Lost Episode Review

Catch-22 aired April 18th, 2007

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON'T REALIZE BY NOW THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THESE PIECES, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE NEW TO THE SITE, IN WHICH CASE, WELCOME MY NEW FRIEND

I think deep down, each of us knew this was coming. We each knew that the episode following the one where it was revealed that Juliet was playing the survivors and pretending to be abandoned by The Others was going to be a bit of a disappointment. I mean, obviously last week’s episode couldn’t have matched what came before it unless they had revealed a major Lost secret. But they didn’t. And that left us with one of those Lost episodes where basically there isn’t a whole lot that’s different at the end of the hour when compared with the beginning of the hour. We do have a new visitor to the island, a helicopter pilot who we think might have been sent by Desmond’s girlfriend, Penny, but otherwise, nothing is new.

Now maybe I’m underselling this a bit, because there certainly is something interesting about the development of the helicopter pilot, because it brings up a couple of questions. First, how did Penny know where to find Desmond? Even if she was able to track the explosion at the end of season two, from what we know, finding the island is still rather difficult. This lends credibility to my theory that the boat race that caused Desmond to end up on the island was staged as a way of sending people to work on Penny’s father’s island project. She knew exactly how to get to the island because she had inside information. Once she knew where to look, she knew how to find Desmond.

The other big question that pops up with the arrival of the helicopter pilot is why did the helicopter crash in the first place? We know that Oceanic Flight 815 crashed because Desmond forgot to press the button in time, but that likely wasn’t what happened here, since the hatch has been destroyed. Maybe the helicopter crashed by pure coincidence, but that doesn’t seem like a reasonable answer considering that we know nothing happens on this island by chance; everything happens for a reason. All we know is, lots of people have crashed on this island, the survivors of the plane crash, Rousseau and her shipmates, the guy whom Hurley met in the mental hospital that gave him the cursed numbers, Mr. Eko’s drug smuggling friends and his brother, that slave ship, the Black Rock where they found the dynamite, and now this helicopter. So there is clearly something more than just the failure to press the button causing these things to happen.

I’m not really going to waste much time talking about the Kate-Sawyer-Jack-Juliet love square, only to say to that basically they should all do it together. That’s really the only solution.

Lastly I want to talk about Charlie. At this point it seems basically a given that Charlie is going to bite the big one by the end of the season. That’s definitely what they want you to think at least. But I’m not 100% sure of this anymore after they brought in the biblical story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son in last week’s episode. Like Desmond said, maybe God (or the island) is testing his faith by giving him visions of Charlie’s deadly future and that Charlie won’t actually die if Desmond doesn’t save him, but they can’t find out because Desmond can’t stop himself from trying to save Charlie. My guess is this, in the season finale Desmond will have a vision of Charlie’s death but he won’t be in a position where he’ll be able to save Charlie. For some reason he’ll be too far away or he’ll be indisposed for some reason and he won’t be able to get to Charlie in time to save him and then we’ll find out whether Desmond’s visions of Charlie’s death are really true or not. We know that Desmond isn’t willing to sacrifice Charlie, even for his own gain, so things will have to be preventing Desmond from saving Charlie to test this.

Next Week on Lost: And by next week, I mean tonight. Well tonight Juliet is going to have a nice heart-to-heart talk with Sun about pregnancy. I’m guessing it will be a lot like an after school special about teenage pregnancy, only they’ll add in the fact that giving birth on the island has been rather precarious in the past. It seems they’ll also be revealing the fate of Sun, but I’m not quite sure what that means. I do know this. (Cue that awesome, Requiem for a Tower song) Only four episodes remain and you can’t miss a single one.

- BEN

P.S. The Summer Blockbuster Contest will happen this year and likely will be up this week. So stay tuned for that.

Lost Episode Reviews

Expose, Left Behind, and One of Us aired March 28th, April 4th, and April 11th, 2007, respectively

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON'T REALIZE BY NOW THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THESE PIECES, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE NEW TO THE SITE, IN WHICH CASE, WELCOME MY NEW FRIEND

That’s it. This is the last time I’m doing this. Not watching episodes for a few weeks and then cramming them all together at once, that is. Sure its way more enjoyable of a viewing experience, but there are too many potential pitfalls in doing this. I had key elements of each of the last three episodes spoiled for me before I ended up watching them and there really isn’t anything more frustrating than that. And its not like I put myself in danger of having spoilers revealed to me by reading blogs or going on to ABC.com or something. The death of Nikki and Paulo was spoiled for me while I read Chuck Klosterman’s NCAA Men’s Final Four blog on ESPN.com, which I would have thought would be a safe place to go. And the other event I had spoiled from an advertisement during one of the hundreds of ESPN shows I watch during my work week. So basically I suppose I should chalk all this up to the dreaded synergy that flows through our humongous corporate structures. But I won’t have that problem anymore. I’m going to watch Lost as soon as I possibly can after it airs (I work from 6pm-3am every Wednesday, and while I could watch it at work, I don’t want anyone to distract me while I watch it and work, sadly, isn’t a place free of distractions). Especially now that were heading into the final stretch for season three, which is shaping up to be incredible. So to take us up to that final five, let’s recap the last three. And by “let’s” I mean me.

The Nikki and Paulo episode was clearly a response to the outcry by the fans that those two sucked ass. And while I couldn’t have really cared less about them, I found their departure to be a very weak episode. It was clear that they didn’t really spend as much time writing this episode as they do for most episodes simply because they were just trying to cram in all of the things they wanted to do with those two in one show and get it done in time to kill them off before the end of the season. I did however enjoy all of the guest spots in the episode. First we got Billy Dee Williams, which made me do my Eddie Murphy impersonation from The Nutty Professor with a slight variation from Hercules to Billy Dee. It was funny to me and I think that my cats might have enjoyed it, although I have no confirmation of that and I doubt I ever will. Then we had the return of the dead with Shannon, Boone, Arzt, and Ethan, all of which were fun.

But what I really disliked about this episode was how they kept trying to stick Nikki and Paulo into scenes from earlier in the show to make it seem as if they had been there all the time. That was incredibly lame. That and having them discover every major discovery of the show before everyone else in these flashbacks (the plane, the middle hatch, etc.). Oh yeah and I also didn’t really understand why they would kill off that old guy (who was clearly the Australian Aaron Spelling) for $8 million in diamonds, as if he wasn’t worth a hell of a lot more than that. Just stupid all around. Every gold-digging woman (or man) in America scoffed at that episode, and so do I. But let’s put that behind us, just like the producers clearly would want us to do.

The April 4th episode had me worried from the opening moments because it was evident that we were about to embark on a Kate episode. And if you’ve been reading my Lost reviews for a while now, you should know that the Kate episodes have always been my least favorite, mostly because Kate is one of my least favorite characters on the show. I have to say though, this episode ended up being pretty good and in fact, I even kind of enjoyed the Kate flashbacks for a change. Sure they added up to a whole lot of nothing, as the flashbacks have tended to do this season, but I was okay with it. I do wish though we had spent some more time in this episode with Locke and figuring out why he was going with The Others. I suppose they’ll cover that soon, but really, I need to know now. Okay, fine, I’ll wait.

Now if I had written this review before last week’s episode I would have spent some time here talking about the fact that Juliet was left by her fellow Others and the fact that Juliet claimed she and The Others didn’t know what the hell the fog monster is, but all of that became moot thanks to the last two minutes of last week’s episode, which by the way, made last week’s episodes one of the all-time best.

I was totally under the opinion that Juliet wasn’t a true Other, and it didn’t take the flashbacks in last week’s episode to convince me of that. Sure I admit I was apprehensive about her because Sayid didn’t trust her, and basically I have found that whatever Sayid says and thinks tends to be right (which is why he should be in charge and not old think with his heart Jack), but I didn’t think she was going to have played them all so nasty like she did. When that scene with Juliet and Ben came on it seriously blew my mind. It got me so incredibly pumped for the last few episodes of this season. That moment right there was proof of why Lost is simply the best show on TV.

Before I wrap this up I want to throw out a theory that I developed after last week’s episode. In that particular episode we learn that Juliet was brought to the island because the women there were incapable of giving birth, which was basically destroying their civilization, kind of like in the movie Children of Men, except less depressing because no one likes The Others. So my theory is that the Dharma people and then later The Others came to this island because it has healing properties, something we learned when Locke was able to walk and when Rose had her cancer cured. And for a time, these properties worked for The Others because as Ben stated in last week’s episode, no one had cancer on that island until Ben himself got it right before the plane crash. And also we know that there was a time when The Others could give birth on the island because Ben claims to have spent his entire life there. So it seems to me that The Others have somehow become corrupt and now the island won’t help them anymore and that’s why they need the crash survivors. Those people are being healed and they can give birth and it’s all because the island respects them. So all of the things The Others have done to them and will do to them in the future after Juliet’s crafty plan finishes is a result of The Others trying to regain the island’s help. That’s why they need Locke and that’s why they have that list of the people who are worthy. But now I wonder if maybe there is someone on the island who controls the powers of the island and comes up with the lists of who is worthy and who isn’t. My guesses right now on who that person is are (in order of probability): 1. John Calvin, 2. Joseph Smith, 3. Jim Jones, 4. David Koresh, and. 5. Brandon Tartikoff, the now deceased former head of programming at NBC who tortures Mario Lopez in the online TV show, 28 Days Slater (which by the way is fucking amazing). (I’d just like to point out my amazing religious history knowledge on display in that last sentence, with the exception of Brandon Tartikoff of course.)

Next Week on Lost: I am so incredibly psyched for this week’s episode and the episodes coming up after it. And its not just because they included that awesome song in the ad for these episodes (by the way, if you’ve been obsessed with that song as I have since I first heard it in the trailer for the new Danny Boyle movie, Sunshine, I’m glad to inform you that the name of the song is Requiem For A Tower and it can be purchased on iTunes!!). These last few episodes look to be spectacular and look like they could make me love this show even more than I already do, if that’s even possible. The ad for this week doesn’t seem to reveal anything too specific, but I don’t care, I’m still ready to rock.

- BEN

300 vs. Shooter

I just realized as I typed that title that you might be expecting now that this piece will be about who I would think would win in a fight, the 300 men of the Spartan army or Marky Mark Walhberg’s titular hero, Shooter. That isn’t what this is going to be at all though. Sorry. In fact, even I’m a little disappointed now. Well I hope you’ll keep reading anyways.

What I really wanted to do was do a different kind of review of these two male oriented films, comparing why one of them works and is enjoyable and why the other one is horribly bad and enjoyable for reasons that were completely unintended by the film’s creators.

Obviously if you follow films at all, you’ll know that 300 and Shooter are different kinds of movies, even though they are both geared towards male audiences. 300 is much more stylized with its green-screen heavy CG effects whereas Shooter is more interested in the type of special effects that involve large explosions. Also 300 is an historically-themed film (I say that, because while it is based on a real event, the film doesn’t really stick to the facts to say the least), while Shooter is set in the present. But their goal is definitely the same; get males into the seats. 300 has been immensely successful in this task, having pulled in almost $200 million already, where Shooter has only achieved a rather paltry $36.7 million (as of the April 6th box office reports). So why is one movie much more successful than the other one?

Well there are a few reasons that one could point to. One is that 300 is based on a graphic novel by acclaimed artist, Frank Miller, which gives it a built in fan base not only from the people who read that particular work, but also from those who saw the film Miller co-directed with Robert Rodriguez in 2005, Sin City, which was also based on one of his graphic novels. Of course though Shooter has an actual star in it, in the form of one Marky Mark Wahlberg, while 300 had only one actor I’d ever heard of before in it, and that was only because he was on Lost. So I’d say these two things pretty much cancel each other out.

Another reason for 300’s greater box office take might have to do with its substantially higher promotional budget, or at least what I must assume was a larger promotional budget. 300 was all over the place for at least a month leading up to its release. You could see it on websites and on TV all the time. Shooter however seemed to have less of a presence in those areas. I saw the ads for it, but they weren’t quite as omnipresent as the ads for 300 seemed to be. It didn’t hurt that 300 had amazing trailers while Shooter had a rather lackluster one, but certainly it seemed that the studio execs at Warner Brothers predicted better things for 300 than the studio execs at Paramount did for Shooter. (I just want to mention that I found it rather surprising that they never mentioned that Shooter was directed by Antoine Fuqua, the director of Training Day. It seems to me that one would want to mention that the film you could go and see was directed by the same guy who directed a film lots of people went to see and lots of people enjoyed. In comparison, they always mentioned that Zach Snyder directed 300 and he had only directed one film before, the disappointing remake of Dawn of the Dead (another note within this note: Snyder's Dawn of the Dead has a rating of 7.3 on imdb whereas Training Day has a 7.4. Just thought you might want to know that.).)

My hope deep down though is that the difference in the box office totals of these films can be traced to the simple fact that 300 is a much better film than Shooter. I know that quality of the film doesn’t always matter when counting up the box office receipts (the boring screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s excellent novel, The DaVinci Code made more than $217 million in the US alone), but sometimes that can actually matter, and I think that it certainly could have here. 300 was a rather original tale that was surprising (to those of us who hadn’t read the graphic novel or studied ancient Greek history), sometimes funny, and intensely violent. Shooter, however, was about as derivative as they come. Nothing about that movie surprised me except that it took too long to end it and that I’ve never seen or heard such blatant product placement in my life (apparently evil government agencies use Google Maps rather than their vast satellite array or massive illegal human tracking databases to determine where people live, a product placement that I partially believe was actually paid for by Mapquest as a way of smearing Google Maps. Also government agencies can easily hack the customer databases of FTP, which my friends and I all agreed was definitely a product placement paid for by FTP’s rivals in the flower delivery business, 1-800-Flowers and KaBloom.). And since a lot of the immensely large box office totals of the past are made up of repeat business (I believe that every single girl between the ages of 13-20 saw Titanic fifteen times), it makes sense that 300 would pull in bigger totals because wouldn’t you want to see a movie that’s more fresh and original rather than the film about a man framed for a crime he didn’t commit, a storyline that is easily one of the top Hollywood clichés of all-time?

300 isn’t a great movie really, but it does at least make sense, something that definitely can’t be said of Shooter, which gets tangled in its own tale worse than Alberto Gonzalez did trying to talk his way out of the US Attorney scandal. And I’d like to think that its that reason that helped propel it to such box office success, rather than the fact that it has a lot of bloody violence and some nudity.

Rating: 300 – 68%
Shooter – 20%

P.S. Alright, since you wasted your time and actually read all of this even though I teased you with the possibility of a piece determining who would win in a fight, the 300 soldiers of the Spartan army or Marky Mark and his assault weapons, I think its only fair to give you what you were hoping for, so here it goes.

This is a tough battle to predict because obviously Marky Mark has the superior weaponry. And he’s also quite stealthy, which I can’t really say about the Spartans, who made no attempt to hide their presence from the enemy. So I think early on the Spartans would suffer a great deal of casualties, simply because they would be completely surprised not only by Marky Mark, but by his weapons of choice which would be to the Spartans what a flying car would be to us; a complete shock. After a bit of regrouping, I think the Spartans might actually be able to hang with Marky Mark for a while, because I’m not giving him the benefit of a partner this time, like he had in most of the movie, so I think he wouldn’t be successful in as many of his attacks this time. In the end I think the sheer size of the Spartan army would overwhelm Marky Mark and his excellent shooting ability would fail him in the close combat in which the Spartan army thrives. I would completely change my opinion here though if Marky Mark created a catchphrase to utter after slaying his enemies like, “you’ve just been SHOT!” or “Shooter got you!” In that case, he’d dominate them in both the comedy scale and on the battlefield.

Lost Episode Reviews

Enter 77, Par Avion, and The Man From Tallahassee aired March 7th, March 14th, and March 21st, 2007, respectively

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU DON'T REALIZE BY NOW THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THESE PIECES, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE NEW TO THE SITE, IN WHICH CASE, WELCOME MY NEW FRIEND

Oh boy, I have a lot to cover here. I guess this is why it doesn’t pay to fall behind in your writing. I had watched the first two episodes of the show together like I have been doing for most of this “Spring Season,” but then I never got around to writing about them and all of a sudden this week’s episode was about to air and it seemed like a waste to try and crank out a piece that would become kind of dated so quickly. Unfortunately though for me, now I have to try and talk about three episodes that had a lot happening in them in a short enough piece that you won’t be like, “man this is really long, let me see whether anyone has updated their MySpace page recently instead.” That’s a tall order and I’ll most likely fail, but the good news is, if you want a lot of Lost material, you’ll get it here.

Let’s start with the episode from March 7th where we first were introduced to Mikhail, whom I will from here on out be referring to as Patches (not to be confused with the titular character of the Clarence Carter song, although they both did have a farm). What was funny about this episode was that it started out by answering all kinds of questions about the Dharma Initiative and their relationship with The Others and then we found out Patches was actually one of The Others and thus everything we heard could pretty much be thrown out the window. Some of it was probably true, although I wasn’t exactly clear on which parts, so basically it didn’t help me at all. However, I found the episode to be compelling and quite interesting, go figure. I guess fake answers are better than none, a bit of advice that they should keep in mind for the future of this show (however, after a while they really will have to start answering questions, because I and others will get tired of having to weed through the fake answers).

The subplot of this episode though was considerably less interesting. I’m not sure why they decided to have that ping-pong storyline especially since we’ve already had a couple of golf storylines in previous episodes which were pretty similar. Also, didn’t it seem a bit off to have a goofy storyline involving Sawyer since he just got back to the main island after having been kidnapped by The Others? Shouldn’t they have cut him a little slack for like a week or two? Just doesn’t work for me.

However, the biggest reason this storyline didn’t work was that they have taken away one of the funniest parts of the show; Sawyer’s nicknames for his fellow survivors. Every drama needs a bit of humor, and the nicknames were this show’s humor. I understand that he’s only supposed to stop the nicknaming for a week, but on a show where we just passed the 80-day mark for the survivors after only 61 episodes, one week could be a long time. I’m sure they’ll fudge that week for the sake of the viewers, but, my fair Lost writers, let’s remember for the future not to take away anything of Sawyer’s because Sawyer is awesome.

On to the second episode of three (this is already long, I’m definitely going to lose most of you before this piece is done), which, for the first time since the last episode of the “Fall Season” I actually watched live. So how did that experience compare to the previous experiences of watching the show days sometimes weeks later during this “Spring Season?” Well it turns out I really don’t like commercials, so it was definitely not as good as it would have been had I watched it the next day instead. I kept trying to pick up my Tivo remote and fast-forward and all I got was that annoying Tivo beep signifying that you can’t do whatever you’re trying to do.

But watching the commercials wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as the dancing couple that would spawn on the bottom right corner of my screen during every block of the show. I assume that these tiny dancing people were there to inform me about the impending return of Dancing With The Stars, but since they didn’t actually confirm that whenever they danced off the screen, I found myself a bit befuddled. And I don’t like being befuddled because that word seems fake to me, and I hate fake words, unless I made them up.

Enough time wasting, let’s get on to bigger things, like a backstory that was actually interesting for a change. Well kind of at least. The story once again had nothing to do with what was going on on the island, a common feature amongst all of the backstories this season, but at least this one had something happen, the revelation that Jack and Claire are half-siblings, even if the fanboys online had already predicted this. However, right before it happened I told Julie that I knew what was going to happen, and wrote it down so that I could show it to her after it was revealed. It was kind of like my David Copperfield moment and led her to ask me if I could see into the future like Desmond, which she said without any smartassedness (see a fake word I just made up ended up in this piece) in it. Either she really wondered that or she’s a lot nicer to me than most people would have been in that situation. Whatever the case, I appreciated the comment.

This episode also saw the all too early demise of my man, Patches, as he was sent through the Jurassic Park-type pylons outside The Others camp which featured a type of technology that I’m pretty sure is fake (fake technology is great in my book), despite its sheer awesomeness (kind of a fake word). Before he left though he shared with us some details about “the list” that The Others have regarding who is worthy of hanging with their crew. The list seemed a bit Calvinist to me, so I can’t say I’m a big proponent of it, unless of course I was deemed worthy to be on “the list.” If I was on it, then “the list” would rock.

The only other thing I wanted to talk about in regards to this episode is that there is no way in hell that Claire could have given birth to that child she’s carrying around. Not only did she completely lose the weight faster than any woman in history (and this includes those celebrity women who hire personal trainers to help them get back into shape), but she’s also much too petite around the hips to have pushed that baby out naturally. I understand that she obviously didn’t really give birth to the child, but I think they should have made it a little more plausible that she could have.

Alright, so I flew through episode two as much as possible so that I could hurry up and get to the most recent episode only to find that I’ve already written more than 1200 words. At this point I’m pretty sure you’ve either stopped reading or you just skipped ahead and missed all the cleverness that I wrote in the preceding paragraphs. I’d recap the best of them here, but even I’d like to finish at some point, so I’ll just tell you to go back and read the last things when you can and I’ll promise to be amusing in discussing this week’s episode so that you don’t completely miss out on my brilliance.

This week’s episode marked the second straight episode in which the backstory was actually compelling, a feat which hadn’t been accomplished since season one. Even more surprising was that this one kind of tied in to what actually happened on the island. Not as well as the backstories did when the show first came on the air, but at least somewhat. In all honesty though I wouldn’t have cared if it did because the only thing I cared about since we first found out that Locke had been paralyzed before coming to the island was how he ended up paralyzed. And this episode answered that question, quite sadly in fact.

This led to a discussion with my beautiful and intelligent girlfriend, Julie (I forgot to mention those things about her when I talked about her earlier), about which Lost character had the worst life prior to the island. Basically I think we narrowed it down Locke and Sayid, with Locke getting the edge because he was paralyzed after his Dad pushed him out of an 8th story window, which is fucked up for so many reasons. Sayid has had it rough, but at least his life wasn’t ruined by a guy who was not only a recipient of one of his internal organs, but also happened to be his DAD! I mean really, that’s horrible. I would rather have Ben the Creepy Other be my Dad then Locke’s Dad. That guy very well may be the worst person who ever existed.

The rest of the episode was pretty good, because I definitely enjoyed the renewed interactions between Locke and Ben, something we’ll get to see more of in the near future I hope. The blowing up of the sub was kind of lame since we knew it would have to happen otherwise Jack would have left, something that we know can’t happen unless its in a body bag.

But topping that in bizarreness was the magical box. Ordinarily I have been okay with some of the more outrageous aspects of this show and as I stated earlier, I love fake technology, but this isn’t fake technology, its magic. And while I’m not opposed to magic (I did see David Copperfield twice, although it was the same show both times, a fact that we only learned when we got there, much to our dismay), it seems out of place here. I guess its interesting that Locke’s Dad is on the island now, but couldn’t they just have said that after he nearly killed his own son he decided to join the Dharma Initiative or something. That would have been more reasonable and wouldn’t have involved a magic box.

Oh yeah, and by the way, who is the man from Tallahassee?

Alright, that’s all I’ve got to say for now and it only took me like 1700+ words to say it, so that’s great for everyone.

Next Week on Lost: I think someone’s going to die or something. I wasn’t completely clear on that, but I think that’s the case. I’m not with my Tivo right now so I can’t check, so I apologize in advance if that’s wrong. My guess is that is one of those annoying new people, Paulo or Nikki.

Andy Barker P.I. Review

Thursday night is the premiere of the new NBC show starring Conan O’Brien’s former sidekick, Andy Richter, and because I’m an important guy I got to see an advanced copy of the pilot episode. Okay, that’s not quite true. I did see it, but I saw it online at NBC.com and anyone can go and see it right now too. I just wanted to sound important. Back to the point though, I figured I’d give you an advance review of it so you could check it out for yourself when the show debuts tomorrow.

What It’s About: The show centers around a simple, boring, accountant (is that redundant?) who opens up a new office in a strip mall in his town. He words directly above a video store operated by the hilarious Tony Hale from Arrested Development, and above a falafel restaurant owned by the ultra-patriotic, yet non-American, (Wally) Marshall Manesh. Things don’t seem like they’ll get interesting at all until a women wonders into Andy’s new office thinking that he’s the man who had the place before Andy moved in, a man named Lew Staziak, a private investigator. Andy doesn’t seem interested at first, but once he gets into it, he develops a taste for it.

Why I’m Going To Watch: I loved Andy Richter’s first Fox show, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, not just because it was quirky and well-written, but also because it had an outstanding cast of characters. And this show seems to have been built with the same recipe. The pilot featured several clever sight-gags and some very funny performances, so I must say, I’m interested. It wasn’t the best pilot ever, but pilots can be very hard to make amazing simply because you have to spend so much time introducing characters, unless you’re Lost and you simply choose to introduce the characters over time. I’m hooked for now at least.

Why You Should Watch: Andy Richter is hilarious. Tony Hale is hilarious. The show is executive-produced by Conan O’Brien. Conan is hilarious. Nick Cannon is also hilarious, although he isn’t associated with this show. You should watch this show because it’s funny and because I said so otherwise poor Andy Richter may be doomed to walk the earth alone and without much work, kind of like the Incredible Hulk or Norm MacDonald.

So all this talk about Andy Richter and his new show and that brief mention of his old show made me start to get nervous about a potential quick cancellation. I’m not saying this show won’t last, but I have to say, based not only on Andy’s history and on my history of finding shows that I like that get cancelled, I’m a little worried. So I figured why not spend this time giving you a list of my all-time favorite quickly cancelled shows. Now only shows that lasted less than 2 seasons can qualify so shows like Futurama and Arrested Development, which both deserved to be given more time, cannot make this list.

1. Undeclared – Of all the ones on this list, the cancellation of this show is by far the most confounding. Not only was it absolutely amazing, it also seemed that it could have had a very broad appeal. This show wasn’t just for college kids and high school kids, it was also for people who are under 30. Okay I realize that that isn’t the broadest audience ever, but still, this should have been way more popular than it was. (Available on DVD)

2. Clone High USA – Probably the only show I’ve ever seen on MTV that I absolutely loved. It was a cartoon about clones of famous people like JFK, Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, etc. who all went to the same high school together. It was a great satire of the “teen drama” which was really picking up steam around that time. Turns out though, people don’t really like satire that much I guess. (Available on DVD, kind of)

3. Andy Richter Controls The Universe – Andy Richter’s first attempt at a TV show got two half seasons to work with, the first one was good, the second one was amazing. Probably a bit too amazing in fact. I imagine there weren’t a whole lot of people out there who could handle the brilliance that is the following exchange (I’m paraphrasing here, but you’ll still get it)

- This is like that time you thought Hitler was running the coffee cart.
- Well when Hitler comes back he’s not just going to goose-step in.
- When Hitler comes back?

Okay, perhaps you needed to see it happen rather than just read it. Sorry. Well trust me, it was a great show. (Not available on DVD)

4. The Critic – I don’t simply enjoy this show because the Simpsons crossover episode is one of my favorite Simpsons episodes ever, I enjoy it because the Hollywood and television satire is dead-on. And also I really liked that episode where Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a fake movie where he was a rabbi. That was priceless. (Available on DVD)

5. The John Larroquette Show – Now you may be saying that this show lasted four seasons and thus doesn’t qualify for this list, and technically you’d be right. However, anyone who actually watched the show knows that the retooling for season two effectively killed this show, so therefore it’s really like it was only on one season. It may be the most depressing show ever to air, but it was expertly done and it was funny when it needed to be (when it needed to be was whenever you were on the verge of hanging yourself or drinking a whole bottle of Jack Daniels and passing out on your couch loathing your very existence. By the way, I was 12 when this show first aired.) (Not available on DVD)

6. Eyes – I actually wrote a piece a few years back about this show’s cancellation and how much it upset me. Perhaps we didn’t need another show about a wacky team of investigators, and that’s why most people didn’t watch it, but I did and I found it very enjoyable. It was intriguing and well plotted and simply good. ABC disagreed however. They also did think though that a show about a blind police officer was a good idea, so my opinion of this show gains a bit more weight. (Not available on DVD, which is why all five episodes of the show are still on my Tivo to this day)

7. Invasion – Another ABC show that didn’t last (I’m not mad at you ABC, just a bit frustrated. You cancel shows like this one and yet Grey’s Anatomy lives on and now I hear you’re talking about a Grey’s spin-off show and that just makes me want to hurt myself). I found the mystery and the intrigue very interesting and I thought the acting and production values were quite impressive for TV. People probably got scared away though by the fact that it was a bit too X-Files like. I do wish though that they would have at least had some kind of ending rather than the cliffhanger that ended season one. (Available on DVD)

8. Stella – This Comedy Central show about three guys who always wore suits was headed for cancellation practically from its first second of air-time. The show was way too weird to ever last, even on a cable channel like Comedy Central. I found it enjoyable, but I’m really not surprised that I was one of the few who did. (Available on DVD)

9. Reunion – Reunion wasn’t actually that great, especially towards the end, but I’ll always have this terrible empty feeling because I never actually found out which friend killed the other friend. That kind of thing happens after you watch 12 episodes of a show, even if it isn’t that great. Someone please just tell me what happened so I can get on with my life. (Not available on DVD)

10. Love Cruise – This show was actually borderline unwatchable, but I don’t care. Sure it was basically a rip-off of every single dating reality show ever made (but it was on a boat, a love boat! Not to be confused with the other Love Boat show, that’s why they called it Love Cruise. Quite clever, don’t you think?), and sure it was only filler between seasons of the hilarious, yet extremely unfortunate, Temptation Island, but that doesn’t bother me. If it came back on today, I’d watch it. Just keep that in mind, studio execs. (Not available on DVD)

- BEN

Lost Episode Reviews

Stranger in a Strange Land and Tricia Tanaka is Dead aired on February 21 and February 28, 2007, respecitvely.

SPOILER ALERT: I WILL DISCUSS PLOT POINTS HERE, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT THINGS RUINED, THEN AVERT YOUR EYES FROM THE SCREEN

I’m not trying to make this a pattern where I cover two episodes at once, its just sometimes my schedule doesn’t allow me to see an episode in a timely fashion, so I just wait until the next one comes up and then I watch them both together, which by the way is a lot of fun, if you can stand the wait. TV shows like this one are just better when you can watch a few episodes all at once, like for instance if you just bought them on DVD. However, I can’t wait that long simply out of fear that Angeler might spoil it all for me if I did.

Unfortunately for me though, this time the two episodes in a row thing didn’t work out that well, and that was all because the second episode, the one that aired on February 28th, just wasn’t that good. But let me start by talking about the better one, and not just because it aired first.

When I say better though, it is a bit of a relative term. This episode was good, but not as good as promised and not as good as the first two that aired in this “Spring Season” of the show. They really shouldn’t have declared in the promos that there would be three major revelations in this episode, because not only does it distract you by practically forcing you to try and guess what they are, much like how one is distracted by the “twist” ending that we all know is coming in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but also, big claims like that can end up disappointing you when they are revealed, much like I was at the end of this episode.

I have no official confirmation of this, but as far as I can tell, the three revelations in this episode were as follows: 1. The meaning of Jack’s tattoos, 2. What happened to the kidnapped people, and 3. That the Others work on Island 2, and live on Island 1. These might have been interesting if they hadn’t promised beforehand that the revelations were going to be major, because really, other than the second revelation, none of these were that big of a deal (and also they just showed us that the kidnapped people weren’t dead, they didn’t really explain why they were kidnapped or anything). In fact, I joked in my last piece that I assumed that even though they mentioned the tattoos in the promo for this episode that there was no way that the meaning of those tattoos could be one of the three major revelations. Shows what I know. The lesson, as always, aim low and people are rarely every disappointed.

What I did like about this episode though was how much it again strengthened my newfound love of Jack. The guy used to be the most annoying person on the island, but now he kicks ass on a regular basis. I loved how at the beginning part of the episode he wouldn’t help Juliet, even though she was nice to him and even though she helped Kate and Sawyer escape. And then I loved how he fucked with the Others by telling that creepy “sheriff” woman that Juliet hadn’t wanted Ben killed. And then I loved that Jack got Ben to stop Juliet from being killed. He keeps playing everyone, almost as well as Ben played people back when he was a prisoner in the hatch. Maybe it’s the “us versus them” mentality of the show making me like Jack more, but for whatever reason, right now, Jack is creeping toward the top of my favorite Lost character list. (Okay, you twisted my arm, here’s my list: Sayid, Desmond, Sawyer, Jack, Locke, Ben, Juliet. And by the way, the fact that there’s only one woman on that list doesn’t mean I’m gay.)

Last but not least for this episode, why was the woman with tattoo powers (a power by the way that was clearly a reject from Heroes) not allowed to give a tattoo to Jack? Was this like how Solitaire lost her powers of seeing the future once she lost her virginity in the James Bond film, Live and Let Die? Because otherwise, the reaction that Jack got from her brothers was uncalled for. And once again, let me say, her power was stupid.

I’m barely going to even talk about the second episode here because this one was just a bore. Kate and Sawyer return to the main camp and instead of an interesting episode revolving around that story, we were treated to a tale about Hurley wanting to start up a VW van he found in the jungle. Um, all I can say is, what the fuck? Seriously, that was a waste of my time. Sometimes they should just provide a pre-episode warning that the following hour will be one you’ll want back at the end of the show so you should probably just read an episode synopsis online, unless you have nothing better to do. I didn’t really have anything better to do I suppose, but I’d like to think that I do.

Next Week on Lost: Well this is tonight actually, so you don’t have much time to get ready, but here’s what we can expect. We’ll finally get to meet up with the guy with the patch over his eye that we briefly saw on a TV screen in that other hatch Locke found and apparently he has a big secret to hide, one that he probably won’t give up too easily though (i.e. he won’t say it in this episode). And apparently a bad game of chess between Locke and a computer will create mass hysteria or something like that. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I might have to wait longer than most though since I work tonight.

- BEN

There’s an Empty Time Slot in the TV Lineup in My Heart

Tonight at 9pm on Fox they will be airing another episode of their new game show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, which once again asks the question, are you stupid enough to watch? But what this program really signals is that last week’s series finale of The O.C. was real and not just some horrible dream I thought I was having. And this is extremely unfortunate because The O.C. was definitely one of my favorite shows on TV and I am once again forced to lament over the loss of one of my shows while other much worse shows live on, seemingly forever. So please enjoy my two-part tribute to why I’ll miss The O.C.

Part One: Why I’ll Miss The O.C. (Show Specific Reasons)

When The O.C. first came on the air I paid no attention to it whatsoever, despite its popularity. I figured it was another in a long line of crappy Fox shows that was full of melodrama and I simply didn’t have the patience to deal with that. But then for some reason, I decided in late 2005 to give the show a try, first by renting the first season on DVD and then by watching the new episodes, and I was hooked immediately. It turned out that The O.C. wasn’t what I thought it would be at all, but rather more like a show I would create. The show did feature outlandish, preposterous, and sometimes even laughably unreal situations, but instead of over-the-top melodramatic acting done by a cast of attractive, but untalented actors and actresses, it was instead performed by generally talented people, thus making what could have been a horribly bad show, a much better one.

But what really made the show work was its wit and careful self-awareness. The show’s dialogue would often times revel in the absurdity of the constant drama that the characters faced and it did so with such skill that it worked out very well. Few characters in TV shows or movies that are graced with the knowledge of self-awareness end up working out, as they normally mock the show or film so much that you the viewer can’t even respect the work any more (just take a look at the Scooby-Doo movie or really any other movie based on an old property), but The O.C was different. For instance, in a recent episode, Seth joked that after an accident left Ryan needing blood from Seth that if his blood had made Ryan more Seth-like that they could have kept “this” going another few years thanks to the comedic potential of that situation (and by “this” he was referring to the fact that his TV show was almost over, even though its not a TV show to him). The subtly of that line was perfect and that’s why it wasn’t annoying to me. The show did this many other times in other ways (such as the fake TV show that Summer loved which was a fake O.C. or when they made fun of the real-life O.C. show that MTV created by having that happen in their fake world too) and that definitely made it special.

And of course, there was the music. The show became well known, and poorly copied by crap shows like Grey’s Anatomy, for its use of music from smaller, indie bands looking to make a break. But where other shows have used music to just let them write a few less pages of dialogue, by simply having a montage with music to end a show, The O.C. managed to take the music and work it into the show well. Also, the music they chose was a whole lot better than the music that many other shows use. And while I was sad that the final episode of The O.C. didn’t feature any music from Death Cab for Cutie, Seth’s favorite band, I figured it had more to do with the fact that the group is much bigger now, thanks in part to the show, than a bad decision by the show.

The O.C. wasn’t a life-changing show and it wasn’t a revolutionary one for the TV world, but it was good and that’s while I’ll miss it.

Part Two: Why I’ll Miss The O.C. (General Reasons)

As much as I’ll miss The O.C. because it was a quality show, I’ll miss it even more because my TV options are slowly dwindling away, thanks to shows like this one leaving the air and thanks to an influx of new crap, I’m starting to get more and more frustrated by the medium I was in love with only a year or two ago. Today, TV simply just isn’t that good. I figured that after the last few years which launched such shows as Lost, House, Veronica Mars, The Office, and My Name is Earl that we were headed for a renaissance in the TV world. And then Grey’s Anatomy and Criminal Minds became popular shows and things took an immediate nosedive. Right now I’m not even that in love with the shows that I do watch on a regular basis and I figure it will probably only get worse.

Here is how I would have ranked my favorite shows at the beginning of this TV season:

The Office
Lost
Veronica Mars
House
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Prison Break
My Name is Earl
The O.C.
Friday Night Lights
Heroes
Jericho

And now, after a very disappointing TV season so far, here’s how I would rank them:

Lost
My Name is Earl
24
Prison Break
Friday Night Lights
Heroes
The Office
Veronica Mars
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
House
Jericho

So why all the changes, you ask? Well The Office moves way down because this season has been a complete disappointment. After last season, which I figure has to be one of the best seasons of a TV show ever, the show has become a huge disappointment, in large part due to the fact that Michael and Dwight have become caricatures of themselves and thus the whole realistic aspect of the show has disappeared. I suppose I should have seen this coming after fans voted that the Season 2 episode featuring Michael burning his foot on a George Foreman grill and then Dwight getting a concussion was their favorite, because that episode was completely absurd, unlike most of the other episodes of the show which seemed somewhat believable. But now that episode seems to pale in comparison to the ridiculousness we see these days.

Veronica Mars has slipped on the list because instead of being a cool, smart, and clever mystery, it has turned in to a rather predictable and often plot hole filled program with less edge and more melodrama. Perhaps this is because they paired the show with The Gilmore Girls or perhaps its because the show’s producers realized that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they were going to need to make the show more mainstream (i.e. stupider). Either way, I’m kind of glad that the show won’t be on for a few weeks now, especially after the lame way the last “big” mystery ended.

As for the new shows that I have started watching this TV season, I often times catch myself wondering why I watch them. Jericho is a show I can’t decide whether to stop watching or keep watching all the time and that’s because they can’t decide whether they want the show to be awesome or a melodramatic piece of garbage. But I can tell you, on a regular basis I say to myself, “if next week’s episode isn’t better, I’m done with this show.”

Heroes is somewhat enjoyable at times and it manages to be okay even when its not because it seems to do things the Max Power way (the wrong way, but faster). Honestly though, its not that great, even though it could have been.

And while I do find myself liking Friday Night Lights more and more these days, thanks to the excellent camera work and editing and the brilliant performances by many of its actors, I do get irritated by its constant pushing of the hot issues buttons (teenage sex, underage drinking, steroids, racism, etc.) and then only having those issues be important for 1-2 episodes, as if a problem with racism or steroid use by high school athletes goes away that quickly and has no lingering effects.

So now you can see why the loss of The O.C. stings just a bit more than the loss of one of my lower ranked favorite shows. It isn’t simply that I’m losing something that I liked to watch, its also that I’m feeling like my tastes are so much different than the rest of the population at large and because of that I’m doomed to be disappointed every single TV season while fans of CSI and all its various incarnations only get more and more to enjoy. I guess what I’m saying is, sometimes I wish I were stupid.

- BEN