Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By John J. Joex

(THESE REVIEWS CONTAIN SPOILERS)

Yeah, I know I’m running a bit behind on this column this week. We had three big finales last week and two of them succeeded in annoying me with cliffhangers that I just can’t see how they can write an acceptable follow up to. So I will cover those two together:

Lost (“The Incident”) and Supernatural (“Lucifer Rising”) – First Lost. The two hour finale had Jack determined to carry out Faraday’s plan to detonate the hydrogen bomb, thus setting up a sequence of events that would change the future and keep their plane from ever crashing on the island. Meanwhile, Sawyer, Julia, and Kate are on a submarine leaving the island, but Kate convinces the other two that they must get back to the island to stop Jack. They commandeer the sub, get off on a raft, then get back to the island to confront Jack. Then they change their mind, then they change their mind again, then ultimately the bomb gets dropped down the shaft and Julia (who falls down the shaft too) ends up detonating it. Fade to white.

And if that’s not enough apocalyptic fun for you, on Supernatural Sam and Dean were trying to avert the real Apocalypse. Sam sets out to stop Lilith from breaking the final seal that will let Lucifer loose onto the Earth while the angels hold Dean hostage because he wants to stop Sam. Well wouldn’t you just know it, but once Sam does bump off the blond demon, he finds out the she actually was the last seal and the Ruby had been playing him the whole time. The episode ends with Hell on Earth about to begin.

Okay, both shows gave us some pretty dramatic and gripping moments in their finales that kept us on the edge of our seats. But now what? On Lost did they really blow up the island? If so, doesn’t that mean game over? The plane lands in Los Angeles instead of crashing on the island and we have a happy ending, right? And on Supernatural, do you really believe that Season 5 will bring the Apocalypse realized to our TV screens? Instead of fighting demons in dark corners each week, Sam and Dean will do battle head on with Satan’s minions as they poor out of the gates of Hell and ravage the planet, right?

Wrong. Basically, the show runners of so many series now days feel compelled to come up with some sort of Earth-shattering cliffhanger ending each season and they constantly try to out-do what they did the last time around. Then, when the next season resumes, they do a quick smoke-and-mirrors on us and next thing you know we are back to status quo. It’s quite a cheat and they really don’t have to go all out with the cliffhanger endings each season. The fact is that I believe both of these shows will do a better than average job of resolving the scenarios they have left hanging because they have in the past, but still I say why push things to such extremes? Personally, I’m just happy with a decent resolution to the current season and a good teaser to what is coming. No need to suggest our heroes are facing the End-of-Times (literally in one of these cases), when we know they’re coming back for more of the same next season.

Fringe (“There’s More Than One of Everything “) – Case in point on how to give a more satisfying season finale. In this one, the nefarious David Jones is back (all bandaged up and apparently in the process of melting) and he is trying to open a gateway to a parallel dimension. As Olivia chases him and also tries desperately to contact the elusive William Bell, Walter tries to find something that he knows will be useful but he can’t remember what it is. As promised, this episode really provided a turning point for the series. We start to understand that the many of the cases the group has investigated so far relate to attempts to make contact with this other dimension. This moves the series from just simply being an X-Files wannabe to establishing its own little niche in the genre. And right at the end we get a nice homage to where Science Fiction television has ventured before as we see that William Bell is played by Leonard Nimoy. The episode gave us a nice wrap up to a show that continued to improve throughout its first season (with a few bumps here and there) and a quick preview of the game-changing events to come without dropping an impossible to recover from cliffhanger on us. Good job.

Previous Column:

May 12th – Lost Goes a Bit too Far with Time Travel; Dollhouse Wraps Up

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