"Aftermission."

Why wouldn't Kurt book for home the moment Pool's back was turned? Reasons, next week!

So this wraps up the SWORD arc, and I gotta say those guys were doomed from the start. Not unlike a lot of characters you see in sci-fi: the Doctor and his companions may meet any number of interesting people in their travels, and a lot of them are straight-up murdered for the experience. Likewise, if you ever watched Star Trek: Voyager, the lost crew of that ship would occasionally encounter characters that you'd wish would join (if not outright replace some of) the crew, and that would never end up happening. (You could argue Seven of Nine, but she was designed to be a star. That show could've benefited with a looser casting...by the time they got home, they could've been down to only a couple of the original crew!)

Several things either didn't work out, or got cut: Dayton and Park were going to have a lot more rivalry. Dayton wasn't always intended to betray the others; he was going to be eaten by smaller, buglike aliens; possibly while abandoning the others and fleeing. (Think Paul Winfield's death in Damnation Alley, only less dignified.) Spires was going to die of an infection she had picked up on an alien planet, several years prior: because the crew spent so much time in suspended animation, it took that long for it to become fatal. And we don't have any Rigellian action figures, of course; but they're the aliens Hercules got his sidekick robot Recorder from in the Bob Layton miniseries: Deadpool was going to ask for a Recorder of his own, and be told the robot killed itself rather than have to record everything Pool says. Kurt was going to find a log with Spires's first name, but I don't think they were so close to her that it would've meant anything: Pool was more interested in their mission to get a cancer cure, and that wasn't going to happen. I also thought about going in the direction that even alien cultures weren't great with cancer, thinking of Captain Mar-vell's death; but looking it up he might've been saved if not for his nega-bands.

Coming up soon: a set I really, really should've started on already...it may or may not end up anything like I have planned now. We'll see!