Since I seemed to have lured a few Buffy people into Sentinel-land, I'm doing something different.  This is a quick background on Sentinel for those who might not have seen it (at least, it's MY opinion about what the show is about).  And then I've iconed the major moments in the show.  At least, I've iconed some of them.

Once upon a time a soldier (Captain James Ellison) got screwed by a dirty superior who betrayed him to the very South American drug runners Jim was supposed to be taking down. His helicopter went down killing the other members of the team and leaving him to survive in the jungles of Peru and defend the local tribe from drug runners. While there he developed hyperactive senses (which he always had but repressed as a child after having his father call him a freak). When the government *finally* rescued him, he came home with major league attitude.  He forgot having been a Sentinel in Peru, and he started acting like a first class jerk. He got a job with the Cascade police department where he worked for Vice.  After proving that he was a good cop, Captain Simon Banks of Major Crimes brought him into his unit and paired him with Jack.  Jim really respected his partner (despite a small affair with Jack's girlfriend), and he eventually became a good cop.    Unfortunately, Jack disappeared, and, as we find out much later, was killed by a kidnapper. At some point around here, Jim even marries a woman who works in the crime lab, Carolyn. However, he could never emotionally open up to her and their relationship eventually went south.  

Much later, Jim is working a case and is staking out a barn in the woods when his senses start going a little nuts. He loses a suspect and thinks he's losing his mind.  He goes to the hospital where they tell him nothing's wrong, but someone impersonating a doctor shows up and tells him to go see a man named Blair Sandburg at the university. 

Jim goes, and he finds out that Sandburg (i.e. fake doctor) had a nurse he was dating watching the records to find people with hyperactive senses. After reading a book by a Victorian explorer named Richard Burton, Sandburg fell in love with the idea that Sentinels, tribal warriors with enhansed senses might still exist.  Blair made a little crack about Jim being a throwback and, you guessed it, Jim slammed him up against the wall.   (Like that proves that Jim is all sophisticated man--NOT )  Blair talks Jim into working with him to get control of his senses since Sentinels always had a companion, a partner (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). In return, Blair can study Jim to write his dissertation on modern Sentinels. So Jim tells his captain some cock and bull story about Blair being a cousin working on his dissertation, and Blair now gets to ride along with Jim. Small problem, the day that Blair comes to get his paperwork taken care of , a nutjob named Kincaid takes the station hostage.  Blair holds his own, taking out one bad guy with a vending machine, but Kincaid eventually captures him.   Stuff happens, Jim comes riding in to save Blair, Jim hangs off the bottom of a helicopter, Blair uses a flare gun to threaten the pilot, and all ends well.   Jim even admits to Captain Banks that he is a Sentinel and Blair is NOT his cousin.

Here starts the domestic portion of the show.  Blair lives in a warehouse.  A cold one because he wears fingerless gloves inside.  Blair's neighbors are drug dealers who blow up the warehouse. 

Blair moves in with Jim for JUST ONE WEEK.  Yeah, right (He stays for the next four years).  Next thing you know the guys are all domestic.  Blair serving breakfast: , cooking together: , eating together:, camping together: , fishing together: . 

But many people say, hey that's not gay, and they're right.  Lots of friends do this stuff together.  However, our boys also touch  and touch  and touch  and really touch  and borderline inappropriately touch and touch like they're in some love story .  Ya see where I'm going???  And then sometimes Jim grabs Blair  and sometimes Blair grabs Jim  and sometimes a bad girl catches Jim coming out of the shower, and he shrugs and drops his towel flashing both the girl and his partner (who he refers to a couple of times as his guide) .  Of course they do sometimes do other things like get shot at and catch bad guys and get captured  and get captured  and get captured  oh yes, get captured and get chained up by a serial killer . (I never claimed that the show wasn't a little corny... it is, but the touching makes it so worth it.)

Now for the mystical stuff.

When Jim goes back to Peru to save Captain Banks who was captured while at a conference (after all, someone other than Jim or Blair has to get captured every once in a while), Jim has a vision of his spirit animal, a panther.  He also meets the spirit of a tribal warrior who tells him he has to chose to be a Sentinel and if he does, there is far more to being a Sentinel than Jim knows.  Jim accepts the challenge.  Well, until one day back home when Jim uses his Sentinel sight to spot a gun during a shoot out and accidentally shoot a guard.  Yep, the guard was fine, but in his blue mystical dream, Jim shot his panther, driving his powers away.  As luck would have it (yes, insert the eyeroll here), the Shaman who taught Jim to be a Sentinel back in Peru (you remember, Jim had that repressed memory problem) shows up in Cascade to track down a corporate president whose decisions are destroying the rain forest.  This Shaman dies in Cascade telling Blair that he must guide Jim now and he passes the way of the Shaman on to Blair   Blair helps Jim do some lucid dreaming and refind his powers so that he can stop the evil businessman.  So things seem hunky dory until Jim turns unreasonably cranky and Blair meets a second Sentinel named Alex.    Turns out she's a thief, and she gets Jim's head screwed on backwards, and Jim has a dream that he kills Blair so *of course* he kicks his guide out of the house instead of talking to him.  Blair goes to the university where Alex finds and drowns him.  Yep, dead as in doornail. 

THEN Jim figures out he screwed up and he uses his spirit guide to find Blair's spirit guide, a wolf.   Panther and wolf merge.   Blair comes back to life, and then Jim really screws up by following Alex to South America only to fall for her charms and go all protective over the criminal.  Bad Jim, bad, bad Jim.  Jim has a spiritual trip.  Alex trips herself into blowing her mind (everyone always told you the drugs could fry the brain) and Jim and Blair go home together to try and patch things up. 

So things seem to be back to normal (if you ignore the episode where the alligator gets in the precinct vents (don't ask), but then Blair's mom visits and finds the dissertation Blair has been writing on Jim. Blair tells her it's not ready to be seen, but she mails it to a publish friend thinking Blair just needs encouragement. Publisher loves the work, offers Blair millions to publish it and has a press conference where the publisher and the University president sing Blair's praises.

Um, this is not as good as it sounds. Jim is compromised, criminals target him as a "sentinel," and his cases are in jeopardy. He also turns on Blair, accusing Blair of being in it for the money (bad Jim, bad, bad Jim). In order to save Jim, Blair has a press conference of his own where he publicly calls himself a fraud and disowns the dissertation. Blair is kicked out of the university (which good riddance because a number of things had been going wrong at the university such as Blair being suspended for failing the son of a big donor and another instructor telling Blair that his black and white morals didn't fit into the gray of university life). So at the very end, Banks and Jim conspire to get Blair a badge, making Blair Jim's official partner.

Happily ever after (or at least happily until the fanfic writers get in there