When I was a kid, I watched a cartoon series called "Star Blazers." It was about a group of astronauts that flew to a faraway planet to retrieve a device that would save the earth from poisonous radioactivity. They only had one year to retrieve the device and return before earth would be beyond saving. At the end of every episode, the narrator would say, "Hurry! You have only X number of days left!" where X would count down by a certain amount each episode.

This was terribly exciting for a young boy in the eighties - most other cartoons had no continuity from one episode to the next; you could watch them in any order and wouldn't lose much. But this was a serial space drama, an early Battlestar Galactica, if you will.

Unfortunately, that summer, shortly before the end of the series, my father took the family away while he preached a series of meetings in another state. When I got back, the series was over, and I had no idea how it ended. I always wondered.

Fast-forward 20 years or so, when I purchased the series on DVD. I sat down and started watching again from the first episode. Few cartoons, when viewed as an adult, live up to the memory one has of them as a child. This one stood up pretty well, however - and then I got to the episodes I had never seen. The last few episodes were amazing, with several plot twists that totally threw me. I loved it!

Last Friday, I watched the last episode. It was deeply satisfying, in a way that only something you've waited for 20 years can be.