the next part of a multi-part episode which might have originally come out ten years ago. Instead, fans are now able to hear every single available episode on demand. And they don’t have to go and buy all the albums at once to do it. Before, you might have been an Odyssey fan for years and never have heard Whit’s Flop. Now people will be much more likely to listen to the early episodes and follow all the way through to the end instead of skipping around a lot and never getting the full story.
Speaking of the full story, that was something that seemed to be missing in 2013 when only twelve episodes were released. But now the launch of the club has allowed Adventures in Odyssey to resume producing twenty-four episodes a year. And technically it was actually a total of twenty-six episodes that were released in 2014 due to the extra two included on Album 58. Exclusive episodes also place a new focus on missions, allowing the pilot Jeff Lewis to return during Wooton’s trip to Alaska in the second season of the OAC. And if Connie’s first love can come back in the OAC, what’s to stop old friends like the missionary Dan Isidro, Leonard Meltsner or Wooton’s grandparents from making the occasional appearance as well?
How will this all affect the new content AIO produces? Being optimistic, I think the club could give AIO the place to experiment more and try new things, improving the show as a whole. Besides using exclusive episodes to go on worldwide missions, which I imagine might get repetitive after a while, the club might be the right venue to try out new projects and different formats. That kind of thing is only possible when you have a solid fan base behind you and the OAC is a way of ensuring that support will be there from month to month.
Let’s just say you happen to be an Adventures in Odyssey fan who is both interested in hearing the OAC’s exclusive episodes and can afford the cost. Should you sign up? If you’re looking for a perfect club, the answer is no. A more ideal version of the club would have different tiers of membership, the least expensive one being just the exclusive episodes, instead of making people buy a bundle of products which they may or may not want. A perfect club would have truly international membership and not just be available to people with an address in the U.S., an Android app and not just cater to Apple users, the ability to permanently download a greater number of episodes on a regular basis instead of having to rely on a constant internet connection, and the option to purchase a single membership rather than having to buy a family package which includes multiple users. And of course, in a perfect world the exclusive club episodes would eventually release for sale to fans without a club membership.
The OAC only went online a year ago. I have little doubt changes will be made to the club as time goes on, but that doesn’t mean you should wait for a few years before checking it out. If you or your family cannot afford the club, then don’t feel pressured to join. You can continue to support the show in many other valuable ways. But if you can afford it, and that’s the key here, then by all means join the Odyssey Adventure Club and support missions, support Focus on the Family, and support the future of Adventures in Odyssey. It’s by keeping this new endeavour alive that it will be able to grow and improve over time. The input and involvement of the fans is crucial to making AIO a success and for working towards a more perfect club.
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