I'll take lame finales for $500, Alex
Jun. 16th, 2009 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kilroy#304: Time travel is not an undo button. (Legend of the Seeker, Smallville)
Time travel that can actually change things is fine-- but you should never change things back, you should change things into new configurations (see Quantum Leap).
Looking back, that finale is about a half-step away from being Mystery Science Theater material. It hits just about all the bad time travel tropes (kills important character so they can be brought back to life, person makes decisions they would never make because they know they can put it back, future which is more terrible than you could possibly imagine, time travel which just sort of happens for no reason), has both the Good Guy Forced to Marry Bad Guy plot and the Betrayed By Evil Kid plot, introduces a major character badly and then writes them off entirely, and kills off a main villain essentially by accident rather than through any effort on the heroes' parts. Not to mention the weak mixed-message ending where the possibility of further evil is mentioned generically but not even a tiny hint of actual future evil is provided. There were a few good lines, but man. This was almost insulting.
Still, that's a wrap for that season. Moving on.
Time travel that can actually change things is fine-- but you should never change things back, you should change things into new configurations (see Quantum Leap).
Looking back, that finale is about a half-step away from being Mystery Science Theater material. It hits just about all the bad time travel tropes (kills important character so they can be brought back to life, person makes decisions they would never make because they know they can put it back, future which is more terrible than you could possibly imagine, time travel which just sort of happens for no reason), has both the Good Guy Forced to Marry Bad Guy plot and the Betrayed By Evil Kid plot, introduces a major character badly and then writes them off entirely, and kills off a main villain essentially by accident rather than through any effort on the heroes' parts. Not to mention the weak mixed-message ending where the possibility of further evil is mentioned generically but not even a tiny hint of actual future evil is provided. There were a few good lines, but man. This was almost insulting.
Still, that's a wrap for that season. Moving on.