May 26, 2010

You're Next American Idol Is....

Their journey started together at the Chicago auditions and it ends in LA with Chicago's own Lee DeWyze being crowned the American Idol of season 9!  I guess it came full circle...

I like Lee but I thought it would be Crystal because she was so different but here is yet another season where the judges favorite doesn't win the show (it was so obvious the judges thought Adam Lambert would win last year)...the Judges tend to push one of the contestants to the front to make it seem like they will win and then the fans vote the opposite....The viewers I guess aren't ready for that non-pop/rock winner just yet, not that Crystal won't go on to have a very successful career!

Lee's tears of joy were so genuine and he seems like the nicest guy ever!  Lee's new single will be a remake of U2's "Beautiful Day" - I'm a little confused by the choice of the idols to release a previously recorded song as their single but it is slightly better than those garbage all my dreams came true songs they usually get...

Now to review the night as a whole...

The finale started off great with the top 12 and Alice Cooper  and went to our reigning champ Kris Allen, but then it went a little old school with 2 of the BeeGees, Michael McDonald and Hall and Oates (accompanied by our idol contestants).  They then went for some comedy about Simon with Dane Cook whom I normally like but this fell way short by my Dane standards.  But they picked it up with the top 6 girls and Christina Aguilera, Crystal with Alanis Morissette,  and another Idol alum, Carrie Underwood.

The Alanis duet with Crystal was absolutely awesome!

Then Bret Michaels sang "Every Rose has it's Thorns" with Casey James..that was the greatest moment considering all he's been through in the last few weeks.

Lee DeWyze gets his duet with Chicago (a little corny since he's from Chicago) sounded good.  And again with the old school bands....

Back to the comedy with General Larry Platt's "Pants on the Ground"...one of the most unforgettable moments in idol history followed by another unforgettable terrible performance in William Hung...

Paula Abdul came back to say farewell to Simon!  But her speech felt a little rehearsed...she made a great joke about having a baby with Simon with all their past flirty...

A great performance from all the winners from the past minus David Cook (so disappointed about that he is my favorite idol)!  But I do have to say it's about time Kelly Clarkson came back...then the joining of many members of the show's past top 10's...

Simon gave a speech...Goodbye Simon the show will never be the same without your snarky comments.

And of course this season finale wasn't JUST about the winners it was about Simon's last show ever, so there were several montages and thank you's and such for a goodbye to Simon.  It's amazing how much he's changed since season 1 (appearance wise), he lost a lot of weight since the start.

Top it off with a performance by the top 12 from this season mixed in with Janet Jackson!

Janet's performance of "Nasty Boys" was pretty great, with really good backup dancers...I felt my childhood come rushing back to me and really wanted Paula to take the stage and sing "Opposites Attract"!

Crystal and Lee sing "I Get By with a Little Help from my Friends" and introduced Joe Cocker...Crystal and Lee should sing a ton of duets together, this duet (at least the start of it) and their duet during the top 4 week were both amazing!

When it's all said and done, even though Ryan said "Tonight it's about Crystal and Lee",
it felt like the finale was more about goodbye to Simon that in was about Crystal and Lee...

With the end of Simon and the end of this season I say goodbye to watching Idol (or at least i say that now)...without Simon I can't see this show really being worth it especially since I really didn't care too much for this season.  I never watched Idol consistently, I watched seasons 3 7 8 and 9.  Season 7 winner David Cook is my favorite winner, I never jumped on the Adam Lambert bandwagon so I was so glad when Kris won last year Adam just became a screamer in my opinion with the exception of "Mad World"...and Season 3 I found myself rooting for Diana to win but Fantasia was still amazing and I got to see both of them perform when I went to the taping of Live with Regis and Kelly that May but this season by far was the most disappointing...

Lessons Learned: Screening Phone Calls

On the season finale of Modern Family, Phil goes to a Lakers game and just happens to be sitting right behind the bench and Claire sees him on TV as she is trying to call him to tell him about the broken stair she just messed up.  As she tries to come up with something to say to him that will make him have an awkward face, he grabs his phone looks at it and puts it back in his pocket! public screening of your call on television! This reminds me of a time when I saw my friend screen a call from me while I was driving down the street so I will share the story -

I am on campus at Purdue driving down Northwestern Ave when I see my friend walking out of the physics building towards Jimmy Johns with is physics minions (his word not mine).  So I decide to give him a call him.  As I am at the stoplight I see him pull his phone out of his pocket and proceed to put it back in his pocket.  I couldn't believe it! He screened my call! a few seconds later I'm driving through the intersection and he is on the sidewalk so i roll down my window and call him out on it!  Later he told me a story about being with his physics minions and so forth but I still laugh about that to this day! Thank You Phil Dumphy for bringing back a classic moment in my life!

Phil and Gloria get put on the kiss cam at the Lakers game so she says what the heck and kisses him then Alex gets a text from Haley saying that Claire saw him on TV (screening her call) and he's dead, but Phil being who he is thinks she saw the kiss cam on TV...too great!

Mitchell gets chased by a pigeon in his own house and then there's a great scene where Cam is singing Ave Maria at a wedding and it plays in the background as Mitchell decides to go on the offensive against the pigeon thus trashing the house!

Jay tells Jake some crazy story about cutting Martin Luther King, Jr.'s hair back in the 60s.  He embellishes by adding all these other famous people's hair too and then tells Jake that Frank Sinatra is the greatest singer to ever live and he'll fight anyone who says otherwise and of course Jake tells him his dad thinks (some random person I've never heard of) is the best singer and Jays says "jokingly" I guess I'm going to have to fight your dad.  So Jake texts Alex that "Grandpa wants to fight him"  so Phil of course takes that as another assumption he saw the kiss cam!

And of course it all comes out in the open during the main plot line of taking a family photo which Claire planned out where everyone is all dressed in white.  She wanted it on her stairs but when she made the broken stair worse she moved it to Jay's house.  They are fighting the setting sun the Phil and Gloria get back from the game late due to an overtime, the sprinklers come on and they have to send Jake to turn them off - cause it's across the lawn and he is wrapped in plastic so he won't get his close dirty! haha.  They finally pose and then the Kiss Cam story comes out and they end up having a mud fight and then taking a funny dirty picture!

What a great way to end this GREAT new show!  Modern family is ABC's first really good comedy in a long time!  Can't wait for next season...

May 24, 2010

And in The End....

And in the end when all was said and done the show was about religion all along. Even the promotional art for this season was a rendition of The Last Supper.  In the stain glassed window at the church we see symbols of all kinds of religion.

I don't think they necessarily were forcing Christianity on us despite the very obvious links to it, I think the idea was just spiritual belief in general.  However you do feel them pushing you towards the Christian bible in their story.  With the final act airing on Pentacost Sunday it feels like Jack, candidate 23, was our story's Jesus to Christian's God (with a name like Christian Shepard how did more people not see this coming a long time ago?).  Locke stabbed Jack in the side, just as Jesus was stabbed in his side after his crucifixion.  A friend of mine gave me this great line "In the end, it was not science, or numbers or symbols, or any other religion that was depicted in the church's stain glass window that held the answers. The came close, but fell short. The only Way to the Truth was to follow the Christian Shepherd (whose tomb was ALWAYS empty!)" (thanks Sarah).  To quote the movie Superbad "Muhammed is the most common name on earth.  Read a book" (aka the bible).

The 23rd Psalm - something Mr. Eko etched into his stick, Jack as candidate 23 of our favorite set of numbers
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

To continue with some numbers and the bible let's take a look at John 3:16 (Ajiria flight 316)
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.
If we dissect this a little and put in our Lost references, God aka Christian loved the world and gave his only son aka Jack so that everyone (our castaways) who believes in him (Jack) might not perish (on the island) and have eternal life (in the sideways world).  Kinda fitting huh?

Let's break down the show a little bit shall we? 

As Jack so aptly said way back when "If we don't learn to live together, we're going to die alone". They certainly did not die alone or at least not completely. They gave themselves a place to meet so they could die together no matter what points in their lives their deaths came. The point was that these strangers met and formed bonds on this strange island that were the most meaningful connections of their life. They created a sort of waiting area to move on to the afterlife (not so much a purgatory as so many online people are calling it - purgatory is a place where you go to be judged after you die and this was not the case for our castaways).

Many people are arguing that the "they're all dead" is a cop-out way to end the show. I disagree and here's why. I feel like every time a show ends (or at least the good ones with deep characters) I want to know what happens to them after their life is no longer displayed for me to watch. With some shows (like Charmed) we get a flash forward to their future and how their lives played out beyond the end of the story we got to see, and I like that. With them all being dead it gives a sense of closure that there is no more story to tell...about these characters. The island still lives on and will continue to be mysterious but the show wasn't ultimately about the mysteries of the island it was about the people on it, and that's what Darlton wanted us to remember.

Damon made a point that shows like ER end and although we are no longer experiencing the characters lives, County General Hospital will continue to see patients but the story of the doctors we knew and loved is over. Well it's sort of the same thing with Lost, all of our castaways died at some point in their lives but the island will continue to draw peole to it whether or not we witness it.

The writing was so directed at the fans this season.  With little zingers like "Every question I answer will simply lead to more questions." basically telling all the fans out there that there will always be questions and you will not get all the answers.  I felt like having them all be dead was the writers telling the fans there is no more story, there is no way for us to continue, it is The End.

Sure I would have liked to have seen Hurley rule the island for a while with Ben at his side I think it would have been fun, and sure I would have liked to see Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Claire, Lapidus, and Richard's off island life until they met their death at some point in time but it's not a necessary part of the story. As Terry O'Quinn so greatly put it in the pre-show, sure you want the book to keep on going but when you finish it and you close the book you think wow that was a great story and that's exactly how I feel about Lost - Wow that was a great story!

"It only ends once, everything before that is simply progress." Well Jacob may have been talking about his battle with his still unnamed brother but it can also be true of life. And although we saw the end of our castaways, the Island has not yet ended and our castaways helped progress the island away from the bitter battle that Jacob and his brother were playing out.  Leading to a time where fun-loving Hurley protects the place and probably did a wonderful job of it before passing it on to someone else.

Back to our dead castaways. I continue to read people's online posts questioning that if in the sideways world they were dead were they not dead the whole time? NO absoluetly not the case - these people were definetely not listening to the dialogue of the show to realize that they were definitely not dead the whole time. Christian Shepard clearly states in his conversation with Jack at the end that their life on the island most definetly happened and that their time spent together was the most imporant time in their lives which is why they created this waiting area for each other to all move on together because they lived together and they will die together (even if some of them died off the island). It is also clearly evident in the coversation that Ben and Hurley have with each other. Hurley says you WERE a great number 2 to which Ben replies you WERE a geat number 1 (I'm getting a little teary eyed just thinking about this scene). This indicates that the two of them lived on to protect the island for a time past the death of Jack but clearly shows the lives they had on the island were completely real.

This brings me to the timeline of the "sideways" world. I now feel like the term "sideways" was misleading. When that term was introduced to me it made me think that the timeline was running parrallel to our island timeline but that most certainly was not the case! In fact our sideways world is more likely a flashforward of sorts because in order for them all to move on together they would all have to be dead and we know that some of them died after Jack met his end and my guess is that they have been living out their lives in this realm that they created while they wait for the last of them to join them.

At first I was confused about why they had these similar yet slightly different to their original lives playing out, if they were all dead what was the point? I think the point was that none of them got to live the lives they could have because they were brought to the island to be pawns in Jacob's game with his brother so they played this world out as a way to live the lives they could have had if Oceanic 815 had actually safely landed in LA.

To the credit of those in charge I would like to congragulate them on keeping me completely cluess up until the very end. I never would have guessed the ending to the show and although I am still confused about the island to some degree it's O.K. if they didn't tell us it wasn't meant for us to know definativley. I didn't guess that they were all dead in the sideways world until Christian asked Jack "How are YOU here?" In that moment I was stunned, blown away at the concept.

Demanding the answers of the island is like demanding the meaning of life.  The island was the source of life, death, and rebirth and existed as a mystical place where strange things happen.  Some people were brought to the island, others found it accidentally (even though it seems impossible to find because the island is always moving I still think people accidentally end up there through ship wrecks or plane wrecks).  The island, just like life is mysterious.  Why are we here, well we know why our castaways are on the island - that one was answered - because Jacob brought them there through complicated circumstances involving visiting them early in their lives or allowing Desmond to miss pushing his button so the electromagnetic force would cause the plane to crash to be used as pawns in his game with his brother.

On to the plane crash - you might say well Jacob brought them to the island but how did they survive that crash?  I think Jacob made it so they would survive and since he's not about killing he tried to allow as many of the non-candidates to survive the crash as well.  Many of the candidates and non-candidates died on the island at the hands of each other, happenstance, or other people on the island but this happens because even though they were "brought" to the island, free will still exists. 

Let's move on the the story on the island which is what we vested 6 years of our lives on.  We find ourselves with Jack appointed the new island protector (and FLocke quoted this one right - "you're kinda the obvious choice" to which Jack replies I volunteered I wasn't chosen)  and now they need to go find Desmond who is the key to the whole island arc.  But where is Desmond?  He wasn't still down the well when FLocke went looking for him and he isn't with Jack so who helped him out of that well?  Well Rose and Bernard of course! I squealed when they came on my screen, it's been so long since we've seen them I'd all but forgotten they were still alive.  Here they are living a nice happy simple life in the jungle with Vincent (who was the only character the writers promised would survive the show) that is until FLocke shows up to get Desmond who willingly goes with him as long as FLocke promises to never hurt them.  Eventually Jack's group meets up with FLocke and comes out bullets flying.  You see Jack and FLocke both have a plan for Desmond but as seems to be the trend on this show, master plans never go as expected.  Not even Desmond's idea of what will happen is what actually happens (i think a little nod to all the theories that are out there yet none were the actual answer).

So basically Desmond with his unique ability to withstand electromagnetism literally removes the cork that is keeping the light going.  I didn't expect there to be a "cork" so to speak keeping the hell (If you look at my post for the week Lost took a break and I posted a call sheet for the finale where it lists some scenes one of them says Hell as a location).  So Desmond pulls the plug and FLocke is off to his boat to leave the island.  But not so fast! Jack comes blazing down the mountain ready to finally kill FLocke who now seems to have regained his ability to be defeated.  All I could think of was Gilmore Girls and how when Luke and Lorelai argue over Star Wars episode 3 when Luke makes the argument that "just because he has the high ground he will win" is stupid.  I found myself saying Jack has the high ground he's gonna win this fight but then Locke pulls out the knife and stabs him in the side (and then Jack's "sideways" world appendix scar became this scar - our first missed clue to them being dead in the "sideways" world).  We also see FLocke with the knife to Jack's neck as it starts to bleed, i.e. the same mark that keeps bleeding on him somehow in the "Sideways".  Well Kate comes down the mountain and shoots FLocke point blank quipping "I left a bullet for you", after he told her earlier to save her bullets.  And then just for insurance Jack kicks FLocke off the cliff.

So with FLocke dead Jack must sacrifice himself to bring the light back and save the island.  Why you might ask does he not just let Desmond do it to protect himself from the electoromagnetisim?  You see this finally feels like what he's supposed to do.  He convinces Sawyer and Kate to leave the island with Alpert, Miles and Lapidus on the Ajiria plane but not before we see Kate finally choose between Sawyer and Jack.  It's made apparent that Kate truly loves Jack and always has despite everything that has happened.  Hurley and Ben decide to stay behind on the island.

Jack acknowledging his suicide mission passes the torch as island protector on to Hurley and he then descends into "hell" to bring back the light.  We get a great conversation with Hurley asking Ben to help him out as island protector because he has experience and that is all Ben has ever wanted was to have a purpose on the island.  (I got very emotional at this point).  And Hurley's first mission is to help Desmond get home because like Ben said, Jacob may have run the island on rules like you can never leave once you are there but Hurley can turn a new leaf and do what he thinks is right.

At some point after Jack gets the light to come back on he somehow mysteriously gets himself out of the cave and makes his way back just past the bamboo with the tennis shoe on it to lie down where he first woke up on the island and die there.  Vincent comes and lays down next to him so that he will not die alone.  I have had the inclination for quite some time now that the final shot of the show would be Jack's eye but wasn't it just the most poetic thing you've ever seen?  Jack Bender directed this episode so brilliantly.

I think although what happened on the island was confusing at times and led to many more questions we are not meant to completely understand the island, all we are meant to understand is that our characters were brought to this place of mystery by a mysterious man to act as pawns in his game with his dead brother.  But as Jacob told him none of them were pulled from a happy existence, they were all lonely, looking for purpose or a chance to start over and this place gave them that opportunity.

The very last scene of the episode shows the wreckage of a plane crash left me feeling the most uncertain as to what it was meant to symbolize.  Was it supposed to be an homage to the oceanic crash, was it saying that the duct tape Miles put on the Ajiria plane didn't hold up and it ended up crashing either back on the island or on some other island, or (and this is what I think) was it meant to be a way to show that somehow other people will get to the island again.  We don't know when this scene takes place in the timeline or if it was meant to serve a purpose of intrigue or not but for the most part everything we were shown had meaning in it in some form whether we realized it at the time or not so I feel like there is some meaning in this final scene. 

As it turns out this last paragraph is now a moot point because ABC has come clean and stated that the final image of the crash scene was not part of the plot and they added it themselves to "lighten the emotion heading into the newscast".  Thanks a lot ABC for keeping us wondering for 3 days what that was all about and also making way to many people question whether Christian had lied and they were in fact all dead the whole time, now we can drop that thought and move on because they were not dead the whole time only in the "sideways" reality.

Let's go back to the waiting room reality for just a few more thoughts before I leave you.  The "sideways" scenes in this final episode gave us some of the most emotional images in television history.  Every single recollection had me bawling.  But Claire and Charlie most of all because Charlie was one of my favorite characters and he was the first to sacrifice himself to save his friends and his death was the first truly tear worthy moment on Lost.  Juliette finding Sawyer and finishing her death conversation about getting coffee and going Dutch was a great moment.  Sayid and Shannon was great (even though we didn't get to seen Boone become enlightened).  Even though I have read many people complaining about this because of Nadia but in my opinion Nadia was something Sayid felt he never deserved and Shannon was flawed like he was and their relationship formed on the island so it was only fitting that they should find each other...this was another example of a sudden end to a budding relationship on the island.  And even though Jack was getting glimpses throughout the episode it took touching the coffin to fully bring him around, his emotion when visiting John Locke's funeral in the flashforwards was his mirror to that.

In the end it was finally time for them all to move forward together into the light.  The End of the best show on TV.

On September 22, 2004 LOST crash landed into our living rooms and started a world wide phenomenon that will forever in our hearts keep us guessing.  But weather you loved the end or hated the end it is THE END and that was LOST.  The best 6 years of television anyone could have asked for.  For those who doubted the show and jumped off the bandwagon in seasons 2 and 3 I am sorry that you chose not to witness this great thing with the rest of us.

I wanted to be more eloquent when writing this but alas my pretty writing was all used up in the previous post but as Desmond's famous phrase seems so fitting now "See you in another life, brotha" - I will leave you with this Beatles lyric

"Ultimately, in The End, the love you take is equal to the love you make. All you need is love."

LOST Is Over...Now What?

"It can only end once, everything before that is simply progress"...wasn't the progress the best experience of your life?

LOST has made us laugh, and it's made us cry, it gave us questions and answers, it kept us intrigued and guessing. It made us smile and fall in love, it made us patient for answers. It gave us faith, and it gave us doubt that the writers were leading us somewhere. It made us feel for people we never met in a way life-long friends feel for each other. It gave us something to talk about at work the next day, and it brought us together in a giant online community. But most of all, LOST gave us something to look forward to, a reason to believe in serialized television and a reason to look forward to next week. It was a whole new venture and as unique a story as we've ever been told. LOST revolutionized television and the way television can immerse an audience in fantasy and escape from their everyday lives. It touched the world and made everyone feel like they were a part of this story through augmented reality games and video games in the off-season giving the audience a chance to find their own answers. It also did something American television had never seen before - it sent it's OWN end date. This is something that tends to happen when shows are produced in other countries but never has an American made show done this. It was ingenious.

Future television should take a page out of LOST's book and pitch a show to a network for a specific number of seasons, like a several year long movie (at least drama's should comedies tend to follow a different structure). It would give the creators the chance to accomplish what they want and work towards a specific goal. I think it would also lead to more viewers because we would ultimately know that we were being taken on a journey that we know will have a purposeful ending and not have to worry about getting hooked to a show that apparently other people did not get attached to and only to have the rug pulled out from under us.

Mark your calendar for May 23, 2010 - that's the day that a nation watched as the show that captivated audiences around the world came to an end. The day many of us saw a 6 year journey and investment in the most creative show on television come to an end, the day our castaway friends ended their journey, and boy oh boy was it well worth every minute of the 6 year investment!

Never before has a show made me feel such emotion that it seemed as though the lives of these characters had a direct impact on my life. I cried so many times through the journey of LOST but more at "The End" than any other point.

I'm sure many people will not agree with me that the show's final episode was one of the best there was. I think in the midst of all the mysteries the show gave us we lost track of the character progression and demanded answers but all we really wanted was for our friends to make their way and bring us on their journey to the end of the road. And tonight's finale gave us the greatest character resolution possible. I think this will go down as one of the best series finales of all time whether you believe it or not Damon and Carlton allowed us to witness the finest 2.5 hours of television.

This is what I have to start but please look for a second post tomorrow...

Best quote of the night:
"I don't believe in a lot of things, but i do believe in duct tape" -Miles

May 23, 2010

Today it all comes to "The End"

With "The End" of Lost quickly approaching I thought it would be a good time to post some final thoughts on the show.  It seems like only yesterday when I got my first glimpse into LOST.  I remember catching a rerun of the pilot episode the summer after it began but wasn't immediately hooked and never really looked back to the show until season 3, that's when a friend of mine who watched LOST made me sit down and watch an episode, but I was so confused because I had not been watching.  This led me to go out and watch the first 3 Seasons on DVD.  After that, I was hooked.

I remember as I watched the DVDs of seasons 1 and 2 being sucked in to the mysteries of the island.  I was so enthralled that I would watch episode after episode after episode just so I could find out what was going to happen next!  I was like WOW this show is so complex and mysterious and just plain something to think about that I couldn't stop.  Watching on DVD was thrilling because unlike everyone who had watched it on TV I didn't have to wait a week for the next awe inspiring episode to leave me wanting more, I just popped in the next DVD and watched as much as I wanted...there was no worry of waiting an entire week to find out what was in the Hatch or whether Henry Gale was who he said he was.  The biggest disappointment for me was that I had to stop and wait for season 4 to start after probably the show's best season finale "Through the Looking Glass".  Oh yea and of course Season 4 was the first time we had to wait until January for the season to begin!

So many people say that season 3 was so terrible.  Sure it some pretty horrible episodes like "Stranger in a Strange Land" where we learn about Jack's tattoos, "Expose" the story of Nikki and Paulo who are unnecessary characters that we hear a back story too (although I do give the show credit for taking scenes from previous episodes in which they were clearly not in and somehow weaving them back into it)...but just think about where we would be today without season 3?  If you go back and watch Season 3 again now you will see that it really started Locke in motion to become the smoke monster.  Maybe you didn't think you wanted to see as many stories about The Others but I think they made this already complex story even more complex I mean didn't you want to know how this group formed and when the got there?  - as a matter of fact I don't think we REALLY know the answer to that to this day.  I mean some of the people we know as Others are former Dharma members, some are former 815ers and the rest we assume Jacob brought to the island at one point as a candidate but how long ago was that?  I digress because this post isn't about our lingering questions it's about our love for this great television show and how life will change when it's over.

Last night, while at work, I was watching the enhanced version of the Pilot that ABC so kindly played for us when a co-worker asked me "What are you gonna do when it's over?"  and it got me thinking?  I don't know...I have always been a television buff...I watch more television than the average person should and I have been that way my whole life.  Whether it be old shows in reruns or new series to watch every week, I have been a fan of television pretty much my whole life.  I mean my first words as a child were "TV Guide"...tell me that's not a passion...I even grew up to work at a TV station (albeit in news but I would probably give my left arm to work in serialized television if I could).

Someone else asked me at work the other day if LOST was my favorite show on TV and I replied yes, and then he asked me what my second favorite show was...and I didn't have an answer because to be honest there's LOST and then there's everything else.  Sure I may watch a lot of other shows and watch them every week the same as I do with LOST but it's the intensity with which I watch LOST that makes it superior to the others.  No other show on television had or will match the great story telling and mysteries that LOST created for us.  It has been a world of mysteries and connections and science and time travel and many other crazy notions that on any other show would seem outrageous, but on LOST it works.

I'm sure LOST will live on through the fan support for a long time to come but next fall when the new seasons start all I will be thinking about is that come January LOST will not be back.  I'm sure I will find some new shows to watch in place of LOST and several of the other shows I watched that were canceled (like the great FlashForward, which I personally thought was going to be a great replacement for LOST till ABC pulled the plug on it!) but nothing will ever give that sense of excitement, that moment in the last 3 minutes of the show that makes us think WTF, that time we will waste researching theories and reading articles based on books that were mentioned in the show.  So basically we will all have many more hours back in our lives to do other things but none will be as enjoyable as LOST!

So, in our farewell night to LOST, here's hoping all your expectations will be lived up to and that the ending of the greatest show that ever was will be satisfying and full of answers.  I want to let you all know that as soon as the finale is over I will begin the great PROJECT LOST RE-WATCH where I plan to go back and re-watch the entire series again.  I will then blog about each episode (either on this blog or maybe I'll create a new one just for this project) giving a retrospective about what was so great about the episode and talk about things that stand out now knowing all that we have seen throughout the show.  I'm going to guess there were so many little hints to things that we now know that we totally missed the first time around because we didn't know they were something we should look for.

What have been your favorite moments on LOST?  I'll list a few for you right now
*"NOT PENNY'S BOAT" - definitely number 1 for me
*Learning the mysteries of the characters - remember when we didn't know that Locke was in a wheelchair before getting to the island.
*Remembering what it was like when we kept noticing the numbers everywhere, that feeling of why are those numbers everywhere!
*Getting into the Hatch
*Meeting the Tailies
*Blowing up the Hatch
*Finding all the Dharma stations
*"WE HAVE TO GO BACK" flashforward scene -think about how you felt when you saw that scene and when you didn't know it was a flashforward...the introduction of this new storytelling tactic was brilliant.
*The time travel as a way to show past island events - it introduced us to Widmore as an Other and so many other great things like Rosseau's story.
*Discovering Locke was dead yet still alive on the island
*Sawyer and Juliette
*and of course season 6 trying to give us the answers we so desperately want

feel free to post some of your favorite moments in the comments section, I'm going to leave you with some videos that I think you'll enjoy







May 22, 2010

More Finales...Tuesday shows

I know it's a few days behind but here are Tuesday's finale recaps.  I have been busy and got behind in my DVR watching.  Tuesday was 90210 and V.

Let's begin with the season finale of 90210 (the new version of course not the awesome original show BH 90210)...I want to first take a moment to say to all the people out there who diss this show because they loved the original and can't force themselves to watch a remake let me tell you that I loved the original and gave this show a chance and although I am past the stage in my life where High School dramas feel relevant to me I enjoy watching the petty drama, it's a guilty pleasure.  Now that Kelly has kinda all but left the show and it's just about the new characters it's felt less like a remake and more like a continuation like if "Saved By the Bell the New Class" had been watchable.  Some other time I want to divulge into the structure of these high school shows and how unrealistic they are yet how much fun they are to watch (shows like Saved by the Bell, BH 90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, The OC and so forth).  Now on to the episode -


WOW! Senior year at West Bev is going to be an interesting one.  Here's how their Junior year wrapped up -  

Naomi's conniving bitch of a sister Jen is back and pregnant! (which we knew last week) with Mr. Matthew's baby (that's the new info) - go ahead and join me in a WHAT?  She of course doesn't want Ryan to be involved with the baby because he's a lowly school teacher and that's not a respectable job for her high-end life.  Of course he gets drunk to cope with it and basically steals a bus, drives drunk, runs over the school sign...this guy needs some serious AA help.

Silver and Teddy get back together after she tells him about his father bribing her to break up with him

Adrianna and Navid get back together publicly too - but will she drop out of West Bev to tour with Javier who still wants to get her back after she dumped him to get back with Navid?

Annie came clean about the hit and run.  So what is next for her?  And will she get together with Liam next year?

Dixon and Ivy are together after several break-ups and getting back togethers, and he snuck off to go to Australia with her for the summer without his parents consent - this could lead to some major fallout.

Harry gets fired from West Bev after going to the Superintendent about covering up for Dixon's break-in.  Basically because he doesn't want to let some slacker slide by for cheating in English class after he threatens to go to the Super if he doesn't let the plagiarism slide.  This of course leads to more fighting with Deb over their marital issues - will they get a divorce?

Liam is currently beating the crap out of Jasper for torching his boat and we heard the cops in the background so one wonders was this all a set up by Jasper?  the kid is psycho.  Guess we'll have to see what happens to him when the show returns because not only is this Jasper issue a problem he also came clean about stealing his step-dad's coins and that guy hates him as it is so who knows what he'll do to him.

And then there's Naomi - poor girl she thought she had the perfect life, the perfect boyfriend and then her lying sister Jen returns after being shamed into admitting she slept with Liam after prom and let Naomi believe it was Annie the whole year.  With her return comes the loss of her money (Jen becomes the guardian of her trust fund after telling daddy she's blowing it all) and takes back the house where she is living and gets rid of her car and replaces it with a junker, then Liam finally tired of her self-centered crap dumps her.  She goes into the school to call AAA only to be...well let's just say it - raped by Mr. Cannon whom she falsely accused of sexual harassment earlier this year - and he is right when he says no one is going to believe her if she tells them he did this since she already "cried wolf" on him.

Oh and don't you just wish Ethan would come back?

====================================

On V the season ended the way it began with everyone looking upwards to the sky.  In the premier everyone looked up as the V ships approached their city.  In the finale everyone looked up to see a red sky (the title of the episode), Ana has initiated her plan and sent her message to the ships just beyond earth (this is why the sky turned red) but what does it mean?  What will this Red Sky lead to next season?

Lisa finally chose the side of 5th Column, Chad Decker finally saw that Ana was playing him (thanks to the 5th Column - mainly Joshua).  Erika is playing Ana nicely by making her believe that she is on her side to protect the Vs and using her access to the ship to cause destruction.  We saw with the help of Joshua and Lisa, Erika was able to destroy Ana's soldier eggs (all but 12 anyway).  This leads Ana to feel her first human emotion of anger which causes her to rashly set her plan in to motion despite Markus warning her that the time is not right.

Hobbs is recruited by the Vs to infiltrate the 5th column and learns that he has been working for the Vs for several years without even knowing it.  He has secretly been doing business with Markus without Erika and the rest of the 5th column's knowledge but what is his game plan?  Hobbs is a wild card so you can never tell what he may be up to.

Father Jack uses his church to spread his message that people are worshiping the Vs as false gods and that is unacceptable.  Most people leave but a few stay to join the fight - I guess we just recruited more 5th column.  However, the senior priest tells him that it is unacceptable and he will no longer be allowed to preach there - I have had the suspicion since the premier that the senior priest was a V and this just makes me more suspicious.

Ryan learns that Val has gone into labor and was taken by the Vs aboard the ship.  He storms the ship but Ana orders Val killed after the baby is born and then tells Ryan she died and that had he brought her to the Vs at the start they might have been able to save him and then she uses her Bliss and turns him back to her side.  She hopes to be able to use him against 5th Column.  And he get's to see his alien baby (with is weird tentacles)  I'm just glad they didn't show the baby's face personally I don't want to see any gross alien baby!

Chad turned Joshua in as 5th Column only to then be led to see what the Vs are doing to the humans on the live aboard.  Luckily Lisa frees Joshua from his holding cell long enough to cause the diversion so Erika can destroy the soldier eggs.  However in the fallout Erika is forced to shoot Joshua to protect the 5th Column.  But it's a good thing the Vs are so savvy with their technology and are able to revive Joshua from his gun shot wounds (I thought shooting them didn't kill them - remember the first episode when Erika tried to kill her partner?) .  The big question is what will they do with him now?

Next season should be very interesting.  What will this red sky lead to?  What will happen to Ryan and Joshua?  What will Hobbs choose to do?  Will Chad Decker become a valuable ally to the 5th column know that he knows more about Ana's plans for humans?  We shall see.

More Finale wrap ups to come

May 21, 2010

The first theory that might actually happen!

"... I do find myself wondering if the current conflict on The Island can and will be resolved by a paradigm shift in thinking about The Source. The Island needs The Source — but does The Source really need The Island? We've been told that a little bit of the light exists in everyone. Well, why not take a cue from Hurley's Parable of the Hatch Pantry and just divide the rest of The Source equally among all people? Why not make humanity itself the exclusive dwelling place of The Source? It's time to decentralize! It's time for Mystic Reformation! That's my theory of Desmond. I think super-Buddha is going to get dropped into the Holy Wormhole and will absorb all the energy into himself and then redistribute it throughout all of mankind. The Source needs a guardian. But what it needs even more is for all of us to guard it." - Doc Jensen from EW.com

kinda sounds like horcruxes from Harry Potter a little doesn't it?  taking your soul and splitting into pieces or if you saw the movie "9" the same thing happened there too the scientist split his soul into 9 parts and put it inside those dolls, or whatever they were...anyway this was the most insightful thing I have read in the form of a semi-theory ever and it makes such perfect sense...especially the Desmond thing!  so yes this is short but it was so great I had to share it

I also found this on the site 815sentencesaboutlost.com from a guy named Fro it's so brilliant


CW at the Upfronts - some day changes next year

I know you all were wondering where the CW's fall lineup was yesterday but I was at Cedar Point having a blast riding the Millenium Force so sorry you had to wait for this but here it is:


MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  90210 (new night)
9:00-10:00 PM GOSSIP GIRL


TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  ONE TREE HILL (new night)
9:00-10:00 PM LIFE UNEXPECTED (new night)


WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL
9:00-10:00 PM HELLCATS (new)


THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
9:00-10:00 PM NIKITA (new)


FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  SMALLVILLE
9:00-10:00 PM SUPERNATURAL (new night)

May 19, 2010

LOST - a retrospective of John Locke and "What They Died For"

Ok so after watching the Last Tuesday night episode of LOST entitled "What They Died For" I decided to do a little searching into the past of Lost on our most knowledgeable LOST site - Lostpeidia (you could take days going through all the information that is on that site!)  Anyway, I was thinking about when Locked turned the Donkey Wheel to leave the island and that after he fell down the well he was ready to give up because he hurt his leg and then none other than Christian Shepard appeared to him and got him to continue...well we now know that Christian was always the MIB so it got me to thinking about how long has the MIB been manipulating John Locke to ultimately take his form to accomplish his goal? 

So I went to the John Locke entry in Lostpedia...one thing that stuck out to me was way back when John Locke was a child and Richard Alpert came to him with those 6 items and asked him to take what was his (ideally I think Richard wanted him to take the compass which played a part in John and Richards time travel) Locke chose the knife and Richard became freaked out and took everything, John also had made drawings of what seemed to be "the smoke monster" attacking a stick figure.  Was this forshadowing, is this somehow related to the sideways stories where their island self and non-island self realize the other?  John as an adult had a sort of obsession with knives but the man in black also has a very interesting knife and he is also the smoke monster...

Here's another thing that stuck out leading back to how long MIB has been manipulating John Locke.  After John becomes the new leader of the others he has a "dream" and sees Horace Godspeed (one of the dahrma people) come to him and tell him Jacob was waiting for him and led him to the mass grave where on Horace's corpse Locke found a map to Jacob's so-called cabin.  (It should be noted in case you forgot that Horace was the one who built that cabin back in the Dahrma days)  When Locke arrives at the cabin Christian Shepard is inside (MIB) and he tells Locke that he needs him to move the island.  But Ben does it instead which results in when Locke tries to turn the Wheel Christian tells him I told YOU to move the island, not Ben.  The reason Ben did the deed not locke is because Ben said you could not return to the island if you left (was this a lie or did our castaways find a loophole of sorts)  So ultimately MIB wanted Locke to leave the island...why?  Is it because if they leave they can't come back (because we saw that not to be ture...was his thought process that if he got all the candidates to leave they couldn't come back and that solves one of his problems but he was still going to have to get someone to kill Jacob...it seems like MIB's plan has been a long and complex one with many twists that took place over the previous seasons that we never noticed until now)

Christian is the one who told Locke to find Eloise Hawking after he convinces everyone to come back (she is Widmore's formal girl, Widmore said Jacob told him to come back yet if Christian refered to Eloise she somehow is connected to smokey?)  Locke also asked Christian to help him with the wheel but he said he can't (is it because he can't leave the island because he's somokey!)

Richard upon giving Locke the compass while flashing through time was the one who told him that he had to bring the others back to save the island and we know that Richard gets orders from Jacob, so....And Richard also told him that in order to do so he would have to die (this however sets up smokey's plan to have Locke's body brought back to the island so he may assume his form, is Richard a double agent?)

As I look further into John Locke I am brought to the Orchid where Ben surrenders himself to Keamy and Lock is attempting to follow Ben's instructions but is unable to get into the station because he doesn't know the plants that Ben described to him.  That is unimportant what is important is when Jack arrives and confronts Locke.  Lock tries to convice Jack to stay and that they were brought to the island for a reason, but Jack was determined to go home.  Locke then told Jack that everything that happened since the crash was to protect the island and Jack said "The island doesn't need protection" - Key phrase

Doesn't it feel like John Locke and Jack are characteristically Jacob and his brother?  So it is so fitting that in tonights episode they have completely switched sides.  Jack the essential MIB who wanted to leave the island has now taken over as island protector - he is now the same as Jacob.  And Locke who until he left the island believed that he was there to protect the island (Jacob's purpose, even though as children Jacob did not want to protect the island) and now that Locke has died he becomes the somke monster who tells Sawyer "The island doesn't need protection, it's just a damn island" remember that key phrase I pointed out earlier that Jack told Locke at the Orchid?

It's kind of a bittersweet full circle turnaround of characters isn't it?

Enough about the interesting past of LOST, this is a nice lead-in to last night's episode...so what happened
Things we learned:

We find out why Kate was crossed off in the cave...Jacob said it was because she became a mother (i.e. had someone else to protect) 

Desmond is a fail safe - whatever that means.

Jacob left the island and told Widmore how to find it and basically helped him to the island.

Jacob brought them all there so that one of them could take over the island (as we suspected)...

OK on to thoughts of the episode:

Ben says he learnt he could summon the Monster from his secret room, although he later realized that the monster was summoning him.(lostpedia)  I'm still trying to comprehend this thought so if you have enlightenment on it please share in the comments.

Widmore explains that Jacob came to see him after Ben destroyed the Freighter and persuaded him to return, telling him all he needed to know for "this exact purpose."  Why?  Was he just supposed to bring Desmond back?

So Desmond's unique ability to withstand electormagetisim makes him the fail safe to protect the island and Locke says he's gonna use him to destroy the island...is this all going to be similar to the fail safe Key and the Hatch blowing up?

Why all of a sudden are Kate, Jack and Saywer able to see dead Jacob?  and why is his child self running around the island?  Why did he take his ashes? - is it so he can finally move on?  Why is it when that fire went out he would be gone for good? 

What happened to Richard?  Did smokey actually kill him?  I think no but we can't be sure.

Will Miles catch up with our castaways?  Is Ben really going to help Locke kill our heroes? or is he simply playing a long con on him?  Locke (in smokey form), finally got the best of Ben after Ben always besting John when he was alive...Locke offered Ben the island all to himself but does Ben really want that anymore?  Oh yea and Ben shot Widmore (payback for having his "daughter" Alex killed)

Off to the sideways world -
2 previously dead characters return to us in Danielle Rousseau and Ana-Lucia.  Desmond, who is trying to run over John Locke again, beats the crap out of Ben (which causes some island recollections).  He tells Ben that he wasn't trying to kill him he was trying to get him to "let go" (which is what Jack asked him to do in The Candidate)...Upon hearing this Locked decides to see Jack again and says all these connections cannot be just coincidence (their converstaion seemed very simliar to a previous converstion between Mr. Eko and John Locke when they found the missing piece of the orientation film - Mr. Eko tells Locke do not confuse coincidence for fate...I want to say Jack said almost the same thing to John in his office that day).

Ben goes to dinner at the Rousseau house and Danielle tells him that Alex's dad is dead and that he is like a father to her...(kinda felt a little Ben/Danielle romance there didn't you?)

Desmond turns himself in to Det. James Ford as the guy involved in the hit and run in order to get in with Sayid and Kate who are also in jail.  He has a big plan set up for them to get transfred to County and he will have Hurley pay off a crooked cop (Ana-Lucia) to let them go.  How funny was it when Hurley shows up and goes "I didn't know Ana-Lucia was going to be here" and she was like to I know you?  Obviously Hurley is completely linked to his other life...he askes Desmond why she's not coming and he says "she's not ready yet"  Sayid goes with Hurley, Kate with Desmond - they're going to a concert (hmm isn't Jack going to a concert?  wasn't Daniel performing a concert with Drive Shaft put on by Eloise Hawking, also in attendance Penny?) I think the sideways story will arc up at this concert!  One funny occurance that seemed to resemble a previous episode - Desmond gives Kate a dress (kinda like when Ben gave her a dress in season 2 when he locked her and Sawyer up in the polar bear cages)

Well I don't know about you but I CANNOT WAIT for the Finale on Sunday!!  Below is a link to Matthew Fox answering some funny Lost questions on Jimmy Fallon last night.  Damon and Carlton (show's writers/producers) will be on David Letterman tonight (wed) doing the Top Ten.  Also there will be some Lost stuff on Jimmy Kimmel Thurs and Fri night and of course the special Aloha to Lost Jimmy Kimmel after the finale (well after the news after the finale)...Namaste 

CBS announces fall line-up

In lieu of thier upfronts today CBS has announced their new fall line-up, not as many new shows as the other networks and several of their "new shows" are spin-offs or remakes of old shows, as David Letterman joked on his show last night ...it's almost like they just went through old TV Guides...Hawaii Five-0, and The Defenders are both remakes...I think the biggest shocker/makes me mad about thier line-up moment was seeing that they moved The Big Bang Theory to Thursdays at 8! No other network had comedies on Thursday night except NBC, until now...
Well here it is the CBS fall lineup:

MONDAY
8 p.m . How I Met Your Mother
8:30 Rules of Engagement
9:00 Two and a Half Men
9:30 Mike and Molly (new)
10:00 Hawaii Five-0 (new - well new version haha)

TUESDAY
8 p.m. NCIS
9:00 NCIS LA
10:00 The Good Wife

WEDNESDAY
8 p.m. Survivor: Nicaragua
9:00 Criminal Minds
10:00 The Defenders (new)

THURSDAY
8 p.m. The Big Bang Theory (new day and time)
8:30 $#*! My Dad Says (new)
9:00 CSI
10:00 The Mentalist

FRIDAY
8 p.m. Medium
9:00 CSI: NY
10:00 Blue Bloods (new)

SATURDAY
8 p.m. Crimetime Saturday
9:00 Crimetime Saturday
10:00 48 Hours

SUNDAY
7 p.m 60 Minutes.
8:00 The Amazing Race
9:00 Undercover Boss
10:00 CSI: Miami

There will be a mid-season addition of a Criminal Minds spin-off starring Forest Whitaker

May 18, 2010

Upfronts Day 2-ABC launches fall schedule and CBS and CW renewals

Here is ABC's Fall line-up V will begin mid-season in the Tuesday 9pm time slot.  And it appears as though Desperate housewives is returning for another season...

MONDAY
8:00 p.m.       Dancing with the Stars10:00 p.m.     Castle

TUESDAY
8:00 p.m.       No Ordinary Family (new)
9:00 p.m.       Dancing with the Stars the Results Show
10:00 p.m.     Detroit 1-8-7 (new)

WEDNESDAY
8:00 p.m.       The Middle8:30 p.m.       Better Together (new)9:00 p.m.       Modern Family
9:30 p.m.       Cougar Town10:00 p.m.    The Whole Truth (new)
THURSDAY
8:00 p.m.       My Generation (new)9:00 p.m.       Grey’s Anatomy10:00 p.m.      Private Practice

FRIDAY
8:00 p.m.       Secret Millionaire (new)9:00 p.m.       Body of Proof (new)10:00 p.m.     20/20

SATURDAY
8:00 p.m.       Saturday Night College Football

SUNDAY
7:00 p.m.       America’s Funniest Home Videos
8:00 p.m.       Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
9:00 p.m.       Desperate Housewives10:00 p.m.     Brothers & Sisters

Descriptions of the dramas (via EW):
Body of Proof Stars Dana Delany as a medical examiner, determined to solve the puzzle of who or what killed the victims of an accident that ended her career as a neurosurgeon.
Detroit 1-8-7 stars Michael Imperioli in this drama offering an insider’s glimpse of Detroit Police’s Homicide Unit.
My Generation A documentary-style dramedy about a disparate group of high schoolers from Greenbelt High School in Austin, Tex. preparing for graduation, then revisited 10 years later.
No Ordinary Family  Michael Chiklis stars as the patriarch of a family that goes from ordinary to extraordinary.
Off the Map From executive producers Shonda Rhimes and creator Jenna Bans, this drama focuses a tiny town in the South American jungle which has one understaffed, under-stocked medical clinic.
The Whole Truth Rob Morrow stars in this legal drama that tells story from perspective of both the defense and prosecution.
Comedies:
Better Together A marriage comedy that stars JoAnna Garcia.
Happy Endings Elisha Cuthbert stars in this series about how a couple’s break-up will complicate all of their friends’ lives and make everyone question their choices.
Mr. Sunshine Matthew Perry stars as Ben Donovan, the self-involved manager of a second-rate San Diego sports arena who begins to re-evaluate his life on his 40th birthday.
Alternative series
Secret Millionaire A one-hour alternative series that follows some of America’s wealthiest people for one week as they leave behind their lavish lifestyles, sprawling mansions and luxury jets, conceal their true identities, and go to live and volunteer in some of the most impoverished and dangerous communities in America.

-----------------------------------------------

Also on the network front is news from CBS
CBS announced today that it is canceling Ghost Whisperer, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Gary Unmarried, Cold Case, Miami Medical, Accidentally on Purpose (I watched that show), and Numbers

It also announced that it will renew Medium and Rules of Engagement.

in other breaking renewal news, CW has renewed BOTH Life Unexpected and One Tree Hill! -super excited to see this ;)

CBS will release their schedule tomorrow and the CW on Thursday.  I'll keep you posted

Last Tuesday for LOST...EVER!

With only 2 episodes left I wanted to take some time to go back and look over a recap of each of the episodes and knowing what I know now relay some revelations and still unanswered questions because after Sunday Lost will be no more.

Interesting commonality - In this past weeks episode "Across the Sea" we saw the young MIB see a vision of his dead mother on the island leading him to "his people" (essentially the others).  We also saw young Ben Linus see his dead mother in the woods also leading him to join the others (kinda interesting)

Speaking of the others, we see "mother" (Allison Janey) torch all of the people who came to the island that the MIB was staying with, and we know that Jacob has brought several groups of people to this island - but are the Others (that Ben led) just a group that was brought to the island that lasted a lot longer than most people?  I mean it seems that the whole argument between Jacob and his brother are that they come to the island and it always ends the same with destruction so I take that as they all usually end up dead, so were these the selected people (possibly candidates) that Jacob had Richard Alpert protect...I am assuming that the original group we know as The Others arrived after Richard and the Black Rock...I am under the impression that when the Black Rock arrived no one other than Jacob and MIB were there...

Some mysteries - I still want to know why Walt was special...what was it about him?  The actor was growing up too fast for the pace of the show and I understand him essentially being written off but at least explain why he was so special...how did he appear places he wasn't supposed to be?  I mean he wasn't dead so he couldn't have been smokey when Shannon sees him back in season 2.  So how is it he can appear these places (he has some sort of supernatural power?)  I'll even be OK with them answering this question through Aaron if they have to...I mean maybe Aaron is just like him...Claire's psychic told her he could not be raised by another yet we saw that Aaron was raised by Kate and he seems fine (or is he? we don't know he's not on the island) or is Aaron's story over mysteriously too?

We know that the MIB was Christian but what about all the other random visions people have seen on the island?  Do people just sometimes have visions?  Like Kate's horse  is it just something the island can do, conjure up things from your past?

Here's a good one, why doesn't smokey kill Mr. Eko the first time he approaches him?  He reads him almost and you can see flashes of his life in the smoke yet Mr. Eko survives his encounter with smokey only to be killed later.  Why does smokey choose to let him live?

I'm assuming that the healing properties of the island are just part of the mysterious light that it is protecting but what about the problem with pregnant women?  How did that come about?  Why does this happen if the island has healing powers as we saw in Rose being healed of her cancer - but on the other hand the island almost chooses who to heal because Ben had to be operated on why was he not just healed by the island?  Is it Jacob who controls who is healed and who isn't?

I still feel like the Darhma initiative has more to be told in the backstory of Lost...

Why was Libby originally in the crazy house with Hurley?  Are we supposed to assume she was in for the same reason she was in there in the flash sideways because she seemed a lot more disturbed the first time we saw her in there...

What bigger role does Claire's psychic (Richard Malkin) play?  He seemed to be somehow forcing her to the island and we saw him a second time in Mr. Eko's flashback as a priest trying to validate a claim of a girl coming back to life after drowning, that girl is Malkin's daughter  here Malkin tells Eko that his is a fraud and is not a psychic - is that the truth?  The producers have said they don't plan to tell weather he is truly a psychic or not so we will probably never know if he did indeed forsee Claire on the plane crash therefore forcing here to raise Aaron...

Why does the ash circle protect against the MIB and it seems to have to be special ash...who said Help me in Jacob's cabin that Locke heard?  It appeared as thought the ash circle around the cabin was intact at that time so that would mean MIB could not enter the cabin right?  Also who was the owner of the Eye Hulrey sees while looking in the Cabin?  We saw Christian shepard (who we now know has been the MIB all along assuming he was telling the truth) so it couldn't have been MIB- so who was it?

Pregnancy Issues - According to Lostpedia we know that Ethan Rom was the last know person to be born on the island without complications - in 1977...are we to maybe assume that "the incident" led to these infertility issues?

 There are so many more things to touch upon but I have run out of time to post.  Enjoy my thoughts so far.  I look forward to doing a complete LOST re-watch after the finale airs and will possibly do a blog post after each episode after having seen the entire series I hope that going back and watching the entire series again with the knowledge of how it ends could make the entire series a little more interesting and we might find hints that we missed before because we didn't know to look for them!  Here is the promo for tonight's episode featuring "This is the End" by the Doors


Enjoy and happy viewing of LOST tonight...don't forget to watch Glee, Parenthood and V tonight as well :)  also DWTS results will announce if Purdue's Dance team has made it to the finals...

Whilst ravaging the internet i stumbled upon this awesome picture from johncabrera.com
kinda of puts a different perspective on the island doesn't it?

May 17, 2010

Season Finale Wrap Up - Monday

One Tree Hill
OK, so here I am watching OTH's 7th Season finale not knowing whether or not it will be returning for an 8th season.  Although season 6's finale felt like a series finale season 7 has had it's moments.  I liked the new characters they brought in to the show, Quinn (Haley's sister) was a nice addition and Clay is a very dynamic character.  The show had some big story lines this season...Nathan not getting resigned by the Bobcats because of Clay, Haley and Quinn's mother dying causing Haley to go into a deep depression, Brooke and Julian's on-again/ off-again relationship, Mouth and Skills fighting over a girl, but by far the biggest story was Katie, a tennis player who looks exactly like Clay's dead wife Sarah...turns out she's crazy and is obsessed with becoming Sarah and wants Clay and is just off her rocker (literally on medication), well after the last episode where Clay had her taken away by police it kinda seemed (albeit an odd sort of end to that arc) to be the end of her - WRONG!

The season finale through almost the entire hour felt like a happy show with story lines coming together, Julian finally premiered his film and it was a big hit (which is what the entire episode revolved around, going to the premiere of the movie in Utah), and then Julian proposed to Booke! awe how adorable I've been waiting for that moment...Haley is starting to finally come out of her depression and reveals to Nate that she's pregnant - YAY I've been waiting for them to have another kid (they're only going to be 7 years apart), Alex (who's real name is Alice Whitehead - how horrible no wonder she changed it) convinces Josh to come out to his parents and also convinces Chase (who just broke up with Mia) to go out on a date - and then seconds later Mia texts him and says she made a mistake and wants him back (classic).  Grubbs finishes his album and plans to start touring in London so he can see Miranda again (awe they were kinda cute for a non-essential cast couple).

Then there is the big season ending cliff hanger event - Quinn goes up to bed and guess who's there?  Katie - with a gun! Gunshot...oh no! Clay hears the sound and runs upstairs, sees Katie and boom another shot! OMG! Katie makes Nanny Carrie look like a slightly crazy aunt...I can't believe she shot Quinn and Clay! Haley was just starting to come out of her funk and now her sister gets shot (how will this affect her pregnancy?) I'm just praying that neither of them die...but OMG this show better come back next season!!!  Did you see the dramatic exit Katie makes as well?


GOSSIP GIRL
Let's start with something nice - Dorota has her baby, a girl whom she names Anastasia.  How adorable...of course her having the baby caused B to miss her 7:01pm deadline to meet Chuck atop the Empire State Building.  She eventually shows up and finds Chuck's flowers in the trash...poor B. 

Dan and Serena wake up next to each other and we learn that they shared a kiss.  Jenny, fresh off her attempt to destroy her father's marriage finds them, snaps a photo and of course sends it to Gossip Girl.  This all culminates in Serena breaking up with Nate and we're not really sure how things will play out between Dan and Vanessa since Nate forwarded her the photo down in Haiti (where she is doing an internship) and won't return Dan's calls (but we're going to presume they will break up...more on that towards the end)  And of course there is little J - Rufus decides that it is best for her to live with her mother in Hudson and finish her senior year out there.  

For someone who wanted to move back to Brooklyn you think she'd be happy to be out of the city but no she was so upset she went to the hotel looking for Nate...J when will you learn to just stay away from those boys at the hotel.  Well needless to say Nate was not there but a very depressed Chuck trying deeply to rid his heart of Blair uses this opportunity to swipe Jenny's V card.  Chuck actually seems quite pleasant with J after the event asking her if she is OK and telling her she can stay the night (which is a no-no in the world of one night stands that is Chuck Bass' life) this is of course until Blair shows up trashed flowers in hand explaining that as hard as she tried to stay away she couldn't.  

Jenny is so distraught about he rash decision to sleep with Chuck that she goes to the hospital chapel where Erik finds her and learns what happened.  He gets Dan to go talk to her where presumably she tells him what happened.  Cut to Chuck and Blair all giddy in the foyer.

Just as Chuck pulls the ring out of his pocket to propose to Blair - POW - Dan decks him.  This of course leads Blair the the revelation that after she didn't show at the Empire State Building he slept with Jenny.  Of course this means that B is done with Chuck yet again.  B tells J to get off the island known as New York and never come back or there will be hell to pay.  We skip a week ahead and say goodbye to Jenny (who will be MIA for the beginning of next season - confirmed by Michael Aussiello).  Big family hugs (minus Serena who we all know has a rift with Jenny anyway - besides her and Blair are heading off to Paris for the summer...)

That leads us to the 2 major events -

Georgian is back from Russia and needs some help.  She tries Chuck and Blair but nobody wants to help her out...so what kind of trouble is she in?  Well turns out she's PREGGERS and supposedly it's Dan's love child! This right after Dan starts to look up flights to Paris to go see Serena...come on who saw that one coming?  We shall see if her baby daddy is in fact Lonely Boy but it looks like Georgina will be around for a while next season (especially since Mercy got canceled).

Chuck went to Prague to drown his Blair sorrows and in the process Nate is becoming the new Chuck in Manhattan going through the little black book of girls.  And then comes the biggest twist of them all Chuck get's mugged leaving a bar in Prague, they try to take the engagement ring so he fights back tells them he has a ton of money just let him go to the bank to get it.  Well he struggles and Bang! Chuck is shot and left for dead in the alley as the muggers take off with the ring.

So much happened! Is Dan Georgina's baby daddy?  Is Chuck really dead?  When will we see Jenny again?  

After an up and down so-so season of Gossip Girl this year we definitely got our OMG moments in the finale and I can't wait for next season...

-xoxo

It's Time for Upfronts!

For those of you unfamiliar with the world of network television, upfronts week is the week when the networks unveil their upcoming fall line-ups for advertisers...And this my friends is the start of upfront week...in the wake of the massive killing spree that went on last week where several (in my opinion) good shows got the axe and were told you will not be renewed for another season this week brings the excitement of new fall shows and gives us the final say on which shows live and to see another season that may have been on the bubble...

Up first on the week is the struggling NBC (which is the affiliate I work for)
NBC gave the axe to the struggling Heroes and the epic Law and Order last week, however there is a glimmer of hope for fans of those shows as I've just read that the network has approached the shows executives about producing a movie or some kind of event to give the series closure...I don't watch Law and Order but I do watch Heroes and as a fan of television in general I like this idea. I absolutely hate when shows get the axe after they have already filmed the final episodes of that season and therefore there is no closure to a series...I mean have a little respect for the people who actually did watch the shows, let them know you care that they were dedicated to the show and cared about those characters enough that they watched even when others gave up and if you make them happy maybe they'll come back and watch a new show on your station...

So here is the new fall lineup for NBC trailers for the new series can be found here

MONDAY
8-9 p.m. Chuck
9-10 p.m. The Event (new)
10-11 p.m. Chase (new)

TUESDAY
8-10 p.m. The Biggest Loser
10-11 p.m. Parenthood

WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. Undercovers (new)
9-10 p.m. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
10-11 p.m. L&O: Los Angeles (new)

THURSDAY
8- 8:30 p.m. Community
8:30-9 p.m. 30 Rock
9-9:30 p.m. The Office
9:30-10 p.m. Outsourced (new)
10-11 p.m. Love Bites (new)

FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. Who Do You Think You Are?/School Pride (new)
9-10 p.m. Dateline NBC
10-11 p.m. Outlaw (new)

SATURDAY
Reruns

SUNDAY
7- 8:15 p.m. Football Night in America
8:15-11:30 p.m. NBC Sunday Night Football

SUNDAY (beginning March 2011)
7-8 p.m. Dateline NBC
8-9 p.m. Minute to Win It
9-11 p.m. The Celebrity Apprentice

Other mid-season shows (days and times TBD):
The Cape, Friends With Benefits, Perfect Couples, Harry’s Law and The Paul Reiser Show (all are new)
A new version of The Apprentice, The Marriage Ref and the new series America’s Next Great Restaurant starring celebrity chef/restaurateur Bobby Flay will also start mid-season

I think the biggest letdown is that Parks and Rec (the biggest turn around show from last season to this season) got the shaft and has to wait till mid-season to start! Although NBC might just be prepared for the fact that "Outsourced" will fail in the first few weeks and then they can bring Parks and Rec in and save the day! Among the new shows that I might give a try to are of course the new JJ Abrams drama "Undercovers" about a married couple of ex-spies who get called back to the line of duty...The Event first of all is stars former Gilmore Girls diner oficianado Scott Patterson and it's about a government conspiracy so it sounds intriguing...I might give "Chase" a week or two to win me over...it's about U.S. Marshalls hunting down fugitives...the show that doesn't strike me as making it is "Love Bites" is an anthology series which means that each week will have a different set of characters therefore no attachements to characters can be formed (another example of an anthology series would be "The Twilight Zone"). I just don't know how it will work out with different characters every week but what do I know.

We shall see what the other newtworks have in store for us in the coming days. But as for NBC with only Parenthood (which is excellent) and the Thursday night comedies returning (including the mid-season Parks and Rec and The Marriage Ref - which I can't believe is a mid-season either, it's hillarious) as shows that I watched this year, NBC has a lot of wooing to do to win me over. I look forward to seeing the wrap up of Heroes and hopefully can get into at least 1 of their new shows (and hopefully the 1 I choose won't get axed early)

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FOX was also on the block today with it's new line-up...FOX was one station that I didn't have any shows I watch get the axe (well technically that's not true becasue I was watching Sons of Tuscon but it got cut after only a few weeks)  I love Glee, Fringe, Lie to Me and of course the Sunday Animation Domination.  I'm not sure what to think of any of their new shows, I'll have to wait to see some previews I guess so far the descriptions don't do enough to lure me in...I might try to pick up Bones in the summer, catch up and start watching this fall, we shall see...And although I think I'm done watching American Idol (especially if Simon Cowell leaves the show) I am happy to see that the results show is only getting a half hour this fall...1 hour is way too long, I just really want to see who gets kicked off I could care less about all the hoopla they put on during that hour! so here it is FOX's lineup

MONDAY

8:00-9:00 PM House
9:00-10:00 PM Lonestar (new)

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM Glee
9:00-9:30 PM Raising Hope (new)
9:30-10:00 PM Running Wilde (new)

WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM Lie to Me
9:00-10:00 PM Hell’s Kitchen

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM Bones
9:00-10:00 PM Fringe

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM Human Target
9:00-10:00 PM The Good Guys

SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM COPS
8:30-9:00 PM COPS
9:00-10:00 PM America’s Most Wanted

SUNDAY
7:00-8:00 PM The OT (NFL post-game)
8:00-8:30 PM The Simpsons
8:30-9:00 PM The Cleveland Show
9:00-9:30 PM Family Guy
9:30-10:00 PM American Dad

Fox midseason schedule

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM House
9:00-10:00 PM Lonestar / Ride-Along (new)

TUESDAY
8:00-9:30 PM American Idol performance show
9:30-10:00 PM Running Wilde (new) / Mixed Signals (new; spring)

WEDNESDAY
8:00-8:30 PM Raising Hope
8:30-9:00 PM American Idol results show
9:00-10:00 PM Glee

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM Bones
9:00-10:00 PM Fringe

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM Human Target
9:00-10:00 PM Kitchen Nightmares

SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM COPS
8:30-9:00 PM COPS
9:00-10:00 PM America’s Most Wanted

SUNDAY
7:00-7:30 PM The Simpsons (encores)
7:30-8:00 PM American Dad
8:00-8:30 PM The Simpsons
8:30-9:00 PM Bob’s Burgers (new)
9:00-9:30 PM Family Guy
9:30-10:00 PM The Cleveland Show

Here are descriptions of the new shows:

Raising Hope A single-camera family comedy from Greg Garcia (My Name Is Earl) about a family that receives an unexpected new member into their already flawed household. Stars Cloris Leachman and Martha Plimpton.

Running Wilde A romantic comedy starring Will Arnett as an immature playboy trying to win the heart of his childhood sweetheart, played by Keri Russell.

Lonestar From the creators of Party of Five, this Texas-based soap opera about big oil families stars Adrianne Palicki and Jon Voight.

Bob’s Burgers A new animated series about a man, his family and a burger joint.

Terra Nova A time-traveling drama back to prehistoric earth from executive producers Steven Spielberg, Peter Chernin, Brannon Braga and David Fury (it has yet to be scheduled).

Ride-Along A Chicago-based cop drama starring Jason Clarke. It’s from Shawn Ryan (The Shield)