So. Last season, Nathan Petrelli died and Matt Parkman telepathically brainwashed Sylar into believing he was Nathan, and since Sylar can change his appearance, as far as anyone can tell, he may as well be Nathan.

Now, Matt has a version of Sylar living in his head like Harvey, the neural clone of Scorpius living in John Crichton’s head in Farscape. This Sylar seems to be under the impression that he was pulled out of his body and put into Matt’s head. Meanwhile, “Nathan” seems to be exhibiting flashes of Sylar’s personality and powers.

In short, Sylar’s personality exists in two places:

• Matt Parkman’s mind, where he can interact with Matt.
• Sylar’s mind, where the personality is currently suppressed in favor of Nathan Petrelli’s personaility.

While I still think Sylar has long outstayed his welcome and should have been left for dead after the first season finale (they could have brought him back later with much greater impact if he’d been out of the picture for a year or two), I’m kind of intrigued by the possibility that the Sylar in Matt’s head might catch up to his body and find another version of himself occupying it…because I don’t think he’d be interested in sharing.

Lost – Good season, learned a lot more than I expected about DHARMA, major cliffhanger. Renewed for a final season…in 2010. (Hard to believe that’s less than a year away)

Pushing Daisies – managed to maintain the tone & quality, but canceled halfway through the year. Supposed to get the last 3 episodes starting at the end of the month. A 12-issue comic book miniseries has already been announced.

Bones – I only saw a few episodes, but liked them, and Katie’s been watching it regularly. Fun off-format season finale w/ a nasty cliffhanger. Returning, according to the voiceover during the credits.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – turned our to be a surprisingly solid, complex show. No word on renewal yet, but I’d like to see more. Update 6: canceled.

Dollhouse: Started off weak, but got really interesting as the season progressed. It’s not a comfortable show by any means. No word on renewal, but if I had to choose between this and T:SCC, I’d take SCC. Update 2: Unofficial sources say it’s renewed, but I wouldn’t count my actives until they’re all back for their treatments.

Heroes: I gave up 2 episodes into the “Fugitives” arc, but Katie kept watching. Deeply problematic show but its high points were very good. Renewed, and I hope it’ll improve next year.

Better Off Ted – fun, painful, quirky all rolled into one. Sort of like a less-nerdy Dilbert or Office Space. I’d like to see more, but it doesn’t seem likely. Update 3: Holy crap, it’s been renewed! That’s a bigger surprise than Dollhouse!

Castle – favorite of this year’s mid-season replacements. Would definitely like to see more, but would be okay if this turned out to be all. Unlike, say, Drive. Update 1: Cool! It’s been renewed!

Battlestar Galactica – finished off with a very good final season. Caprica, on the other hand, was tedious. May take another look at it when the series launches.

Update 4: Forgot to mention The Unusuals, which we checked out, but neither of us found interesting enough to stick with. The ads built it up to be…well…unusual, and it wasn’t. Castle and Bones both routinely dealt with more unusual cases. For anyone who did like it, prospects look dim. Update 7: canceled.

Update 5: EW has a running tally of all the network shows.

Update 8 (May 18): The decisions are in for all of them now. I’m sad to see Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles canceled (especially in the same week that Terminator: Salvation opens), and I’m still annoyed at losing Pushing Daisies halfway through the season, but the other shows we watch have had a remarkably good survival rate this year.

I love the parts with Hiro, Ando, Daphne and Matt (except when Matt’s overdoing the “I saw you in the future and we’re in love!” bit). If they could make that into a show, I’d have no complaints. But the rest has slowly gotten bogged down in a mix of technobabble, melodrama, and an endless face-heel revolving door. “I’m evil!” “No, you’re good, I’m the one who’s evil!” “Wait, I thought it was my turn!”

Some specific comments, with spoilers, after the cut:

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SPOILERS!

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The woobification of Sylar. I realize they felt they had to do something to keep him around for the fan base, and they couldn’t keep him as the big bad after volume 1 finished, so he spent volume 2 powerless and volume 3 trying to figure out whether he was good or evil. And had an epiphany while he was powerless. You know, the way he was all last season? But that’s okay, it’s still not really his fault. He has The Hunger, you see, and really it’s all Bennet’s fault. Everything’s HRG’s fault! And Elle’s. Not poor little Gabriel’s fault, no!

Someone please tell me that either Claire or Noah — or heck, even Angela — stuffed garlic in his mouth and cut off his head before they left. Which reminds me, I have a hard time getting worked up over a pyrokinetic being trapped in a burning building. Especially one who has a history of escaping from a fire that “no one could possibly survive.” I expect she’ll show up somewhere in volume 4 to be used as leverage against Claire, and everyone will be so shocked to see her alive…except the audience.

While we’re at it, have we ever seen any indication that Meredith’s flame powers were involuntary, as in they would manifest while she was, say, unconscious? Noah could have asked her to aim her hands at the wall, then knocked her out with the butt of his gun, and they could have had plenty of oxygen while her system metabolized the adrenaline. And later, they could have gotten her out of the building without burning it down. With Peter, Mohinder, Nathan, or Matt, you kind of expect them to be carrying the idiot ball at times like this, but Bennet’s always been shown to be one of the few characters on the show with some consistent brains.

By the time Hiro was trying to steal the formula in the past, I was actually hoping that they were going to prevent the whole season from having happened, and normally I hate when stories do that.

Unfortunately it looks like volume 4, “Fugitives,” is going to be the kind of super-hero story that always annoys me, whether it’s well-told or not: the one in which the general populace turns against the heroes and either rounds them up or runs them out of town. (I guess there’s a reason I was never much of an X-Men fan.)

*sigh*

Holding out for Volume 5. Or the adventures of Hiro, Daphne, Ando and Matt in the Cretaceous.

Katie got up 2 hours before I did to make sure she got a spot in the Heroes line. She succeeded, and managed to get into the hall before I even made it to the convention center. Of course, that was in part because I wanted to grab cash, coffee, and a sandwich to hang onto for lunch before I got in. I think I stood in line for at least 10 minutes waiting for an ATM at a branch in the Gaslamp district. There were two machines, one of which was broken, and the two — just two — people ahead of me were both making deposits. And the machine was slow.

As for coffee, I figured I’d go to a Starbucks just because it was closer — but once I got to the nearest one, I realized I wasn’t far from an It’s a Grind. So I walked the two blocks, and passed another Starbucks on the way. So I grabbed coffee and something to eat, then spent at least 20 minutes at Subway. Then I had to wait for the trolleys so I could cross the tracks…

By the time I got to the convention center, they were letting the Hall H line in. It was running all through the park area at the end of the center, zig-zagging around, and reportedly went all the way to Seaport Village. Which doesn’t make sense, because IIRC Seaport Village is at the other end of the center, so maybe they were talking about the line for badge pickups?

I waited near the front, figuring I’d hand Katie her water bottle and crochet hooks on the way in, but then I asked one of the “Elite” staff when the line started moving — and it had been almost an hour earlier.

So I went back to Artist’s Alley to pick up that sketch from Todd Nauck. He was off doing a signing at the DC booth. So I went to the reservation desk to set up for dinner. Which took a while, since I went through the main floor, which was a very cattle-drive-like experience. At least my shoulders are starting to get used to the backpack again, though I’m starting to feel like I’m in that third-day convention haze. (Plus I had only a scone and coffee, instead of a full breakfast, which might have something to do with it.)

There are a lot more people in costumes here today. As expected, there are lots of Jokers this year — so many, in fact, that I’ve stopped paying attention to them except for the really good ones and the creative ones. I’ve seen at least two Nurse Jokers over the last few days, possibly three.

I’m waiting for the Tori Amos/Comic Book Tattoo panel now. I figured the line would be long, so I showed up about 45 minutes early, but it turned out they were letting people walk right into the Ralph Bakshi panel, so I wandered in, watched the end of it, then moved to a better seat at the break. The room’s packed, and there are about 10 minutes left before the panel. But I’m only 5 rows back, and a little off to the side, which is better seating than I’ve had at any of her concerts.

Being Heroes fans, we couldn’t resist. Not only was the name just one letter off of the show’s popular villain, but the elongated S in the logo was just begging for a trio of crosspieces to turn it into the helix symbol that appears everywhere in the show. A bit of photo-manipulation later:

Update: The photo gallery is up!

The Floor

I spent most of the time on the main floor, hunting down back-issues, bargains and autographs. A lot of dealers had brought their bargain bins (some of them, thankfully, alphabetized!), and a lot of them had trades and hardcovers for half-off or close to it. There were also the booths selling high-grade Silver-Age and Golden-Age books, toys and collectibles, and at least two booths selling swords. Yes, swords.

At one point, I overheard two comic-book dealers discussing whether the show was worth it. One of them said that people here tended to be looking for bargains, so it was hard to sell anything else. They agreed San Diego was a better bet.

I’ve been joking that the logo design for this year’s con (see above) was inspired by the gigantic auto show that shared the convention center witl last year’s con. So I was surprised to find a mini-auto show here: Marvel-themed cars, including Iron Man and Punisher SUVs.

There was a stage set up for Guitar Hero. At one point, I noticed the music was Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” It seemed appropriate.

Costuming

There weren’t quite as many people in costume as I saw at WonderCon last month (also a Saturday). But there was a large contingent of people in Jedi costumes, some of whom seemed to be sparring with lightsabers every time I walked down the right edge of the dealers’ room. And there were Imperial Stormtroopers directing traffic, making sure people could find the one large panel room that was half-way to the other end of the convention center.

They held an informal costume contest at 1:00, with winners chosen by applause volume. To avoid interference from the “awwww” factor, they held two: one for kids, and one for adults. The kids’ entries consisted of two groups, one of DC characters (Robin, Harley Quinn, and someone else), and one of Star Wars characters (a Jawa, Leia, and someone else. Gee, my brain’s really working here). The Star Wars group won handily.

The adult costume contest had closer to a dozen entries, and came down to two: A very detailed, complicated Optimus Prime, complete with working taillights and light-up Creation Matrix, and a pair dressed as Mario and Luigi. The Mario Brothers won. (IMO, Optimus Prime was robbed.)

The weird thing is that the prizes for the kids’ contest were the same as the prizes for the adult contest: mini-statuettes and busts of characters like Hulk, Venom, etc. I can’t imagine the two-to-six–year-olds who won were terribly pleased with their prizes. The parents have probably listed them on eBay already.

Signings and Encounters

At the Avatar booth, I talked with someone who I took for a sales rep. But when I paid for the books I picked up, he offered to sign the Anna Mercury preview. It turned out he was Jacen Burrows, who’d drawn the cover. (Interestingly, over half their table space and nearly all their shelf space was devoted to Warren Ellis books.)

Once again, there were no placards provided in Artist’s Alley, but a lot of the artists had made their own. I finally managed to track down Josh Middleton, whom I’d looked for at San Diego last summer, and got him to sign my copy of All-Flash #1 (the new one, obviously!) We agreed it was really disappointing that DC had printed it so dark, but he said my copy was actually in the middle of the range! Some of them were even harder to see! I seriously considered buying a print (not that I have anywhere to put it), but while I was there he told someone else that only the pieces up on the board behind him were available—and it wasn’t on the board. Though I have to admit considering his River from Serenity: Those Left Behind.

While looking for Marv Wolfman (since I missed my chance to get the Crisis on Infinite Earths novel signed two years ago, I’ve been unable to catch him again at a signing), I saw recognized Mark Evanier standing on the other side of the row, talking to someone who I thought could have been Peter David. I walked around, saw it was him, and pulled out my copy of Fallen Angel #1 to get signed. He asked me if I was still reading the series at IDW. I said yes, I was, and he pointed out that J.K. Woodward was at the table next to him. D’oh! I hadn’t realized he was coming, so when I was putting together stuff to get signed, I only grabbed the first DC issue of the book, instead of the first IDW issue! We talked a bit about the current storyline, and I got to see some of the original art for the next issue. It turns out he’s doing a couple of signings in the next few weeks, so I might try to catch him at one of those.

I met John Wesley Shipp, who played the Flash on the 1990 TV series. After kicking myself for not bringing the Flash TV Special which I’d gotten signed by the show’s creators at another con, I just bought a photo for an autograph. I also got my picture taken with him. (The guy who was with him handling the money took the picture. When I handed him my camera, he asked whether the flash was on.)

I’ve noticed some common threads among the celebrity signing areas. Lou Ferrigno seems to do a full circuit of cons, as does the actor who played the original Boomer on the 1970s Battlestar Galactica. Several of the contestants from Who Wants to Be A Super-Hero seem to be making the rounds this year.

One set of autographs I wanted to get, but couldn’t, was Seth Green and Hugh Sterbakov. I’d brought my copy of the first Freshman trade, and went over to the Top Cow booth 10 minutes before the signing. Only one problem: The program book had neglected to mention that the signing required tickets, which had been handed out at the Top Cow panel 2 hours earlier.

Added: I did, however, find myself walking past the Golden Apple booth during the Pathology signing. I wasn’t sure whether Katie was in the incredibly long line (she wasn’t, as she’d had the same problem with unpublicized tickets that I later had for Freshmen), but I figured I’d try to snap a couple of shots of Milo for her as I walked past. Or, more accurately, shuffled past. The crowd was so thick that I basically couldn’t move for five minutes. I could barely see him, and couldn’t see anyone else at the booth. At least Michael Weston was supposed to be there, but I couldn’t tell. (Not that I would have recognized him.) (Edit: Apparently Alyssa Milano was sitting right next to him—probably straight through that other camera—but I couldn’t see her at all, even in the photos.) But one nice thing about digital cameras: you can afford to take pictures without aiming. It seemed like everyone in the crowd was reaching up with a camera.

Knowing is Half the Battle

The main problem I had with the convention was hidden information. I’ve mentioned the lack of placards in Artists’ Alley two years running, and the unannounced signing tickets. There weren’t any placards at the panels, either, so if you didn’t recognize someone by sight and couldn’t catch their name at the beginning of the panel, you were out of luck trying to figure out who they were.

Another problem was the map: it showed the dealer’s room in great detail, and the hallway with most of the panel rooms, but it didn’t show how to get from one to the other. It also didn’t show how to find Petree Hall, which turned out to be not only halfway to the other convention center, but directly above a street.

And then there’s the schedule. Most cons I’ve been to will put out a flyer with any changes to programming. Even small fan-run cons will sometimes put out a daily newsletter. Wizard World LA just posted changes on their website and in front of each room. So if, for example, you wanted to go to the Heroes panel, but didn’t know it had been moved from 6:00 to 5:00 in another room (probably to accommodate more people and Milo Ventimiglia’s schedule), and you hadn’t looked at the website at home, there were two ways you could find out:

• Check the website on your cell phone, assuming you’ve got an iPhone or Opera Mini or something else that can handle it.
• Scout out the old room more than an hour before you thought the panel was going to start.

We were fine, but there must have been a few people who showed up an hour late to the wrong room.

In Closing

While I was wandering the floor, Katie went to the Pathology and Lucasfilm panels. We met up for lunch (well, her lunch; I’d eaten an hour earlier), and again for Heroes. (Yes, I passed up DC’s “Countdown to Crisis” panel again.)

After the Heroes panel, we did a quick circuit of the dealers’ room. I wanted to pick up the Anna Mercury book (success) and check one more time for Marv Wolfman (no luck). We left around 6:30, during some sort of giveaway at the Marvel booth.

The door guards asked us two questions: “Did you have fun?” Yes. “Did you find great stuff?” Yes on that one, as well. Despite the convention’s flaws, it was more fun than last year’s, and definitely worth attending.

So, what’s happening to the shows we watch?

Battlestar Galactica

Returns April 4 with first half of 20-episode final season. Production on second half could start as early as March. Airdate for those TBD.

Seeing as how we don’t currently get the Sci-Fi Channel (we discovered BSG through DVDs), this means it’s time to figure out whether to mess with cable/satellite, watch it at someone else’s place, or hope that they’ll continue offering episodes online through iTunes or something.

Heroes

No new episodes expected until fall.

Pretty much expected that, given the way they were talking at the end of the “fall season.”

Journeyman

No new episodes expected. Ever.

And I continue my history of discovering interesting TV shows after they’ve already been canceled. (Actually, I have an even longer history of this with comic books. The first comic I ever bought, back in 1984, was issue #19 of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, which lasted 20 issues.)

Lost

Six pre-strike episodes remain. Expected to shoot five additional episodes to air in April/May.

TV Guide interviewed Carlton Cuse on this recently (via aeryncrichton). They’d already shot 8 episodes of the 16-episode season, and plan to condense the second half of the season into 5—presumably because that’s how many they can actually finish during this production season.

This could actually work out well for them. One of the reasons season 4 of Babylon 5 was so good (aside from paying off on 4 years of setup) was that JMS shifted up his timetable so that he could wrap up the foreground plotlines by the end of the season he knew he had, instead of ending with a cliffhanger and hoping he could wrap them up in the first third of a season 5 that looked increasingly unlikely. The result was an extremely intense season that is widely regarded as the best year of the show.

And let’s be honest, Lost hasn’t exactly been known for compressed storytelling.

On the other hand, there’s the last few episodes of Angel to consider as a counter-example.

Pushing Daisies

No new episodes until fall.

On the plus side, this means it’s actually been renewed! This had “Too good to last” written all over it!

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Four pre-strike episodes remain. Future beyond that TBD.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this one. I enjoy it while I’m watching it, and it’s much, much better than Terminator 3, but I don’t find myself looking forward to it between episodes. Even if it does have Summer Glau beating people up.

Interestingly, it’s been a month for timing pop culture releases with relevant astronomical events. First Stardust, all about catching a falling star, arrived in theaters the same weekend as the Perseids meteor shower. Today, the Heroes Season 1 DVD arrives on the same day as a total eclipse (albeit a lunar one, rather than solar).

She did the makeup from scratch, using latex and fake blood, and got a lot of attention. In fact, while waiting in line two hours to get into the panel, series director Allan Arkush walked past, stopped… and took her picture!

Sadly, even after waiting two hours she wasn’t able to get into the room, which was about half as big as it needed to be for the audience. Lots of people left at that point, but she was among the group that stayed hoping to get into the Battlestar Galactica panel afterward (which she did). While bored in line, she and the fan next to her posed as Sylar and victim. Edit: we have a copy of the photo, and permission to post it!

So you can see the result of the traumatic experience of the day:

She got her revenge, though. After we went to see the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 10th anniversary screening of “Once More With Feeling” (described in my Saturday guest post at Comics Should be Good), we went out to the Ghirardelli shop in the Gaslamp District. She got a dark chocolate raspberry sundae, and the raspberry sauce was dripping around the edge of the glass, just so…

It’s also nice to see that they’re keeping the weekly online comics going between seasons—and that they mentioned it during the broadcast. I think that’s a good move for keeping fan interest going until fall. I’m still hoping they’ll collect them in print, though. They could probably put everything concurrent with season 1 into a ~200-page trade paperback and sell it in bookstores. It would be a great companion item to go with the DVD set.

Now for more detailed thoughts on the episode. Spoilers follow:

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Yes, spoilers!

I liked seeing the trigger finally pulled on several things that had been hinted at over the season. Niki’s super-strength being innate, for instance, though this raises an interesting question: does she have two unrelated powers (a first in this series for anyone who doesn’t absorb other people’s abilities), or is Jessica simply possessing her supernaturally? Either way, props to her laying the smackdown on Candice.

Also, Hiro is almost certainly Takezo Kensei. That should be fun. And we have a confirmed link between Linderman, the older Petrellis, Deveaux and Nakamura. I wonder whether the latter two kept in touch when they broke away from Linderman & co.?

It was good to see the direct line from “Save the Cheerleader” to “Save the World”: convince Nathan, someone integral to the plot, that it wasn’t such a good idea after all. But I was hoping it would be something Claire would do herself, not something she’d inspire someone else to do.

Now, onto the characters left with potentially fatal injuries:

D.L.: I honestly thought he was toast after Linderman shot him last week. That brain-grab really had the, um, feel of a last act of revenge/defiance (arguably self-defense, since he was protecting Niki). But after he made it through this entire episode, he’s likely to pull through. (And this week’s comic more-or-less confirms it.) He certainly has a better chance than…

Parkman: The jury’s out. They were loading him into the ambulance on a stretcher, not in a body bag, so he was clearly alive at that moment, but he took more bullets than D.L. did, and he went down and stayed down. This is going to come down to which outcome they think will make a better story.

Sylar: He’ll be fine. There’s no reason to show him having crawled off if they’re not going to bring him back. Katie pointed out that he’ll almost certainly run into Claude while he’s in hiding.

Peter: Again, he’ll be fine. We’ve established that he can survive exploding, and that he can survive falling from a great height. And he’s one of the key viewpoint characters (along with Mohinder, Hiro, and Claire). But that’s not to say he’ll show up immediately.

Nathan: It’s not clear how fast he can fly, but if he took Peter high enough and let go, he could easily have gotten himself clear of the explosion. Though if he’s missing, that’ll have some interesting effects on New York’s political situation. New York may be less inclined to look for voting irregularities if they think they need to find another Congressman anyway.

Timeline Confusion:

What we saw in “Five Years Gone” was the future after future-Hiro gave Peter the “save the cheerleader” message, but before present-Hiro and Ando saw what the future held in store. Logically, something they did changed the way the confrontation ultimately went down. The only thing that’s clear, though, is how Hiro saved Ando.

Obviously, in the previous timeline, Niki, Mohinder and Bennet were not present at ground zero. Otherwise, they would have seen that it was Peter, not Sylar, and then been incinerated. Also, something about the time Claire spent with Nathan and Mama Petrelli must have been different, or else the “save the cheerleader” clause would have kicked in and Nathan would have shown up. What I can’t figure out is how Hiro’s and Ando’s actions could have altered those factors, since the only person involved with whom they interacted was Sylar. Maybe they changed the location and time of the showdown?

So, what’s next? They saved 6 million people, but there was still a large explosion above New York, which is going to make a bunch of people really nervous (to say the least). And with all the emergency vehicles at Kirby Center, there’s a good change the truth will come out about people with powers. It would be interesting to see Agent Hanson coming back into play, with hard evidence of the fact. And I can see Linderman’s associates trying to salvage what they can from the situation.

No, seriously. His first arc is straight out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Both are teaching professors (Mohinder: biology; Indy: archaeology)

Their fathers are both academicians as well (Dr. Chandra Suresh: biology; Dr. Henry Jones, Sr.: medieval studies).

Both are estranged from their fathers, in part due to the death of a female relative (Indy’s mother, Mohinder’s sister) and in part due to the fathers’ obsessions with their own personal quests (Suresh: evolved humans; Jones: the Holy Grail).

Nonetheless, each pursued his father half-way across the world when that quest got him into trouble.

They both found their fathers’ notes, which had been missed when their homes were ransacked.

Each encountered a female associate of his father, close to his own age, who later turned out to be a spy. Moreover, both women’s first names were four letters long and started with an E (Dr. Elsa Schneider, Eden McCain).

Each shares his name with a family pet. (Indiana Jones took his nickname from the dog. The elder Dr. Suresh named a lizard after his son.)

Warning: the remainder of this post contains spoilers for Heroes through episode 1.21 “The Hard Part.” Also, if you haven’t seen Babylon 5 and Memento, or at least have some working knowledge of the two, you probably won’t be able to make head or tail of it. (God knows I can’t, and I wrote the darn thing.) The more background, the better.

Okay, so Linderman, a Vorlon, a Shadow, and Leonard the amnesiac dude from Memento walk into a casino. Two of them can agree that the problem with manipulating people to fight your battles for you is a Risky Proposition, for the simple reason that they are people, not chess pieces. Leonard agrees but can’t remember later that he did, because Linderman confiscated his tattoo stuff. And Linderman himself is sitting grinning and thinks the godlike beings are just so tragically wrong.

(Drinks arrive.)

VORLON: This plot has always been here.

LINDERMAN: Well, of course it has. Do you think we’d leave this all to chance? We only crib from the best.

LEONARD: Um, guys, my money disappeared. I think John G. took it.

(CANDACE walks by, tries to morph into a VORLON, and gets a richly deserved psychic bitchslap.)

CANDACE: (from the floor) Ow.

SHADOW: Mr. LINDERMAN, what do you want anyway?

LINDERMAN: Isn’t it obvious? You’re the godlike aliens, after all. We’re just mildly special, but we can play around with all sorts of fun toys. Like people’s minds.

VORLON: Reflection. Surprise. Terror. That’s your future.

LEONARD: Who are you people, anyway? And why am I drunk?

LINDERMAN: Mr. Kosh, I’m sure you’re mistaken. I’ve seen the historical documents, and while I’m quite impressed, you’re overlooking the fact that I’m—we’re—not attempting to fight a war here. We’re only trying to reach the…nexus, if you will. Thereby throwing a hydrospanner into the proverbial gears.

SYLAR: I can fix that.

SHADOW: Oh, hi there Gabriel. Having fun being our emissary?

THE PROPHETS: Wrong show, dorkwad.

SHADOW: My bad. Still, we’re winning. (blows a raspberry at the VORLON)

(VORLON is shaken, and its voices appear to be muttering layers of “dumbass” and “shit-for-brains.”)

VORLON: Impudence. Hiro and Mohinder remain to us. And Parkman and the Bennets are not lost.

LINDERMAN: (chuckling) Oh, you’ll see. They’ll all fall in line easily enough. Why do you think I and my associates have let so many of them realize they were being manipulated? Because they’re so adorably predictable when their trust is betrayed. You really should read the Widmore report, it’s marvelously entertaining. Believe me, no amount of time travel is going to change people’s gut reactions.

LEONARD: (reading off a legal pad smeared with paint) Okay, so…what, you shoved Meredith at Nathan and then shoved Bennet at Meredith, knowing how she’d react, so you could force Claire’s expression of the gene. So what’d you do it for and how’d you get Molly?

SHADOW: A better question would be, is there anything—

LEONARD: (brightly) Worth living for?

SHADOW: (sighing) Wrong tattoo. Anything you didn’t account for.

LINDERMAN: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

CANDACE: Wow, it really is hard to hold a Vorlon form with so many people watching. (passes out)

SYLAR: Oh goody, lunch.

LINDERMAN: Not on the casino floor, Gabriel. Why don’t you visit one of our many fine restaurants?

VORLON: You start the avalanche, but you do not know how all the pebbles will vote.

LEONARD: Yeah, what he said. Or she said. Whatever. Hey, do you guys know if I finally did it?

SYLAR: No, I’m the one who does it. Kaboom. Good-bye, Nyuu Yooku.

LINDERMAN: Wait, you ate Hiro? That’s not in my script.

VORLON: And so it begins.

ANGELA PETRELLI: There’s a new draft, hon. Page 606. (hands LINDERMAN a script with the word balloons filled in)

LEONARD: So you’re just making up your own truth? I think somebody’s going to lose a Post-It sooner or later here.

LINDERMAN: Nonsense. Mohinder is seeing to that. We won’t even need computers of dubious origin and purpose to find all the mutants, which is a good thing since I’m really not going to be happy with how perceptive Micah’s turned out.

SHADOW: (throwing up a few appendages in surrender) Okay, you don’t want to listen to the ones who’ve been there. We get that. Just don’t come crying to us when your boom tomorrow isn’t the one you wanted.

LINDERMAN: Fine. Go ahead back to the future, the past isn’t what it used to be. (glances at SYLAR, who is eyeing CANDACE) Oh for God’s sake, Gabriel, get a doggie bag, you’re going to die at the end of the season.

(There is the faint sound of FANGIRLS wailing. It’s loud enough for SYLAR to wince.)

VORLON: You are so not ready for immortality.

ANGELA PETRELLI: That’s why we have kids, stupid. LINDERMAN just adopts, that’s all.

LEONARD: Receipt, please.

Though I have to say, I hope they’ve checked their contract for loopholes. Farscape thought they had a two-season deal, so they took their characters and story to some really dark places in Season 4, figuring they had another year to dig them out. Instead they got canceled, and it took a fan campaign and the sale of the Jim Henson company to get even a four-hour miniseries to wrap things up.

As for the structure, this is actually probably better than two 24-episode seasons. It makes it easier to show an entire season through without interruptions. This season’s schedule, with just 6 episodes at the beginning followed by months of reruns, was terrible. Of course, once they came back from hiatus, it was much better than the sporadic episodes they showed in Season 2.

Arc vs. Scheduling

This brings up a problem with trying to run a TV series with an arc to it: Scheduling can seriously mess it up.

Babylon 5 suffered from PTEN’s decision to hold the last four episodes of each season until fall, followed immediately by the following season. It undermined the season-ending cliffhangers, and broke the narrative in the middle. Eventually they started anticipating it: JMS would write a mini-cliffhanger five episodes before the end of the season, and in one case even wrote a recap into the script for episode 19.

Veronica Mars and Heroes have done a good job this year of breaking the season into mini-arcs that match the schedule. Veronica Mars had a 9-part mystery, followed by a 6-part mystery, followed by a series of one-shots at the end of the season, and each arc was shown without interruption.

Heroes told the initial “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” storyline, followed it up with some backstory, and finished the first run with a teaser for the main arc for the rest of the season. (Heroeswiki breaks it down further, by tagline.) The second arc deepened the plot, and brought everything to a high point: the revelation of Linderman’s and Bennett’s agendas, plus cliffhangers in Hiro’s and Peter’s journeys. Now we’re in the home stretch. As the tagline says, “It’s time to save the world.”

That seems to be the way to go: If you don’t have the clout to change the schedule (like 24), find some way to work within it. Plowing straight through without regard to when the episodes are going to be shown, like Lost did with Season 2, is just going to frustrate your audience.

(Thanks to aeryncrichton for the news!)

The convention itself did turn out to be a nice, low-key experience, and I found some interesting stuff, but getting to the convention was a bit of an adventure.

Getting There

The drive up to LA wasn’t bad at all, though I made one critical mistake. Instead of getting off at the first exist that said “LA Convention Center,” I waited for the next exit: the 10W-110N off-ramp to Pico, where the traffic slowed to a dead stop. I’m not sure anyone actually made it to the end of the ramp. It’s possible I only moved forward when someone ahead of me gave up and tore off to the 110 South. After 25 minutes, I got close enough to see a glimpse of the street in front of the convention center… with a line of people stretching around the block.

At that point I decided to bail. If that many more people were there this year, it would be like trying to buy tickets at the door for San Diego. It wouldn’t be worth waiting for three hours just for two hours looking for books that I probably wouldn’t find anyway. I ducked into the next lane and onto the 110 South, took the first exit, and decided, you know, I drove up here, I may as well try to get in. I made it to the parking garage easily via surface streets, thought the Central City sign was appropriate, and headed out to look at the line.

That’s when I noticed three things: First, signs directed Wizard World to West Hall. Second, I was parked next to South Hall. Third, the people in line didn’t look like comic book fans. I walked the entire length of the convention center, eventually discovering that the South Hall was hosting the DUB Auto Show.

By the time I got past the Bride Expo and American Inventor, and finally found Wizard World itself, it was nearly 12:30. But there was only one person ahead of me in line, and there were two clerks selling tickets. I had arrived!

On the Floor

I didn’t attend any panels, since all the interesting stuff was on Friday and Saturday anyway. The main floor was much like the floor at Comic-Con, with a trade-show area, a dealer’s area, and an artists area, only a lot smaller, and a lot less crowded. Actually, I’d say there were about as many comic dealers at this con as there were at San Diego last year. Memorabilia and general pop culture has really taken over the CCI floor space.

As I walked in, they were setting up the Heroes autograph table. Zachary Quinto (Sylar) was the first one to arrive, soon joined by James Kyson Lee (Ando).

Oddly, there were no Heroes T-shirts to be found anywhere. It’s NBC’s biggest hit (Jeph Loeb joked that they refer to it as, “Save the cheerleader, save the network.”), we’re almost to the end of the season, and there are no T-shirts out?

There weren’t too many costumes. A couple of booth babes, one guy in a Transformers costume that I couldn’t place, and, bizarrely, an Alien who was helping to hand out promotional flyers at the entrance.

I wandered through Artist Alley a couple of times, mostly because I’d read that Humberto Ramos (the original artist on Impulse) was going to be there. One thing I found frustrating was that there were no placards identifying the artists. With very few exceptions, I don’t know any of these people on sight. I know their names, and in some cases I can recognize their art style. A few artists had brought their own signs, but surprisingly few of the rest had drawn up their own placards.

The Hunt

My main goal was to further the Golden-Age Flash hunt, which failed. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. Dealers seem to mainly bring their high-grade Golden Age books to conventions, and I’m not looking for collectors’ items, I’m looking to read them. The one low-grade book I found was a rare enough book (All-Flash #32*) that they wanted $200. Though I have to admit I enjoyed the chance to gawk at a pair of 9+ Flash Comics #1 and All-Flash Quarterly #1.

There were a few newer things I was looking for, and skimming the $1.00 and 50¢ bins reminded me of more. Around mid-afternoon, the cries of “All books, half off!” started reverberating through the hall, and I pored through several dozen boxes of 50%-off trade paperbacks. One booth had 5-10 copies of the first Fallen Angel TPB, a fact that came in handy when I overheard someone who was looking for the book.

In the end, I managed to find a full set of JLA/Avengers and a missing issue of Robin with Captain Boomerang, Jr.. The bargain bins helped me fill in the Seven Soldiers issues I hadn’t read, plus Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating JLA and Crisis (I read them tonight—the Crisis book was terrible, and not just because he made Crisis a villain instead of a concept), and a bunch of random Sergio Aragonés stuff.

I left around 4:00. The Pico off-ramp was still backed up, and getting to the freeway was a challenge.

Overall, not a bad day. Maybe next year I’ll try to attend on Saturday. Update: I did. You can read my 2008 WWLA Con Report.

*All-Flash #32 is not only the final issue of the series, but the three stories in it feature big-name villains: the Fiddler, the Thinker, and the first appearance of the original Star Sapphire. The Fiddler and Star Sapphire stories have been reprinted, but the issue contains the one Golden-Age Thinker story I haven’t tracked down.

Yes, shortly before Hayden Panettiere played a cheerleader with super-powers on Heroes, she played a cheerleader in a direct-to-video sequel to Bring it On. The uniform is even the same color scheme!

She’s probably safe from being typecast, though. She’s done quite a bit of work, and something tells me Claire isn’t going to be cheering—or particularly cheerful, for that matter—anytime soon.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the Heroes Wiki is a fascinating and addictive site.