Let's All Die!

After several (thousand) seasons on the air, the hit television show Life As We Know It will be coming to an end on December 21 of this year. Despite enormous commercial success and what could be said to be the largest fan base in existence, the powers-that-be have deemed that it is no longer worth continuing. So, instead of wallowing in our grief about the seemingly unavoidable, let's recap some of those great memories this show has given us.

1. The conquest of the "world" by Alexander - King of Macedon, born with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and power, and tutored by Aristotle himself, Alexander was not lightly called "The Great". By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in the world. Remember those guys that the Spartans fought in that movie 300? The one's with that huge army? Yeah, the Persians. He conquered them.The man would not be denied until he reached the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea". And he would have done it to, had it not been for his premature death at age 32. He had plans in place to invade Arabia when his life ended. Wanna know how it happened? He partied too hard.

2. The Pax Romana - Aaaah peace. That calm before the next storm. After Octavion kicked Marc Anthony's ass in the Battle of Actium, he decided to try and reign in the Romans insatiable lust for blood and make them more of a social-economic power. Lolz good luck with that bro.

3. The Fall of Rome - Oh yes, here we are. Remember when we were laughing at the notion of Roman peace a moment ago? Here's why. The conversion of the mighty Roman Empire into a breeding ground for politics and art. There are countless theories as to why the Empire fell, from a collapse of economy to invasion by Germanic forces, but ultimately it comes down to one reason; they got soft.

4. The Enlightenment - Aaaand they keep becoming more and more of a bunch of pansies...

5. The Reformation - Alright, they're shaking things up again! Let's see how this pans out.

6. The rise of the nation-state - Ok, so we see some factitious behavior here as everyone decides that they are enlightened enough to govern themselves. They've had enough of the old ways and wanna shake things up. The tension here is tangible. They did a really good job building suspense. I like it.

7. The United States Revolution - BOOM! Shit just got real. Fuck the powers-that-be. These colonists are FO REAL. Who saw that coming? Well...I did, but still! They built it up just enough and executed it nicely. And in all fairness, I may have seen revolution coming, but I never expected them to win. That was a bold production move.

8. The French Revolution - Ok now they're just getting lazy. Reusing the same material like that? Weak.

9. The collapse of the "old order" after World War I - Aaaaaaaw sheeeeeeeit. Here we go! Back to the good part. You could cut the tension with a knife in Europe at this point. All it took was one dude gettin' capped and everyone is out for blood. The whole world just devolved into chaos in a matter of days, and that chaos lasted years. What a stable world we live in.

10. World War II - You thought it was over? Lulz no way man! Round 2 with a vengeance, bigger and better than the first one.

11. The boring stuff after that (Epilogue) - I thought they dragged this on a bit too long after the climax of the story, and they left a lot of loose ends hanging, but overall it was pretty interesting.

All in all, this was a good show. I know there were some lulls, and the material got a bit dry and predictable at times, but let's give credit where credit is due. When you have a show run for that long, you're gonna be pressed to keep coming up with new ideas all the time. I guess that's why they decided to cancel it at long last. Although I'm inclined to agree it's the right decision, I'll be sad to see it go. Goodbye, Life As We Know It.

-Classic