!! Examples from the radio series:
* AccidentalAesop:
** In "Lost By A Nose", the intended message is "don't be focused on outward beauty because inner beauty is what counts", but Liz's constant referral to the appearances of the people around her could also lead the moral to be taken as "your views on beauty are probably a lot more ingrained than you think, and you yourself probably judge others based on looks".
** In "Called On in Class", Trent's suggestion to his class during his presentation is that a person should face their fears and take a step with confidence, but he's still neurotic and stressed about public speaking in "Blood, Sweat, and Fears", in which Whit explains that if God is calling you to do something, you have to trust Him to give you strength. In his last two episodes, Trent is able to audition for and participate in plays, indicating that he's finally conquering his fear. Whether the writers intended to or not, the message here seems to be "rely on God and His strength more than you rely on 'good advice'".
** "For Three Dollars More" has Barrett learning the importance of tithing, being charitable, and using what God has given us to help others. It's during this that Matthew and Connie attempt to teach Barrett this lesson using [[SpaceWhaleAesop well-meaning but quite ridiculous]] for-want-of-a-nail scenarios in the Room of Consequences that end up leaving Barrett more confused and annoyed than anything else.[[note]]Matthew suggests that if Barrett doesn't tithe, it'll lead to everyone at church deciding not to tithe after Barrett questions why they have to do it, causing a DisasterDominoes that'll lead to Odyssey becoming a CrapsackWorld. Connie, meanwhile, suggests that if Barrett doesn't tithe, the money he didn't give wouldn't be given to and thus prevent a child from going to church camp and lead said to said child becoming a criminal that'll gun Barrett down during a bank robbery years later.[[/note]] It's after this that Whit sets the record straight by presenting Barrett with a more reasonable and realistic scenario that Barrett understands better. While the original moral about tithing and being generous with your money is still there and takes center stage, there is (unintentionally or not) a subtle moral about not being [[{{Anvilicious}} dogmatic]] and using scare tactics with lessons you're trying to teach someone, or the person you're trying to impart a lesson on will probably think you're being ridiculous and not want to take you or the life-lesson seriously.
* {{Anvilicious}}: All episodes end with a short snippet where a presenter summarizes the lesson of the week and dishes out the appropriate Bible verses.
* ArchivePanic: The series contains nearly 800+ episodes and counting over a near 30 year run. Even if you don't also include the video series, that's still at least several days of listening to Odyssey if you chose to listen to every episode non-stop. Better pull up a comfy chair!
** The "scaring off the audience" aspect of the trope is mitigated by the fact that the show is entirely auditory, and if one has the Odyssey Adventure Club, then one has access to every single episode (and then some); it's not like a TV show where a person has to just sit down and focus all their attention on it, and it can be listened to while doing something else the way music can.
* AudienceAlienatingEra: The so-called "split-era", which listeners will near-unanimously call the lowest-point in terms of episode quality. Despite having a few well-regarded episodes such as "Blackgaard's Revenge", "The Y.A.K Problem", and "I Slap Floor", many other episodes were seen as dumbed down and overly wacky and cartoonish, containing [[CluelessAesop confusing]] and increasingly {{Anvilicious}} morals, weak plots, [[SeriesContinuityError rampant continuity errors]], [[BizarroEpisode uncharacteristically strange premises]], and flattened characterizations. Some of the show's most reviled episodes (such as "Bethany's Flood" and "The Lyin' Tale") aired during this period. None of these issues were helped by the slashed episode length (a number of episodes during this era were short eleven-minute episodes instead of the series' traditional 22 minute episodes). Fortunately, this was only a temporary period and the series was quickly rerailed back into what it was before once listeners objected.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The music that plays at the end of "The Final Conflict", as the radio newscaster makes a weather forecast of a beautiful day in Odyssey. The sense of triumph, hope, and justice of the track is palpable.
** The music really took a step up in the Novacom Saga. Composer John Campbell explained in an interview that he was trying to give the episodes a more intense, cinematic feel, and his love for action scores ''shows''.
** The musical transitions from the melody of "It Is Well" to the choir singing it in the episode "It Is Well". If there's such a thing as a Crowning Music of Tear Jerking, this would be it.
* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** ''Wooton''. Either you love him, think he's hilarious (he ''is'' voiced by [[Creator/JessHarnell Wakko]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}} Warner]] after all), and consider him a great role model, or you consider him overused, overhyped, and over-the-top.
** The Parker family has been this as of late, with many believing they outstayed their welcome and should just be retired already. It doesn't help that they, for whatever reason, stuck around for a lot longer[[labelnote:*]]long enough that with the exception of the mother, Eva, and grandmother Lucia; every member of the Parker family has had at least one change in voice actors; with Matthew going through ''three'' different actors (Creator/ZachCallison; Gunnar Sizemore; Creator/JustinFelbinger) in a 2-year stretch between 2014 and 2016[[/labelnote]] with other child characters getting pushed to the wayside during their era like Jay Smouse and Barrett Jones, and leaving them as the only recurring family for almost twenty albums straight, and also being considered one of the less interesting families to be featured on the show.
* BizarroEpisode: They happen more often than you might expect from a show like this. It's worth noting that many of these episodes are from the "split era":
** The earliest possible example would be "Lights Out At Whit's End", wherein there's a blackout at Whit's End and Whit and the kids put on a series of...odd sketches all connected by the vague theme of communication and hanging out with your friends, ending with everyone rapping, including Whit and Tom Riley. The episode would eventually end up [[MissingEpisode pulled from the rotation]] due to the staff finding most parts of it too odd for the series and the rap scene embarrassing. It's possible, though, that this episode would serve as the inspiration for the better executed sketch-based KYDS Radio and B-TV episodes.
** "Dobson Comes to Town" involves a real-life person ([[CreatorCameo Focus on the Family founder James Dobson]]) [[TrappedInTVLand somehow ending up in Odyssey]] and interacting with several members of the cast before being sent back to Colorado Springs via the Imagination Station. The fourth wall [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall ends up being a bit hazy throughout]], and it's notably the only episode of the radio series to date that suggests that the events of the video series are canon to the radio series (due to the episode partially serving as a sneak peek of the video series).
** The infamous episode "[[AprilFoolsDay I Slap Floor]]", where everyone in Odyssey goes completely bonkers. When asked by Mandy and David Straussberg where an absent Whit is, Bernard explains that he is at home recovering from the events of last week. What happened? Apparently, everyone in town suddenly just seemed to have lost their minds. Whit started giving bizarre (if not outright dangerous) advice and ideas, Connie and Eugene fell madly in love with each other, Tom Riley sold his farm to [[SnakeOilSalesman Bart Rathbone]] (who planned to make it into a ''free space camp'') so Tom could become a rodeo star, [[TheDitz Harlow Doyle]] began solving crimes flawlessly, and other weird and silly things. In the end, it turns out that [[BigBad Dr. Regis Blackgaard]] came back to town disguised as his former lackey Richard Maxwell, wearing a strange cologne that for all intents and purposes [[GRatedDrug made everyone get high]]. Thus, he could take advantage of the confusion and take over the town. [[spoiler: In the end, it turns out that the whole incident didn't actually happen; Bernard was just playing a joke on the kids. It ''was'' April Fools Day[[note]] [[DontExplainTheJoke "I Slap Floor" is an anagram for "April Fools"]] [[/note]] after all.]] Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, as "I Slap Floor" is widely considered one of the [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments funniest episodes of the series]], unlike...
** The equally infamous Bethany episodes taking place in the overactive imagination of Aubrey Shepard's little sister Bethany named "Bethany's Flood" and "The Seven Deadly Dwarves", which, unlike "I Slap Floor", are infamous for all the wrong reasons:
*** "Bethany's Flood" involves Bethany falling asleep during a Bible study session about Noah's Ark and dreaming of a very {{Crack Fic}}-y version of the story where the Great Flood was caused by an overflowing bathtub the evil bandito El Nino left running for forty days and forty nights before escaping with "Christopher Columbo", prompting Bethany to join Noah and his sons Sam, Hamlet, and (Thomas) Jefferson aboard the giant vacuum cleaner The Ark-Vac. Even Connie (who is also in the dream reading "revised" Bible verses describing the insanity) sounds beyond well-beyond confused.
*** "The Seven Deadly Dwarves" has a similar setup involving Bethany falling asleep on the ride home from church after learning about the Seven Deadly Sins in Sunday School. She dreams that she is "Snow [=DeWhite=]" who lives in a castle with the Good Step-Ladder Father (played by her real father) until she begins to doubt his love for her and runs away to a shoe where the Seven Deadly Dwarves live. They end up enslaving her until the Step-Ladder Father comes to her rescue and they defeat the dwarves. Whereas the crazy goings-on in "I Slap Floor" had a justified, clever, self-parodying tone, many felt that the events of these two episodes came off as insanity for the sake of it and broke the listeners' WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, leaving these two episodes to end up being considered two of the worst episodes of the series and a symbol of everything wrong with the [[AudienceAlienatingEra split era]].
** "Sunset Bowlawater" is a bizarre homage to the movie ''Sunset Boulevard'' where the entire story is told from the point-of-view of Mandy's dead goldfish and Mandy goes straight to Harlow Doyle to figure out what happened to him. None of this would be too out of the ordinary for the show if it were, say, a KYDS Radio sketch, but the episode takes place entirely within reality.
* BrokenBase:
** There are a number of fans who grew up with the fast-paced and intense Novacom saga, and were therefore disappointed when the show went back to its standard slice-of-life faire, while others were fine with it and enjoyed those episodes for what they were.
** In the same vein, the base is roughly cleaved in two between people who wanted Connie and Mitch to get married and were incredibly disappointed when they didn't, and people who thought that their relationship was a blight on the show that was fortunately excised when they broke up.
*** Controversy erupted when [[spoiler: Mitch returned in "Something Old, Something New, Parts 1 and 2" with a new fiancée, with some being fine with this new development and sympathizing with all characters involved and others furious that the Connie/Mitch ship was [[ShipSinking sunk for good]] and accusing Mitch of being insensitive to her]].
** The existence of the Odyssey Adventure Club, essentially Netflix for Adventures in Odyssey, resulted in public outcry from many fans, who disliked how expensive it was (fifteen dollars a month); in turn, it was defended by others, who liked the fact that they could share it with family members so that they could hear the show as well, and who feel that fifteen dollars a month for every single episode plus new exclusives plus early listening to the new albums plus all of the videos is a steal.
*** In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Focus on the Family offered four-week free trial memberships for new members, allowing users almost completely unfettered access to the entire radio series' back catalog.
** "The Ties That Bind", a recent [[ExaggeratedTrope fourteen-parter]] that was supposed to address Biblical definitions of marriage and family, has caught a lot of flak from fans for never actually identifying homosexuality—none of the characters ever even use the word "gay", even though there is one scene where Whit pretty explicitly discusses transgenderism—and instead clouding it with words like "tolerance" and "inclusivity". It's also taken criticism for focusing more on the identity of the Perilous Pen (apparently the Edward Snowden of the comic book world) than on almost any other storyline, even though that story has next to nothing to do with family, and for portraying Ms. Adelaide, the "tolerance and inclusivity" champion, as a strawman. However, other fans think that the album was entertaining, addressed the issues appropriately, and had to include the Perilous Pen to keep kids entertained.
*** Interestingly, at least one former cast member has [[ComingOutStory come out as LGBTQ]] since her time on the show. Amber Cantorna (nee Arnold), daughter of an ''AIO'' executive producer and Focus on the Family exec, played Brooke Myers and a few other minor characters. She's now married to a woman and is estranged from her blood family, though she continues to identify as Christian and says she has fond memories of working on ''AIO''.
** The conclusion of the 2020 three-part "Rydell Revelations" series had shades of these partly as a result of Whit's remarks towards the end addressed to Morrie Rydell and adopted sister Suzu, that Whit knew that both Morrie and Suzu were responsible for the events of the Rydell saga dating to the events of "A Sacrificial Escape" but [[WhatTheHellHero didn't tell Emily]] due to Emily saying she wanted to [[ExactWords solve a case on her own]] after she and Matthew Parker decided to no longer work together, to the point where - in two fan podcasts - Phil Lollar, who wrote and directed the episodes, went so far as to suggest Morrie's actions (including trapping Emily and Matthew in the escape room in "A Sacrificial Escape") were justified and adding that he believed Morrie was ''not'' the villain and Emily ''not'' the hero of the saga.
* ContinuityLockOut: Egad. Considering it's a show that not only has complex continuity, but also a whopping 900 episodes and counting, it's very easy to feel this way depending on where you start. This would occur a lot more strongly if you accidentally joined the show in the middle of one of the 10+ episode story arcs like "Darkness Before Dawn," the Novacom saga, or "The Ties That Bind." You could also end up extremely confused if you joined the show in the middle of the "Wish You Were Here" arc and had no clue who the heck Whit was.
* CrossesTheLineTwice: Bart Rathbone meeting the love of his life at a funeral? Funny already. Meeting the love of his life at a funeral for a person he doesn't even know, specifically to sell ''life insurance?'' Let's just say you may end up feeling bad for laughing so much.
* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** Richard Maxwell, by virtue of being quick-witted, complex, good-looking, and an [[TheAtoner atoning]] Woobie by the end of his run on the show. To this day, fans are clamoring for his return.
** Monica Stone, for her backstory, snarky attitude, cunning, and role as a possible love interest for Jason.
* EvilIsCool: True to the spirit of the show, Dr. Blackgaard's acts of evil aren't romanticized one bit, but all the same...
* FridgeBrilliance: Campbell County Community College accepted Eugene when he was very young, and considering he was an orphan (as far as the state knew, anyhow), they also took care of him. He stayed with them out of gratitude.
* GeniusBonus:
** In the episode "Stage Fright"; a SchoolPlay where the [[KidDetective Jones and Parker Detective Agency]] are investigating a [[ItMakesSenseInContext mysterious noise]] is held at the Taft-Hartley Theater. In universe, the theater is named after two local actors, but it also serves as a reference to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act: a bill passed in response to a series of 1946 strikes that outlawed the "closed shop", sought to prevent Communists from gaining leadership in unions, and allowed states to institute "right-to-work" laws that would prevent unions from excluding non-union workers.
** The term has a second, very specific meaning to actors. [[UsefulNotes/UnionsInHollywood Being "Taft-Hartleyed" means that a non-union actor has been given a one-time waiver to perform in a union production]] (usually just prior to joining the union in question). Since ''Adventures in Odyssey'' is covered by SAG-AFTRA, [[InsideJoke everyone involved in the show is probably quite familiar with it]].
* HarsherInHindsight:
** Connie's snippy comments to the airport security officer who inspects Whit's computer in "Waylaid in the Windy City, Part 1" are considerably less funny in a post-9/11 world.
** Jess Harnell's Bill Crosby character (from "The Present Long Ago" and "BTV: Live") is a lot more painful to hear in light of Creator/BillCosby's sex scandals.
** Listening to any of the Officer Harley episodes can be this if you know the character's controversy. While a fairly light example as it mostly only affected the impressionable youth, it still can be a little uncomfortable knowing that he was quite disliked among parents, and the fact he was intended to be a humorous character puts him in this territory as a result.
** In-universe, Connie jealously grousing about Justine in front of Mitch in "Secrets" comes off as really cringey if the listener has heard "The Unraveling", [[spoiler: where it's revealed that Justine was murdered for discovering some of Andromeda's plans, thus spurring Mitch to move to Odyssey and Novacom to investigate in the first place]].
** Also in-universe, "Front Page News," where Curt mentions his father spanking him for his antics during the episode. Later, in "Home Is Where the Hurt Is," we learn Curt's father is an alcoholic, and though Curt denies any physical abuse, it's not hard to imagine now that any physical punishment in his household goes well beyond spanking.
* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Most of the actors are put through their paces and show off their chops throughout the show:
** Both Hal Smith and Paul Herlinger as Whit: "Connie", "The Nemesis", "The Battle", "The Mortal Coil" (Smith), "The Search For Whit", "Clara", "Exit", "Silent Night" (Herlinger)
** Katie Leigh as Connie: "Connie", "The Mortal Coil", "Plan B", "Something Blue", "Out of Our Hands", "Life, in the Third Person", "Life Expectancy"
** Will Ryan as Eugene: "The Mortal Coil", "The Fifth House on the Left", "The Turning Point", "The Return", "The Time Has Come", "The Right Choice", "Cover of Darkness", "A New Era"
** Walker Edmiston as Tom: "The Nemesis", "The Homecoming", "Tom for Mayor", "Hard Losses", "The Last Resort", "Exceptional Circumstances", "Exit"
** Dave Madden as Bernard: "The Fifth House on the Left", "The Time Has Come"
** Alan Young as Jack: "Moving Targets", "The Final Conflict", "The Decision", "For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll"
** Townsend Coleman as Jason: "The Search for Whit", "A Question About Tasha", "Shining Armor", "Exit"
** Genni Long as Lucy: "The Battle", "The Homecoming"
** Aria Curzon as Mandy: "Out of Our Hands", "Only By His Grace", "Life, in the Third Person"
* HilariousInHindsight:
** In "W-O-R-R-Y", Erica Clark worries that she'll get a huge zit on her nose before she can take a good school picture. In "Lost by a Nose", 28 albums later, Liz Horton quits a beauty contest because of a zit on her nose.
** Steve Burns plays Connie's friend's boyfriend in "First Love"; over 350 episodes later, Burns plays Robert Mitchell, Connie's love interest.
** Considering what the organization behind the series is infamous for, it's slightly ironic that Matthew Parker was at one point voiced by Zach Callison, best known as [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse the title character]] in pretty much the most LGBT-friendly family shows on the air.
*** Similarly, Creator/MarcEvanJackson voiced David Parker until 2017 (including the aforementioned "Ties That Bind" arc); one of his best-known roles is Kevin Cozner, Raymond Holt's husband on Series/BrooklynNineNine.
** [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane While it's ambiguous to how the Imagination Station actually works]], it's implied that it engages all five senses, even simulating pain in some instances. Come the ''Novacom Saga'', the eponymous broadcasting company develops a virtual reality headset called the "NovaBox" Whit discovers that it was developed using research to convert radio waves to brainwaves ''and'' his Imagination Station technology, so it can be reasonably assumed that the device engages all 5 senses as well. A VR headset that can do all that? [[Literature/SwordArtOnline That sounds awfully familiar.]]
** The episode "A Lesson From Mike" (involving minor kid character Julie Zeeke realizing that Mike Fulton, a kid the grade below her and her friends who had recently died, had quite a bit in common) includes Julie mentioning Mike drawing a comic strip involving a character who was a cross between the President of the United States and a professional wrestler. While he wasn't running for President, this episode aired roughly two weeks before former wrestler Wrestling/JesseVentura was the [[DarkHorseVictory surprise winner]] of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Minnesota_gubernatorial_election 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election]].
* ItWasHisSled:
** [[spoiler: Mitch doesn't actually die; he is alive and well in the Witness Protection Program until the end of the Novacom saga.]] This is no longer that big of a reveal; most of the fandom consists of teenagers and young adults, who grew up with AIO and particularly that storyline.
** Whit is PutOnABus and takes an expedition to the Middle East in the mid-90s episodes. Originally meant to be a massive shock to listeners when the episodes first aired, virtually everyone knows about this arc now. The first episode to put a spotlight on Whit's departure, "Gone...", even tries to increase the shock by leaving it out of the PreCap, but few contemporary listeners fall for it.
* JerkassWoobie: [[spoiler: Leonard Meltsner]]. He can be very brusque at best when interacting with people, consistently derides Eugene's faith and accuses him of essentially being Whit's lackey, and even sabotages Eugene's missions efforts at one point because he thinks they're a waste of time. [[spoiler: However—he and his wife were imprisoned by his old friend-turned-rival, Dalton Kearn, and forced to do archaeological work for him essentially as slave labor for twenty years; his wife died in captivity; and he believed both of his sons to be dead (one of whom he thought had died from injuries sustained at a dig, since he was born to Leonard and Thelma while they were imprisoned). He eventually escaped his captors, only to be hunted at every turn by them, growing steadily (but still quite understandably) paranoid, and held a grudge against God for years about it all. He softens up considerably after not only finding both of his sons to be alive and well, but also helping to get Kearn arrested, and he does eventually become a Christian, but he still wasn't the nicest guy for a while there.]]
* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt:
** "[[WhamEpisode A Bite of Applesauce]]", which ends with Connie and Eugene getting fired from Whit's End. They're two out of the show's three leads, so none of the audience was really expecting them to be fired for very long. It was even lampshaded by Chris in the closing bumper for "The Nemesis", after Connie and Eugene have both been hired back.
** Whit's DisneyDeath at the end of "Blackgaard's Revenge": Sending him away is one thing (and understandable given the [[CharacterOutlivesActor circumstances]]), but actually killing him; one of the most prominent characters on the show? Yeah, right.
* MemeticMutation: "Just send your card or letter to Odyssey, Colorado Springs CO, 80995. In Canada write to Box 9800, Vancouver BC, [=V6B4G3=]." [[labelnote:Explanation]]At the end of the radio version of every episode, Chris will ''always'' provide the address for fan mail (though this is cut from album versions). If you grew up listening to the show over the radio, chances are extremely high you still have both of these addresses ingrained in your mind to this day because of how often you heard this spelled out for you. Almost every fan of this show will jokingly point out the fact they have the address memorized at some point or another, and sometimes will even run it as a test to see just how big a fan of the show they really were. Older fans might even be able to recite the earlier version of this, Pomona CA, 91799.[[/labelnote]]
* {{Misblamed}}: Some fans take to blaming actors for what they feel are missteps in the direction of their characters' development, even though it isn't the actor's fault that their character says or does things that the audience doesn't like. For example, Paul Herlinger has gotten blamed for times when Whit's ''lines'' have been accused of being out-of-character, and Audrey Wasilewsky came under heavy fire from people who didn't like her replacing Pam Hayden as Katrina and complained that Katrina was suddenly out-of-character because of her voice actress.
* MoralEventHorizon:
** Dr. Regis Blackgaard crosses this halfway through "The Battle". Specifically, he hacks into the Imagination Station and sends a massive power surge through it, with Lucy rushing to the scene to stop him and getting hospitalized in the process, the [[WouldHurtAChild exact fate Richard Maxwell was trying to stop Blackgaard from causing]]. The MEH in question is crossed when Richard Maxwell, [[EvenEvilHasStandards thoroughly disgusted by Blackgaard's escapades]], gives him a talking to...who proceeds to [[NoSympathy completely shrug him off.]] [[spoiler:It shouldn't shock anyone that Richard Maxwell's contempt is what leads to his HeelFaceTurn, deciding that releasing his criminal past is worth more than sticking with Blackgaard.]] All of this and only on the ''first album'' of the Blackgaard saga!
** Nicky in "The Power" is already a character who has almost no redeeming qualities, given that he's effectively the child equivalent of a corrupt power-hungry dictator who ruthlessly abuses his computer hacking prowess to get what he wants and make things problematic for those who aren't on his side, but he undoubtedly crosses the line when he goes from simply changing students' school records to nearly altering ''the financial record of someone's family.'' [[spoiler:Is it any wonder this is the point in the story where his LaserGuidedKarma kicks in?]]
** Cryin' Brian Dern is pretty harmless, if loud-mouthed, during most of the show, a prime example of a family-friendly ShockJock...until "The Forgotten Deed" (which is also his last appearance) where he nearly jeopardizes the future of Whit's End with the sole intention of boosting his ratings. And relishes every second of it with zero remorse.
* {{Narm}}:
** John Campbell is a really gifted composer and has made some fantastic scores for the series...which is why it's really jarring to hear the music playing while Regis confronts Edwin in "The Return"; it sounds more melodramatic than legitimately intense and chilling.
** It's very difficult to take the fact that Whit has now been confirmed to [[spoiler:feel faint and ill when evil is present]] seriously; it comes off really awkwardly in a show that's usually very down-to-earth, even about spiritual matters (even the Novacom saga had some grounding in reality).
** The entirety of "Castles and Cauldrons"; even fans of the show think its portrayal of role-playing games is ridiculous and sounds like something out of a Chick Tract.
** "The One About Trust" is a really solid character-developing exercise, but at the very end, after Connie [[spoiler:quits working over a misunderstanding]], she tells Whit that it would "please her very much" if [[spoiler:she could continue working again.]] The word choice there is...odd, to say the least.
** The suspense of the climax of "The Case of the Secret Room" is deflated a bit by how the murderer merely threatens Whit and those with him with blow-darts laced in tranquilizers instead of, say, a gun[[note]]originally Fenwick ''was'' supposed to be using a gun, but the writers became concerned that it would make an already DarkerAndEdgier episode ''too'' intense[[/note]], meaning that Whit and the others were in no mortal danger and, even if Fenwick ''did'' use the darts on them, they could easily tell the authorities on the perpetrator when they came to later. Even the writers seemed aware of how awkward this made the climax of the episode, as they were less afraid to have antagonists threaten characters with guns and other legitimately dangerous weapons going forward.
* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/AdventuresInOdyssey Has its own page.]]
* OneSceneWonder:
** The episode "[[InAnotherMansShoes Another Man's Shoes]]" introduced an invention of Whit's called "The Trans-muter", which (in a controlled environment) enabled a person to experience life from the perspective of another person. Aside from a passing mention to the invention in an episode that aired a short time later, the invention hasn't been used or mentioned since. [[note]] The likely reason is that the Room Of Consequences can do, and has done, what the Trans-muter was built to do, so the Trans-muter was seen as redundant and written out of the show.[[/note]]
** The prison inmate who tries to get Bernard to "join the revolution" against the government over what he feels is an unjust traffic ticket in "Third Degree".
** The guy at the bowling alley in "Secrets", in whose lane Connie keeps rolling strikes while stressed on her date with Mitch.
** The lounge singer who keeps editorializing Eugene and Katrina's interactions in "The Right Choice, Part 1".
** Wooton's father Winston Basset makes his first and only appearance in "Wooing Wooton." Yet in the span of a single episode, he recontextualized all of Wooton's (and Wellington's) previous appearances from purely comic relief into much more serious, sadder events, showed just how screwed up the Basset family actually is by trying to force his son to marry a non-believer purely for familial gain, cut Wooton out of his will when he refused, and threw a massive wrench into Grady's spiritual journey on top of it. Wooton's strained relationship with his dad would be called back to as far forward as the relaunch era.
* OvershadowedByControversy: Just the fact that it's created and produced by [[HeteronormativeCrusader Focus on the Family]] turns many off from the series.
* RetroactiveRecognition:
** This show was Chris Anthony-Lansdowne's most prominent role (as the show's host) before she took a more mainstream role as the official voice of Franchise/{{Barbie}} for several years.
** Before getting TheOtherDarrin'd by Jordan Calloway, Marvin Washington's very first appearance was done by none other than Kyle Massey, who later would become a Creator/DisneyChannel star as [[Series/ThatsSoRaven Cory]] [[Series/CoryInTheHouse Baxter.]]
** Two of Matthew Parker's voice actors have gone on to voice notable roles in popular animated TV shows, with Creator/JustinFelbinger voicing the likes of [[WesternAnimation/MilesFromTomorrowland Miles]] and [[WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}} Sprig]] and Creator/ZachCallison, of course, voicing the eponymous character of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''.
* SeasonalRot: Being a very long running series, there are plenty of points where listeners have felt that episodes started to feel weaker than what came before, to the point of BrokenBase. Some or the most commonly cited points where listeners have called this trope include:
** The post-Novacom era: Some felt disappointed that things went largely back to normal after such an exciting and dramatic story arc, this time with a slightly goofier tone (albeit one that wasn't seen as quite as jarring or detrimental to the show as that of the split-era), and argued that episodes were less memorable as a result. That being said, the era did introduce many memorable and well-liked characters like the Washington family, Trent, and Kelly and [[AscendedExtra ascended]] popular characters like Jason Whittaker and Wooton Bassett to main character status.
** The relaunch era: The run of the series past album 50 has seen some criticism for getting rid of almost the entire current cast (save for Whit, Connie, Eugene, Katrina, Jason, and Wooton) and replacing them with less memorable characters. This was accompanied by what was perceived as [[DenserAndWackier an even further slide into goofiness]], and the mixed response by listeners to further major story arcs such as the Green Ring Conspiracy arc (due to Novacom naturally being a ToughActToFollow) and the Ties That Bind arc (due to some listeners feeling that the premise and subject matter were not handled well).
* StrangledByTheRedString: Connie and Mitch. They have very little in the way of common ground, they spend most of their time either arguing about major differences in their individual life choices or spewing out corny romantic dialogue, and Mitch's character eventually developed in such a way as to make a viable romantic relationship impossible. [[spoiler:They ended up breaking up at the end of "Something Blue", and it's been a controversy among fans ever since.]]
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: "The Ties That Bind" as a whole is already a point of contention among the fanbase, but one pretty indisputable case would be when Whit claims at the end of Part 6 that he's set up a Room of Consequences adventure for Olivia on what would happen if more people decided to try their way instead of God's way when it came to LGBT issues. You would think this would create an interesting subplot, but it completely takes place offscreen and is only mentioned one time afterwards offhandedly.
* ToughActToFollow:
** "The Green Ring Conspiracy", the first major saga since Novacom, is constantly scrutinized in comparison to its predecessor and the Blackgaard saga. One camp loves GRC, another camp hates it and considers it emblematic of the missteps they see the show having taken since the relaunch, and another camp just thinks [[SoOkayItsAverage it's decent without being anything really stand-out.]] The main issue with GRC is that, unlike the previous two sagas, it's self-contained in one album with no buildup in prior ones, working more as a serial rather than a full-on saga. It is also much LighterAndSofter, generally lacking the intense scenes that pervade the previous two sagas. Effectively, if one goes in expecting a SpiritualSuccessor to Novacom, they will be setting themselves up for disappointment.
** The episodes following Novacom have also taken a fair amount of heat for what fans see as being boring, goofy, or otherwise lackluster in comparison to the excitement of a story about a corporation trying to take over the world.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Actually avoided for the most part, as the producers try their hardest to avoid referring to years to make the episodes as timeless for reruns as possible. That said, it still occasionally happens:
** "Odyssey Sings!" came out at the height of ''Series/AmericanIdol's'' fame, in 2005. Thanks to it having fallen out of favor in the later half of the 2000s (with attempts to revive it having no lasting effect), the episode firmly cements itself as being a product of this time.
** Virtually every early episode that features a video arcade has become this, especially during Jimmy's youth where he's obsessed with "Zapazoids". The show started when they were still alive and well, but they fell out of favor in the late 90s.
** Another mid-late 2000s example: The 2007 episode "Hear Me, Hear Me" has a B-plot where Whit's MotorMouth cousin Evelyn whose talkative nature got on everyone's nerves to the degree where Whit ended up screaming for her to stop[[note]]an [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness extremely rare action]] for Whit in the post-Hal Smith era[[/note]], rattling off at one point about the Kennedy family and questioning if one of them was "still around". Massachusetts Senator UsefulNotes/TedKennedy was "still around" at the time of the episode's original broadcast, lasting another two years before his death from brain cancer in 2009.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Trent [=DeWhite's=] teacher Dr. Hawthorne in the episodes "Think on These Things" and "A Glass Darkly":
** In the former, Dr. Hawthorne's sharpness toward his students makes Trent so terrified of messing up that he ends up humiliating himself while trying to do a simple story problem in front of the class, having been rushed through it by an impatient Dr. Hawthorne. While Trent and Marvin use the Imagination Station to help improve their performance in math, Trent scans in a picture of Dr. Hawthorne to insert him into the program to help Trent get over his fear, but he ends up taking out all of his anger at Dr. Hawthorne on the program because he knows that, being virtual, he won't be facing any consequences for venting. Unfortunately, this carries over into the real world, where Trent snaps at Dr. Hawthorne and calls him out for being unfair, which is treated as a negative consequence of Trent's actions. The problem is, Trent accuses Dr. Hawthorne of unfairness...because Dr. Hawthorne overhears Marvin frantically asking Trent to let him cheat off his quiz, and refuses to hear them out when Trent protests that he had no intention of doing so. The episode ends with both Whit and eventually Trent taking Dr. Hawthorne's side, with no acknowledgement of what the teacher did. Of course it's not okay to yell at a teacher, especially in front of their class, but can you really blame Trent that much for reacting to what essentially amounts to bullying?
** In the latter, Dr. Hawthorne puts Trent in detention for a food fight Trent didn't cause based on the fact that he's still holding Jell-O that was thrown at him, even though an ''actual known gang leader'' clearly started it for multiple witnesses to see and Marvin outright name-drops Rodney. When Rodney tries to get back at Dr. Hawthorne by putting bees in his car, Trent, who couldn't find Dr. Hawthorne because he wasn't in his office and time was running out, desperately gets rid of the bees himself, only to be caught at the exact wrong moment and accused by Dr. Hawthorne of tampering with his car, again giving him detention without hearing him out (and Rodney beats him up for interfering). The upshot of it all is that Trent misses his audition for a prestigious music society because he's in detention, and when he explains what happened, they refuse to believe that he received the detentions for anything but legitimate reasons. He explains almost all of this to Whit...who does nothing to acknowledge how incredibly unfair this situation is and barely even reacts to the black eye Trent received from Rodney. The ending where the whole mess ends up benefitting Dr. Hawthorne in the long run (turns out he's deathly allergic to bees) was intended to be something good that came out of Trent's problem that Trent might never know about, but instead makes Dr. Hawthorne come off as a KarmaHoudini since the whole mess was his fault in the first place.
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Jared [=DeWhite=] usually annoys most of the other characters he meets, and even his friends don't really know what to make of him; he remains one of the most popular child characters on the show.
* ValuesDissonance: Whit ''spanking'' his grandson Monty in "A Member of the Family" comes across as this, now that it is much more of a hot button issue in the years since its first airing in 1987. To be fair, his daughter (mother to Monty) Jana does raise quite a stink about it, but it's only one of a few reasons she is upset rather than the main one. Whatever it was trying to portray it as, it's far from something considered acceptable to depict on a kids' show nowadays.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The show's audience is undeniably children, but there are episodes that sort of blur the line and don't seem to be appropriate for young children, particularly for the conservative Christian audience the show was designed for. In "Forever, Amen", for instance, [[spoiler: A boy blames himself for his mother's miscarriage because he wished he wouldn't have a younger brother.]] That's a downright tragic and terrifying idea for ''adults'', let alone children.
** Over the course of the show, concepts addressed and/or referenced have included: drug abuse, gambling addiction, divorce, alcoholism, abortion, international terrorism and biochemical warfare, abusive parents, the occult, death (including that of a little girl), cancer, mental illness, murder, a parent being in jail...
** The abortion episode ("Pamela has a Problem") got enough of this reaction in particular that it rarely aired before being given the MissingEpisode fate. It can still be listened to on the Lost Episodes album, but it has a disclaimer that it's better suited to a slightly older teenage audience rather than the show's usual one.
** The episode "Where Is Thy Sting?" got away with portraying Connie's father as being falling-down drunk at his own mother's visitation.
* TheWoobie
** Mandy Straussberg is one of the biggest ones on the show to also be a recurring character. It became worse when [[spoiler:her parents separated]] more or less concurrently with story arcs concerning Eugene's complicated relationship with his father and Grady's struggles with his DisappearedDad.
** Curt Stevens, whose mother walked out on their family and his father became [[TheAlcoholic an alcoholic]] as a result.
** Wooton Bassett, every time his past comes up.
** Tom Riley. His first wife died of cancer and their son Timmy drowned as a child. Then his second wife, Agnes, miscarried a couple of times before she found out she was infertile and then sank into debilitating depression that also affected her memory. He endures being publicly dragged through the dirt during his time as mayor because of a faked scandal set up by Blackgaard's cronies, and in the aftermath of Agnes's treatment using the Novabox, in which she appeared to get better, the reversal of radio waves into brainwaves intrinsic in the box's programming deteriorated her mental state such that she could no longer even recognize him. You sort of want to pull the writers aside and tell them to just let Tom ''be'' already.
** Kelly, the Washingtons' foster daughter, who was raised by an abusive mother until age ten when she was kicked out of the house and fled from her for an indeterminate distance and wound up in Odyssey with a massive tangle of trust issues and trauma.

!!Examples from the video series
* BrokenBase: The series as a whole to Odyssey fans. While some find it a respectable interpretation of the series and still have fond memories of watching it, it catches flack from other parts of the Odyssey fanbase who feel that the changes in tone and characterization were unnecessary and makes it just feel too much unlike the radio series as a result. On the other hand, though, the character designs given to the core three (Whit, Connie, and Eugene) were well liked enough to be adopted as their official designs for years afterward.
* HarsherInHindsight: "The Last Days of Eugene Meltsner" has a villain that attempts to rob a bank on a high floor of an office building, and he threatens the citizens with a remote-activated bomb. Yikes. Made worse by the fact that not only does he laugh maniacally about it [[spoiler:after Eugene disarms and narrowly escapes it,]] the bomb later causes mass destruction and a fire on the upper floor. Worse yet, this episode originally came out almost a year ''to the day'' shy of 9/11 (September 12, 2000). If it had been released any amount of time closer, it probably would have been a ''much'' different episode.
* MoralEventHorizon: Doug is already established as a JerkAss from the very beginning of "In Harm's Way", and already did quite a few things that were uncalled for on his part early in the episode (a particular point of note, shoving Dylan out of the way off a cliff during a bike race), but he easily crosses it when he threatens to ''kill Elliot,'' in the name of revenge no less! [[note]]Elliot is the main focus of the episode; he's a deaf kid that originally ruins Dylan's chances of winning the bike race at the beginning which causes him to hold a grudge against him, and his prejudice over the way that he "looks weird" to him doesn't help. Later on at Whit's End he ends up accidentally embarrassing Doug, which is what leads him to plot revenge.[[/note]] Making matters worse is that Doug deceives Elliot about halfway through the episode as well, saying that he just "[[BlatantLies wants to be his friend]]" and of course says he has a way to get people to like him...which involves making him take a bike ride off of Suicide Hill. ''Then'' after Dylan manages to save Elliot, Doug has the ''nerve'' to call it hilarious, and make the claim that [[ExactWords Elliot wanted to do it.]] [[LaserGuidedKarma Mr. Whitaker notifies Doug of the phone call to his parents that he is due to make as a result,]] which almost seems tame considering he doesn't even raise his voice.
* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/AdventuresInOdyssey Shared with the radio series here.]]
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Although the video series produced its fair share of unique and memorable characters, there is still a very noticeable lack of any other radio series characters outside of the core trio of Whit, Eugene and Connie, with the only other radio series character to appear in animated form aside from them being Bernard Walton in "The Last Days of Eugene Meltsner". Aside from Bernard's single appearance, there's no sign of the likes of Tom Riley and his farm, the Rathbones and the Electric Palace, or resident BreakoutCharacter Wooton, and even Connie herself was a complete non-entity in the video series until "A Stranger Among Us".
* ValuesDissonance: At the end of "In Harm's Way", Doug Harding tries to push a deaf boy, Elliot, down a dangerous hill on a bike with intent for Elliot to get hurt or possibly worse (with the resulting DisasterDominoes effect nearly leading to a train collision at the Odyssey train station that was only just barely averted at the last second), showing no guilt whatsoever about the chaos caused by his actions in the aftermath. The extent of the punishment that Doug gets for all of this is an earful from Whit and being sent home with the knowledge that Whit will tell Doug's parents about what he did. Nowadays, the act of trying to injure Elliot by itself (let alone almost causing a devastating train crash) would have more than likely gotten Doug sent straight to juvenile detention the moment the authorities found out about it.
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