This is one of my all-time favorite season finales. I've seen it over and over through the years, to the point of losing count. The first thing I loved was that this time it was not Donald who wrote the screenplay but Deborah, which perhaps was quite rare for a QL season finale. The second thing was the sort of twist she gave in some way to the history of television: In most TV shows, being them under any main genre, like sci-fi, comedy or even drama, there's almost always an episode where the recurring characters remember some things that happened to them in past episodes from past seasons. They reunite in a place and talk about their memories from those past episodes. That adds a tone of nostalgia to the current episode and to the audience those sorts of installments are always either a hit or a miss. Some people love that approach and some consider them just pretty boring fillers. In some way, Deborah Pratt did exactly the same thing with Shock Theater. It was a "recall-that-episode/season" story, but she added her own brilliand turns, visions and notes to it, not only making it very interesting and engaging, but fully remarkable. At every point where Sam changes to another personality, the suspense just keeps growing and growing and this is one of the few true times where you keep wondering how or if Sam is going to get out of that safe at all!! The nostalgia factor was handled greatly: Hell, it even makes me miss "The Right Hand Of God", one of my least favorite episodes from the series. Brilliant move and what a brilliant episode it was this finale!!
The part I loved the most: All the final act, where the crescendo has reached its maximum potential (and that potential was pretty intense!!, almost as if I, as the viewer, was the one who was going to get those electro-shocks myself). Another thing I loved was that all the ep. was sort of an introduction to Deborah Pratt's theories on how sometimes a leapee can take mental charge of Sam's mind to some extent, which was later used on her own "Dreams" and on Donald's "LHO". My favorite moment: The simo-leaping, of course.
Favorite Al line: Tibby asks him if the cars fly and the air is clean in the future and he says: "No, the air is filthy and the cars are still on the ground, but we're working on it." Makes me chuckle everytime.
The only thing in this ep. I was neutral about was the character of Tibby himself. I don't have anything against him and I like him but sometimes he was a bit annoying and "meh!"... Just a little bit.
Anyway...
My rating: Excellent!!
Review of the season: Still not my fave one. It had many mediocre or "conventional" episodes throughout, but even with that the way of story-telling had improved as well as the tone of the series. The style of the show settled on this season and defintely the special effects were also better. One important thing this season introduced was the handlink's Gummi Bear design, which is a classic and the most remembered thing about QL even to this day!! The classic "festivity" episodes came from this season, too, and the fact that this is the "middle season" of the show and those sort of episodes (halloween, christmas) were here makes it even more special and that works on its favor. Very good season, and I'm glad it was not the last one, as it was originally intended.
Now finally on to review season four!!! Let's go...
