As with other things, I took a while to get around to the final episodes of this series. It was always good. It was never great. But the premise was kind of fun and the characters really grew on me. I mourned the passing of a number of them. The show always bordered on the whole Christian thing (which it leaned into more in the end), but never went full-on preachy. The lessons here were more about community and forgiveness and choosing good. With a twist of L. Ron Hubbard weirdness. I enjoyed it, particularly as the series progressed. The weaknesses ... drawing things out too much to keep the premise going, adding in romance after romance after romance, creating circular storylines where you kind of yelled "move it ALONG" ... pretty much went away in the last ten episodes. But the issue was ... the show went the other way. Plotpoints were rushed or skipped altogether. It made the flow a little bumpy. Characters appeared and disappeared and I got a confused because information was left out. It was like reading CliffsNotes. I guess what I don't understand is why they didn't just lengthen the episodes to cover the needed scenes. That's what you do in streaming. And yet the episodes were all tailored to broadcast specs, running 42 or 43 minutes. In any case, this is a bit picky. The wrap-up was good. There was a real effort to honor the characters, the storyline and to complete the mission. In the final episode I feared a "Lost" moment -- a few times. But they swerved. And it was all happy-shiny time for the most part (despite one really bad attempt to use special effects to age a character down). Loves made and lost. 99% of the characters were squared away (two weren't, but that was kind of an oversight, I think). The resolutions were satisfying and made sense. Final take -- it's worth the binge.
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