definitely, possibly, maybe

it's taken a week for my thoughts on "lost" to settle. that's how mind-blowing the premiere was. as last season came to a close, i was adamantly against a reset. for one thing, i felt it would eliminate the five seasons that came before. i should have realized that there didn't need to be an either/or situation for the producers. because lost has excelled at training it's audience to follow two completely disparate storylines, showing us a reset of flight 815 and the continued story from the island is simply brilliant. the new flash sideways structure allows us to explore both possible outcomes to the hydrogen bomb's detonation, and ultimately i think that was the absolute right decision for the show. lost will struggle to find the absolute right ending, or rather it will struggle to find the absolute right ending that will satisfy one and all. but these first two hours of the final season proved that the writers know what they're doing. and that the b...

after last season's surprising turn of events and unexpected renewal, there were, at least in my mind, a lot of questions about what would happen next on "chuck". how would this show manage to evolve without losing what made it so charming in the first place? i have a well-documented love of spy shows, see "alias", and it's also no secret that when i was little, in the height of the cold war, i thought that being a spy would be a cool career. which all feeds into why i love "chuck" so much. the premise that a regular guy gets involved with a spy world that is over his head is an excellent fodder for both drama and comedy. but when chuck downloaded the intersect 2.0 into his brain, giving himself a whole new set of abilities that make him an even more powerful asset for the u.s. government, you had to wonder where it was all going to go. what is great about the writing staff on this show is that they recognized that their characters needed to evolve...

the start of the year is always so hectic, you both want to start things fresh, but you have so many things hanging over your head from the previous year. that's why it's always nice to reflect on things. 2009 was a strange year. a lot of celebrities died unexpectedly. life itself has been insanely busy. i traveled so much, that now as i face a year with less travel, i'm not exactly sure what i should do with myself. the nice thing about a new year is that you get to figure it all out. but before i get to that, here's the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2009: the good grey's anatomy's creative resurgence at the end of 2008, grey's had sunk pretty low. izzie was having sex with visions of denny. the show had ceased to be compelling. but then, a turn-around marked by the new year, izzie's cancer storyline went full steam ahead, the character's suddenly grew up, with meredith and derek finally committing to each other in a meaningful way, alex and izzie...