Why I Watched the Lost Opening (No Spoilers)

By now, every Lostie in the world has heard that the opening 4 minutes or so of Tuesday's premiere has surfaced online. I'm not going to post it here, but if you want to find it, it's damn easy.

I used to be a raving spoiler whore. Somewhere along the way, I decided that except for casting notices or episode titles, I wasn't going to spoil myself on the shows I really care about and invest in. A lot of the shows I follow tend to be geeky or mythological in nature, or benefit from the sudden jolt of a plot twist or character death (Lost, BSG, Dollhouse, Fringe, Supernatural, Dexter, True Blood, etc.), and I just preferred to experience that in the way the producers intended. It doesn't diminish my enjoyment knowing what's going to happen necessarily when something is well crafted, though. Back in the days when Buffy and Angel were on the air, I was spoiled for virtually every single big development, and I still kept my eyeballs glued to the screen, and get just as much pleasure watching those eps now on DVD as I did when they first aired. I just went through two series I missed the first time around (Friday Night Lights and The Wire), and being pop culture literate, I had a general idea of what happened in each. It didn't affect my appraisal of their quality or viewing impact at all.

However, there are few events in TV geekdom as anticipated as the final season of Lost. I've marveled at how many of Lost's big twists over the years have been kept under wraps ("We have to go back!"), and this year Damon and Carlton have been particularly coy about the storylines and techniques set to unfurl starting Tuesday, going so far as to have all the promotional gear up to the premiere not feature any footage of the upcoming season. And WE'RE ALMOST THERE. Only four more days.

So why did I look?

One, because I was weak, and have no willpower to resist major temptation. (Those who know me won't find this worthy of a BREAKING NEWS! banner).

Two, because I don't think the footage would be out there if Team Darlton thought it shouldn't be. (The backstory is, winners of a contest were sent a flash drive with the first four minutes of the premiere on it). Do you actually think that someone in ABC's marketing department, much less the producers of the show, thought they could send this footage out and that it wouldn't be on the internet spreading like wildfire in a matter of minutes? Knowing this, do you think that they would actually come up with this contest, and disseminate the footage in the most easily shared fashion (as opposed to flying people in for a sneak preview, or having them log into a secure site, or some other high security execution) if they didn't anticipate this? They know what they've got and where they're going, so even "if" the footage got out there, they have to believe it's not that big of a fucking deal.

And you know what? It's not.

Given what happened in the season 5 finale, "The Incident," we know what Jack was trying to accomplish. There are many, many possibilities and repercussions for how that could play out and what it means to the characters on and off the island, however, and the leaked snippet of the premiere doesn't really tell you anything that you couldn't have guessed for yourself a year ago. In fact, 99% of the Lost fans I've talked to all expect the first episode of season 6 to start a certain way before we really come to grips with the implications and mysteries of the season and it's storytelling devices. Also, the first half of the leaked footage is just a repeat of the season 5 finale, so there are only a couple of minutes of anything "new."

So, if you've watched it already, you know what I mean. If you haven't, don't worry about about putting yourself in a sensory deprivation chamber until Tuesday night, because it's not going to bring about the end of the world if you're somehow exposed to it or chat with a fellow Lostie who has seen it. Better yet, just wait until Tuesday, because the really good stuff most certainly starts happening more than 4 minutes in.

Namaste, y'all.

Namaste. Sic 'em. Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof!

Don't you love it when two of your favorite things come together? I'll be back with more later this week on last night's Lost, "LaFleur," which was one of my absolute favorites from this year, which is saying a lot. However, I just ran across some preview pics of the next ep of Lost, "Namaste," which will air in two weeks. (Pictures courtesy i09, via Doc Arzt).

I wasn't really looking for spoilers. (And if you don't want to know anything about that episode, avoid the whole batch of pictures, because there are certainly some interesting images there). Just skimming over the article, actually, when something caught my eye. Check it out:



In a word: AWESOME.

I'll take potpourri for $400, Alex

I can't believe I forgot to mention the passing of D&D inventor Gary Gygax a couple of weeks ago. There were moving tributes all over the intertubes, and had I not been so busy I would have posted my own. That, and I probably didn't want to appear too geeky (ooops. That ship has sailed, I'm afraid). Let's just say that in between sports, school, girls, hot rods, comic books and normal youthful angst, I spent my fair share of time painting miniatures, collecting multisided dice and worrying about hit points. Here is a funny flowchart (be sure to click on it to see the expanded version) and article related to Gygax's passing. Additionally, a nice article from resident geek Wil Wheaton on the subject.

Solid list of great movie opening credit sequences, with video.

Speaking of movies, how about a list of awful movie titles?

Local interest: I'm discovering that fair number of folks from the pop culture world are from my new adopted home in Maryland. John Locke himself, Terry O'Quinn. Wesley Wyndham Price, Alexis Denisoff. Adorable showkiller Paula Marshall. Author Michael Chabon (which I discovered reading his wonderful essay and the usefulness of superhero costume, which is definitely worth checking out).

X-Files panel, where Scully reveals that she also loves one of my favorite of the "funny" episodes, "Bad Blood."

I don't understand the haters. Here's a cute interview with Juliet's portrayer, the bright, beautiful, modest and charming Elizabeth Mitchell. And she reads comic books, y'all!

Highlights of Sawyer's nicknames.

Speaking of Lost, here's an updated bracket for the Lost Madness Tournament. Some tough calls in round 2: Sayid over Locke? Desmond against Penny? That's not exactly fair, though I voted the same way. In the Sweet Sixteen, voting is currently underway. Here are the matchups, and my vote:

• Jack vs. Sayid. I don't hate Jack for his pigheaded self-righteousness like a lot of folks, but I gotta go with Sayid here.
• Kate vs. Sawyer. That's an easy one. Sawyer is the choice, though he's currently a fraction of a percent behind Kate. Get out the vote, people!
  
• Charlie vs. Faraday. I loved the little hobbit, but Faraday delivers a line like no one else.
• Libby vs. Eko. Eko was mysterious and badass, until he got too caught up in the religious mumbo-jumbo. So Libby it is.
• Ben vs. Juliet. Wow, I haven't been shy about my huge crush on Dr. Burke, but dammit if Ben is not one of the most fascinating characters on TV. Ben.
• Richard Alpert vs. Jacob. I don't even understand what the fuck Jacob is (which is pretty cool). But how can you vote against BatManuel?
• Smoke Monster vs. Desmond. Easy choice, brotha.
• Nadia vs. Rousseau. Another tough one, though I don't think we've seen the last of Nadia, so I'll go with her.

A review of R.E.M.'s new album, which sounds like a return to the form I enjoy. I'll be downloading this sucker today.

Speaking of Athens, thoughts from voters considering UGA to be a preseason #1. But that's gonna be a hard road, with the Nation's Toughest Schedule. And what's the program worth? Check out this list (I assume the #1 program there spends a lot of those profits on the coach's buffet table). Also, on a recent PTI, Wilbon called Herschel "the best college player I ever saw."
For comparison's sake, a Trade School grad kills birds intentionally.

Thoughts about "spoilers."

Remember that link between Obama and Trek's 7 of 9? More sci-fi thoughts: He's the Kwisatz Haderach.

Fucking goddamned cocksucking motherfuckers. Let's spend more on useless pork (and not the good kind, like bacon), spend more on worthless "domestic" programs, and confiscate even MORE money from the people who earn it. Fuckers. And should the donkeys get more control, I'm sure you'll see more of this bullshit. With regard to tax policy, I still don't understand why the gubment gives such a break to the breeders. Shouldn't people who make a conscious, willful and deliberate decision to have kids pay much, much more? They are the ones who "use" much of what the taxes go for? Schools, roads to drive to soccer practice, younguns who will grow old and use social security, healthcare and payments to people too stupid to have a job and/or realize they can't afford a kid? And from a treehugger perspective, don't the wackadoo lefties realize that each urchin they bring into the world will just consume more natural resources and have a "carbon footprint" of their own? Save the planet, and wear a condom! Or just whack off to a chart that shows the taxable rate over 50%.

I'm sure all these fictional characters are getting taxed too much. So who has more money - Thurston Howell III, Montgomery Burns or Jed Clampett?

Bad sci-fi movie physics.

The dude who swung his sausage in a gay strip club was the first to go on Idol. And another Idol stripper unravels. Kids, once you sell your cooze to strangers on a regular basis, it just doesn't get any better, does it? Along those lines, at least have the intellectual integrity to call a spade a spade. "Good person?" Yeah, I've heard that one before.

Wiffleball can get competitive, you know. And how many people remember this schoolyard sport? I was a motherfucking four-square pimp.

Autobiography title makes me chuckle.

"You look badass."

Note: I was told by some pals last week that sometimes I post plot details about a show that's already aired, but hasn't yet been viewed off the Tivo, thereby resulting in the "Post-Air-Spoiler." Ironically enough, the example mentioned was in a post I did about my decision to NOT read advance spoilers! (I think I gave away that "Future President Petrelli" was in fact Sylar on Heroes. Ooops.) We made a "gentleman's agreement" over several pitchers of margaritas that one week was the appropriate amount of time to post without a warning at the top. So, I'm about to discuss last Monday's season finale of Heroes -- read at your own peril. And BTW, my decision to go spoiler-free was one of the best I've ever made. It was like kicking crack (or so I've heard), but GREATLY enhanced my enjoyment of the greatest mind-fuck in recent memory, Lost's kickass season ender. More on that later this weekend.

I've been a fan of Heroes all year. Generally, you cut first year shows more slack than you do established shows as they try to sort out their characterizations, storytelling conceits, pacing and tone. Some shows come right of the box perfect (BSG, Dexter, Firefly, Gilmores, Veronica) and others struggle to find the right balance (Buffy, TNG, Eureka, Big Love). Heroes was somewhere in the middle. There was many, many entertaining episodes, and two that were just about perfect ("Company Man" and "String Theory"). But they also had some that missed the mark, and I was pretty disappointed by the season finale, "How to Stop an Exploding Man." Especially when you compare it to Wednesday's Lost finale, "Through the Looking Glass." There's a great post over on CHUD.com about the difference between the two. (Note: don't read that until you've seen the season enders for both series). I'm not as down on Heroes as that writer, but it should be noted that I while I enjoy Heroes, I don't put it in the same "class" as Lost (or BSG, for that matter). Where Heroes is a burger, Lost is steak. Where Heroes is a light beer, Lost is a fine wine. Not that I don't enjoy my burgers and beer, but you just have to recognize it for what it is.

There were a few things to enjoy about "Exploding Man." "Pound for pound," Hayden Panetierre is right there with Kristen Bell as one of the best actresses on TV. Some (though not nearly enough) plotlines were resolved. Jack Coleman brings fantastic depth and pathos to the role of HRG (Noah!). Greg Grunberg delivers wonderfully droll line readings. I normally hate kids, especially on TV, but Molly was interesting and compelling in small doses. Claire jumping out the window. And of course, there's the line from the title of this post: "You look badass." "Really?"

But there were a larger number of nitpicks.

The showdown we've been waiting for all year: Peter vs. Sylar. An epic throwdown between two characters with a VAST ARRAY of powers. Strength. TK. Mind reading. Invisibility. Teleportation. Time travel and control (yes, Peter had to have this from Hiro). Super strength. Radioactivity. Flight. Super Hearing. Brain slicing. So what do we get in this colossal fight? A couple of punches and one stick with a sword. That's it. LAME. So many questions. Why didn't Sylar TK everything in sight at Peter, like the Emperor in the Star Wars movies? Why didn't Peter know what was coming from Sylar, given that he had absorbed Matt's power of mind reading? Why didn't Peter stop time to dispatch Sylar? Why didn't Hiro, for that matter? Why didn't Sylar know Niki and/or Hiro was coming, given his super hearing? Why didn't Peter go invisible and beat the shit out of Sylar from directions he wouldn't see? Why didn't Peter pick up Sylar, fly high above the city and drop his ass on the pavement, or fly him full speed into a building? Why did Hiro learn to be a master swordsman (all in two hours, mind you) when all he did was one, highly telegraphed thrust (that he didn't even stop time for)? Why didn't they chop Sylar's head off after he was felled? The fight was just so anti-climactic that I wanted to throw things at my TV. Horrible payoff for something that's been building for months.

How to actually stop the exploding man. Okay, I get the emotional aspect of having Nathan fly Peter up, up and away. But the narrative and dramatic impact should be rooted in some kind of internal show logic. Since Hiro has apparently gained greater control of his powers, why not have him grab Peter, and teleport him someplace else to explode, where there will be no loss of life or no one will care, like the middle of the desert or Columbus, Georgia? Why not time travel him back to one gazillion BC to explode? Why not use the damned sword to stab him in in the back of the head and "kill him" (a la Peter and the shard of glass earlier, or Claire and the stick), only to "revive" him after they've developed a more cohesive plan to deal with the radioactive power? And why didn't Peter just fly on his own? Unless, of course, during this moment of radioactive overheating, he could only manifest one power at a time (which wasn't set up previously). If HRG is as smart as we've seen all season, why wouldn't he think of these things? Having characters' IQs and powers fluctuate to serve the drama of the script is just bad storytelling.

So the visions Isaac and Peter had all along were wrong. Every time we saw Peter explode, it was during the day. This was at night. Bad continuity, or poorly explained "rules" of the visions?

I liked Hiro plummeting into another time, back in the samurai days (and was that his dad behind one of those masks?). But you couldn't spring for a few more riders, or at least some CGI troops to give it an "epic" feel, rather than just looking like 10 guys out on the weekend doing a civil war reenactment?

What the fuck was with Peter's visit to the "past" and "meeting" with Shaft (Mr. Deveaux)? And the "inner strength" and "peace and love" dialogue there was laughable.

If Candace really doesn't look like the hot catholic schoolgirl (as she's suggested several times), then why did she look that way once she was knocked out and the rest of her "illusions" fell?

Look, I like thought provoking questions as much as the next guy (see: season finales of Lost or BSG). But when the questions don't hold up under the logic you've established for 20+ episodes, then the whole thing crumbles under the scrutiny. I think part of the problem was that as cool as it was to have both Peter and Sylar gain more and more powers each episode, they became TOO powerful at the end. And if you know as showrunners and writers that you're building to this climax, then you simply MUST think through how those powers are going to manifest themselves in the epic confrontation you've been teasing ALL SEASON LONG.

Heroes was fun, entertaining and contained many moments of pure pop culture exhilaration. But this was a very disappointing payoff to an uneven season. It will stay on the season pass list, and I'm looking forward to the next chapters, but this gets a solid C in my book. Hopefully, now that the producers know they have a hit on their hands, they'll put a little more thought into where it goes from here and how the details pay off in the long run.

On The Wagon

No, not what you think. I've made a decision. For May sweeps, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm giving up SPOILERS.

For as long as I've watched television and been connected to the interwebs, I've been a spoiler whore. (thankfully, that's the kind of whore rep you can magically shake). I can't tell you how many things I found out ahead of time. Buffy would die saving Dawn. Wes would die and Angel would fight a dragon. Darla would return from the dead. President Palmer would be shot. Michael would kill Ana-Lucia and Libby. The Ice Truck Killer would be Dexter's brother. Rose would leave The Doctor. President Petrelli in the future would really be Sylar. Johnny Gavin would get shot. Boomer would shoot Adama. Starbuck would return.

It's virtually impossible to keep spoilers off the net. How The Sopranos does it is simply amazing. (And how tense was that scene on the boat with Tony and Paulie, not knowing what would happen?) I've always told myself that even if I know what's coming, it doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the story because I still get to see HOW the surprise unfolds. And many times, I have a good idea of what's coming anyway, just because I've watched so much television and rarely are writers subtle about foreshadowing their "surprises." (in fact, one of the last times I can remember being truly, truly surprised was when Nina Myers killed Terri Bauer at the end of Season 1 of 24).

But I'm going to conduct an experiment for the last month of the 2007 TV season and go completely spoiler free. The only advance notice I'll expose myself to on upcoming shows will be the blurbs in the daily paper and the episode descriptions on the "to do list" for Tivo.

Occasionally, if I have a theory, I'll post it under the "speculation" tag, but I'm going to go cold turkey and see if the producers of some of my favorite shows can surprise me. This should be particularly interesting, given that Heroes and Lost, among other shows, seem primed to deliver some major shockers before the month is out.

Making it rain, entertainment style

Whereby we throw a bunch of $1 entertainment nuggets up onto the stage and see which STDs take them home.

This sounds like a great show concept. The delicious Lauren Ambrose and the quirkily hot Parker Posey? Written by pop-culture dialogue savant Amy Sherman Palladino? Except for one thing. Why does there need to be a kid or a pregnancy "hook" in the show? Isn't it enough to have too smart and funny to be real people saying smart and funny things? Why add this baggage of spawn? If I think about the best shows on TV (BSG, Veronica, 24, Dexter, Rescue Me, Heroes, etc.) there's hardly a baby in the bunch. (I realize there's "miracle baby" Hera on BSG, which at least serves as a plot point. But every time I see Chief and Cally's reproductive discharge, my eyes roll back in my head and I reach for the FF button. Same with Claire's offspring on Lost. And don't get me started on the beginning of the season on Scrubs). And it's not like ASP didn't already wreck one show with shenanigans involving a kid. (I'm looking at you, April. At least that show's finally starting to rebound after digging out of last season's plot grave). I'll probably tune in, but hopefully Tivo will invent some type of child filter before then.

A very good House last night. I love it when touching sentimentality (House has cancer!) gets turned around to self-absorbed, cynical narcissism, complete with a Cuddy ass-grab. And Dave Mattews, stoner icon to millions, did a fine job playing a piano savant with the IQ of most of his fans. And bonus for Red Foreman/Clarence Boddiker as the concerned dad.

Cruel and unusual punishment: no Heroes until April 23rd? WTF?

Spoiler whore that I am, I've read some things about the final episodes of BSG. If they're true, then we're in store for a mind-frak rivaling that of last season's finale. Of the "four things" purported to be true, all make "sense" except for one -- which would be staggering. Not a spoiler: Firefly's "Badger" shows up as Baltar's attorney.

Given some "local" gossip I've heard lately, this headline made me laugh. Despite the author's take on Liz, I do find her attractive and she was amusing enough in Austin Powers. Though she was booted from school for poor grades, I doubt she's ever reached the "pinnacle" of her "career" in the champagne room, conceived in a car, bought dope from her kids' grandmother or shagged roughly the population of Kuala Lumpur.

Happy 10th Anniversary Buffy! Too bad I don't live in Texas.

Speaking of the Whedonverse, Summer Glau will be a teriminatrix.

The official Drive site is up and running.

It's well known that I'm a geek, and I've professed my love for Trek many times. However, I don't think I'll be doing any remodeling any time soon. (And to pick a "Voyager" theme? Not unless there's a 7 of 9 component in the boudoir).