Y’know, the ol’ cowboy isn’t exactly sure WHY you guys are so anxious to know what he thinks of TV shows. In fact, when he used to do this regularly, people complained, “Gee, all he talks about are TV shows.” Sometimes the cowboy thinks that what fans want is whatever they don’t have at the moment.
And since we don’t have LOST or ALIAS ‘cept in reruns right now, lessee what we had for the season enders.
LOST: Okay, here’s the thing. The joy of “Lost” is that it’s the series that has most often been able to surprise me. They do stuff that is just impossible to see coming, but once it happens, you go, “Of course! How could I NOT have seen that coming!”
That didn’t happen here.
Before the show even started, I was convinced that they wouldn’t get the hatch open until the very, very end. And I’m sorry, but I’ve been an original “Trek” fan for far too long to be remotely surprised at the abrupt demise of Professor Redshirt, although his “extras are people too” speech was a nice touch. Still, the “Lost” I’m accustomed to would have confounded my expectations by having the hatch open in the first ten minutes, or had Professor Redshirt play a major part in the proceedings and survive.
The other major twist was the abduction of the kid, and although I didn’t see it coming immediately, Kathleen figured it out the instant that Delenn realized that the stolen baby wasn’t going to do her any good. So when the guys from “Deliverance” came cruising up, the shocking twist was well telegraphed in Casa Cowboy. The only development we didn’t nail going in was watching Hurly sprint across the airport, and perhaps there was some point to it other than padding out the episode, but dámņëd if I know or care what it was. If I want to see a fat guy dash headlong through terminals, I’ll arrange for a connecting flight at O’Hare and bring a hand mirror.
Understand, I’m not howling for answers to the show’s secrets. I’m perfectly happy to watch it unfold at its leisurely pace, for the character stories have remained sufficiently engaging to keep me aboard. What torqued me here is not that not a single one of the questions was definitively answered. What torqued me was that I was certain none of them would be definitively answered, and that was the case. LOST is the first show in years to keep surprising me, and I just hated that the big two hour season finale failed to do so.
ALIAS: I think I speak for a great many ALIAS fans when I say…WTF?!?
I mean, I know this program has had its occasional dalliance with science fiction/fantasy elements through the incessant obession with Rimbaldi, the combination Da Vinci and Nostradamus about whom we’ve learned little and–ultimately–cared less. And yes, I suppose you can say I was surprised, which in the case of LOST is a good thing. Surprise is good. The unexpected is good.
But I absolutely cannot parse what was going on. Now I admit, I missed an episode here and there, so there may be key pieces of information that I don’t have. But as near as I can tell, Rimbaldi’s endgame was to transform the entire world into zombies? Again, I say WTF? A giant red corona of energy hanging over the city transforms the finale into Night of the Living Syd? It was like watching somebody else’s finale. I kept waiting for Sydney to run around a corner and crash headlong into Buffy or Angel.
Were there good moments? Yes, some, scattered through, the high point being, “Cut the white wire!” BLAM! “Syd, cut the blue wire.” But overall, maybe this was why I was saying months ago that if we never heard from Rimbaldi again, it would be too soon. I had a feeling that if the whole thing was really followed through upon, we’d end up with a B-movie mishmash as we had here.
And I was sitting there thinking, “There’s no way Vaughn makes it out of this episode in one piece.” And then I was pleasantly surprised to find that, No, he did make it through. And they’re driving, and suddenly I’m thinking, “Okay…things are too quiet. This is not good.” And bam.
Who knows? Maybe Sydney will wake up and discover that it’s all been a double fake-out since she suddenly got her life back, that all the episodes that happened since that point never actually occurred, and the two years she thought she lost are now back again. Or maybe Vaughn will wake up and discover himself at the bottom of a large shaft, and he looks up and Locke is there looking down, both of them saying, “Who the hëll are you?”
Will I be back next season? Probably, because let’s face it, no one does a cliffhanger like JJ Abrams. And I’ll be very curious to see if partway through the season, Syd is put into a coma by a bad guy so that Jennifer Garner can gestate while Nadia takes on the heavy lifting to avenge her fallen sister. But so help me, I may bail if the name “Rimbaldi” is mentioned even once, unless it’s preceded by the words, “Hello, my name is…”
PAD
• 
Less TV! No more TV! No TV! Review Episode 3 again! Write an X-comic! No, Write more Bablon 5 books! No, Star Trek books! AAAAAA FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHATEVER YOUR NOT DOING RIGHT NOW,…DO IT!!!!!!!!!
(passes out)
Jeff Coney
http://www.hedgehoggames.com
As many things that Peter already does, I’m surprised that “passing out” isn’t something done more often.
No.. nevermind.. Peter would probably just pass out at the keyboard, and keep writing anyway.
RLR
LOST and ALIAS are my two top shows at the moment. I love them both, but am waiting for the episode where a major character is cut off in mid sentence after being inexplicably struck by a giant rock that falls out of the sky.
Fred
Peter, even when we disagree with your POV, we still enjoy HOW you tell it.
Agreed about LOST: It should have at least SHOWN what it was in the hatch. I would have had them sending down Jack to investigate only to have the ladder break and Jack knocked unconscious, so Kate goes down the hatch with a rope tied off on a tree. She wakes up Jack and he dusts his bruised but not broken self–and that’s when they look around and we finally get a glimpse of what’s underground.
As for ALIAS: I loved the first season of Rambaldi, but it was all Rambaldi all the time. He should have been spaced out. Last season Syd had some dream with all those 47s that has not been explained this year. I loved the episode this season where at long last Sloane . . . went back to . . . Rambaldi. It was a great epic scene. Unfortunately when they do get to Rambaldi, they go so fast you don’t have time to soak it in.
— Ken from Chicago
I can see it now:
Captian Calhone pulled out his phaser and thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm(continues for 39 pages)mmmmmmmmmmmmm. To be continued.
The next month Star Trek: New Frontier mmmmmmmmm is released to rave reviews. PAD continues to keep us in suspence thay say!
On that note, I’m going to bed!
Jeff Coney
http://www.hedgehoggames.com
The only real point to the Hurley in the airport scenes were all the references to the numbers, like, he gives someone 16 hundred dollars, he needs to go 42 meters, etc.
I think the point–well, one point, anyhow–of the airport sequence was that Hurley’s luck may be bad for other people, but it’s good for him, and it kept trying to prevent him from making his flight by putting all those obstacles in his way.
Hurley also passed a team of soccer players whose backs were to the camera and their jersey numbers were those same numbers in sequence.
Thanks for posting your comments and doing the Cowboy Pete’s roundup.
I hate to use it, because every TV show premise since 1964 that has people stranded on an island brings up the comparison…
I blame “Gilligan’s Island” for ruining the surprise that the rafters wouldn’t get rescued.
Side note: there is a faux website for Oceanic Air
http://www.oceanic-air.com/
Use Hurley’s Lottery Numbers for the Adults/Kids/Etc. then click on the rows that contain Hurley’s Lottery Numbers. I’ll say there’s spoiler information for those who want to be totally in the dark, but the tidbit increases the “WTF!!?!” and “What’s the Connection?!?” factor exponentially.
Just to chime in with my half penny, I look forward to reading your Round-Ups because it gives me a fresh look at my favorite shows.
PAD, have you posted your thoughts on the season finale of “Smallville” at all?
That’s what I was waiting for – the Smallville wrap-up. Did you tape over it or what?
PAD–thank you, thank you, thank you so much for the Alias thoughts! I was beginning to think I was the only one out there who saw just how pedestrian, lame and all around stupid the season finale–and most of this season for that matter–really was. I keep telling people that a memorable last two minutes don’t make up for the 40 minutes of pablum that lead up to it! And let’s face it–the first 40 minutes of this were lame, lame, lame! Honestly, I have this feeling for a while now that J.J. is no where near the genius that Joss Whedon is…and it shows in Alias and Lost. I feel that Lost is a greater success as J.J. has a talented group of co-producers who help him sustain it. And Alias, where he seems to have more control, has gone down a garden path and he’s taken an almost Rick Berman Emperor’s New Clothes like view that nothing is wrong and all the fans just love it becuase it’s all so good and J.J. told us it was.
Anyway, thank you for helping not feel so alone in my disdain for the season finale of Alias–and pretty much the entire fourth season of the show.
Don’t be so down on Rimbaldi. He’s actually a character you like. Think… who has the brains to be Rimbaldi? Who could know so much about the future?
One of the Rimbaldi devices turns out to be a time machine. Marshall slips and falls into it, knocking his head on the edge of it. When he wakes up, he’s in the 1600s, and he has partial amnesia. He tries to recreate the things in his fuzzy memory, and winds up setting the stage for his own trip back in time.
It’s obvious, really.
Lisa
Lost — Well I knew the men were bad, was still shaken up a bit by them just wanting the boy and driving off with him. I’m wondering if Sawyer made it to the other boat before it drove off, or if he’s dead in the water. I did read that Professor Redshirt would be around next season.
Alias — The ending was a bam shocker. Knew something bad was going to happen. Its been my belief from the beginning that Syd’s mom was the good guy and that Vaughn’s dad was the bad guy. Maybe I’ve been right. Also, her mom seems to be the woman of prophecy after all. Syd didn’t kill her sister, but her mom did kill her own sis. Now I’ll wait and see if the bam ending was an accident or someone wanting to end the conversation.
Eric
Now what about that NCIS ending? They give us the shooting you knew was going to happen, but then nope.. they live. Then nope, they don’t.
You know, as we got nearer to the end of Lost, my X-Files alarm was in the red. That’s the alarm that says ‘We will answer some questions in the season-ender,’ only to discover that in fact, they answered virtually nothing. Mind you, I don’t necessarily mind waiting around for a decent resolution, but I’ve already been screwed by Twin Peaks and X-Files, so when series creators promise resolution, I take it with a very big grain of salt.
Having said that, I enjoyed most of the episode, particularly the twist when Mira’s character said the others were coming for the boy, immediately painting a target on Walt’s head. The scene with the radar was very well done, because we as the audience know something is going to happen, while the characters on the raft think they’re about to be saved. Although frankly, I was disappointed that the so-called ‘others’ turned out to be a bunch of unshaven hillbilly pirates, including one dude who looked an awful lot like Rupert from Survivor.
As for Alias, I’m glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who was a bit, well, lost by the end. But like Peter, I will be interested to see where the series goes next year, if for no other reason than to see how the show’s writers and directors manage to handle a heavily pregnant secret agent. And I predict before the next season is halfway over, we get a much-hyped guest appearance by Ben Affleck, although not necessarily in red this time.
“What torqued me here is not that not a single one of the questions was definitively answered. What torqued me was that I was certain none of them would be definitively answered, and that was the case. LOST is the first show in years to keep surprising me, and I just hated that the big two hour season finale failed to do so.”
Uhmmm….. Maybe my brain just can’t twist like that…. But….. Doesn’t that kinda mean that you were ticked that it didn’t answer any questions?
I don’t know. I would have loved to have had a few answers that could have built the foundations for new and bigger questions. I couldn’t help feeling a bit jerked around by the creators after devoting an entire season to the show, waiting through endless repeate periods and buying their hype for the two hour finale to only have a one and a half hours of filler and only thirty minutes of show.
The bit with Hurly didn’t give us anything new. We knew that the numbers were bad, kept coming up and that everyone bumped into ech other in the airport. OK. Newness please?
Professor Redshirt going boom didn’t suprise me in the least. I turned to my wife and asked how soon she figured out that he would go boom and she said, “from the first moment he opened his mouth and acted like a know it all.” Same with me. I agree with PAD. It would have suprised me more if they hadn’t gone the Star Trek route and he actually did something for a few eps.
The NAMBLA pirates (I love that description)caught us completely by suprise. But that only created more questions. Why do they want the boy? Where did they get the more modern boat? Where did they get the gas? What are they?
Again, I like the show but I really felt let down by the ender after the promise of the first season.
PAD,
As a rule of thumb, people post more when they are unhappy about things. People who don’t like Cowboy Pete post a lot when you are posting a lot. People who do like him post about it when you are not posting a lot.
Lost is my favorite show (well…maybe after the new Doctor Who) and I enjoy hearing other people’s comments about it. Although I disagree about Hurley’s part. I thought that was very entertaining. And if you look closely, those lottery numbers of his pop up everywhere. For example, there is a girls soccer team lined up, and if you look at the back of their jerseys they have the numbers, standing in order.
LOST: Was very disappointing. I’m amazed that the episode was two hours long, and yet we only saw a few really good moments. I loved the Hurley sequence, and I thought the scenes on the raft were very good, especially the reveal about the others being after “the boy.” But a lot of this finale didn’t work with me. The shocking cliffhanger? They peer into the hatch and see a ladder. Okay. That’s good. But you have to tease me with more than that.
I still love the show, and I did enjoy the finale, but it just didn’t feel like it gave us enough to make us agonize over the summer, and the best cliffhangers tend to be those that do that for us. On the other hand…
ALIAS: Had a great cliffhanger. I loved the cliffhanger, and I thought the last half of the season was pretty good. I enjoyed Elena Derevko as a villain, though like PAD I was disappointed that the finale went with the whole zombies premise. I did love the imagery of the big red ball hovering over the city, forming the Rambaldi symbol with the clouds, and I thought the scene where they all parachuted into the mouth of madness was classic ALIAS.
I LOVED having Irina Derevko back, and I hope that Lena Olin manages to come back for a few episodes next season. A great moment in the season finale was when Irina turns and says, “Sydney…you may not see me at your wedding, but I’ll see you.” Cut to Sydney as a tear trickles down her face. Aww. So sad.
My favorite moment of the episode once again belongs to Jack Bristow, though, who is my favorite current television character. Elena is tied to a chair. She says something to the effect of “Even if you torture me, I’ll hold on for the few minutes I need.” Irina: “I’m not going to torture you. I’m going to let Jack torture you. He’s pretty angry at you since you tricked him into killing me.” Cut to Jack as he fills a syringe with water. “I’m almost hoping you don’t tell us which wire to cut,” he says. “After the year I’ve had, I’m trying to have more fun these days.” That was cool as hëll.
So I guess I’d say that I love the Rambaldi storyline, but I hate that it devolved into this whole “mindless zombies” plot. Hopefully, the writers can move on next season and focus more on what makes this show truly stunning: the intricate web of character dynamics. It’s a show about family, essentially, and that’s what I love about it.
As for the cliffhanger, I have no idea what it means. I just hope that J.J. and the writers do. They pulled the resolution for the whole “missing two years” cliffhanger out of nowhere, and you could tell they had no idea how to resolve it when they first teased us with it. I’m hoping that this is different.
In a way, the cliffhanger makes perfect sense: I mean, what are the odds that the agent who becomes Sydney’s handler for the CIA was the son of the man that her mother supposedly killed? That it goes back to the “reason they met” makes sense. But the statement, “My name is not Michael Vaughn” is going to be hard to fully explain, given everything we’ve seen and know.
I’ve watched the closing scene a couple of times now, and I have to tell you: I don’t think this was a random car accident. Someone was gunning for Vaughn and/or Sydney. That very possibility alone opens up a world of possibilities and puts a smile on my face. 🙂
Thirding the motion for a Smallville season-finale roundup from the Beloved Cowboy.
[Me, I went “WTF?” a lot….]
I just wanted to weigh in with the Cowboy Pete fans. Reading your take on my favourite shows, and then everyone else’s reaction, is my favourite part of this site!
And, wow, I totally missed all those number references in the Hurley airport scenes. I have got to pay better attention to the details.
Well, I gotta disagree with PAD about the Alias finale and the Lost finale.
That one guy getting killed off like he did shocked me (I thought maybe the monster would get him or something), the kid getting aducted shocked me alot (you’d have to be REALLY good to guess that. Like PAD or his wife good imo) and I enjoyed all of the flashbacks. Sure, it would have better if the hatch had been opened earlier and we got to see inside..but then..what would we have to look forward to next season? I liked the Lost finale (though, ya, it would have been nice if they had revealed a little more)..but…I liked the Alias better! To me, the Alias episode was a lot of fun. It was very sci-fi/fantasy. Liked that. Heck, I even liked the zombie stuff. It was fun. And the cliffhanger! Oh man!!! The best part! Wow! Did not expect ” My name is not Vaughn…” hehehe. And the car hitting them. Whew!
Oh and I disagree about Rambaldi. I love the Rambaldi stuff. I hope this wasn’t the end of it, though I supsect it was (since the prophecy sort of came true).
My only wish is that the cliffhangers at the end of every episode (like season one) would come back. I loved that. Season 1 is still the best season of Alias, imo!
DF2506
” Oh and I loved the Smallville finale too. It was so cool. Especially that ending!! Pure Superman 1! “
I didn’t see Professor Redshirt meeting his end. (Great exit, BTW). Why? Because, in the back of my head, I know they have to start delving into the history of the extras. They have to get thier own flashback episodes, etc. etc. And they dropped a few (fakeout, I guess) hints with all the dialouge he had that – “Oh, I’m a teacher” “this is a clique” “I talk alot more than your average faceless extra” and so on. Because, they have to do it eventually, they can only rotate so many stories around the main crew before they want to grab some fresh ground. I thought Professor Redshirt was for sure being set up as an “emerging” character in Season 2.
Then Boom. Guess I overthought it.
And the ending, I said it before and I’ll say it again: NAMBLA pirates. Genius, I tells ya.
Don’t watch Alias (aside from the S.4 opener) but anything with zombies sounds interesting. Problem is, I hate jumping into complex plot oriented shows in the middle of thier runs. Same reason why I couldn’t get into Buffy, I feel too dámņ lost.
Will the CIQ (Cowboy In Question) be reviewing “The Inside” the new show from Buffy/Firefly/Wonderfalls alum Tim Minnear?
Peter would probably just pass out at the keyboard, and keep writing anyway.
Heh, sounds like how John Byrne works.
ZING!
Right before Arst blew up, I asked of the room “when are they going to blow Arst up?” I was jesting. I didn’t really think they’d have him go KAblewey! less than 3 minutes later.
Lost is like a really good dessert…you want more, and you don’t really want it to end, but the only way to get more is to consume it, which brings the whole experience to and end quicker. The Lost producers are not only feeding us at an excruciatingly slow pace, but they are careful to add another bite to the plate for every one we consume. Or more. For every mystery answered, there’s more that’s uncovered for us to consider. The risk is to determine what pace is just enough to keep you coming back week after week, and how much will leave you disinterested because nothing ever gets revealed. I’ve read a few articles saying how the producers are paying close attention to the internet chatter about the show, which I’m guessing should give them a pretty good indication of what people like and don’t like. The Sayid/Shannon romance, for instance, was something they saw people talking about, and started to write that more into the show.
“Heh, sounds like how John Byrne works.”
With a major difference:
I’ll buy Peter’s work.
RLR
I like ‘Cowboy Pete’s’ TV roundups. But then I’m far far far behind on my reading. 🙂 But then, again, I’m not a demanding reader.
Alias question. Back in season 1 (or 2) didn’t Sydney retrieve a clock-like artifact that came with a prediction that Rimbaldi was supposed to die that very day. low and behold that clock’s owner jumps out a window to avoid being blown up and dies in the fall. DOmething like that… Does anyone else remember this episode? Wasn’t that man supposed to be Rimbaldi??
Daniel
Daniel..
That wasn’t Rimbaldi, but it was someone that lived a very long life thanks to Rimbaldi. I don’t remember much else, but he did know what day he was going to die.
Yeah, just to follow up on the last two posts, Sydney was sent by Sloane (back when she was still working for SD-6) with the clock artifact to a Rambaldi expert who they believed could repair the clock.
The clock maker does repair the clock, and in the course of the conversation, he makes a comment that suggests that he knew Rambaldi personally, thus signifying that he had lived a very long time.
Just as they were finishing their conversation, a bullet sliced through the window to his workshop. Anna Espinosa had waited until he got the clock operational, then took the shot and attempted to retrieve the clock for K-Directorate. Sydney got away, of course.
Back to the ALIAS finale…I’m much more disappointed by the way they tried to resolve the whole prophecy that we learned about in season 1. Remember when Sydney was handcuffed and taken into custody because one of the Rambaldi pages said something like “This woman here depicted will render the greatest power unto utter desolation” and they thought that “greatest power” meant the United States?
Suddenly, the “greatest power” became “the greatest evil,” and Sydney (The Chosen One) did battle with her sister (The Passenger). However, Nadia didn’t die and neither did Sydney, so does that mean the prophecy is unfulfilled? Is the Rambaldi mythology finished? I don’t know.
At least we finally found out who was leading the Covenant last season, albeit a very convenient way of resolving that plot thread.
See, this is one of my big problems with ALIAS…I don’t think they know where they’re going with the mythology; they’re making it up as they go along. Last season’s cliffhanger made us think that Jack had somehow been monitoring Sydney and her sister and suggested that Jack might have been a follower of Rambaldi, but then this season, all we found out was those documents detailed the death of Irina at the hands of Jack. Very convenient and very unsatisfying.
It’s the same nagging feeling I had about the X-Files in the 90s…very cool show, but I always wondered if Chris Carter knew where the show was going or if we was just making it up as he went along.
Peter David: So when the guys from “Deliverance” came cruising up…
Luigi Novi: Heh-heh. Nice to see that I’m not the only one who thought that when seeing the episode. (http://64.33.77.146/discus/messages/24932/25636.html?ThursdayApril0720050207am#POST294714.)
“No.. nevermind.. Peter would probably just pass out at the keyboard, and keep writing anyway.”
That’s happened to me on occasion. I’ve kept writing even though I was falling asleep or even in a light dream state. Then I’ll wake up a few hours later slumped back in my chair, reread what I wrote, and say, “What the hëll was THIS?”
You know the whole thing about how people wake up and say, “Oh, I had this GREAT IDEA in a dream, but now I can’t remember it.” I’ve actually written down the dreams either while I was having them or right after I woke up. When I read them later in the cold light of day, they’re invariably awful.
PAD
“Hurley also passed a team of soccer players whose backs were to the camera and their jersey numbers were those same numbers in sequence.”
I know that they kept slipping in references. I know that the numbers keep showing up over and over again. The thing is: Okay. I get it. As Hurley said, “Bad numbers.” I’m on the same page, I’m with the program. I GET IT ALREADY. We didn’t have to see it over and over and over again, especially when it’s the season ender, it advanced nothing, and there’s stuff we DON’T get remains to be explored.
PAD
“Suddenly, the “greatest power” became “the greatest evil,” and Sydney (The Chosen One) did battle with her sister (The Passenger). However, Nadia didn’t die and neither did Sydney, so does that mean the prophecy is unfulfilled?”
Not if the prophecy was actually referring to Irina and Elena.
Not sure if everyone realizes it, but the floating smoke that we saw in that last episode of LOST as been around since the first. If you go back and watch it, just after the one passenger gets sucked into the engine, it cuts to Jack holding Claire as another engine explodes. If you watch above the engine, you will see the black smoke come flying over the engine just as it explodes. It also appears later near the plane after the pliot is snatched from it. Nice to know that whatever they have planed, they’ve left clues about it from the beginning.
“You know the whole thing about how people wake up and say, “Oh, I had this GREAT IDEA in a dream, but now I can’t remember it.” I’ve actually written down the dreams either while I was having them or right after I woke up. When I read them later in the cold light of day, they’re invariably awful.
PAD”
*snicker* Next time that happens, you should post it. And it actually sounds like a great thing to be able to do.
P.S. Usually it’s the politcal stuff that bores me.
“Not if the prophecy was actually referring to Irina and Elena.”
See, I thought about that, but it doesn’t seem consistent with the prophecy. The prophecy was that the Chosen One and the Passenger would do battle, and that one (maybe both…I’m fuzzy on that one) will not survive.
Well, we know that Nadia is the Passenger, because Rambaldi left instructions on how to find the Passenger, and those instructions ultimately lead to Nadia. Everything told us that Nadia was the Passenger. And of course, Irina told Sydney that she was the Chosen One, not that it means anything, since Irina could have been mistaken.
I suppose you could say the clues about the Passenger also lead to Elena, since she was Nadia’s orphanage caretaker. I haven’t thought about it all to large extent, mostly because it’s been six to eight months since I finished the Season Three DVD.
Maybe it all works nicely. I’d have to go back and rewatch the episodes, parsing the exact language used, to know for sure.
It’s a good thought, though.
PAD said : I know that they kept slipping in references. I know that the numbers keep showing up over and over again. The thing is: Okay. I get it. As Hurley said, “Bad numbers.” I’m on the same page, I’m with the program. I GET IT ALREADY. We didn’t have to see it over and over and over again, especially when it’s the season ender, it advanced nothing, and there’s stuff we DON’T get remains to be explored.
I think what was important about this scene was that the ‘numbers’ were trying to keep Hurley off the plane..which to me is more curious than anything yet…
The one thing that did bother me about Lost was that it was like a Robert Jordan Wheel o Time book (after book 5)…lots and lots of fluff, with about 2 significant things happening at the very end. In a way, it was a nice way to say “have a nice summer” to the Lostaways, a season ending send-off, with little recaps of everyone getting on the plane. Which would be fine for a mid-season ep., say, one after a non-sweeps break. But I usually expect more from my season enders.
And add in Smallville’s pretty crappy season, and only so-so season ender, and this was a pretty unimpressive TV season. If BSG hadn’t given us their pretty shocking ending, I’d have called it a totally disappointing TV outing.
You know the whole thing about how people wake up and say, “Oh, I had this GREAT IDEA in a dream, but now I can’t remember it.” I’ve actually written down the dreams either while I was having them or right after I woke up. When I read them later in the cold light of day, they’re invariably awful.
Oh God, I hate it when that happens. I think I’ve had precisely one dream-idea that survived a volley of harsh criticism and made it to the page.
I’d love to hear about insane, horrible dream-stories you’ve had, though. 🙂
PAD said:
“The thing is: Okay. I get it. As Hurley said, “Bad numbers.” I’m on the same page, I’m with the program. I GET IT ALREADY. We didn’t have to see it over and over and over again, especially when it’s the season ender, it advanced nothing, and there’s stuff we DON’T get remains to be explored.”
Part of this, I think, is that you are a writer and therefore more-than-typically attuned to this kind of thing. I did not notice the numbers during Hurley’s sprint to the airport, for example. The average viewer probably does need more of the repetition tahn you do, in other words.
I assumed that Hurley’s dash across the airport was to indicate that he is no longer under the influence of the “curse”. As I understood it, the curse gave him phenomenal good luck and everyone around him incredibly bad (and often fatal) luck. Perhaps this also means that the curse had be tranfered to someone else.
One thing I liked about the final Lost episode was the characterization of Hurley. We were reminded he’s not just a happy-go-lucky fat guy, he’s a happy-go-lucky fat guy who was institutionalized at one point. A little bit of the obsessiveness, and the seemingly irrational fear of those numbers, crept to the surface in the last few scenes
Thank you. Very much.
Why do I love your roundup? Because you put into words some of the impressions I have of the show. Your gift as a writer makes you a thoughtful critic of other’s work. And many of the other posts bring up things I miss, or confirm things that I thought I saw as well.
I messed up my VCR tape of Smallville, so I missed the last 30 minutes and have no idea how it ended. I actually liked most of the first hour, so I am curious to know how it concluded. I suspect it did not keep up the coolness factor, but I can hope.
I agree in general about Lost and Alias. In many ways, I could see things coming for both shows. That said, they are at the top of my list still for next season.
Lost: I appreciated how some threads were woven together. We got very few answers, but I still felt there was progress (such as Sawyer telling Jack about the bar incident), so I finished it waiting for more. Besides, I would probably watch any show just to see “Delenn” / Mira doing her wonderful job as always. (Could the hatch be an exit to B5? Naah, to obvious and too many complications!)
I did wonder about the characters on the raft. Now I know why they will be around next season! And I am glad. My wife did have one good comment. The kid seemed to know danger was coming (such as wanting to leave before the hatch was opened). Yet he seemed to have no warning about what was to come on the boat. This seemed to not fit the previous portryal of him and his “powers.”
Alias: Though weak, this at least removes the threatened Rambaldi prophecy. My comment at the start of the season was this show lacked direction because there was no clear threat. Sloan was not the threat he once was, and there was no clear opposition to APO. The series only got interesting to me when the clone arrived and the arrival of the third sister. And both of those plots seem finished. If this out of left field ending can restore a true evil, as SD-6 once was, then Alias can be saved. Watching David fight Goliath is always more interesting then seeing a female version of Tom Cruise a la Misson Impossible (to mix my metaphors a bit).
I had no problem believing that Sydney’s connection to Vaughan was not an accident. But the “that is not my name” seems to not fit the last 4 seasons. It will be lame if they don’t have a clear explanation.
Thanks PAD for the reviews!
Iowa Jim
Jim, you didn’t miss much in the last 30 mins of Smallville…actually only 20 mins of show…you did miss the 10 minute Batman Begins clip, which was pretty cool.
Essentially (spoilers for those waiting for the DVD)…
lessee, Jason abducts the Kents, and beats on Pa Kent for a while, and Ma Kent trips him, there’s a brief clash, and just before Jason blows Pa Kent to Kingdom Come, a meteor hits the Kent farmhouse…
Lana gets put into Lex’s escape copter, after he freaks out and tries to force her to tell him where the stone is…then her copter (that pilot was crazy good for a while) eventually crashes during the meteor shower, and she survives…pilot doesn’t…and finds this large, S Shield shaped craft has landed…
Chloe and Lex show up at the cave together, about the same time Clark has activated the Light o Jor El. Chloe shoves Lex into a wall, stunning him just long enough so Lex can’t see that it’s clark playing with the light bright…then Clark gets zapped to…Antarctica? And lil hovering S Shield stone points off into the distance, so of course he grabs it and throws it to the horizon….
to be continued…
Just got promo emails from cduniverse & deepdiscountdvd. They’re both offering Lost on DVD come the tail end of the year &, I think, just before season 2. Not a lot of extras listed yet (to soon for good info I guess.) So, just how big a mark and a sucker am I for wanting the thing, while I would enjoy it extras free, in the hope that maybe they might sneak at least a few tidbits of info on there to help kick off season 2?
Never mind. Don’t answer that.
Iowa Jim,
Re Lost: Another B5 connection on Lost is Daniel Dae Kim. Daniel Dae Kim was one of the main stars Babylon 5: Crusade, which was a wonderful spinoff series that TNT cancelled before it even started airing the episodes.
Regarding the kid’s supposed powers and why he seemed to be surprised by the pirates on the boat. I’m not sure that I subscribe to the “magical child” stereotype there, but even if we take that as a given, his surprise can be explained by using the working assumption that his “powers” stem from some type of subconscious connection to whatever runs the island. Once he was off the island, any special info/influence he had could just disappear.
PAD, I’m also a fan of you reviews. I don’t too often go in for the political debates that pop up here. They tend to get a little too heated for my personal tastes. Discussions about TV shows have a much greater chance of remaining civil.