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)
2 comments:
I guess I can see where you're coming from...but I'm not sure I follow all of your points. I do agree that this episode isn't near close to the best of the season. But I'm not sure that it's as bad as you made it out to be.....you're rating was about what I gave it in my review though. (I give it a 2.5/5, which is around 5/10)
Well, each to his own, I guess. I know that I'm very much in the minority with my opinion on the show, but quite simply I didn't enjoy it very much. It honestly was one of my least enjoyable audio drama listening experiences of the last year--nothing saved the show for me, unfortunately. But I was glad to see at least one review that wasn't so positive! :-)
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