Another Ode To Lost, 10 Years Later

I'm still slowly making my way through this one, savouring every point that Andy Greenwald makes along the way, but this line in particular really spoke to me:

"What really rankles is that nothing ever took [Lost]'s place."

I feel the same frustration.  Despite there being lots of other great shows like Breaking Bad, The Bridge (original Swedish/Norwegian, not the crappy American one) and True Detective, to name but a few, I can't think of a single "genre" program that's recaptured the overwhelming sense of awe and wonder that Lost brought with its launch a decade ago.  Fringe looked promising at first but fizzled fast; Doctor Who has momentarily flashes of brilliance, at best; and those are among the best there's been over the past ten years.

I think it may soon be time to dive back in and re-watch Lost from start to finish, just like we said we were going to do after it wrapped up.  

10 Years After The Launch of Lost

Here's a nice reflection on the 10th anniversary of the debut of Lost by Jeff "Doc" Jensen.  I think we all owe a debt of thanks to that much-loved, somewhat-flawed series, as it really did prove that audiences will invest a lot of time and energy into a TV show if you make it worth their while.  Breaking Bad, for example, got great mileage out of that and ultimately, probably, paid its fans more handsomely for their efforts.

Lost And The Operational Theme Problem

Here's a really good article by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, one of the people responsible for the much-missed Lost TV show, that sheds a lot of light on why some television programs work while others clearly don't.  I'd never looked at it in quite this way before, but it makes perfect sense to me: the characters on the show all have to be directed along the same "operational theme" axis in order to propel the episodes forward in a consistent and compelling manner.  It's the sort of thing that's obvious once it's pointed out to you, but maybe not before that.  And it's also very much in line with the kind of thinking that I put into each of my novels, though I've now got new insights on the topic to consider.

Breaking Bad Ending Big

Well, I don't actually know how Breaking Bad is going to end... the finale is still more than two hours away.  But we're going to have our own little BB mini-party tonight, as a friend and his teenage son are coming over to send off the series with us! 

As far as predictions are concerned, I'm pretty bad at them when it comes to TV shows (I had no idea where Lost was going as it wound down).  I will say that I hope Jesse gets revenge on Todd before it's all over, and that Walt doesn't survive the finale.  I've definitely gone from being a Walter White-booster to rooting against the man, although I admire the hell out of the job the writing staff has done in developing that character over six years of television.  His progress from mild mannered chemistry teacher to meth-empire-building Heisenberg is one for the ages, and I'll be sad to see it all end tonight.

Lost: One Year Later

Our old friend Jeff "Doc" Jensen, of Entertainment Weekly fame, returns today, on the one-year anniversary of Lost's series finale, to post the first of a two-part retrospective on the show's concluding episode. Reading it just now brought back a slew of great memories from the good old days when Lost was still on the air and occupying a lot of cycles in my brain!

Your Trivia Answers

Thanks to Vicki, Tammy, Boneman and Jimmy Hinckley for playing our Trivia Game this holiday season (and shame on the rest of you who didn't!). They all did well, given the eclectic nature of the questions. Jimmy picked up 8 Blog Points for his 16 correct answers, Tammy and Vicki each got 7 BPs and Boneman wasn't far behind with 6 BPs (including a small bonus for making me laugh). Leaderboard standings should be updated momentarily.

For those who'd like to know the actual answers, I've provided them below:

1) Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, told his aides he was "hiking the Appalachian trail" while he headed down south to Argentina for a tryst with his girlfriend there (his wife would later leave him). (2 of the 4 respondents got that right, to some degree)

2) It was the Texas Rangers, formerly owned by George "Dubba Ya" Bush, who lost to the Giants in this year's World Series. (2 right answers)

3) DC Comics' Green Lantern was front and centre for this year's Blackest Night event, just in time to get prepped for his leading man role in next year's GL movie. (2 right answers)

4) I'm currently - almost literally so - playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. Too easy! (4 right answers!)

5) It was poor Rascal who had to be put down this fall. (3 right answers. "Patches", Boneman? Really?!?)

6) I currently have just over 28,100 comics, so 28,000 is the winning answer here. (only 1 right answer to be found)

7) Pi is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. (4 right-ish answers, although part marks were deducted for misspellings of "pie" and "pii")

8) KTD = Kill to Death, as everyone knows who reads this blog. (4 right)

9) It was Roy "Doc" Halladay who pitched a no-hitter this October in his first ever postseason appearance, of course. (1 right)

10) Arsenic and old lace go together, but who knew that arsenic could be a building block for Life? We do, now! Well, some of us do, anyway. (1 right)

11) 2011 is the year of Thor, Green Lantern and Captain America movies. (2 right)

12) Robin's secret identity is apparently very secret, as no one knew that Damian Wayne (illegitimate son of Bruce Wayne) is currently wearing the costume. (0 right)

13) Back to back shutouts for the respondents here, as nobody seemed aware that the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is just around the corner, since it went down in April 1912! (0 right)

14) Chris Nolan's first film, which Vicki and I watched not too long ago, is called Following and is quite the weird little gem. (1 right-ish, although Vicki got the title partly wrong)

15) Only one Star Wars fan knew that The Hidden Fortress is the Kurasawa film that George Lucas borrowed so heavily from for Episode IV. (1 right)

16) Branding apparently works: everyone knows who Brown is: UPS! (4 right)

17) I guess only a comic fan would remember that Tony Stark's father's name is Howard, although after he appears in next year's Captain America film, maybe more will. (0 right)

18) The Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, despite being blogged about here not long ago, confounded all but one of our respondents. To quote Boneman, it's "when you are in a sitcom for one episode, and only ever referred to from then on" (hey, close enough!). (1 right)

19) Not surprisingly, nobody recalled that Pedro Martinez started off as a Los Angeles Dodger, before being traded to the Expos and making his name there. (0 right)

20) On the other hand, everyone knew that James Ford took the name "Sawyer" after a con man by that name caused the murder-suicide of his parents. (4 right)

21) Only one true film buff named Roman "Hey little girl, wanna party?" Polanski as the director of Chinatown. (1 right)

22) Much to my amazement, no one tagged 1919 as the year of the Black Sox! (Maybe we'll get another scandal of similar proportion in 2020?) (0 right)

23) Probably the toughest question of the lot involved the given name of Captain "Sully" Sullenberger. Jimmy came closest with "Chester", for which he got part marks. Right answer? Chesley! (1 right-ish)

24) Surely only surly Sean Connery could deliver the line about bringing a knife to a gun fight, as two of our respondents knew. (2 right)

25) Steve Rogers has better name recognition than I'd expected, as everyone ID'd him as the Star Spangled Avenger, Captain America! (4 right)

26) Who could ever forget the 5 notes that the aliens played for us in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Well, apparently some could, as only half the people got that right! (2 right)

27) Almost everyone (surprisingly) knew that Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird! (3 right)

28) When do we get a leap year? In any year that's divisible by 4 but not divisible by 100 unless it's also divisible by 400, of course! So 1944, 1996 and 2000 each got an extra day for their troubles! (3 right)

29) What kind of people don't remember that it was Doomsday that killed Superman back in 1992? Apparently your kind of people, as no one got this right! (0 right)

30) And last but not least, it's of course my lovely wife Vicki and my wonderful walking buddy Julie who join me for frequent Movie Nights, as most of you knew. (3 right)

I hope you all enjoyed the trivia, even if you didn't take part!

Holiday 2010 Trivia (3000 Posts Later!)

Hey look, it's my 3000th blog post!!!

As promised, here are some trivia questions to help us all celebrate the milestone. Please answer from memory, rather than looking things up. Provide your answers in the comments. I've turned comment moderation on, and will hold off publishing any relating to this contest until after it closes, at midnight on Wednesday, December 22, 2010. If nothing else, this should provide some pre-holiday distraction and shake things up a bit on the Blog Point Leader Board.

And so, without further ado, here are 30 questions in random order, spanning a wide range of topics. Each correct answer will be awarded a 1/2 Blog Point:

1) Which American politician inspired the recent euphemism for stepping out on your spouse, now immortalized as "hiking the Appalachian Trail"?

2) Which team lost the 2010 World Series?

3) Which DC Comics superhero was at the center of the company's Blackest Night event in 2010?

4) What video game am I currently spending much of my free time playing?

5) What was the name of the pet that Vicki and I had to euthanize earlier this year?

6) To the nearest thousand, how many comic books do I currently own?

7) What symbol represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter?

8) What does KTD stand for in First Person Shooter games?

9) Who began his professional postseason career in 2010 with a no-hitter?

10) What element surprisingly formed the basis of a new life form discovered in Mono Lake recently?

11) What three big name superhero movies are scheduled to be released in 2011?

12) What is the secret identity of the Robin currently appearing in the main Batman titles published by DC Comics?

13) In what month and year did the Titanic sink?

14) What is the name of Christopher Nolan's first feature film?

15) Which Kurasawa classic is said to have provided inspiration to George Lucas in creating Star Wars?

16) Never mind figuring out "What Brown can do for you?"... who the heck is Brown?

17) What is Tony Stark's father's given name?

18) What is the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome?

19) On which team did Pedro Martinez begin his Major League Baseball career?

20) Why does James Ford go by the name "Sawyer" on the TV show Lost?

21) Who directed the 1974 film Chinatown?

22) In what year did the infamous Chicago Black Sox scandal occur?

23) What is Captain "Sully" Sullenberger's given name?

24) Which Academy Award winning actor slammed his on-screen opponent for bringing a knife to a gun fight?

25) What is the superhero name that Steve Rogers usually operates under?

26) How many notes comprised the initial musical message offered up by the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

27) Who wrote the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

28) Which of the following were leap years: 1900, 1944, 1962, 1986, 1996, 2000?

29) Who killed Superman back in 1992?

30) Who are the two women with whom I enjoy Movie Nights?

Good luck to all!

Happy 6th Anniversary, Lost!

That's right, it was 6 years ago today that Vicki and I first became hooked on Lost! "Doc" Jensen has a nice little article celebrating the occasion.

"The New Man In Charge" Is A Small, Sweet Dessert

The family just finished watching "The New Man in Charge", the 12 minutes or so of new material included on the Lost Season 6 DVD. I expect that we'll revisit it at least once more after we've re-watched the entire season, sometime next month. But in the meantime here are my first impressions.

Despite it being way too short (about 1/4 to 1/3 the length of an episode), it was chock full of payoff moments for Lost fans. A few final mysteries get addressed, some familiar faces are seen again, and we get to see the new and improved Benjamin Linus in action for the first - and sadly, last - time. This is clearly a sweet farewell gift from Lindeloff, Cuse and the rest of the creative team, intended to both dull the pain of no more Lost while simultaneously accentuating that loss. All I had to do was hear the distinctive opening notes to be instantly transported back to all of the feelings that I had in May when the show went off the air for the final time. That's quite an endorsement for the series, if you ask me.

I can't help wishing there were more, but I'm extremely grateful for what we did get. Maybe we'll get more in the future (feature film set in the post-Season 6 era?) but even if we don't: this was an exquisite sendoff to one of the best TV experiences ever. It gave me every bit as many thrills as I'd hoped for, and for that I say "Thank you!!" to the Lost crew.

["Doc" Jensen's thoughts on the material are here. As always, it's a must-read for fans of the show.]

Tammy Owes Me One

Despite having the Lost Season 6 DVD in hand for more than 30 hours now, I've resisted the urge to watch "The New Man in Charge" (new material featuring Hurley and Benry) so that all three of us can experience it together this weekend. What kind of superhuman willpower must I have to be able to pull that feat off? The pretty darned impressive kind!

That daughter of ours owes me big time!

Lost (Season 6) Is In The House!

Ordered it on Tuesday, received it this morning: the final season of Lost on DVD! I can't wait to watch the new material, entitled "The New Man in Charge". And to revisit the final season and take it all in once more, with the knowledge of how it ends.

Superman Is Now Grounded

I'm not one to worry overly about what others think of things that I like (or dislike), as I find that my tastes often don't run down the middle of the mainstream as they're apparently supposed to. I loved the show, Lost, because it spoke to me in many different ways, not because it was an "it" program during its first season. And I continued to embrace it when others had moved on to other fads, for the simple reason that it delivered exactly what I wanted in an hour of TV. In fact, I'm usually more surprised when something that I take to proves to be popular than I am when it doesn't.

And so I read this week's Superman # 701, the kickoff to J Michael Straczynski's "Grounded" storyline, with an open mind... despite hearing that many readers hadn't liked it very much. The premise is that Superman feels that he's become detached from the problems of ordinary people on Earth, and so he decides to walk across a stretch of the U.S. in an attempt to re-connect. Each issue will supposedly have him in a different area, acclimatizing himself to the issues facing the locals. Part 1 has him in the City of Brotherly Love, where he enjoys a Philly cheese steak, tries to convince reporters that there's no story happening around his admittedly peculiar actions, sets on fire the stashes of several crack houses, and provides counseling to a would-be suicide. For some fans of the character, I suspect this may have been all too mundane. Given that it's JMS writing it, and that it's beautifully illustrated by Eddy Barrows and J.P. Mayer, I was absolutely entranced!

Every single interaction the Man of Steel has in this issue rang true for me. His comments to the woman who wanted to throw her life away are poignant but not the least bit preachy. When she agrees to get help, and one of the policemen says, "She'll be alright. We'll get someone to talk to her", Clark's response is, "That's good. But maybe it'd be better to get someone who'll listen to her." That's beautiful stuff! I welled up a bit at that line.

If this is indicative of the material that we're going to get in "Grounded", then I'm thrilled to be along for the ride.

And Now: The Totally Last Totally Lost

More than a month after the series finale aired, we're treated to the (8-part!) final installment of Totally Lost from Jensen and Snierson. And it's totally worth the wait!

A Lost Theory To Crack Open Your Brain

Just when I'd almost gotten through my bad case of Lost-withdrawal, "Doc" Jensen has to go and post up Part One of his final Lost theory... and it's a doozy!

He hypothesizes that not only was the island alive (which doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me) but also that it was aware of its own future (FlashForward-like) for the past two millennia, thanks to the adventures of the time traveling castaways in Season 5. The island thus finds itself in the predicament of knowing events that will unfold over the next 2000+ years, trapping it into a pre-deterministic lockstep from which it would desperately like to free itself.

This theory makes total sense to me, although of course there's no way to know if it's what the show's writing staff intended or not. But it's pretty awesome when a TV show inspires this sort of contemplation!

Want To Lose Yourself In Lost?

Re-watching the entire series on DVD is one way to immerse yourself in all things Lost. (Season 6 is due out in August). Another option involves reading up on the mysteries of the show, both resolved and otherwise. Lostpedia has a great site for that, which I've just begun to explore, thanks to Tammy and Vicki.

This Doc Has All The Answers

If you're a Lost fan and haven't read "Doc" Jensen's two-part write-up of "The End" (Lost's two and a half hour series finale), then you're just plain nutty.

Part One is here and Part Two is here. I've read a lot of reviews and reactions to "The End" in the nearly 48 hours since it aired, and Jensen's is easily the best. That guy's a fan's fan, through and through, and also incredibly insightful. I just hope he turns his watchful eye onto Fringe next, because I like that show a whole bunch but mostly because I know that I'd miss Doc's humour, intelligence and attention to detail if he simply disappeared from my life.

Lost: The Mo(u)rning After

When I go to bed and my head is still processing the day's events, it's usually not a good night for sleeping. Last night was an absolutely lousy night for sleeping.

During the few hours in which I managed to get any sleep at all, I naturally dreamed about Lost. In one of them, I was sitting at a table with two or three other people (I don't remember who) and started weeping at the thought of SPOILER ALERT! what happened to Jack in the finale. Then I woke up to discover that, sure enough, there were tears running down my cheeks and onto my pillow! That's the kind of night I had.

One of the most interesting aspects of the wrap up, for me, was learning the meaning of the so-called Sideways world. Once it became clear what it was, it immediately reminded me of the sleight of hand that the creative team pulled on us at the end of Season 3. There, it was the "flashback" with Jack that turned out to be a flashforward, revealing that at least some of the castaways actually do get off the island. Here it was a twist that relied upon us buying into Daniel Faraday's crazy notion of blowing up an atomic bomb over the island's electromagnetic "hot spot" in the hopes of rebooting reality from 1977 forward. This assumption was further amplified in Season 6 when Desmond seemed to connect with his Sideways counterpart, although now we know that that particular juxtapositioning was either a red herring or a reflection of Mr Hume's unique ability to perceive time differently (my memory's on the former). Probably the revelation of that world's true meaning has left some fans even more disenchanted with its existence, but for me it actually gave those Season 6 vignettes greater poignancy, not less. The Sideways glimpses provided a denouement to those characters' stories in a way that spoiled nothing while still moving them forward, in a fashion.

I'm sure the hating on the finale is already is full voice by now (12 hours after it concluded), but Vicki and I absolutely loved it... from start to finish. It provided both a realistic ending, in which some lived and some died, and a more emotionally satisfying conclusion in which long-lost lovers were reunited and the promise of something "new" for them was dangled, albeit only for our imagination to enjoy. I can't think of any way the creators could have finished the six year run that would've left me more appreciative of all they accomplished. As I told Tammy over Instant Messenger last night, Lost has probably bumped Babylon 5 out of my Favourite Show of All Time spot. I'll be mourning its passage for a long time to come, I suspect.

Tonight It All Ends

It was almost six years ago now that Vicki and I sat down to watch, with some skepticism, the premiere of a new drama that TV Guide, in their Fall Preview issue, had given a very strong recommendation to. They'd managed to make somewhat intriguing what had initially sounded like a cross between Survivor (a complete waste of time which I've never had any interest in, then or now) and Gilligan's Island (something I'd long since outgrown). If I remember correctly, they predicted that viewers would be truly shocked by what they saw. And they weren't wrong. Lost's pilot episode (all 2 hours of it) blew Vicki and I away.

By the time Walkabout aired, a week or two later, I was officially hooked. The characters who crashed on the island certainly weren't proving to be the one-dimensional caricatures that inhabited other prime time dramas, as each subsequent flashback in Season One provided new insight into Jack Shepherd, Kate Austin, John Locke and the rest. This attention to character-building was something fairly new, at least within the realm of TV science fiction.

Tonight, we get the final installment of the journey that is Lost. There have been numerous and undeniable clues all season long that this isn't going to be the sort of wrap-up that many of us had expected and even hoped for; we weren't going to get closure on dozens of mini-mysteries that had been launched throughout the show's six years. I've read many articles and posts lately that seem to celebrate that fact, but I'm still sitting in the section of the arena that believes at least some of that is simply bad planning, execution or writing. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe Lindeloff and Cuse, the show-runners of Lost, always intended it to be this way. But at times it strikes me as a little like a murder mystery in which the writer loses interest in who the killer is after setting up a delightful locked-room crime.

Regardless, we'll get what we get. For all the thrills, twists and turns, and wonderful character development, not to mention the many hours of thinking, talking and writing about the show that ensued since the pilot aired, it's been time well spent following this little island adventure. I hope there's a big finish that encourages us to re-watch earlier seasons through a new lens of understanding; but that may or may not be delivered tonight. In just a few short hours it'll all be over, and every generation of fans who discover the show from now on will have a very different experience of it than we, the "live viewers," ever did. In that sense, while one era ends tonight, another one is just about to begin. And that's pretty awesome to consider.

Is It Time For A Last Lost Lust List?

OK, so maybe the "lust" in this case is simply my deep desire for answers. But I'm really starting to worry about which answers we will and won't be receiving as Lost finishes up in a 2.5 hour spectacular on Sunday night. I'm OK with the fact that many of the smaller unresolved puzzles won't be dealt with, but there are still a fair number of large-ish ones hanging in the breeze.

Here's an example: Who was in Jacob's cabin when it was visited by Benry and Locke (Season... 4, maybe?)? It seemed like whoever was in there could be seen, at least partially, by Locke (as a dim figure sitting in a chair), and was heard - again, by John Locke but not Benry - to plead, "Help me!" It makes no sense that it would be Jacob, since we know he had the run of the island, and why would he act so directly, anyway? It could have been Man in Black (messing with Locke's head), if we accept that he wasn't really trapped in there. He couldn't have been trapped, after all, as we've seen the Smoke Monster roaming free and wreaking havoc all throughout the show's run (all the way back to the pilot episode, for crying out loud!). But if he wasn't a prisoner of the cabin, then what was the deal with the ash perimeter that was up around it, and why had it been partly erased when Jacob's acolytes arrived there in Season 6? At the time of each of these various incidents, we were led to believe they were significant... was that just subterfuge, or bad writing/planning? I'd hate to think that something like that is going to be left unanswered, but I'm beginning to lean heavily toward just that outcome. And there are dozens more just like it.

As I get ready for Sunday's finale, I keep thinking that there's a great risk at this point that Lost is going to be remembered for promising more than it delivered. Not on the order of magnitude of, say, Twin Peaks... but maybe more like an X-Files or an Alias. I hope that doesn't prove to be the case, as in most other regards Lost has been a vastly superior product to either of those earlier shows. But it is somewhat depressing to think of all the acres of soil we tilled over 6 years only to have most of it bear little or no fruit.

[Just as an aside: Has it seemed strange to anyone else that the Sideways world and the Island world seem to be converging and yet are separated in time by 3 years? Happy Jack and nice Benjamin Linus are still back in 2004, shortly after the Oceanic 815 flight, whereas their Island-world counterparts are operating in 2007. I can't help but think - hope? - that there's some significance to this. Vicki posited an interesting theory last night as we watched "What They Died For": what if someone, possibly Eloise, created the Sideways reality as a place to hide the "source" that's supposed to be at the center of the island? That would explain the other world's existence and why we've been shown it all season long, as well as the generally well-off nature of the people there (it's full of light!). It would also imply that Island Jack (the new Jacob) and Fake Locke are headed to a confrontation over something that isn't even there anymore... which would be a Hell of a twist, no? Still not sure how Desmond would fit into that, as he obviously now has enlightenment toward what's really going on... so is he going to merge the various dopplegangers together in the sunny Sideways world, or what?]

The Real Smoke Monster

This BP oil disaster will likely end more lives than the nasty ol' Smoke Monster on Lost ever could (unless Fake Locke really does destroy all of reality, that is).