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...

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...

so in the final moments of "lost"'s fifth season finale we are treated to one of the more shocking visual moments ever on "lost". instead of the traditional fade to black with LOST spelled out in its thin white lettering, we get this: which in the context of a possible h-bomb explosion, fits in perfectly. but it is also so disconcerting and ominous. and i can't help but wonder where the series will go from here. but i'm getting ahead of myself, this two-part episode sees the flashbacks focus on the mysterious jacob and his interaction with the future passengers of flight 815, and the opening scene lets us know that jacob has been around for a very long time: throughout the episode we see jacob visit with kate, sawyer, jack, sun, jin, hurley, sayid, and locke. (juliet gets an unrelated flashback to her childhood that is supposed to supply us with some motivation as to why she keeps changing her mind regarding stopping jack from detonating the h-bomb.) i h...

so i know i'm behind. but before i get to the "lost" season 5 finale, i feel that i should cover "follow the leader"...but what to say about it. i'll admit that on first viewing i didn't love it. and on second viewing my mind didn't really change. it's one of those episodes that is so clearly moving the chess pieces. everything and everyone is being positioned, getting to where they need to go in order to allow "the incident" to play out. as someone who has a degree in writing (bet you didn't know that with my unfortunate run-on sentence habit) i understand the need for this type of plotting. but it's still not what interests me about the show. i'm one of those people who is big into character development. and clearly have my own biases as to whom i find interesting and whom i do not. so the entire subplot taking place in 2007. not of much interest to me. i find it ooky when locke refers to the others or whomever it is who c...

poor daniel faraday (and spoiler alert if you haven't watched this week's " lost "). killed by his own mother while trying to change future events. i have a feeling that dan's brilliant plan to stop the chain of events that brought everyone to the island is going to blow up in everyone else's faces. dan had finally come to the conclusion that the survivors were variables because their present is their present and free will should overcome destiny. except all his actions jibe with what will happen. his plan is likely what sets everything in motion that gets everyone to where they once were. he says that there will be an incident where they are building the swan station and he knows there is an incident because his past was the future. so he comes back early and decides that the way to counteract the incident, the way for them to alter the current timeline is to detonate the atomic bomb we were introduced to in " jughead ". i'm pretty sure that th...

"some like it hoth" put enough of a taste for " star wars " that i ended up watching the original trilogy this weekend. this is always something that puts me in a good mood. growing up, my family spent some time in argentina, and we didn't have very many viewing options in terms of english language television, so the three star wars films and " back to the future " were pretty much the only things that my siblings watched (aside from the six hour tapes of " pinwheel " that my grandparents sent us, but those were considerably less cool and not as fun to watch). anyway, that's an aside. but last week's episode of "lost" was not necessarily my favorite. miles isn't my favorite character (and it goes without saying that there wasn't enough sawyer in the episode for my taste. by the by, people are calling him jim and james these days, and i mean, i know that sawyer was always his alias, but i just don't see him a...

so this is two week's overdue and i will keep it short: michael emerson is just an amazing presence on " lost ," i mean, who knows what ben is really up to? he says one thing and turns around and does another. this episode was a nice look at ben's past. it clarified widmore's and ben's past on the island, let us see how alex came to be ben's adopted daughter, and showed us what was up with penny and desmond. and even though i was happy to see desmond, i was still sad that there was no dharma initiative storyline this episode. and the thing is when sawyer isn't on, i'm less engaged. i mean i still enjoy the episode but i have less to say. one thing that is interesting is the idea of the smoke monster casting judgment on the characters. since mr. eko's death we've theorized that this is the case, but finally we get to see how it works. interesting that john locke knows something that ben himself does not. and even more interesting that the sm...

last week's kate-centric episode of "lost" answered quite a few questions. first and foremost it told us what sawyer asked kate to do for him in the helicopter. it also gave us a little insight into how by going back in time the oceanic survivors affected their own immediate past with the island. ok, so perhaps that doesn't explain anything. but this episode also gives us the answer to hurley's question. ben doesn't remember the survivors because when the others saved him, when richard took him to the temple, his memory of what happened was lost, as was his innocence. this is how ben becomes the unsentimental being that he is. this is how his destiny is so closely intertwined to the island. he was saved by the island, he owes the island his loyalty. and sayid, jack, kate, juliet, and sawyer are all directly responsible for this. their actions in 1977 have a direct correlation to what they experienced in 2004. they made ben who he was, sayid by shooting him, ja...

pretty awesome. that is what i have to say about "lost." each episode this season has gone about filling in the blanks and propelling the story forward in a compelling manner. "he's our you" isn't likely to figure into my favorite episodes ever, but i simply continue to enjoy where the show is taking us. how awesome was it that the others idea of torture was to give sayid some acid in order to get him to tell the truth. of course when he did spout the truth it was so far out there that no one believed him, instead choosing to believe that they gave him a bit too much lsd to inspire some real truth-telling. the episode followed the old flashback format, and though it did fill in some of the blanks with regard to sayid's journey, it left a major question unanswered. what happened between sayid and ben? there's the shooting in russia where they part ways and then they next see each other when ben comes to see sayid in santo domingo. at that point sayid ...

i'm still totally squeeing over sawyer. i just love the guy. he's too cute for words and he's crazy hot, and i have an insane crush on him. ok, so now that i've gotten that off my chest, here are my thoughts on the latest episode of "lost." first of all, i wonder why sun and locke and ben remained in the present, when everyone else went back 30 years? oh my god. i've just realized that sawyer, jack, kate, and hurley, were all chosen to appear before the others when michael was trying to free walt. could their presence on the island 30 years before have been a factor for being chosen as special? is this why ben wouldn't let juliet leave? just considering the fact that the castaways have probably played some kind of role in their own past blows my mind. but clearly the fabric of their lives is intricately tied to the island. picking apart the threads in order to weave together a clear picture is likely to be the basis for the remainder of the series. and...

ok. it's no secret that i love sawyer. this scene made me love him all the more: how dreamy is he?? i actually really like him and juliet together. the episode did a great job of filling us in on what happened to the left-behinders and moved us to a point where all the stories can come together. i wonder how the stories will be told, though i'm not entirely positive that everyone is in the same time, so there will probably still be some flashing between timelines. we shall see. anyway, back to my original point... what i really liked about the episode is how it developed sawyer and juliet's relationship. showing her having his back, even if she thought whatever it was he was planning was stupid. that's more than kate ever did for him. here's the thing, i've always been a fan of kate and sawyer, but i've come to realize that it has less to do with liking kate and more with just how much i love sawyer. this episode really showed us how much sawyer has grown an...

oops, i know that the latest episode of "lost" has already aired, but i wanted to write about my thoughts on each episode, so here is what i think of "the life and death of jeremy bentham": 1. i enjoyed how this episode explained locke's journey to speak with the oceanic six. and the less than successful results he had with each of them. except, unltimately he did succeed, and clearly his journey wasn't in vain. 2. charles widmore is about 71! man is looking good. i am more confused than ever about the power struggle (maybe even the war) going on between ben and widmore, and i'm not sure that having that power struggle be the series raison d'etre works. we know our main cast is important to the island for some reason , but it seems to me that the reason should be more mystical than "they are key players to the war between widmore and ben in trying to gain control of the island." i often think that maybe we shouldn't get an explanation ...

it's getting to the point where it's not just the lostaways who have aching heads and nosebleeds (well, okay, i actually haven't had a nosebleed), what on earth is going on with time on the show? scratch that, what on earth is going on? i was very sorry to have charlotte die. i thought that there was more for her to reveal, particularly as a dharma dweller. i actually think it's likely that we will see her again, and that daniel will try to protect her from the island. a mistake that will exist on an endless loop, since you can't stop the island from getting what it wants. i imagine that charlotte's mother left the island to protect her. i wonder what happens to the lostaways now that locke is gone, and the closest thing they have to leaders are sawyer and juliet. sawyer starts the series not really caring about his fellow survivors, but over time that's changed. what happens now, when he is their pseudo-leader. and how soon do we think jack will be back to ...

" On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux . [One cannot see well except with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.]" i don't know how many times my high school french teacher, mme. alio, repeated this line to us as we read antoine de saint-exupéry's le petit prince . so when i found out the latest episode of lost was named "the little prince" i couldn't help but think that by choosing to name the episode after a book about two castaways, the writers/producers we giving us a critical clue to understanding the story that is unfolding on my television screen every week. i think, perhaps, that john locke, richard alpert, and benjamin linus, are the only characters who have ever been able to understand the island without questioning it. and the struggle to understand what the island is asking for is what has dogged the lostaways since they first crashed there in 2004. and maybe as the island skips through ...

i'm always making excuses as to why i haven't posted. and part of the reason this is late, is because i wasn't able to watch the last episode of "lost" when it originally aired. but i caught up quickly, and have just been plain old lazy about writing. oh well... so "jughead" takes place on the island as it skips through time and desmond's quest to find faraday's mother. it also catches us up nicely with what desmond and penny have been up to, and provides a touching moment honoring the fallen lostaway, charlie. anyway, here's the thing about time travel, because the lostaways are skipping through time, do they have any direct causal relationship with the events that brought them to the island? as they skip through time, it looks like they stay in each time period for a bit longer, will the skipping stop somewhere specific? are the lostaways in some way connected to the others or dharma. the season opener showed us a scene where daniel was cle...

wow. just wow. i watched the first two episodes of " lost " last night. i have no idea what is going on. other than it is awesome. i mean everything in the first episode clicked perfectly. the episode opened typically enough, some person waking up at 8:15 starting their day, you don't see their face until a few minutes have gone by, and you are left speculating...is that jin? with another asian woman and a new baby? is it jack, has he somehow put his life back together and left the island behind? instead it is dr. marvin candle aka a number of other names. and we realize then that this is taking place when the dharma initiative was first on the island. and suddenly daniel faraday shows up in the frame and who knows how he got there in the first place? the show takes us back to the events of the season finale, this time from the point of view of those left behind on the island. everything is different. there is no beach camp. as the core group of left-behinders explore, th...