I will admit that, though completely unrealistic for a show that was supposed to be based in reality, the time travel storyline spawned some great moments of much-needed humor in an otherwise extremely serious and dramatic final season. I especially loved how carefree and flirty Ben and Felicity were able to be with one another because this was a reality in which he'd never had a child with another woman--or cheated with yet another woman.

Even so, the final episode as it exists is not great for me. It's mostly a flashback episode, which I would rather have had in a special before the final episode aired. I think it can get pretty murky to work an episode around fitting in all those flashback scenes--and this was no exception. Felicity pouring her hear out to the author of a time travel book? Pretty contrived, especially when compared to . . .

The last episode before the time travel storyline. I love that episode and believed it would have made a perfect series finale. No gimmicks, no two-hour extravaganzas. Just a simple tying up of all loose ends. In a parallel to the pilot, Ben finally follows Felicity across the country instead of the other way around.

I love Noel, too, but the time travel episodes showed that the ending in "The Graduate" got it right--Felicity belongs with Ben. While I understand that something had to be done in the additional five episodes the WB gave the show--and I admit I found the idea of having Felicity time travel fun and inventive--I ultimately think it was not the best way to use up those extra episodes, for two reasons:

1. It did, in fact, just reiterate what "The Graduate" already told us--that Ben and Felicity belonged together. Now, if Felicity had time traveled for Noel because she had made the wrong choice, there would have been more of a point to it for me. It would've been interesting if these last few episodes really affected the outcome of the show.

2. The time travel episodes created a lot of confusion; for example, people thinking the storyline was a dream. It wasn't. In the 1st time travel episode, Elena had died. In the series finale, she's alive and well. In a DVD featurette called "Lost Elena," we see (vital!) scenes that were deleted from the last episode, where Felicity tells Elena to go to Duke so she won't get in the car wreck that kills her, which proves this was real.

Your question of "Why is Noel alive?" illustrates my point about these episodes: They create confusion! Time travel shows or movies ("The Butterfly Effect," "The Lake House") almost always leave people scratching their heads, trying to figure out the logistics.

I guess that, unlike Elena, who'd died before Felicity time traveled, Noel died in this "alternate universe" that Felicity had time traveled to. When the spell was broken, Noel had never died.

However, Felicity was able to warn Elena while she was in her alternate universe and prevent her death. If Elena had never died, then Felicity wouldn't have become distant, which was Ben's reason for cheating on her with Claire. This means that Felicity wouldn't have had a reason to travel back to her senior year and choose Noel--and the whole thing never would've happened!

That's why, as much as I enjoyed these episodes, I can't help but think of the perfect little ending they had with "The Graduate"--none of these confusions existed!

It makes sense that the creator didn't want to change the outcome--but because it didn't change, I can't help but wonder what the purpose of this confusion was. . . my head hurts.