It's ok! I wasn't really offended! And I exaggerated the responses I was getting for comic effect. Everything's fine! But thank you for all the lovely comments - I'm really glad you liked it, and I hope the resolution justifies your trust… ] …What?
Why are you looking at me like that? Has something happened to annoy you in some way? Tell you what, this week, let's do Notes and Queries first: 'Finnemore, you evil bastard, I hope you rot in hell. Well, I appreciate your plain-speaking. Do you like it? I sense somehow that you do not. But, no. Hence the jokes. I have wept solidly for the past 48 hours, and now there is no water left in my body and my tear ducts look like peeled grapes.
I predicted a certain amount of frustration about ending on a cliff-hanger, but I'm completely taken aback by the amount of crying I've apparently caused. Look, I don't mean to be an insensitive bastard, but… what's so sad? I mean… Martin got the job! Yes, now he has a big decision to make, and that decision has potentially sad consequences… but he hasn't made it yet, so we don't even know which potentially sad consequences to be potentially sad about.
God help me, I actually thought it was quite a warm fuzzy episode. But apparently I've accidentally written King Lear. Now then, for what it's worth, here are my rules about cliffhanger endings. This is the first cliffhanger I've done in CP, and it seemed to me that the question of how Martin could manage to get a job offer from a major airline, given his particular strengths and weaknesses; and the question of what he would do if he got such an offer were both too big to be dealt with in a single episode.
Plus, the issue of Martin's need to be paid to do the job he loves versus Carolyn and Douglas needing him to go on being unpaid in order to make MJN viable has become the central dilemma of the whole show It didn't use to be, but the show has changed. It seemed like the question of whether and how that is resolved was worthy of a cliffhanger. Some shows do, but I think it's cheating.
