The Town Hall Archives

Gandalf · Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2003 6:09 pm Post subject: Unreleased episodes

Okay guys, it's been awhile since we've talked about this so here goes!

Focus has several episodes that have never been released into an album and right now, there are no plans to do so. In particular, there are 5 recent episodes that haven't made it. They are: The Telltale Cat, Sticks and Stones, Career Moves, BTV: Grace, and BTV: Redeeming the Season. For those of you who don't know, I'll give the "reasons" the episodes aren't included in any albums...

The Telltale Cat - The official word is that the team decided the scenes where David throws the cat into the lake were "too intense" for the show. Okay, okay, for the original season where the idea was to make the series as fluffy as possible, I might agree. However, with the arrival of NovaCom the very next season and the last 3 albums, this is no longer a valid excuse.

Sticks and Stones - This episode provided too many fat names for kids to call each other... So maybe it did... to be honest, it was one of the few honest to goodness "cute" ones of that season in my opinion. However, I really think that a better solution to this would have been for Chris to add some lines to her closing dialogue about name calling in general.

Career Moves - The reason that this episode was left out of any albums was because it was "too weak". Okay, so we all agree. But so was almost every other episode aired around that time. "In Your Wildest Dreams" is filled with weak episodes. To be completely blunt, I figure the reason it was dropped was because the team wanted "Bethany's Flood" included in the album instead...

BTV: Grace - This episode has the most ridiculous reason for not being release, though not necessarily because of Focus. Apparently, some Amish people that heard this episode were very upset because they thought AIO was making fun of them. I just want to know HOW they heard it because they aren't supposed to have radios or tape players.... In my opinion, I thought the episode was done very nicely, though a bit corny in areas, and only poked a little fun at the Amish, no more than AIO has ever done before at any other people and ended very nicely with the Amish taking back the prodigal. I actually thought it painted them in a good light, if not humorous.

BTV: Redeeming - This episode has never actually been address by Focus as far as I'm aware. It was rumored to be in album 39 but was released by BTV: Obedience. It's also been rumored as planned for either album 40 or 41. I really don't see why it wasn't in album 35 to be perfectly honest. I think it was one of the better, if not the 2nd best, BTVs ever (the first being Obedience).

Okay, here's my theory on most of the episodes. Right before "In Your Wildest Dreams" was released, Phil Loller was replaced by Paul McCusker as executive producer of AIO. I really think the album was supposed to have contained all of the episodes from the Spring 2000 season except for Career Moves (which I explained above) But when Paul came on board he panicked (for good reasons) and shoved the two other splits shows (which he probably felt were the weakest, other than "Idol Minds") and BTV: Grace out of the album to be replaced by Passages, 1 and 2 (which were never supposed to be in any album for some reason) to try to rescue the album from complete rejection by fans. For the most part he succeeded and Passages and I Slap Floor were a lot of the reason some fans bought the album. When the next season started, it was so drastically different from the last that the team probably felt the episodes would seem out of place.

One question many fans have asked though is: why was "Idol Minds", an episode many fans felt was almost sacrilegious, included but not Career Moves. Here's my theory. Like I said, "In You Wildest Dreams" was supposed to have contained all the episodes from the season and the artwork was already finished by the time Paul came on board. The expense of throwing that artwork (which was a picture from "Idol Minds") away would have been unacceptable to Focus so that episode was included.

Here's my thought. Let me know what you all think. I personally like to pull out a split episode and listen to it every so often. They only take 15 mins and are perfect for some times when you don't have a half hour to listen. I think if AIO had spread those splits out over the course of, say 6 albums or so, fans wouldn't have disliked them so much. The problem was, Spring 2000 offered almost nothing but splits and fluff episodes and fans were sick of them. I think if AIO decided to stick them into one of the future albums, fans wouldn't mind them so much as in album 34. Of course, this would require writing one more 15 minute show since "Bethany's Flood" made the number uneven, but I think the writers are smart enough, they could manage a good, fun 15 min show like "Chain Reaction" or "What Do You Think?".

So what do you all think? If enough of us write to Focus, the might include them sometime...

Erica Clark · Junior Member Joined: 24 Nov 2002 Posts: 162

is this just speculation? cause I wondered about btv: grace myself.

When I was 8 years old, my family visited a bed in breakfast belonging to an Amish-Mennonite family. They were stricter than Mennonite, but looser than Amish. The owned an automobile, and maybe had electricity, but they ran their own farm and they dressed, looked, behaved very amish. However, the kids were allowed to have a tape player. (but no radio) and they bought and listened to AIO albums...

btw, do you know the reasons that McCusker came back and "replaced" Lollar? and what Lollar's been doing lately?

Ferder- · Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2003 9:08 pm Post subject:

Since the episodes you listed, Gandalf, can probably be bout seperatly from FOTF, and they aren't all that great episodes anyway, I don't see any need for the episodes to be included in a alphum.

Gandalf · Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 9:50 am Post subject:

Erica, the reasons for the episodes are reasons that were given at several places from the writers (like HQ chats and such).

I'm not exactly sure of where I first heard about BTV: Grace... I guess maybe I can understand about those people you met but then again, why would people like them be offended if they weren't the "type" of Amish in the episode.

Ferder, the reason they should be included is because they are part of the series. We all know how annoying it is to try to get hold of episodes like "Honor Thy Parents", "Pamela Has a Problem", "Lights Out at Whit's End", etc. etc. Focus may offer them now but that's no garentee they will in the future. If they were included in an album, it's much more likely they would be available indefinately.

Ferder- · Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:36 am Post subject:

I have a copy of "Honer thy parents" on tape if you want to borrow it Wink

. Hmmm. Maybe you can have it. I'm getting sick of it anyway.
I've heard Pamala's problem twice. You aren't missing much.
I would be interested to hear "Lights out at Whits End"s some time.
I see what you mean though, whether its a good ep or a not as good ep, Odyssey is Odyssey and if you are collecting all the eps, then I can see how anoying it would be not to have them available.

BTW
The reason I have a few episodes that haven't been released is because I tape the episodes right off the radio. The benefit of this is that you don't have to wait until the alphums to come out until you can hear the episode again.
I may in the future record the episodes off the internet on to disk.

Gandalf · Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 2:29 pm Post subject:

I actually do the same thing! Only our station only airs on Saturday's instead of all week so I can't record the re-airs that aren't in albums Sad

HOWEVER!!!! I also still buy the albums because there are sooooo many scenes that don't make it to the radio versions. The Great Wishy Woz is one of the best examples. It's got like 15 mins that didn't make it to the radio version that is added in the album version (isn't that right Nathan? Something like that....) Also, the album "Signed, Sealed, and Commited" has, I would say, probably about 45 mins of edited stuff out of it. All but I believe one episode has added stuff so that's really great! I really encourage everyone to buy the albums because doing so supports the continued airing of AIO. If people stop buying them, Focus may conclude that no one is listening any more....

Gandalf · Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 2:47 pm Post subject:

Just so everyone knows... Everything regarding "Passages" and Paul McCusker is only speculation. I have no "inside" information. It just seems like the logical thing to guess.

Ferder- · Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 3:37 pm Post subject:

I wish I could hear the deleted scenes, but the alphums are very expensive in Canada. (about $40, if bought directly from FOTF). Unfortunatly we no longer have a Christian Book store were we live so the only way to get the alphums is to order them. I do own one though. "A Maze of Mysteries"

Gandalf · Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2003 12:42 pm Post subject:

Hey guys! I was just thinking... Scary I know, does anyone else remember an episode that was SUPPOSED to be aired in Spring 2000 called "The Dangerous Haircut"? It's mentioned in the below article from the HQ as a "confirmed" episode for 2000...

http://www.aiohq.com/archive/newsjan0.htm

Anyway, here was my idea, I don't know if the episode was ever recorded or not but it would be ideal to put it on with one of the 3 splits in a new album... Assuming it's a split episode which I would guess it is reading the description...

Also, three other episodes that was apparently "lost" that season were "The Hoaxs on You", "Fads?" and "Turning Paige". The latter was most likely re-written into "Changing Rodney". These following articles mention these 3 episodes.

http://www.aiohq.com/archive/newsapr0.htm
http://www.aiohq.com/archive/newsmay0.htm

Hey Nathan, can you tell us anything about these 4 episodes? What happened to them? Were they recoreded and dropped? Were the renamed? Or were the scripts even completed?

Bennett Charles · Town Villain Joined: 24 Nov 2002 Posts: 2410

Wow! You asre so right. They also mentioned, Phil Lollar's series of "Young Whit." I totally forgot about that. What happened?