The Event Cheat Sheet

The Event is returning to NBC's lineup next week, but do you have trouble telling your NTBs from your Avias 514 survivors? Then look no further...

The show was intended to be the next big thing for NBC... event programming, in fact. Bathed in the glow of a big marketing campaign from the network and the general impression that this new sci-fi/mystery series could be the next Lost, The Event debuted last September to strong viewership numbers, only to see its ratings trail off in the weeks that followed. Many who continued to watch grew restless with the show's storylines, which compounded mystery upon mystery but didn't seem to be really going anywhere in particular.

And so NBC pulled it from the schedule for three months, apparently to give its creators, its characters and even its audience some breathing room. But now it's back, returning this Monday with a special two-hour installment.

We at IGN are hoping that the show picks up steam in this second half of the season, but we also know that for viewers it may be tough to dive right back into the many characters and plot threads of the show after this long hiatus. And that's why we've put together our handy The Event Cheat Sheet, outlining the key players and, uh, events that have gone before so as to better prepare you (and ourselves) for this Monday's broadcast. Spoilers, obviously, follow.

Let's hope that all this homework is worth our while…

Sophia: The leader of the mysterious and powerful group that we've taken to calling NTBs (non-terrestrial beings), Sophia is long-lived (possibly immortal?) like the rest of her people. She is also mostly benevolent, apparently preferring to work with humankind -- in particular President Martinez -- to affect change for her race and ours. And yet, she does have a dark side. Just ask her son Thomas.

Thomas: When the NTBs' ship (spacecraft? We still don't know for sure.) crashed in Alaska back in 1944, Sophia stayed behind with her injured fellows but Thomas escaped unnoticed with any NTBs who were able-bodied enough to travel. In the intervening years, he has used his people's advanced knowledge to build a financial empire, while also developing a different ideology than his mother in regards to what is best for the NTBs. Namely, he wants planet Earth for his people, with his most recent attempts in this regard involving the launching of a communications satellite in order to beam a message into space -- apparently to the NTBs' place (planet?) of origin.

Simon: The CIA agent in charge of the NTBs who have been held prisoner by the U.S. government at Mount Inostranka, Alaska, for the past 66 years, Simon is in fact a sleeper NTB himself who has successfully infiltrated the highest levels of the human world. He's also proven to be sympathetic to humanity and even fell in love with a human woman back in the 1950s.

Isabel: Another of the sleeper NTBs, Isabel is a corporate lawyer by day, a mean old non-terrestrial being by night. Also Thomas' lover, she recently manipulated him into betraying his mom -- planning her murder actually. She and several other members of the NTBs' leadership don't want to follow Sophia's plan to "go home," wherever that is (it's apparently not a very nice place to live these days). Rather, they want to stay here on our nice, comfy Earth. Isabel's assassination plans resulted in a stern punishment from Sophia when she found out about the backstabbing -- namely, she made Isabel shoot herself in the leg. Which hurts whether you're a human or an NTB.