Review: FP-While Dad's Away

This was definitely a unique episode. I don't remember this topic ever coming up in another episode. While not an Adventures in Odyssey episode (but I still count it as one because it was part of Family Portraits), I am still reviewing it because it does have Whit, and is basically an Odyssey episode.

I thought that, in general, this was a good episode, and that means even more to me, since it was one of the first episodes. I personally like the newer episodes since they had continuing characters, but this was a good episode. As I'm re-listening to the older episodes, I've been finding that they're a lot better now than when I listened to them a few years ago.

My main problem with the episode was that the lesson seemed more relevant to adults than kids. While kids could learn about the importance of being with your family and helping while they're gone, the main lesson was for adults. I know that Family Portraits had a wider audience (I remember that The Letter was directed at teenagers, which would probably not include the 8-12 range), but listening to it as an Odyssey episode, this is a problem. Another slight problem is the acting. It isn't the best at certain points, but it's not too noticeable and most of the episode is good.

I'd also like to say that I thought that the ending was unexpected. There will be spoilers from now on in this review. When the dad called home and Whit said that something had changed, I thought that the Janice was going to leave her husband. I was completely wrong. The ending where they got back together was unexpected. One final thing, in the scene where Whit's telling the story and the father had just started leaving, one of the people who were thinking about buying the house said that they were starting to realize why the house was being sold. I didn't get it at that point, so I would probably have cut out this line.

Otherwise, I thought that this was a good episode, and one of the better original episodes.