What's Odyssey? With Joshua Mensah-Woode
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Summary
What's Odyssey? With Joshua Mensah-Woode, stylized "What's Odyssey?" or simply The What's Odyssey Podcast, is an educational podcast produced by AIO Writer's Block and hosted on Spotify Podcasts. The podcast is advertised as "not your typical Adventures in Odyssey podcast," featuring interviews with both Odyssey fans and non-Odyssey listeners, tying Adventures in Odyssey in with real-world connections. The podcast trailer was released on February 19th, 2024, and the show's first season premiered on March 8th, 2024.
Development
During AWB's visionary release at the end of 2023, Donald Treply announced the future production of an AIO Writer's Block podcast. An AIO Writer's Block podcast had unfinished developmental roots as early as 2021; however, nothing substantial emerged from it. In the plans for this podcast, Odyssey writers would come on and discuss their works in a style not unlike the podcast "Your Fellow Odyssians." This podcast would also include candid episode reviews with guests, like many current Odyssey podcasts, in the style of "Wod Fam Choc Pod". When Joshua Mensah-Woode took over the project, he decided to lean more into an education style filtered through the Odyssey. Writing for the show began within the first weeks of 2024, and music production went into early February.
Episodes
The What's Odyssey Podcast and AIO Writer's Block began producing episodes at the beginning of 2024. The majority of the intended episodes for the first season have now been released. Writing for season two began in mid-2024. The show's first season had nine episodes out of an intended twelve. The show's second season, including one special, is scheduled to have a total of ten episodes.
| Episode Name | No. | Release Date | Prod. Code | Production Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Comprehension Crisis | 1 | March 8th, 2024 | WOP1987 | Released |
| The Homeschooling Odyssey | 2 | March 17th, 2024 | WOP1988 | Released |
| The "PK" Problem | 3 | March 26nd, 2024 | WOP1989 | Released |
| The Rydell Re-Construction | 4 | April 2nd, 2024 | WOP1990 | Released |
| So...What's Odyssey?: The Timeline | 5 | April 6th, 2024 | WOP1991 | Released |
| Season Break | ||||
| What's Odyssey to Fan Creators? | 6 | May 4th, 2024 | WOP1993 | Released |
| What's Odyssey Like for First-Time Listeners? | 7 | May 11th, 2024 | WOP1992 | Released |
| "What's Odyssey?" From the Fans | 8 | May 20th, 2024 | WOP1994 | Released |
| Interview With Donald Treply | 9 | October 12th, 2024 | WOP1997 | Released |
| Episode Name | No. | Release Date | Prod. Code | Production Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Special: The Destruction of Truth. | Season 2 Precursor | January 20th, 2025 | WOP 1995 | Writing |
Notes
- Joshua Mensah-Woode composed three separate themes for the second half of the first season. They were the What's Odyssey Pizzicato Theme, the What's Odyssey Gaming Theme, and the What's Odyssey Orchestral Theme. The gaming theme was featured in a re-release of the eighth episode.
- The production codes on the sixth and seventh episodes of the show are switched. This is because the episode with first-time listeners was originally scheduled to premiere first after the season break.
- "The Destruction of Truth" is the first episode Joshua wrote with another person.
- "The PK Problem" was originally supposed to have a guest pastor's kid from a different organization, rather than the guest who was ultimately on the episode. Seeing as the replacement was also a daughter of a local ministry, the episode description did not change.
- "The Rydell Reconstruction" became and has remained the most popular episode of the show, though it was originally expected to be the most niche. This resulted from a Facebook group post made by Joshua Mensah-Woode the Friday after its release.
- Writing for the second season of the show began after Joshua listened to The One About Trust. He tweeted about it toward the end of the schedule of the first season.