FlashForward is two episodes away from its season — now series — finale. I’ll miss it a little, but I think I’ll miss what it could have been a lot more than I’ll miss what it actually was. The book was fascinating, and the pilot episode was absolutely fantastic, but since then it’s just been a study in missteps and missed opportunity, week after week. It was canceled yesterday. At least they built the first season around a one-year main arc, rather than relying on future seasons happening.

Heroes I won’t miss at all, actually. I loved season one, and even liked most of season two, flawed as it was…but I gave up on it during season three. The “Villains” arc was just plain annoying. I gave each of the following arcs a shot, but “Fugitives” is the kind of story that always bugs me, and “Redemption” just didn’t grab me at all. It was canceled today.

Better off Ted, though…that one I’ll miss. This one followed the Pushing Daisies path so precisely it’s bizarre: A short first season with Too Good to Last stamped all over it, then a surprise renewal, then cancellation halfway through season two…with several episodes left unshown. Maybe now that it’s officially toast, ABC will put the unaired episodes up at 3AM on a Sunday or something…again, like they did with Pushing Daisies. Or maybe we’ll just have to wait for the DVD. (There’d better be a DVD.)

Oh, well. Just like with Pushing Daisies, it’s a season more than I thought we’d see.

Next year: At least Castle will be back, and Leverage starts season three next month. I haven’t been paying much attention to new shows, but I’ve been keeping half an eye on No Ordinary Family, sort of a Fantastic Four/Incredibles type show about a family that gains super-powers, mostly because the mom is a speedster. (She’s also Darla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.) It was picked up by ABC yesterday. I suspect this means that if the show actually proves to be good, it’ll get two short seasons with the last three episodes left unaired for five months.

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!)

It reminded me of a story Sergio Aragonés told last year in his issue of Solo (#11). In “Heroes,” he talks about growing up in Mexico, where the San Patricios are national heroes. They have statues, memorials, and a commemorative ceremony every year on the spot where they were executed. After telling the story of how he learned about the battalion, he jumps forward a few decades. Living in the US, with his daughter going to American schools, he wanted to see how she would learn about the heroes of his youth. So he looked through her textbook to the section on the Mexican-American war, and found only a fleeting remark about how a bunch of drunk Irishmen deserted the US Army, surrendered, and were executed.

It was a surprisingly serious story from an artist known for his comedy (some of the other stories in the issue are drop-dead funny), and an interesting commentary on how nationalism shapes our views of history, with one side elevating the battallion, and the other trivializing them.

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.