Review of “Sir Buddy’s Snowy Day”.

Warning. Contains spoilers and is a “gut reaction review”. Click the “Read More” button to continue.

OK. This one had some upturns and downturns. The overall quality of Odyssey episodes that I don’t like is increasing, so that I don’t like them but there are lots of good parts to it too.

Let’s start with the pros: Buddy’s imagination was artfully blended with the reality around him. We aren’t jolted between two realities, as in previous episodes. Rather, the dialogue that was happening in real life, he misinterpreted through the lens of his imagination. It was quite hilarious, actually, especially when Olivia comes out of her room angry about the scarf. Well done.
Another huge pro: the Narrator. It was a pleasure to listen to Ralph Lister, who sounds so much like Sir David Attenborough. I would listen to the episode again, merely to hear him. He made the imagination sequences downright enjoyable.
Eva Parker was awesome in this episode. She is another good player in this episode and one I really enjoyed hearing. Especially when she’s giving Buddy his dressing-down.
Speaking of that, the moral was a good one. That we often misinterpret what our crushes think of us. We set ourselves up for disappointment. We shouldn’t make too much out of nothing. Too bad it went right over Buddy’s head.
Another pro: I started grinning when Jay Smouse appeared in this episode. I wasn’t aware beforehand that he would be in it, and it was especially good to hear him again.
Yet another pro: The callback to another snow episode, “Snow Day”. What’s interesting is that many fans, when that episode was initially released, didn’t like it. Why? Because it interrupted the Novacom Saga. Very few, at the time, still cared about what was happening to Alex Jefferson and his pals. They were hoping to hear the “good stuff”. I am placed in the situation now, as I wait yet again to hear about the Meltsner saga, and the Morrey saga. That episode, also, was put through a reality-imagination lens. Both episodes have a goal that we more or less don’t really care about, aren’t emotionally invested in. But that’s getting ahead of myself.
One more pro: We will not be continuing with the Buddy-Olivia ship, if there ever was one in the first place. I’m not sure anyone shipped them, and I’m glad there won’t be any reason to.

Cons:

Here’s the big one right here: Buddy’s an idiot. Eva Parker’s amazing speech was unfortunately wasted as Buddy completely missed the whole point. And so history is doomed to repeat itself as Buddy now goes after Zoe. Seriously? While crushes are very much a part of life, can we have a moment of silence?
Another con: I’m not too emotionally invested in this plot. While it was pretty good, and more or less realistic for a Buddy episode, whether or not Buddy got the coat for his fair maiden Olivia was really something I didn’t care about all that much. We were along for the ride, and it was more or less enjoyable for the reasons mentioned above, but there was really no investment on my part. I got the feeling that I do when I read social media. ‘Really? Tesla is finally delivering their Model 3s?’ And then I continue on with my life.  Especially when it comes to Buddy, if we look at it from his point of view, he didn’t really learn all that much. Except that he should go hit on Zoe instead of Olivia.
Last con: I totally missed it, what was Jay doing? While he was talking, I was busy filling out a crash report for Photoshop. I consider myself good at multitasking, but I really did miss what was going on with him. I got the picture though: he’s gotta apologize to Zoe and is convinced she hates his guts. There was some convoluted explanation somewhere, I kind of missed it. I take off points for that because of listenability. I have to get it the first time through, even if I’m multitasking a little bit.

Alrighty, I’m hungry. So I’ll wrap this up by saying, overarchingly, I don’t care. But as I got dragged along for the ride, I found it much more enjoyable than I expected. Final rating: 8.5/10.

Other episodes with 8.5/10:
Crash Course
There and Back Again, Part 1
Unfair Game