Heh. I've only watched the first few episodes, but I've now read a few thousand fics and now am pretty sure I know the entire canon:)

The deal between Jim and Blair was that Blair would help Jim with his senses and Jim would allow Blair to use him as a research subject for his dissertation. When writing his dissertation, Blair used Jim's real name (instead of something like 'subject'). This became a problem because Naomi (Blair's mother) stumbled on the final draft of the dissertation and sent it to her friend in a publishing company. Said friend promptly posted excerpts from the diss, resulting in everyone in Cascade knowing Jim's a sentinel, Jim acting like a dick, and Blair lying about his research to protect Jim.

Honestly, I don't know of *anyone* in the Sentinel fandom who thought the episode was a good idea, and many of the post-series fics are about how Blair (rightfully) sued everyone involved and made boatloads of money. Still, it provides lots of angst if you want to go that route (and let's face it, I usually do:)

Urm, did that clarify things? If not, I'll be happy to explain in further detail:)

Well, the last scene was of Jim and Simon offering Blair a detective's badge to make up for him, you know, throwing away the last fifteen years he spent in school. *ahem* There have been a lot of stories about how well that might've worked out (answer? not very.)

Of course, the previous series finale (before a surprise pickup for a final season) was the one where Alex drowned Blair and left him floating dead in the fountain, so I'm thinking the producers weren't too picky about ending the series on a high note:)

Unfortunately the only DVDs available are from the first season (Alex doesn't appear until the end of season three -- short version is that she's the eeeevil sentinel who causes all kind of a rukus in our boys' lives).

I know some of the later episodes are available online, but I don't remember where. Personally, having seen three episodes, I'd have to force myself to watch more -- the show really isn't terribly well written or acted (ducks tomatoes from Sentinel fans). I much prefer fanfic, which is far better thought-out and written as a whole.