“Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future”

Well, it's finally September, so it's time for me to stick my neck out and take some wild guesses on what will happen to Alex in Season 8.

Here are my big questions for this season, and many will look very familiar:

What happens to Alex and Sanjay? I'm going to go optimistic on this one (hey, I have to for one of these) and say they will still be together at the end of the season. But there probably will be at least one more breakup (which I think this time Alex will initiate) before another reconciliation. Hopefully this time in the interim she won't turn to Reuben for solace, but instead she will find someone for a little while at CalTech.

Who knows – maybe we could see twin proposals (Alex and Sanjay, Haley and hopefully a returning Andy) to finish things?

Alex is going to contract mononucleosis sometime early this season. Will they treat this as a serious story or will they play it mostly for laughs? Obviously, I'd much, MUCH rather see the former (as long as it doesn't lead to serious long-term damage to her in one aspect of her life or another – IOW maybe take her to the brink of trouble but not over it), but I just don't see it happening.

The biggest reason is I don't think they're willing to commit a few weeks to a serious Alex story, which given the nature of mononucleosis (the effects can last for several weeks) might be required. (It would be hard to go from having Alex being somewhat seriously ill one week to being perfectly fine the next. On the other hand, they have given Alex a serious problem one week just to ignore it right away more than once already...)

I really think this will just be played mostly for laughs, as basically a one and done story (they might mention she's recovering the week or two afterwards, but only in passing), with maybe a sentimental ending thrown to us as a bone. The most likely scenario: Alex comes home for some rest after getting sick, and basically just becomes a thorn in everyone's sides until either she makes a big speech about how important it is to have a loving family, or someone makes a speech about how much they care for her.

So will this be Alex's biggest story of the year or will something else come up later to top it? It's probably going to be her biggest story (especially since her role on the show probably will be reduced as the season goes along – more on that shortly) but hopefully not her last. Her relationship with Sanjay (and/or whomever might replace him) should give us at least one more story later in the year. And there's always the chance that something big (good or bad) happens to her at school. Which leads us to:

Does Alex stay at CalTech, and if not, where does she go? Now we get into the zone where what happens in real life may play a role in what we see onscreen. We know Ariel Winter is starting her studies at UCLA in a couple of weeks (classes start on the 22nd, the day after the season opener), and it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for them at some point (either near-term or long-term) to switch Alex from CalTech to UCLA (which as I've noted before isn't too far from her home) as a way to make it easier to keep Ariel on the show as at least a semi-regular part of the cast.

But what if one way or the other Ariel isn't going to be part of the cast in the future? In spite of that rumor of her being cut adrift for salary reasons being denied earlier this summer, who knows what happens going into next season? And certainly Ariel is more than free to decide to move on to bigger and better things (either in acting or not) and she could leave on her own terms. (And not to mention there is the ever-growing elephant in the room of the show's very existence potentially being in doubt. That's one prediction I'm not ready to make yet.)

Then that opens up the possibility that Alex could transfer from CalTech to an out of state school, or possibly even go overseas. The most likely? Again, probably MIT to be taken under Fig's wing.

Having said all that, I think for now they'll just keep things in a holding pattern and she'll stay at CalTech (with possibly at least one cliffhanger moment), just to keep their options open. Not to mention it would keep open her relationship with Sanjay, for now.

Which, just like last year, ultimately leads us to the ”BIG QUESTION”:

How many Alex-less episodes will we have to suffer this season? I'm going to say six, again, just like I said last season. And I think I have a much better chance of being right (or at least closer, anyway) than last year.

Again it's all about what happens in the real world, as it's going to come down to how much of a commitment Ariel wants to make to her college studies at UCLA. My best guess is she wants to make a deep one (which I would fully support, by the way – she needs to follow her heart and do what she thinks is best for her), which would simply make her unavailable for good chunks of time for the show – she might be able to do some work on weekends, and maybe she can structure her class schedule to have some flexibility to do a little more, but at the same time it wouldn't be fair for her to have no time of her own (sounds likes a certain fictional character [is she?] we all know and love).

So, I think once Ariel's college life gets rolling Alex's screen time drops considerably. It's possible the number of Alex-less episodes could be as few as last season's three, but I think it will be higher, and I definitely think there will be a lot more episodes than last year like “The Cover Up”, where all we see/hear is a quick phone call or Skype session or two from Alex.

Unless something comes up this weekend, you'll probably hear from me again early next week, when presumably the press release for “The Tale Of Three Cities” gets posted.