An Open Goodbye To The Event

Goodbye, you stupid show.

No, no, I don't just mean that as a simple insult. I'm not resorting to schoolyard language rather than using my grown-up words. You, as an actual show, are stupid and have been from very early on.

You played cagey with whether The Event was a plane disappearing in midair, which we'd seen on Lost, whether it was the attempted assassination of the president, which we've seen on almost every season of Lost, whether it was a vast and ancient secret society watching over us, which we've seen on Fringe with a much cooler secret society, whether it was the revelation that there are aliens living among us, which we've seen on Roswell . . . I'm going to stop there. As a science fiction, I don't think there's anything much worse than being scooped by Roswell, unless you're also scooped by Wolf Lake.

So, goodbye, stupid show. You ignored basic history civic history. I counted six times that anyone in the same room as the president should've - not could've, but should've - had the president arrested and taken out of the room on the spot for violating basic rule of law. You ignore science. H1N1 didn't come from avian flu. Accelerants don't work that way. You're a science fiction show, so I can deal with a few violations of the laws of thermodynamics and a somewhat quirky interpretation of the uses of wormhole technology, but get the basic stuff right or, well, get cancelled.

Goodbye to your stupid, convoluted, hackneyed subplots. It's pretty customary for a cancelled show to leave a few thread hanging, but I think you might set some kind of record. And I don't care about any of them. I don't care about the aliens coming to Earth, I don't care about the secret society, I don't care about the assassin who's learning to love, I don't care that Jason Ritter's girlfriend has the funny syphilis. It's all been done before, and done better.

Goodbye to your terrible dialogue.

I'll give this to you, though, you had some cool location shots right at the beginning there. Really, the desert scenes were great, and I loved the setting for the disappearance of the plane. It felt very open and real in a way that most shows seem to actively avoid.

I know, this is the part where is seems like I'm having a change of heart and any minute now you're expecting I'll say, "It's not you, it's me." Well, if I do that, then I must be feverish, because it's not me, it's you. You're stupid. And goodbye.