The Best Worst Episode Ever

And the rush is on, as bloggers, newspaper columnists, entertainment personalities, and graduate students race to comment on The Sopranos series finale.

As a die-hard Lost fan, I've generally left The Sopranos alone. They're both smart shows with demanding audiences, though each caters to different tastes. One is a an epic mystery told through chapters that sometimes play like character studies. The other is a series of character studies told through one-act plays. Personally, I hate plays, because they don't normally have a budget for polar bears, sharks, and smoke monsters, and if they do, singing is usually involved. But Sopranos fans have had to put up with the same short-sighted arguments that Lost viewers have, like "Why don't you kill more/less?" So I gave them a pass in the hopes that those who write for major newspapers would stop bitching about Lost.

My bad.

The primary defense for the drawn-out final season of The Sopranos (it started in March 2006) was: "It's like real life! Isn't it great how this show defies our expectations by not following up on what happened in previous episodes? A television series where loose ends are never tied up or investigated? Brilliant!" (Note that these apologist praises are the same complaints that dogged Lost throughout its third season until the finale.) That's all fine and good if you really believe that, but to me, the direction The Sopranos took in the long run led to three possibilities:

1) Lazy writing on par with Star Trek and The X-Files in terms of disinterest in continuity
2) Pretentiousness unparalleled by any HBO series this side of Cathouse
3) David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, is a total dick

I don't know whether I should be pissed or admire the fact that after watching the series finale, I've come to conclusion number three. David Chase hates you so much for liking to watch people get whacked that he turned The Show That Changed Television into a shaggy-dog story.

No doubt, the finale of The Sopranos is the best worst episode of television ever. It has everything long-term viewers have been dying for, most notably an unexpected but humorous execution. It remembers that the show has an ensemble cast and it ends on a family dinner scene. And there's no denying the tension of the final setup. Tony and his family arriving one by one at the restaurant. Journey playing on the jukebox. The suspicious look of the guy who goes into the men's room (obvious Godfather reference!). The repeated cuts to Meadow trying to parallel park her car before she rushes across the street to the restaurant. The door opens and then--

Black.

Black like it looks like you cable went out black.

For long enough to convince you that your cable actually went out.

And then credits.

Congratulations, David Chase. You've found a way to be the biggest asshole in the history of television and make everyone praise you for it. I salute you, you arrogant bastard.

No Spoilers

I'm going to break a rule here and not spoil something--unless you consider knowing how awesome something is before you see it a spoiler. If that's the case, skip to the end.

(non-spoiler warning)

I know some crazy people have been hating on it all season and embracing the answers served up on a platter by Heroes (can't wait to see how the fans turn on it halfway through season two!), but Lost is the only serial drama I can think of that has topped its season finales two years in a row. Yes, The Shield has mastered the art of melodramatic anti-climax, and each season of The Wire actually has an epilogue. But to the best of my knowledge, no television series has ever managed to produce compelling cliffhangers post season two. After that, it's always a gun to someone's head, or a division closing for the second time, or someone gets engaged and pregnant and kidnapped in an episode that will change everything until things revert to normal in mid-September, when said character gets rescued in the first ten minutes, rejects their engagement, re-takes their pregnancy test, and discovers it was all a dream.

Yesterday's season finale of Lost was as jaw-dropping as the end of Twin Peaks. But unlike Twin Peaks and its '90s-'00s kin, Lost is in its third year and the network has signed up to see it through to the end.

(non-spoiler warning ends)

If, for some crazy reason, you haven't seen Lost or just gave up at some point, you have until February to catch up. You have no justifiable reason not to.

The Post Of Three Things

Thing One:

Looking for a work-safe site to obsessively visit every 420 seconds at the office? Check out the Global Incident Map. It tells you what shit is going down where, courtesy of Google, flashing icons, and a guy browsing the Internet for news stories every day. Take the 420 seconds with a grain of salt, though. I haven't seen much of a change in the last 24 hours. Either the world is considerably safer than I thought or someone's on vacation. Look on the bright side. Maybe it's both!

Thing Two:

Skip this Thing if you don't want my wife to ruin Lost for you, too. If we choose to believe what we've been told by The Others, their primary purpose is to find a way for women to conceive and give birth to children on the island. Now, this can't be the whole story--it doesn't explain their interest in Walt, for example. But let's say it is. If that's the case, why didn't they just come out of the jungle and offer the crash survivors to join them for hamburgers and Dharma rum mai tais in their love gazebos? "Hey, you're all pretty hot and, trust us, we've been here for years, no one's coming to rescue you. Why not come to our resort hatch and get laid?"

This approach could still have a lot of intrigue...

Sawyer: Someone stole all my condoms! Whoever it was, give 'em back!

Paulo: Those weren't your condoms. Things have changed. They belong to the group now.

Sawyer: Look, I don't what y'all do down in Brazil, but where I come from they're one-use only.

(Sayid pulls Jack aside)

Sayid: I suspect The Resort Staff of stealing the condoms. If they don't want us having access to safe sex, we need to know why.

(Jack confronts Ben in The Resort Hatch game room)

Jack: Give us back our condoms!

Ben: Why, Jack? Don't you have a latex allergy? What would you need them for?

Jack: [doesn't ask any relevant questions]

Ben: I know all about you, Jack. Your ex-wife, your aborted affair with the daughter of a mysterious philanthropist. You aren't getting any here. Why do those condoms mean so much to you?

Jack: Because if I'm not having sex, no one else should experience unobstructed physical pleasure! Bernard's getting more action than me!

Thing Three:

I have edited my previous post on my leveling addiction. The conclusion is now more in line with my original intent--to explain in the most discursive way possible why I haven't finished Oblivion. It will probably be edited again, but in case it never makes it into the final version, here's a comment I deleted about end-game content in World of Warcraft:

"You might as well pay $150 to choose Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, or Elf in Gauntlet, then sit back and shoot or pick up whatever the guy standing behind you at Shakey's with pizza in his beard tells you to."

Lost: Expose

Recent episodes of Lost have been so full of fan service that I haven't felt the need to write about them. There were some decent flashbacks, some long-term mysteries resolved, and a really brilliant WTF. But last night's episode pleased me more than anything since the season two finale, so permit me to geek out off the top of my head.

Hardcore fans know that the entertainment media, because they had nothing better to do at the time, made a big deal about the fact that Lost was acquiring a few new actors for season three. Among them were Kiele Sanchez, who Wikipedia tells me wanted to be a VJ and is married to the guy who wrote Stranger Than Fiction, and Rodrigo Santoro, the "Tom Cruise of Brazil," whose favorite actors are Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino (again, according to Wikipedia), which means he is driven by a delicate balance of loving his paychecks and a legitimate desire to chew scenery.

Paulo (Santoro) and Nikki (Sanchez) were introduced in the third episode of the season, "Further Instructions." They instantly annoyed fans for not being Bernard and Rose. But the fan hate was cemented two episodes later in "The Cost of Living", when The Guy From Oz decided he couldn't live in Hawaii anymore and was offed by the smoke monster. That was the episode where Nikki pointed out something anyone with, say, John Locke's infinite hypothetical fantasy coolness should have realized already, and Paulo flushed a toilet in a hatch. What was up with that?

Now we know. As with John Locke's apparent ineptitude pre-"The Man From Tallahassee", Nikki and Paulo now make complete sense. I don't know if everything was planned from the start or if Lost is merely the best example of retroactive continuity on television evar. Either way, I feel my defense of this show is now completely justified.

Though I've avoided "next week on" promos ever since NBC insisted on spoiling Boomtown--note to the networks: advertising what minute a shocking twist will occur ruins the shocking twist--I still went into this episode knowing someone would die. By this point, even casual fans of the show know that if someone is going to be written out of the show on a certain week, then that episode will focus on them. Since I knew that this episode would focus on Paulo and Nikki, I figured there was a 50/50 chance one of them would be offed by the end of the hour.

Nikki died in the teaser. After a short flashback that included Billy Dee Williams as himself in the Lost version of She Spies, Paulo was found dead shortly thereafter. What followed was one of the top ten episodes of the show, as Nikki and Paulo's history, both before the crash and after, unfolded in the course of 42 minutes.

I'm going to break our spoiler policy here and not write about what happened next. Whoever you are, whether you've watched the show or not, you have to see this, and it would be a shame to spoil it. It's an excellent entry point into Lost and the most insider-y episode of the series to date at the same time. It's a first season style mystery, a third season reinterpretation of the canon, and full of knowing winks for the most jaded viewer.

I haven't loved Lost this much since "Walkabout." Just watch it already.

Good News, Everyone!

I'm late for my oh-so-anticipated Lost insights, but something else has come up. It's just as well. Both last week's show and LOSTCast completely ignored what happened in the previous episode I dreamed, and the latest introduced what my wife rightly pointed out as the most implausible twist yet. Sayid's hot, he can repair delicate electronic equipment, interrogate people, tell when they're lying, track them through the woods, handle all types of weapons, AND he's a great cook?

Allow me to take a moment to gloat about how cool my wife is.

Anyway, news of more importance has come up. Two of our commenters... commentators... people who have left comments on Canned Food and Shotguns have recently started their own blogs. Jander and Jaxjaggywire have entered the Blogspot'o'sphere, giving both me and the evil Mr. Bile sites to retreat to when our inevitable acrimonious break-up occurs. In the meantime, when we can't be bothered to report on what games we're playin' or what movies we've seen, both of them seem to be happy to. You can find the links to their blogs under our new sidebar category, "Blogs That Aren't This Blog."

Jake's Wake Is Coming

Three things I want to note before delving into my rant: One, the previous Lost post can be read by anyone who already knows that Mr. Eko is dead or doesn't know who he is, in case the "it was all a dream" tag wasn't enough of a tip-off. Two, My Pal Skipp's short will be linked here as soon as it is available on the Internet. And three, though our spoiler policy is clear, our "you'll never watch this show again if you know this" policy is not. So I'll warn you that if you intend to keep watching Battlestar Galactica because you crave disappointment, please, don't read any further.

Here is an extra line in case you read fast. I hope you're reading this on purpose, because you've probably already seen the word below in quotes.

I watched Battlestar Galactica Sunday night. The one where Starbuck "died."

I'm done.

I'll keep watching until the pajama trial of Baltar, and maybe check out the made for Sci-Fi channel summer movie and the first two episodes next season just for a laugh. But I'm done.

I tried to embrace Mr. Bile's "one episode at a time theory for Battlestar enjoyment." But when it comes down to it, BSG is not Lost and I can't watch it as if it were.

Think what you will about Lost's refusal to answer lingering mysteries or advance the island plot, but it's held true to the series' premise. Each episode is tied into a single character's past. Whether that actually advances the timeline or explains why that character is doing the same thing over and over again, the conceit has been remarkably consistent. And since the themes of the show are predestiny, people's inability to change, and fate vs. free will, it works.

Battlestar is a different type of show. It began as a wanna-be pilot/mini-series and developed into a tight 13-episode first season with an ensemble cast. But over the course of the bloated second and third seasons, the majority of episodes seemed as if they were written for network sweeps. With the exception of two-part finales or plot arc epilogues, episodes increasingly focused on only one or two characters. Flashbacks became commonplace, rewriting what we knew, and the metaplot, when acknowledged, was presented as a clip show.

BSG forgot it was an ensemble show. All the interesting characters have either been written out, ignored, or turned to cardboard. Not only am I supposed to believe that Starbuck flew into a colored space hole to "die" just because, but Adama reacts like a spoiled teenager afterwards and breaks his favorite toy?

Get back to me 10 years from now when Chris Carter comes out of retirement to make the re-re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, and I can get my hopes up and have them dashed all over again courtesy of Lance Henriksen.

Lost: The Answers To Life, The Universe, And The Others

To recap:

Cindy, Jack, and a mixed band of crash survivors and Others take the monorail to the Others' mountaintop planetarium. Clouds fly past over the green countryside. One of the clouds darkens, thins out, and shoots forward faster than the rail car. As the smoke monster careens across the sky, the black smoke peels away, revealing the monster to be a large, clanking railroad train.

At the top of the observatory, Ben is being held hostage by a splinter group of Others. They want access to the files on all the crash survivors. The Others have been studying the survivors to determine which 6 are the physical incarnations of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. There are 108 archetypes, and the splinter group has different interpretations of what character represents what number. One of them announces that Jack is 52. (This is significant, because he was not on Jacob's original list of the 108.)

A gunfight ensues. Confused and angry, Jack reacts to this revelation by ditching everyone and walking back to the beach. Along the way, a mist clears on the horizon and reveals the island to be just off the coast of a quaint Irish village filled with roads, houses, and hills where school children play.

Charlie, Hurley, and Sawyer cross the channel and enter the town. Charlie heads to the pub. Along the way, he accidentally stumbles into the town library. The locals become hostile and chase after the three castaways with tranquilizer darts. Sawyer and Charlie seek refuge in the castle ruins, but are eventually shot and shipped back to the beach with fuzzy memories of the village.

Hurley ducks into the library just in time. He locks the door with the glowing orange key as hypodermic needles whiz past him. He hides in the back behind a bookcase. The librarian opens the door and tells the townsfolk to be on their way. From their perspective outside the door, the library is devoid of visitors.

Hurley's friend Johnny sits at a table in the children's section of the library with the librarian. Johnny is convinced that Hurley has joined them to play Dungeons & Dragons. He points out the librarian's miniatures display case, where 108 fantasy miniatures are placed behind glass doors. The librarian explains that several of the miniatures have changed over the last few months, and one disappeared inexplicably.

The librarian invites Hurley to browse any of the books on his shelves. Hurley picks a few titles from the pearl softcover Mage: The Ascension print run, which has supplements and illustrations that mirror the numbers archetypes in the Others' files. Johnny expresses his gratitude at being reunited with Hurley, who he says is a kick-ass Dungeon Master.

Reactions and analysis:

After 2 1/2 years, we finally got some insight into what the numbers represent in the series proper. Those of you who participated in The Lost Experience or looked into Bad Twin (or who have been paying attention to this blog and my links to LOSTCasts), already know about the Valenzetti Equation. The numbers we know are the "core values." We now learn the Others are looking for the characters on the island who embody those values, presumably to reprogram them, thus changing the equation and preventing the apocalypse.

We also finally discovered the location of the island, though it's still possible the island is slipping in and out of time, or perhaps floating freely around the ocean. This seems unlikely, however, as the villagers all carry blowguns packed with Dharma darts. They must be in on the island's--er, islands' secrets. Then again, the library seems to be a gateway to its own pocket universe, and having a pocket universe inside a pocket universe would be pushing it.

Of course, there are always nitpicks. How did Jack get back to the beach unscathed? Why didn't he mention the third island to anyone, not even Sawyer and Charlie after they were dumped back on the main island with their minds wiped? Where were Rose and Bernard during all of this? What happened to Sun's bikini?

I suspect all of these scenes were cut for lack of time. Look for them on the season 3 DVD.

Hidden clues and Easter Eggs:

I'm sure it's no coincidence that one week after I suggested it would be nice to see Tamlyn Tomita in a flashback, Sung Hi Lee showed up in Hurley's past. As LOSTCasts pointed out, it's interesting that Hurley's father is named David, considering his imaginary friend is named Dave. Something they didn't pick up on though, was Hurley's real-time reference in the library to Johnny being dead. (Something to look forward to in a future flashback?) Also, the melted miniature and the librarian's reference a figure gone missing was clearly an inside joke about the abrupt departure of Mr. Eko.

Verdict:

This was the episode everyone was waiting for, though it's a shame we won't be seeing Hurley again until May sweeps.

Lost: Stranger In A Strange Land

Last episode, I concentrated on what made an episode of Lost work for everyone. Then they made an episode just for me. Getting Clancy Brown (Brother Justin from Carnivale) into the Lost mythos was cool enough, but introducing the chick who was too hot for Star Wars was completely unexpected. All J.J. Abrams needs to do now is get Baltar and any MST3K cast member into a flashback and this will officially become my favorite show evar. (I would also accept cameos by Dave Foley/Kevin McDonald, Tamlyn Tomita, and any one voice actor from Futurama, so they're partway there.)

I was looking for hidden details, but this episode appeared to be fairly on the surface. What worked for me: I like it when we learn answers to mysteries of minor/symbolic importance and when my conspiracy theories are disproven. This time out, we finally learned what Jack's tattoos meant. (If you weren't wondering about that, you don't spend enough time on teh Interweb.) To mix my genre examples and alienate the few people who I know read this site and have never seen either show, the "He walks among us, but is not one of us," satisfied my Jack and Sawyer Are the Two Halves of John Crichton theory. And although I was hoping that there were two competing groups of Others, one on the second island and a dirtier group on the main one, I like it when I'm wrong about the mystery. It gives me new stuff to speculate about.

For people who are not me, there was still a lot to like in this episode. The "current" timeline advanced by a day and a half. We aren't going to see Jack for awhile, and when we do, he might be in a place to ask some relevant questions (i.e. in The Other's backyard, cooking burgers on the grill). And the relation between the flashback and island storyline was more than superficially symbolic. It not only reiterated that Jack's a stubborn, self-destructive jerk (the guy's a doctor and yet he has sex with a woman he suspects of being a prostitute in Thailand?), but it dove-tailed with what we know of Juliet's history. She keeps getting involved with guys who want to control her actions and then asks someone to kill them. Good luck in the future, Jack.

The usual LOSTcasts shout-out goes to their episode title connection. Never having read Heinlein, I wouldn't have come up with it myself. But apparently if you know the plot of the novel, you'd begin to suspect that Jack will become the leader of The Others by the end of the season. Although as they point out in their podcast, having the power to decide whether Ben lives or dies, Jack's pretty much in control of their destiny already. Which begs the question all my non-spoiler sources are avoiding. Other than maybe being born on the island, what makes Ben so special?

Lost: Flashes Before Your Eyes

What makes an episode of Lost great, or for the growing population of indifferent viewers out there, still worth programming into your TiVo? Does it answer questions you've had since the previous season? Introduce new mysteries? Feature supernatural or sci-fi events? Reveal more about a character's past or their connections to other inhabitants of the island? Does it turn your expectations of the series upside down? Does it actually advance the plot?

Whatever your answer, last week's Desmond episode had something for even the most jaded viewer.

Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for episodes that play with the flashback formula. "...In Translation", the first (and only) Jin episode, deconstructed our previous wife's-eye-view of his relationship. "Exodus," the first season finale, broke the mold by showing how everyone interacted when they boarded Oceanic Flight 815. "The Other 48 Days" depicted what happened to the survivors of the tail section of the plane. "Maternity Leave" filled in a gap of missing time, showing us what happened to Claire when she was kidnapped by The Others. Similar episodes followed, detailing Michael's time spent with The Others and Desmond's history in the hatch.

But the latest twist on the flashback formula was really clever. "Flashes Before Your Eyes" was two flashbacks at the same time.

There have been hints from the producers that on the island, time may not be what it seems. This caused some speculation that perhaps the plane had crashed in a year other than when the show premiered, or that the island existed outside of time and space and if the castaways ever escape they will return to the real world at the same time they left it. (Last season's finale negated both of these hypotheses, and Lost tie-ins like Bad Twin indicate that time has indeed passed in the real world since the plane disappeared.)

Clues as to what was actually going on started to appear early this season, with Desmond referring to future events in past tense, a cameo appearance by A Brief History of Time, and hidden in the brainwashing video from the Juliet flashback, "Not in Portland." When the audio is played backward, the filmstrip in Room 23 repeats "Only fools are enslaved to time and space."

Make sure to check that out the link. It's pretty creepy.

It's debateable whether or not Desmond actually went anywhere or was just hallucinating. As the folks at LOSTcasts point out, Wizard of Oz references abound in this episode, and the grey-haired oracle who tells Desmond that he can't change the past or the future could very well be an incarnation of the Smoke Monster. But I think that's missing the point. Desmond's body didn't go anywhere. His mind did.

I don't know much about physics, but there are several religions that teach that time is not a straight line, but occurs all at once. Turning the key exposed Desmond to his entire life. He isn't seeing the future. He's remembering it.

What's so intriguing about this is that the only other entity we know of that's been able to see the past is the Smoke Monster (thanks again to LOSTcasts for bringing this to my attention), and that changing the future is the mission statement of the Hanso Foundation. The latter topic has been referenced in the show, but if you're really stumped as to why I think this show is still on track, I suggest you look up The Valenzetti Equation.

Also, the twist at the end guarantees that the next Charlie episode will actually be interesting.

Six Paragraph Prologue

I have been going through all our old posts adding tags and embiggening the font when necessary. Battlestar Galactica-related posts lead with 11 tags, role-playing and board games tie at 5, and monsters have 4. With the exception of the subject of this post, everything else comes in at 3 or less, but this will probably change when I assign Mr. Bile to give our archives a once over. (Why isn't The Night You'd Never Forget tagged under "haunted house"? It was late and I was tired.)

Afterwards, we will compile a list of all the tags used only once and call for a vote on what topics should be expanded upon and by whom. I expect essays on beings of pure energy, the Frogtown barrier, and "..." to be high on our list of reader requests. But what do I know? I received no phone calls, comments, or e-mails about the state of my emotional health after posting this.

It's actually been a week of nightmares, but I think it has to do with the season. The "winter" months in Los Angeles not only give me reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, there's also too much goddamn sunlight coming in my window at 8 in the morning. Bright light! It tastes like burning! Et cetera.

Going through the tags, it makes me sad that Lost has only been addressed in a significant way 7 times. But I guess it makes sense. There have only been 8 episodes so far this season, and I extended my original spoiler embargo out of respect for Mr. Bile.

Actually, respect had nothing to do with it. What sort of insane person sits on addictive serial entertainment when they can down a fifth of cliffhangers in less than 24 hours? I was just being patient out of habit. That's all out the window now. Though he might be able to avoid reading my posts about the latest episodes, I can spoil plot twists faster than he can hang up the phone.

I've also held back on Lost love for the same reason I haven't written about Battlestar Galactica in the last two weeks. I'd rather create a blog for no one in particular than for one specific fanbase. (Yes, I know this doesn't equate to success, but it's what I want out my Internet media.) But as all the media attention focuses on "Urh, this smart show that requires people to remember what happened four episodes ago is losing viewers," and people are getting paid to not understand it on purpose, I think it's time someone stepped up with an eloquent defense before the first show to get halfway through completing its epic mystery died of viewer apathy.

CANNED FOOD AND SHOTGUNS

Alessandra's Fishbob

Rather than lay down yet another argument for why Stanley's hatred of smart television is a terrible thing, I am just going to assume you allready agree, or at least are willing to pretend that you do for the rest of your life. This allows me the space I need to indulge in the blogging tradition of hammering at a piece of misinformation until it bleeds.

In this case, I'd like to focus on the opening statement that forms the crux of Stanley's attack.

Anyone who thinks it’s a good sign that “Lost” is back has not spent enough time at the Web site of James Randi, a skeptical scholar of the pseudoscientific and the supernatural.

A fan recently posed this question online at randi.org: “Is a fascination and increased belief in the supernatural a sign of social decline?”

The answer came as categorically as the words under the Magic 8-Ball: “Yes. Absolutely.” [NYT excerpt by Alessandra Stanley]

The link Stanley provided leads to Randi's Website, but not to the forum she is refering to. Luckily, the site has a search function that leads to the only forum post that matches up with the quotes provided.

Stanley had to wait for twelve responses for her categorical answer, but once given, it seems pretty clear. Fishbob hates superstition almost as much as he hates misplaced apostrophes. You might know Fishbob better as James Randi himself. In all likelihood you'd be wrong about that, but Stanley's article certainly implies that Fishbob at least speaks with the voice of Randi. It's entirely possible she knows something about him I don't.

Of course, Fishbob wasn't talking about the third season of Lost. For one thing, this recent conversation took place in March of 2006. Also, it's not in the "Entertainment" thread, where one can find a 16 page thread devoted to Lost. Stanley's quote is located is in the Politics, Current Events, and Social Issues subsection of "General Academics." Fishbob might hate it when people are fascinated with supposedly supernatural events in the real world, but he's not saying much about television.

I wonder why this particular quote was even chosen. There has to be better quotes to steal out there, and I'd imagine they'd be easier to find than a year old forum post. How did she even know this existed? Perhaps a year ago, she was investigating what sort of person would bother asking what James Randi fans thought about the supernatural, and the lines stuck with her. I'd honestly like to know.

Still, it makes for a nice misleading quote for the insufficiently skeptical. I'm sure that's the sort of thing Randi's all about, when he isn't unbending spoons with the power of his mighty beard.

Of course, it's possible there really is a Q & A with a LOST-hating Real James Randi on the site, and I'm just unable to find it. This is why reporters are supposed to attribute their quotes. This prevents people like me from asking, "Your magic eight ball of truth is some guy called Fishbob?!" Instead, I'd be forced to ask why she claims to hate magic so much, but didn't even mention Jack Bauer and his magical teleporting car.

The NYT Can FOATALWOASP

I wanted to write about Lost last night, but I didn't get around to seeing the first new episode of its 16-week uninterrupted run until 2 AM. And when I went on-line to read and blog about it, I got mad. But I didn't want to write a post titled "The New York Times Can Do Some Stuff And Expire." So I took a day to put things into perspective.

The New York Times can Take A Long Walk Off A Short Pier.

The Hater, my ideological counterpart at The Onion AV Club and pop-intellectual hottie, first brought this item to my attention. You can read the full New York Times review she eviscerates on-line. The majority of NYT content is available on the web for free, which is all any self-respecting genre fan should pay to read it from here on out, unless they actually happen to be anti-abortion activists.

(If you skipped both of those links because this started out about Lost and you either haven't seen it or dislike the show for some reason which is not insane, I urge you to reconsider. The NYT author was too bored with the show to even get the details right, so she spent most of her time ranting about Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, supernatural-lite shows like Medium and The Ghost Whisperer, and comics, fantasy, and sci-fi in general. And for you hardcore fans, I'm sure she would have mentioned Firefly, Farscape, or Buffy if she even knew what they were. You know, if they were an "in" elitist thing to rip on.)

I've waged an active campaign against anti-nerd bias in print media for the last few years. As World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, videogames, and nerdiest of all, teh Interweb, are embraced worldwide, it rankles me when mainstream outlets pay writers who fall back on outdated stereotypes:

"Lost” is at heart a science-fiction thriller, while “Heroes” is more of a comic book, but both genres have a similar appeal: they provide an alternative society for those who don’t fit comfortably into their own. (That is to say, smart, socially awkward adults and all 12-year-old boys.) [NYT excerpt by Alessandra Stanley]

Wait. Television shows with superheroes, epic mysteries, real-world political analogues that feature evil robots, and supernatural procedurals are so popular that you can write about them for a national newspaper, but they are only of interest to pre-teen boys and nerdy adults? Who's really wishing for an alternative society here? For that matter, if a TV show appeals to smart adults, then it has to be smart, too, right?

The NYT can FOATALWOASP. If I want to read uninformed opinions about high-quality genre fiction that requires you to turn your brain on, I can get on the Internet. No one should be paid to be this stupid.

(Edit: I have a lot to say on the subject of ignorant genre criticism, perhaps too much for this post. This article has undergone several edits, and more are anticipated. I refuse, however, to go back and italicize "New York Times.")

Lost Update

The reports come in varying degrees of certainty, some with more cattiness than necessary, but it seems clear that the producers behind Lost intend to wrap things up in a season and a half or two. They're also pushing to air the fourth season episodes consecutively, with no midseason break to irritate the more skeptical and impatient fans.

I consider my defense of the show vindicated. Even if it ends badly, at least I'll know they tried to learn from The X-Files, at a time when Battlestar Galactica steadfastly ignores its lessons and Heroes takes the easy way out by being easy. (Just a guess here, but I bet the T. Rex Hiro encounters is stuffed.)

Six episodes into season 3, we're being introduced to the Others, and there will be a Juliet flashback when the show resumes in a few weeks. It feels like we've already passed the plot's midpoint. It's nice to know the writers and producers feel the same way. Maybe I can justify getting a Hanso Foundation polo shirt now.

Having given up on Battlestar Galactica, the only end game I'm concerned about is the one on The Office. There are a lot of relationships up in the air, and then there's the more vicious brand of office politics courtesy of Andy from Stamford. I'm beginning to understand why the British show closed up shop before exploring all the possibilities of its concept, and let's be honest, totally caved in the series finale. I watch The Office hoping everyone has a happy ending, but it wouldn't be the same if they did.

Getting Lost

The mini-season of Lost has come to an end, with no new episodes until February. I understand a few million viewers found themselves underwhelmed at the beginning of the season. I hope they're still paying attention.

The writers were faced with an unusual dilemma this season. Last year, ABC frustrated viewers with an erratic schedule, leaving the show off the air for weeks at a time, coming back for one new episode and following it with another two-week break. Ratings fell, and a balanced solution was sought. Would the series be better off if it ran straight through starting in January? That would be a long wait for one of the network's flagship shows. As a compromise, they split the series into parts. Six episodes would air in the fall, eighteen would be shown back to back in the second half of the television season.

I hope it's obvious to ABC and the show's producers now that that was the wrong move. Serialized shows work best when they can air week to week without interruption. Considering how many viewers are used to watching the show on DVD, a long wait for a full season is better than splitting it up into any number of parts.

Additionally, airing what amounts to a six episode prologue does nothing to placate the fickle audience who has been demanding answers right now for the past two seasons. Cliff-hangers on three different parts of the island had to be wrapped up. Given the show's grounding in character flashbacks, this took up half of the episodes. Immediately after those were resolved, a mini-season cliff-hanger had to be set in place. This tight outline allowed for little screen time for anyone other than Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, and left several mysteries that should have been addressed in the wake of last season's finale untouched. (Did Charlie tell anyone what happened in the hatch or was he happy living under the assumption that Locke and Eko were dead? How did Locke, Eko, and Desmond escape from the implosion? Has Sayid mentioned the big foot to anyone? What was the response on the beach to the sky turning purple?)

Put in perspective, I think the writers did the best they could with the time they had to tell a story. And while the payoff was limited in scope, it made for a very smart cliff-hanger. Leaving Sawyer with a gun to his head wouldn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat. Leaving Kate and Sawyer with one hour to escape from an island prison and Ben in the hands of a very pissed off Jack? That's something to look forward to.

To compare the show to one of my other favorite mysteries, I don't expect George R.R. Martin to bring the evil in a Song of Ice and Fire novel until all the characters have been reintroduced and we know where they're going. (On the other hand, leaving out half the cast didn't work well in A Feast For Crows, either. SoIF without Tyrion is like Lost without Hurley.) I expect Lost will return to business as usual in February, when we can finally learn what Bernard thinks of the fact that everyone else from the tail section is dead.

Average Size For, You Know, White Text

My Pal Skipp (recently promoted from "That Guy Skipp," thanks to this suggestion) said he would like to read more of our blog, but it hurts his eyes. I hope he only meant that the text was a bit too small for his jaded peepers.

Cover one eye and tell me if you can read the following:

4 8 15 16 23 42

Personally, I like the look of Small Trebuchet, but I can deal with Arial Normal as it's the only constructive criticism we've received so far. I think the Halloween colors might be screwing with my eyes as well, and I'm open to suggestions on readable color combinations other than black text on an empty white plain of contentlessness.

(Edit: I have gone back and changed as many previous posts as I could to fit the current font scheme. Due to complications with the template, this did not always work, but the majority of articles posted previous to this installment are now readable.)

Sometimes I'm Boring

That's what happens when I a) watch 13 hours of TV in a week and b) try to cram my thoughts on all of it into one post instead of sinking my teeth into something interesting like Lost. The temptation to log in with a few paragraphs like "Can you believe what happened last night on Best Week Ever!!!" and call it a night is easy to succumb to. I will resist slacking in the future and try to get out more.

There's been a lot of chatter on the Net about the first five minutes of the season premiere of Lost, much of it focused on the Others' book club. Juliet's choice of Carrie has obvious parallels to Walt, but I think a more interesting detail has gone unnoticed. Adam clearly derided Carrie as science-fiction. That leads to two possibilities. Either the Others don't believe in the supernatural, or more likely, they have a rational explanation for the psychic phenomena we've seen so far.

The new LOSTCast has some interesting theories on whether or not the Others knew about the plane ("If they didn't expect it, why were they looking up?") and the cause of the disturbance. Check out the latest episode if you have a long commute don't mind the Vanzetti equation being spoiled for you. I skipped The Lost Experience, so I didn't know what the numbers meant. Now I do, although I think people who believe the numbers have power are wrong. Based on Hanso's Mathematical Forecasting Initiative, I'd assume they're just the set that assured everyone would be on the plane.

I'm all for Dharma Initiative mayonnaise.

Do We Really Need Heroes?

As I mentioned yesterday, I watched an unhealthy amount of television last week. I sat through three hours of The Wire, two hours of Heroes, Dexter, Lost, The Nine, The Office, two hours of Battlestar Galactica--oh, and The Venture Bros. As you might expect, George Pelecanos' The Night Gardener is still unfinished on my nightstand.

I am on the fence about Heroes. I had hoped this would be Unbreakable: The Series, and it succeeds with the vibe. However, with so many characters spread across the planet, the pacing was frustrating. (I'm aware that the first two episodes were intended to be a two-hour pilot and that the flow probably suffered when it was recut. We'll see if this improves tomorrow.) Unlike Lost, where you know from the first flashback that, crap, it's a Boone episode, Heroes jumped back and forth between its protagonists throughout the hour. This would be fine if all the characters were interesting, but I spent most of the show waiting for the white people to go away.

Heroes also tried my patience with some of its plot developments. Two characters were improbably arrested for crimes they did not commit in the second episode. The Japanese guy had only been at the scene for a minute when several dozen police officers flooded in and accused him of murder. Where did they all come from, and how could they suspect Hiro of freezing the victim to death and taking his brain out in 60 seconds? It's a good thing none of that has happened yet.

Dexter was an improvement over the novels, though I hope the voice-over will be toned down as the season progresses. The gay guy from Six Feet Under makes a good serial killer, and rather than being complete idiots like they were in the books, the supporting characters are camped up to tolerable levels. They help to round out the over-the-top nature of the premise. I already know the identity of the mysterious serial murderer, but assuming my source continues to tape it for me, I'll stick around for the filler killings along the way.

The Nine was enjoyable despite the presence of several actors I can barely stand. In execution and heart, it reminded me of Boomtown. It was nice knowing you, The Nine.

Rambling aside, Battlestar Galactica, kicked every other show's ass last week. Far from being the ho-hum "reboot" many fanboys fretted over, the premiere was like watching a nightmare. It's the ballsiest political commentary I've seen on TV since Joe Dante showed us zombies eating Ann Coulter. In a time when irony is used ad nauseam to reflect dissatisfaction with the political climate, I guess it takes a drama to deliver a real kick to the viewing public.