Weren't we all thinking it was going to be renewed until the last moment it got cancelled?

That's not how I remember it. The network gave them enough notice so that they knew it was the last one before they'd written the last bunch of them.

Chalk it up to my memfault, then. I probably *was* confusing it with Farscape.

It was cancelled before the wrote and shot everything after "A Hole in the World," I believe. Which had to be odd, because suddenly they had this new Illyria character to deal with while simultaneously needing to end the series.

Signed,
Wanted More Illyria Time

Dude, yes. Weren't we all thinking it was going to be renewed until the last moment it got cancelled?

I believe the cancellation notice was made public the week after "Smile Time" aired. I think they had to rewrite some of the final eps to bring closure (would that they'd just pitched TGiQ out entirely!), but there was time to adjust the storyline before the last few episodes were filmed.

I want to say we found out Friday, March 13, 2004.

Friday, February 13, 2004.

It was Feb 13th. "Smile Time" aired the following week.

Yep, I was just coming back in, to correct that post.

Huh, I thought the bad news was fresher than that at the Annual Review. Maybe because it was the first time I saw anyone face-to-face after the announcement?

What was the date of the W&H Review, Matt? I was just reading through the Angel thread from that time period (including all my now-embarrassing-to-me ranting about Buffy in TGiQ) and it seemed to me like the party was shortly after the announcment.

I stood around in Comic Relief yesterday reading Alice in Sunderland - it was amazing and completely absorbing.

Here's an excellent reader review from Amazon:

Step right up! Step right in! Take off your hats and coats and make yourself at home. A man walks into a theater for a performance unlike any other. Onstage, the rabbit mask-wearing lead performer begins to tell the story. But it's not the story of Alice in Wonderland or even Charles Dodgson, her creator. Rather it's the tale of a place. A little strip of land on the North Eastern side of the island of Britain. A location that has inspired so many heroes, stories, tales, and legends you'd be amazed to hear them all. But Talbot isn't going to concentrate on the biggest folktales of his region. Nothing so straightforward. Instead, the book leaps, glances, references, and side-steps around every possible connection Sunderland might have to the world of Alice. What's more, the very history of Britain itself is tied intricately into Sunderland's tale. At the heart of it all, however, is the story of Lewis Carroll. For every seemingly inconsequential tangent, Talbot continually and continuously ties Alice Liddell, muse to the great author, and Carroll to the land they belonged to. Part historical treatise, part series of Rosicrucian-like connections, Talbot is unafraid to absolutely stuff his book with as much information as humanly possible. The result is a ridiculous and magnificent ode to a too little appreciated region.

It might sound a tedious affair. Constant backing and forthing between the present and the past. History coming alive is meant to be boring, right? So what are we to do when an artist like Talbot bends over backwards, not only to fit everything in, but to violently and continually change his style so as to both retain our attention and show off his prowess? Care to hear Henry V's speech before Harfleur, Act III, Scene I, done in the style of Mad Magazine? A Jabberwocky poem via Tenniel (right down to the unisexual hero?). Bryan Talbot can tell the story of brave Jack Crawford like it was a boys adventure tale then turn around and present some pretty nasty Normans ala Jack Kirby. There's even a bit of D.C. horror, odes to Herge, and a visitation from god-amongst-comic-artists Scott McCloud. Tenniel and Hogarth may get their due praise, but let us too admire what Talbot has seen fit to sneak in here and there artistically.

But I love the little things about this book too. The central plot concerns a single attendee, treated to this magnificent show in the Empire Theater. Of course the performer, the viewer, and even the man giving the walking tour are all various rather handsome versions of Talbot himself. Still, you grow very attached to the man watching. You're touched by his continual love and interest in George Fornby, local boy made good, ukulele phenomenon, and general nice guy. It's history is what it is. Hearing that the current Queen of England is related by blood to Alice Liddell isn't just good fun. Talbot can then turn Her Majesty into the Red Queen and at the same time show the moment Queen Elizabeth unveiled Sunderland's ode to the Great Library of St. Peter's in 1993. No detail is so small that Talbot can't weave it into the text in some fashion.

All kinds of cool details including the longstanding blood feuds between the Makems (Sunderland) and Geordies (Newcastle).