.....Eeeeeeehhhh....The entire series was a mish-mash of good and bad. Compelling, boring, interesting, annoying, and large chunks of the story arcs were clearly shot from the hip.
Ultimately, if it weren't for Mandy Patinkin, I wouldn't have even gotten through the third episode. Kicking him out of the CIA in the last season basically guarantees I won't bother with the fourth season.
It's pretty sad because I used to have a crush on Claire Danes when I was a teenager, but her character turned out to be one of the show's weakest and most irritating components (see also: Brody's fucking retard daughter).
Damien Lewis' character wasn't much better, but every now and again he would show signs of being a loving father and husband who wanted to put his life back together. Despite this, he kept cheating on his wife with Danes (who was perfectly fine with the idea of being a home-wrecker), the relationship with whom only made worse the fact that he was a traitor. I actually wanted to see him heal, but the writer(s) avoided every single exit route off the road to divorce and misery, and made him totally unlikeable by the third season.
That being said--even though I realize they've been trying to kill him off since season one--his death, I predict, will be the show's inevitable undoing. Despite him being unlikeable, his character has become too ingrained in the show for it to survive without his participation. Bearing in mind his all but complete absence during the third season, every aspect of the series focused on events of which he was at the center. As refreshing as it was not to have to see his face up to that point, the story could only be reconciled with him as a player.
Ultimately, what they should have done was just make a series about the CIA with Danes and Patinkin without unthinkingly entrenching characters in the series that were supposed to die off.
