Album 52 Ends Poorly with "Grandma's Christmas Visit"

My hopes were quite high for this episode. I predicted that it would be a "sure-fire winner," based primarily on the characters that were to be featured in "Grandma's Christmas Visit." Abuelita was a very entertaining character in "Grandma's Visit," interacting well with the Parker family, and hearing all of the Whit's End gang doing stuff for Christmas sounded promising. But sometimes the writers of an episode just can't make their ideas work, as is pretty evident in "Grandma's Christmas Visit."

I wonder if the stale dialog and the uninteresting characters are most at fault for the rather forgettable nature of this show. The Parker's grandma seems to have lost her comedic appeal, and Whit, Connie, and Eugene just seem to be going through the motions. And then there's all the different elements of the show that don't run smoothly together. Eva wanting to relax, Grandma's Las Posadas, and the Whit's End Christmas party actually don't fit together well at all, although perhaps with more skillful writing these different storylines could have. By the time we got to the "Let's Make a White Elephant Deal" game show I was very much overwhelmed. It's one thing after another that doesn't really connect or matter, and only a few moments are actually well-written.

I also wasn't happy about hearing Emily in this episode (enough of her already for one season!). Her annoying voice definitely stands out among characters like Whit and Eugene. And talking of characters that I find annoying, I'm sad to say that I didn't really enjoy Connie in this episode either. She seemed over-the-top. Maybe she's been spending too much time with Emily. :-P

Despite all that, the show does end on a nice note with a simple but well-written conversation between Whit and Lucia. It doesn't really justify all of the "chaos" that went before it, but it hints at what this show could've been like if one experienced writer, such as Paul McCusker, had written it.

So, it's not an AIO Christmas classic. A lot of failed jokes (if they could even be qualified as jokes) and a general lackluster feel make this show one of the worst Christmas audio dramas I've ever heard. It was all-over-the-place, meaning that I as the listener cared little about what was happening or who was doing it. A very disappointing episode.

5/10

Never Trust Whit Around Your Milkballs!

Before I received album 52 a few months ago I had never purchased an album with instructions for doing a "Family Fun Activity" in the booklet, and I was disappointed that this panel took the place of the front cover illustration. But I was even more surprised by how boring the activity was--seriously, a rockathon? Where's the fun in that? And what would a rockathon have to do with any of the episodes in this collection? Little did I know, it would be the background for the dull episode "The Malted Milkball Falcon."

I really can't understand the amount of enthusiasm that has been shown toward this episode in the AIO online community. Put simply, this show is boring. The plot is simplistic, the characters are not particularly likeable (a number of them sound like cartoon characters, probably because they're voiced by adults), and the show never even comes close to realizing its comic potential. The resolution of the mystery would've been better if "Broken Window" hadn't already use that twist with much more skill, but thankfully no animals were involved with the "crime" this time!

Really, this is what I would expect from Paws and Tales, not from AIO. "The Malted Milkball Falcon" feels like it's been written for 4-8 years olds who can easily be entertained with a few bathroom jokes, characters with goofy voices, and a mystery involving chocolate. The message (which came out of left field for me) tried harder than the rest of the episode, but suffered from being somewhat conventional ("don't lie, kids!") and from lacking a lot of staying power (probably because it felt tacked-on). If you haven't learned not to lie from all those other AIO episodes about honestly, then you're not going to learn your lesson from this one either.

So, this was not a good episode at all for me. It was simplistic, juvenile, slow, and lacking a "punch." I must've missed all the humor that other AIO fans got out of this show, because I can only remembering snickering one time. Is it as bad as "Game for a Mystery," Kirby Atkin's worst effort to date? No, thankfully it's not, because the main characters have already been established with this episode and the "locked room" kind of mystery means that the listener can actually solve the mystery this time. But overall "The Malted Milkball Falcon"'s fight to keep my attention was a losing battle.

4.5/10 (and that may even be slightly too high)