'Adventure Time' sets the series finale, but you still have time

You might want to sit down. Cartoon Network, where in 2010 Pendleton Ward's strange and beautiful creation came to regularly scheduled life, has announced its departure. Production will shut down after completion of the ninth season -- we are currently in the eighth -- though in the special chronology of animation, you will be seeing, as the news release puts it, "new episodes, mini-series, specials and more" into 2018, for a career total of "142 half-hours of content." Will it end with a "proper" ending? The Land of Ooo, where main characters Finn and Jake's post-apocalyptic adventures take place – it is the merriest post-apocalypse you ever will see, though not without its dark side -- is so thoroughly realized that it seems to have existed before Ward thought it up and will continue to exist once the show is done.