A Place of Wonder, Excitement, and Discovery!

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     This particular post may be a bit niche, but I imagine many of you will relate.  If you're new to this blog, I write commentary (mostly funny and light-hearted) on different media, such as movies and TV shows.  As a Christian, I also touch on what can be considered from a biblical worldview about these different things--that is, what messages are they really giving us?  This blog is relatively new, but I also write a more in-depth biblical worldview blog called Missionary at Rest, if you're interested in reading that (missionaryatrest.blogspot.com). That one has been going for over four years, and has more momentum.  

     Having explained that, this post takes me to my Saturday evenings growing up.  My siblings and I would spend our Saturdays out of doors with neighbor friends, but when we came home at the end of the day, our parents would often want to run errands together.  Those were cherished family times.  One aspect I particularly enjoyed was that Adventures in Odyssey came on the Christian radio station, and we'd listen to it in the car during those outings.  Sometimes, we'd arrive at Kmart (or wherever else we were going) before the episode was over, so Dad would drive around a bit longer, until the story ended, and Chris (the announcer) would wrap it up, giving the address for Focus on the Family, encouraging listeners to write.  We were such avid listeners that I can still recite Focus on the Family's old address in Pomona, California (91799), their "new" address (as of 1991) in Colorado Springs, Colorado (80995), and the Canadian address (Box 9800, Vancouver, BC, V6B 4G3).  All these years later, my husband and I are still avid fans today.  However, some aspects of it are more loveable than others.  There are some things we think should be a little different about it at this point.  There have been some major inconsistencies, which we actually find quite amusing.  Taking the good and mediocre (nothing about it is bad), let's look at Adventures in Odyssey.

     Adventures in Odyssey premiered on the radio in 1987, when I was in kindergarten.  I even recall the radio ads leading up to it, trying to interest families in this up-and-coming radio drama.  Who would have guessed they'd still be making it 33 years later?  I'm going to examine, alternately, a synopsis of the plot and the characters, and then address some inconsistencies, and close with what I think should be the direction of the series now.  If you are a fellow fan, I would really enjoy your thoughts and insights!

     I will say that one aspect I love about this is that it is entirely audio.  The character's personalities and voices carry the show.  The setting and people can look however you imagine.  The main characters are like old friends to me, and I do have a sort of mental picture of them all.  I pretty much ignore the art depicting them on the album covers.  Also, I will only say this here, but they did make some Adventures in Odyssey animated videos for younger children (after I was too old to appreciate them), which I don't consider part of the Odyssey cannon.  I dismiss them entirely, and definitely don't imagine the characters to look like the animation.  I'm not going to address the videos here.  This post is about the audio program only.   

Animated series characters

     The show is set in the supposedly small, idyllic town of Odyssey.  Whether it really qualifies as a small town is up for speculation.  According to info on different episodes, they have a mall, supermarkets, department stores, a bookstore, a movie theater, four computer stores, a video arcade, parks, numerous restaurants, a newspaper, a bowling alley, churches, a hotel (possibly more than one), at least one synagogue, a community theater, a TV station, a bus terminal, an airport, a train station, numerous neighborhoods, a hospital, schools, and a community college...at the very least.  In one episode, a reference is made to Wal-Mart, and another time, to Kmart, so these stores might also be in Odyssey.  There is a Bible seminary either in or near Odyssey as well.  For a while, my husband and I lived in a smallish (but not tiny) Midwestern town, and it certainly didn't have all of that, so Odyssey may not be as small as they imply.  There is also a lot of outskirt that is referred to, mainly the lake they always talk about, Trickle Lake.  For anything they don't have, they go to nearby Connellsville, the county seat (from what I gather, Connellsville has everything Odyssey has, plus the county courthouse and a zoo).  Connellsville also isn't as idyllic as Odyssey.  They have higher crime and other issues that occasionally come up.  Both Odyssey and Connellsville are in Campbell County.  

     It is never said what state Odyssey is in, but from narrowing it down from different references made, I conclude it is somewhere between Ohio and Iowa.  My husband believes it is in eastern Iowa.  The writers said they intentionally left the state out of it, so listeners could internalize it as their own hometown.  That being the case, I often think of Odyssey as Riverside, California (my hometown).  Most of the characters speak with the General American Dialect, and could be from just about anywhere in the US, but the slight specifics in pronunciation (in the child actors especially) and terminology used sounds more like they're in California than the Midwest (they call soft drinks soda, and use the term freeway instead of interstate, among other things).   Some of the adult actors actually do have a Midwestern annunciation, even if their terminology is still more Californian.  We know it is somewhere in the Midwest, though.  In different episodes, references are made to cities like Des Moines, Springfield, and Columbus.  However, the major US city they reference the most is Chicago.  Sometimes they fly there from Odyssey, sometimes they take the train, and other times they drive, so Odyssey's exact location is cloaked in mystery.  

     In over thirty years, the show has changed a lot.  Many characters have come and gone.  Different eras of the show have taken place.  The writing has had ups and downs.  There are exciting sagas and slow-paced storylines.  If I were to really analyze every character and every aspect of the show (including narrowing down specifically where Odyssey is), this would be hundreds of pages long.  I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to give my spin on it, and talk about some of the major highlights and angles that matters to me.  If I miss something that you'd like to see addressed, let me know.  I can do a Part II to this!

     The show initially centers around a widower named John Avery Whitaker (who goes by Whit).  After his wife's death, he created a "discovery imperium" for kids called "Whit's End."  Whit's End is an ice cream shop, but so much more than that as well.  Children can learn and grow there.  They can invent and interact.  There are activities they can do, and employees who care.  There is a whole room dedicated to the Bible.  Christianity permeates the atmosphere.  In some ways, it is almost an unlicensed Christian day care center.

The "real" Whit's End in Colorado Springs, set up to represent the fictional one.  My husband and I were able to visit this Whit's End in 2016, and order a Wod-Fam-Choc-Sod (a legendary Odyssey treat).  It was a fun time, but to be honest, the shop was too colorful, in an almost cartoonish way.  I don't quite imagine Whit's End to look like that.

     The show really starts with very simple episodes about Whit and the children who come into his shop.  Gradually, more characters are added, and focused on.  Whit is still central to the show.  We don't know precisely when Whit was born, but a good guess would be about 1920 (which would make him 100 years old as of this writing--unless his birthday falls very early in January, which would make him 101).  I draw this approximate conclusion because he fought in World War II, in the South Pacific.  It is said he joined the navy in 1942.  He was studying at Duke University as a philosophy major when the war started, and he left school for a while to fight.  At another point in time, he is said to have attended the University of Southern California.  This was either writer's inconsistency, or it was meant to be his graduate school after he finished at Duke.  At any rate, that is where he met his wife, Jenny (that is stated numerous times).  They married and had three children together.  It is implied they raised their family in Chicago. After their older son Jerry was killed in Viet Nam, Whit moved his family to Odyssey, to be further from reminders of the war and anti-war movements.  Whit taught junior high for several years, and received awards from the city council for excellence in education.  

     In Odyssey, there is a recreation center with quite a history, which comes up a lot over the course of the show.  Part of it was the town church at one time, and had connections to the Underground Railroad.  For a short time, in the early 20th century, Odyssey's mayor lived in it.  But the rec center was eventually built around it in the 30's.  In the 80's, the rec center was set to be sold and demolished.  Whit's wife Jenny wanted to persuade the city council not to sell it, because it could be used for the children of the community.  In the midst of presenting her case to the city council, Jenny collapsed and was taken to the hospital.  She had a kidney infection caused by the strep virus.  She deteriorated very quickly, and Whit barely had time to say goodbye to her.  After Jenny's death, Whit was a loner for a short while.  He wasn't initially interested in continuing the fight to save the rec center, but when he went down to take a look at it, he met a little girl who loved it, and her name was Jenny.  It was like a message from beyond the grave.  Deeply moved, Whit had his company (a Christian educational organization called The Universal Press Foundation) buy the rec center, which he turned into Whit's End.  This all happened before the start of the series, but we are told about it early on.  

My picture: this tape is from 1990, and I have had it about that long.  It has original artwork of what they considered Whit to look like at that point (before the cartoon videos gave an entirely different-look).  If you look closely, you can see it has the Pomona, California address at the bottom.

     The early regular characters are Whit, and his best friend and confidant, Tom Reilly.  Tom is a retired farmer, who is on the city council and serves as an elder in their church.  At one point, he even serves as mayor of Odyssey for one term.  Like Whit, he is deeply Christian, and often acts as a spiritual mentor to the kids as well.  He is the only character who can really hold Whit accountable, and Whit does the same for him.  Tom is usually a nice, easygoing man, but through the series, it is revealed he had tragedies in his past.  His only son, Timmy died saving a friend's life.  Because Timmy had shared Christ with him the day before the tragedy, this friend ended up becoming a Christian, and later, a minister.  A year after Timmy's death, Tom's wife died of cancer.  He eventually remarried, but his second wife, Agnes, has mental illnesses, and spends most of her time in an institution.  This is mostly all background information, though there are episodes that capitalize on these events in Tom's life.  These two men, Whit and Tom, are initially the only main characters.  Every episode in the early days had different kids, sometimes voiced by the same actors from previous episodes, but playing different characters who would never appear again.  The writers hadn't really developed any solid children at that point.  One other early character who didn't last very long was a bumbling police officer named David Harley.  He was there for comic relief, but parents wrote in to complain that he made police officers look stupid, so they removed him pretty early on.  They later brought in an almost identical character named Harlowe Doyle who was a crazy Private Investigator, and no one took offence to that.  

     Shortly into the series, we are introduced to a new regular character.  This is Connie Kendall, a teenage girl (she is said to be fifteen at the time).  She just moved to Odyssey from Los Angeles after her parents' recent divorce.  She is not a Christian at the start, and is initially rebellious and antagonistic.  She is hired by Whit to work at Whit's End.  Through Whit's influence, and to a lesser degree Tom's and the kids' influence, her heart is softened to the gospel.  A year into the series, Connie becomes a Christian in a heartwarming two-parter.  They did a very good job laying the foundations for her salvation experience.  In the episode of her salvation, they have a lot of flashbacks to previous episodes where she was pointed to the way, and it gave her a chance to reflect on all of this. It was very artfully done, and is a little bit of a tear-jerker.   After her salvation, the writers had the opportunity to do episodes that would focus on Christian growth, where listeners would have the chance to grow with Connie.  Eventually, Connie becomes a very mature Christian.  She has a fiery personality.  She can alternately be a spiritual leader and the immature person who needs the lesson in the episode.  She can be self-centered, but is not selfish.  She is very outspoken.  She had a short-lived relationship with a boyfriend named Jeff early in the series, but broke it off, because he wasn't a Christian.  Later on, she had a serious relationship with a Christian FBI agent named Mitch.  They got engaged.  The night before their wedding, an incident made Connie realize this wasn't God's will for her, and they broke it off.  She eventually reconnected with her first boyfriend Jeff, who had since become a Christian and is now a missionary.  I had thought that perhaps they would end up together, but the writers haven't done anything with it to my knowledge.  

     Throughout that first year (which culminated in Connie's salvation), several core child characters were introduced.  The most prominent is actually a family, the Barclays.  They are a family of four, who later become a family of five.  They are probably my favorite characters in the entire series, and were in Odyssey for a very long time.  The Barclay family consists of parents, George and Mary, and their children, Donna and Jimmy, and later their younger son, Stewart-Reed.  They were inspired by George and Mary Bailey (Played by Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed) in It's a Wonderful Life.  The Barclays start off in Odyssey as your typical American Christian family, with good (but imperfect) parents, and good (and imperfect) kids.  While Connie was the character who learned about salvation and spiritual growth in these early shows (inadvertently teaching the listener these things), the Barclays were the recipients of deeper messages for more seasoned Christians.  They were also the characters who demonstrated a godly family.  In the early years, they learn about things like prayer, being good stewards, supporting missionaries, and spending time together as a family.  They later develop and graduate into deeper things, such as learning to obey the spirit of the law (as opposed to just the letter), determining God's will, investing in other people's lives, and dependence on the Lord in hard circumstances.  George loses his job, and is eventually called by the Lord into the ministry.  As the family discerns God's calling together, the listener is touched by their experiences.  These episodes spoke to my heart (I was a teenager, as were the characters of Donna and Jimmy Barclay, by the time these episodes aired).  Eventually, George takes a pastorate out of town, and the family moves away from Odyssey (and out of the series).  I actually cried when that two-part episode was on the radio.  It was beautifully done, but it also meant saying goodbye to people who felt like real friends for many years. I wanted the series to move with them and forget Odyssey!  That wouldn't happen, of course, since it is Adventures in Odyssey, not the Adventures of the Barclays.  I actually credit these storylines about the Barclays in part for the fact that I'm involved in ministry today.  

     In the same episode in which Connie becomes a Christian (a year into the series), we are introduced to a new employee at Whit's End, Eugene Meltsner.  When he arrives in Odyssey, he is a college student (presumably late teens or early 20s).  He is the resident intellectual, and is quite eccentric and quirky.  He started college at age 13, and would likely have at least a Masters by this point.  He is genuinely kind, and has a deep sense of integrity, as well as a quiet strength, though he is easygoing on the surface.  He possesses a dry sense of humor, and is subtly prideful about his high intelligence.  The listener eventually learns that he is insecure and hides behind his intellect, believing he is otherwise a "nobody."  He and Connie have a love/hate rivalry, but are genuinely good friends when push comes to shove.  His salvation is a major story arc of the show, and culminates after some time.  As with Connie's coming to Christ, Eugene's story has well-laid foundations, and a meaningful salvation episode.  A big push in this direction (as well as an additional story arc for him) is that he falls in love with fellow college student Katrina, who has become a Christian.  Katrina is his intellectual equal, and his soulmate in every way.  Their relationship temporarily ends when Katrina breaks it off, her reason being that he isn't a believer and she is.  After he comes to salvation, he and Katrina eventually get back together, becoming engaged and then married.   Their relationship influenced me as a teen and young adult (though not quite as much as the Barclay's spiritual journey).  As a married couple, Eugene and Katrina live in Odyssey and have been involved in various ministries, including international mission trips.  They are probably the characters I most relate to in the newer episodes.  If they were real people, my husband and I would probably be good friends with them.  

     One more character I'll mention at the moment is the local janitor, Bernard Walton.  Like most of the central characters, he is a Christian.  He and Eugene are distantly related, and have a love/hate relationship (very unique and distinct from Connie and Eugene's love/hate relationship).  One of the funniest episodes about Bernard and Eugene (in which they are hilarious foils to each other) is Room Mates.  The two of them have to live and work together for a few days and almost drive each other crazy.  Bernard has a sarcastic sense of humor, and is quite amusing.  Not a great deal is known about his past or personal history, though we know he went to high school in Odyssey, and comes from a family of janitors.  In spite of coming from that legacy, his decision to become a janitor himself was because of the influence of a janitor at his school.  Bernard is married, but we almost never hear his wife, Maude.  He is an exceptional storyteller, and is known for sharing Bible stories with the children around town.  

     There are a lot of other beloved characters, but this could end up being a lot longer than intended.  I could write whole long blog posts about each character and each story arc in Odyssey, and it's tempting to do that here, but I need to refrain.  There's a lot more I'd love to say about the characters I've already listed, and even more so about those I've not mentioned.  With what we have so far, though, I'm going to move on for a minute (a few more characters will be addressed).  

     With the start of the series, we have it unfolding quite simply.  Whit runs Whit's End, making a spiritual impact on children's lives.  Connie and Eugene are eventually hired, and play a roll in the place.  We get to know other characters, and the show moves along.  However, something stopped the natural flow of things in 1994.  Hal Smith, the actor who voiced Whit, passed away suddenly.  They had just finished recording several episodes with him in them that had not yet aired.  They re-wrote upcoming episodes, so they could be recorded without him.  Once this was accomplished, they alternately aired the Whit and non-Whit episodes, so no one would notice his absence.  That bought them about six months to come up with a solution.  What would they do?  Their central character was deceased.  In an audio drama, the voice is everything.  They considered ending the show then, or having Whit's character die, but in the end, they came up with a different solution...

     They created a storyline where Eugene and Bernard go on a road trip together.  These were fun and humorous episodes.  It also took the show out of Odyssey for several weeks.  When the two return, they arrive just too late to say goodbye to Whit, who has left for the Middle East to take on an archeological mission.  This is traumatic for Eugene, who races to the airport to try to say goodbye.  He sees Whit on the plane, and thinks Whit saw him out the window.  Whit does talk in this episode, but they pieced his lines together from clips of his voice from other episodes.  With Whit in the Middle East, it wasn't clear how the show would carry on, but I really think they did a great job.  They didn't "replace" Whit.  How could they?  They brought in two new characters, Whit's old friend Jack Allen, and Whit's younger son, Jason.  Jack and Jason run Whit's End in his absence, and have their own personalities and qualities they bring into it.  Jack is a widower.  He is a quiet, gentle, kind man, with a deep sense of spiritual discernment and communion with the Lord.  He shares several stories of growing up with Whit, and adds that dimension to the show.  Jason Whitaker views Jack as almost an uncle.  The two do butt heads sometimes.  While he is a Christian, Jason isn't as discerning or disciplined in his spiritual life as Jack.  Jason is outgoing and reckless.  He is a former NSA agent, and thrives on intrigue.  Really, the two do compliment each other well, and both of them add something to the show.  I think writing them into it was a good move.  It created some new storylines that led to exciting places, such as the Darkness Before the Dawn saga (which is really the conclusion of the earlier-established Blackgaard saga).  For better or worse, the show took on a new flavor, and they went with that.  They could have kept Jack and Jason running Whit's End indefinitely.  However...

     An actor who sounded very similar to Hal Smith was found after a few years.  They hired him to play Whit, and had Whit return from the Middle East.  Since Eugene became a Christian while he was gone, Whit could now mentor Eugene as a Christian, which he does.  Jack and Jason are able to move on with their lives.  Jack falls in love with a missionary colleague of Whit's named JoAnn, and they get married and run an antique shop in Odyssey.  Jason has a lot of adventures, but not a clear sense of purpose.  He is never again as prominent a character as he was during his time working with Jack at Whit's End.  I think that's very sad, actually.  They could have done a lot more with him.  He does play roles in the show, sometimes even major roles in certain episodes, but not in an overall way.  

     I have always had mixed feelings about Whit's return.  In a sense, I'm glad the central character could come back.  In another sense, he wasn't quite the same.  The new actor sounded close to the original.  Very close at times.  However, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.  There were some qualities to his voice that weren't the same.  Even more concerning, once they had Whit back, his personality seemed different.  He seemed more active and restless, emotionally detached, even, as opposed to the sweet old man he used to be, content to minister to children and run his shop in his golden years.  Maybe it was the writing, maybe it was the way the new actor played it, but the innocent episodes from 1987 seemed very far away from these late 90's episodes.  Also at this time, they brought in a bunch of new kids characters.  I was an older teen by this point, so the kids I grew up listening to on Odyssey were teens as well, and most of them had been written out of the show by then.  I didn't relate to the children or the storylines that revolved around them at all.  It wasn't the same.  It felt like the writing wasn't as good.  It didn't appear to be going anywhere.  As far as anything I considered interesting, they moved very slowly.  Everything they attempted felt very contrived.  

     They eventually tried to do a really intense series of episodes, called the Novacom Saga, where a company moves into Odyssey that is really intent on mind-control and global domination.  It is pretty intense, with a lot of spiritual warfare involved.  It had its interesting points, but, as I said, it felt very contrived.  It was very far-fetched (but I guess a lot of things in Odyssey are far-fetched).  At the time, I felt like Odyssey had just gone beyond it's prime and were trying too hard to act like they hadn't.  In my opinion, the only really good thing to come out of the saga was that they introduced the character of Wooton, a very amusing, unique individual.  Wooton is the local mail carrier.  He is smart, intensely creative, but hyperactive.  He loves being with people.  He secretly writes and publishes comics with Christian themes, and is eventually discovered as the real author.  He is very kindhearted to the children of Odyssey, and gets involved at Whit's End.  He is actually hilarious.  He is a little too crazy to be realistic, but he is a riot, and a very likeable character.  Creating him was a stroke of genius.  He later marries an equally bizarre character named Penny, but that is a whole story in itself, and I'm not sure it will even fit into this blog.  Other than his introduction, though, I considered the Novacom episodes to be overrated.  

     The writers did get a second wind after that saga ended.  Some new characters came in.  New stories developed.  In the midst of all of this, the second actor to play Whit passed away, but he was promptly replaced by a third actor.  He sounds similar to both of the others, but again, has his own little specifics to his voice.  He doesn't sound quite as detached as the second one, but not quite as warm and connected as the first.  It is hard to think of all three men as the same character.  While I think they've come up with some excellent stories in recent years (The Green Ring Conspiracy saga and the related Ties that Bind saga), it kind of alternates between very good and very poor.  Some stories deeply minister to me and grab my interest, while others really annoy or bore me.  Sometimes I just don't feel the energy to go with them in the new directions they're trying to initiate.  My heart is mostly in the late 80s/early 90's episodes.  

     I think they initially handled it well when the original Whit died.  It not only kept things going, but opened up some great plotlines that wouldn't have materialized otherwise (the silver lining).  I'm just not sure I agree with all the decisions they made since.  I know these decisions weren't made lightly, and I do realize that the decisions they have made have kept the show going all this time.  Perhaps if they had gone different directions than they did, the show wouldn't have been able to continue as it has.  

     As for inconsistencies, the biggest one is time-related.  Time passes more slowly in Odyssey.  I think there was a statement I read (I can't recall if it was from the writers or just fans theorizing), saying that you could imagine that three and a half years for us is one year in Odyssey.  This would explain some aspects of it (such as characters like Connie being 15 in 1987 and only 20-something in 2020, and Eugene being a college-aged student in 1988, and seeming to be in his mid/late 30's in 2020).  But it wouldn't explain how there are certain "starting points" in the stories that can't be changed, such as Whit being a WWII veteran and his son having died in Viet Nam, yet current episodes taking place in undeniably modern times (there have even been online references to how the gang at Whit's End are handling Covid-19, which commits it to 2020--possibly now 2021). Unlike the Peanuts comics (where the characters never grow up), Odyssey has actually established some things that are part of our universe and timeline.  Having done that, they can't just retreat back into timelessness like the Peanuts can.  You can say time moves slowly in a vague way for them, but when you're comparing real years, such as 1942 to 2021, that theory just won't work.  That being the case, it is unrealistic that Whit, as this established WWII veteran, would still be so active.  If he was born close to 1920, as I speculated, he wouldn't likely even be alive anymore.  In 1987 when the show started, a man born around 1920 would have been 67, still realistically able to run a shop like Whit's End.  However, today, in 2021, that wouldn't work.  A century-old man, if he were still alive at all, wouldn't be working.  I have heard it suggested that they could move the narrative to ignore earlier assertions about Whit, and change him into a Korea or Viet Nam veteran, and make his son Jerry die in Operation Desert Storm instead of Viet Nam.  I have no idea if they are considering this.  The suggestion of this didn't come from anyone at Focus on the Family, but a few different fans.  I don't like the idea at all.  It changes very important stories that came earlier.  Also, the show started before Operation Desert Storm, which would mean his son was still alive when it started...that just doesn't work.  The other solution is to simply ignore the inconsistencies, which is what they have been doing all along.  But that can only be done for so long before it becomes ridiculous.  If they keep it up long enough, it could become the equivalent of a Civil War veteran running a shop during my childhood--completely ludicrous.  

     Something else worth pointing out is that the actors who play Bernard Walton, Tom Reilly and Jack Allen have all passed away in recent years.  Odyssey did very little to acknowledge their deaths (in some cases never even mentioned it, just stopped having them in episodes), but they keep Whit--their contemporary--as spry as ever.  

     What is the solution?  The following are just some ideas my husband and I have come up with.  You might have some different, better thoughts, and I'd love to hear them.  Maybe I'll like yours better than my own.  First, we think Connie needs a sense of direction.  Whether it's a love interest or a new calling, she needs a direction to go.  She never really finds that, so they need to give that to her.  Then, they need to wrap up all other unsettled storylines.  There should be no loose ends involved in any character's story.  As for Whit, he has lived without his wife Jenny for far too long.  His heart is longing for her.  We think they should do a very touching episode where Whit passes away, but from his perspective, he closes his eyes on earth and opens them to see Jenny standing there, welcoming him into Heaven.  Knowing the writers, they would make it very touching and heartwarming.  After Jenny walks him in, he could meet up with Tom and the others (they have enough footage of their voices from episodes to be able to put something like that together).  It would be a meaningful reunion.  Back on earth, everyone mourns Whit's passing.  In his will, Whit leaves Whit's End to Eugene and Katrina to run as their ministry.  If Connie had been given some other purpose, she could be happily in that, and Whit left her some sort of resource in his will to accompany that.  If not, she could stay on at Whit's End with a new sense of calling, with an inheritance from Whit.  Wooton and the other characters can continue on in their lives and ministries.  But they need to wrap it up.  Even if they think of some really good storylines, I think they need to really end it on a sweet note like that.  Possibly, they could do a follow-up series, but Odyssey as we know it needs to wrap up.  It's too much like a soap opera.

     Those are my thoughts and opinions on this program that played such a big part of my life (both childhood and adulthood).  If you have different ideas, let me know!