Star Trek: The Enemy Within

Kirk: "I'll kill you."
Kirk: "Can half a man live?"

And it's the sci-fi/fantasy show staple: the evil double.

When I first started reviewing this episode, I couldn't stop writing about its flaws. The use of the transporter to either screw things up -- or fix things -- was overdone in Star Trek, and made no scientific sense whatsoever. (I remember a Mad magazine parody showing Kirk materializing with his foot sticking out of his head.) The dog had a horn that kept moving around, and where did the dog come from? The planet where the temperature goes down a couple of hundred degrees below zero every night? And (here's the big one) how much sense did it make that a huge starship with a large crew wouldn't have a backup to the transporter, like the shuttlecrafts that show up later in the series?

But Star Trek is not a documentary. It's a science fiction show created in the 1960s with an extremely low budget, and when television special effects was in its infancy. I've always thought that "The Enemy Within" was an exceptional episode, for one specific reason: how the division of self was handled.

Kirk wasn't just divided into "good" and "evil"; Kirk-positive was gentle, compassionate and courageous, but also indecisive, forgetful and apathetic, a pale reflection of his usual dynamic self. Kirk-negative was passionate, violent, willful, childish, a liar and a potential rapist -- but when he walked onto the bridge, he took command without hesitation. (I'm tempted to say that overacting is a negative characteristic, too.)

I'm not a fan of William Shatner's, but I have to give him credit for this performance because he just went for it. Kirk-positive and Kirk-negative were as different as he could possibly make them with his voice, expression, and body language (with the assistance of eyeliner, perspiration, and camera angles). I've always particularly liked the way the Kirk-positive held Kirk-negative in his arms, literally and symbolically embracing and acknowledging the worst in himself.

Spock, a divided being himself, was so fascinated with the changes going on in Kirk that he was actually rude -- gleefully analyzing what went into making Kirk an exceptional leader, and what each half was lacking. Kirk-positive didn't seem offended, and leaned pretty hard on Spock. Actually, he should have turned command over to Spock as soon as they knew what had happened. But that would have taken the drama out of the double Kirk confrontation on the bridge, and we couldn't have that.

Ben says...

First thought, BEST ALIEN DOG EVER! Seriously, that daggit on Battlestar classic is so lame in comparison, and don't get me started on Archer's beagle. Smallville’s Krypto the Superdog would obviously be a frontrunner, but renaming him Shelby? Really? Shelby?!? Sorry, I have to get back to Star Trek.

Second thought, this episode is like Nietzsche with Orange Dogs (okay, I got to get over that dog, how about: Freud with Transporter Accidents). This may be one of the single most influential episodes of the whole series. Seriously, this is a moral lesson of the first order about the violence inherent in us and the importance of harnessing it. While this is certainly a common theme in a lot of modernist thought, I suspect that a whole generation of us took more away from this one hour of TV than from all of our college reading in philosophy, psychology and history combined. In fact, it's so common a theme that I think that it colors all our views of politicians. If a politician can lead and make things happen they are probably evil, but if they give half a damn about people they are dishwater weak incompetents. Could we maybe run Dennis Kucinich and Dick Cheney through the transporter together, Denick Kuciney for President!

Back to Billie for bits and pieces:

-- Star date 1672.1. Specimen-gathering on Alpha 177.

-- Couldn't they have beamed down a shelter of sorts? Environmental suits? Lots and lots of blankets? Something to burn and several packs of matches? And seriously, what about hot coffee? Yes, heaters came down duplicated and broken, but wouldn't hot coffee still be drinkable, plus there'd be twice as much of it?

-- There were some nice bits suggesting mirroring. When Kirk-positive first materialized, he turned the wrong way when he tried to leave the transporter room. Kirk-negative materialized facing backward, which also nicely symbolized what he was.

-- Kirk-negative went to Sick Bay to pick up a bottle of Saurian brandy before attacking Janice Rand in her quarters. Why Sick Bay? Does Bones like a nip now and then? Is it medicinal? The bottle certainly had an unusual shape, too. Somewhat phallic, wouldn't you say?

-- It's only the fifth episode, and Janice Rand was assaulted a second time. I think I'd take the hint, transfer out, and take my basket weave hair with me. I also thought Spock telling Janice that the "imposter" had some interesting characteristics was sort of mean, like, don't you wish he'd actually raped you?

-- This was the second time in a row that the restraints in Sick Bay were used. They were probably still warm from Sulu.

-- The suede phaser gunbelts were cool-looking. It's a shame they stopped wearing them.

-- Geological technician Fisher's job title was such a mouthful that he couldn't get it out quickly enough while trying to summon help.

-- This episode was written by sci-fi master Richard Matheson.

Quotes:

Sulu: "Do you think you might be able to find a long rope somewhere and lower us down a pot of hot coffee?"
Kirk-positive: "I'll see what we can do."
Sulu: "Rice wine will do if you're short on coffee."

McCoy: (about the dog) "He's dead, Jim."

Even with its flaws, this is a powerful and popular episode. Four out of four pots of hot coffee,

Billie

All of our Star Trek reviews are archived here.
Original air date: October 6, 1966
Season 1, episode 5

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About Us: Josie Kafka

Here's the next installment in our silly "meet the writers" series.

What area of the world do you live in, and what do you do? (Because we all know you don't make any money doing this.)

I live in LA. I’m a mercenary: I’ll do anything that requires a smallish bit of intelligence, as long as it pays. Sound awful, I know, but it’s an improvement over the times when I would do anything for money, no matter how dumb.

What show or shows are you covering on the site?

I review Chuck, Fringe, and The Vampire Diaries. Until last week, I also reviewed FlashForward. I just started on The Vampire Diaries, so new reviews will go up over the summer as the episodes become available. I also love to review pilots: it’s like sleeping with someone on the first date. Someone you never plan to see again.

Oh, dear... now I’m reading into the subtext of this question: Will I ever finish reviewing The Dark Tower? Yes, I really want to. Book reviews take me a lot longer than TV reviews, though, so I’ll ask the Stephen King fans out there to bear with me a while longer. (Hey, it took King himself over 20 years to finish the series. I can do better than that.)

Fill in the blanks: "If ______ weren't already doing a great job, I would review _____."

Even though I love Lost and Supernatural, I don’t want to review them: reading Billie’s reviews are part of the viewing experience for me, and I would hate to lose that. I don’t watch Jess’s shows or Paul’s shows because I don’t have cable—although I plan to get it once Game of Thrones starts airing next year (!!!). Serena’s Glee reviews are awesome, but I don’t know enough about musical theatre to review Glee myself. And Dimitri could review soap and still make me laugh.

What's your favorite television show of all time? (Okay, top five will do if you can't narrow it down to one.) What was the first show you fell in love with? What show would you consider to be your guilty pleasure?

Buffy changed my life. I had quit watching TV when I was 17, and enjoyed 7 blissful years of reading high-quality literature and being all smart and stuff. Then I found myself living in a town I didn’t much enjoy, friendless, helpless, hopeless—and dead broke, but with just enough income to afford a Netflix subscription. I queued up the first disc of Buffy as something of a joke, and realized that TV wasn’t what I had always thought: actually, it could be just as good as a novel—with pretty people, to boot. [Bonus points to the first reader to figure out which movie I just stole a quote from.]

A few years ago, I would have said Buffy was my favorite. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to connect more with Angel (living in LA probably helps), although I haven’t re-watched it for a couple of years. I’m incredibly impressed by Supernatural, but I haven’t had a chance to watch it again: will it stand up to a second viewing? I certainly hope so. I love Lost, but I love it for the complexity of its philosophical ideas and the way it plays with narrative. I’m less enamored of its characterization, which is what I love most about Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural, and what keeps me engrossed in those shows even after I know how they end (that last bit doesn’t apply to SPN, obviously).

Does The Vampire Diaries not count as a guilty pleasure, now that I’ve started reviewing it? Okay, then: Gossip Girl. That’s right—Gossip Girl. It’s not as good as The O.C., though. (I have no shame.)

Who's your favorite male television character? Same question for female. Favorite television theme song?

Spike and Wesley (the dark version) from Buffy/Angel; Dean Winchester from Supernatural; Sayid and Sawyer from Lost; Logan from Veronica Mars. Is there a trend here?

Willow and Joyce from Buffy; Fred and Lilah from Angel; Juliet from Lost; Veronica Mars; Zoe from Firefly.

TV theme song: I’m not sure this counts, but the 15 seconds of noise that assaults our ears at the beginning of each episode of The Shield just might be it.

What character do you identify with the most, and why?

Wesley in all of his incarnations. Well, I aspire to be as cool as he is in “Reign of Fire.” But we all need to have dreams, don’t we?

Is it weird to identify across gender? I’d love to hear from other female viewers: do you feel like female characters are well-developed enough to relate to?

We love movies, too. What are your top five movies?

The Usual Suspects, The Departed, The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, The Long Goodbye. But the first three are head and shoulders above the rest, in my book.

We love books, too. Who are your favorite authors? What are you reading right now?

Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Charles Dickens. I admire Michael Chabon’s attempts to bring plot back to high-brow literature, and I think he’s making great, albeit slow, progress with that goal. I don’t have much tolerance for books without stories anymore.

Having said that: Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories—if you haven’t read them yet, stop reading this blog and run to the bookstore. They’ll wake up something inside you that you didn’t know was sleeping. I’m not a fan of The Namesake, though.

Vladimir Nabokov. Milan Kundera. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Walter Scott. Umberto Eco’s early stuff. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The poetry of Wallace Stevens, in slow luxurious bites. Fernando Pessoa, in tiny sips. I could write this list for hours.

Right now, I’m reading L.A. Noir by John Buntin, about Mickey Cohen and William H. Parker in LA's dark days; Dennis Lehane’s Any Given Day; Steve Johnson’s The Ghost Map, about a cholera epidemic in London that led to the development of modern epidemiology; Neil Harris’s Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum; and Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. I’ve been reading that last one for over a year; I’m still on the first chapter. I read non-fiction much more slowly than fiction, because non-fiction is rarely nail-biting.

I’ve read some great kid’s lit recently: Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron, and Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. The Incarceron sequel comes out in the US in December; the next Collins, in August. I hope to review both series when they’re complete, because I think all you genre fans will like them, too.

When did you realize you were a hopeless geek?

Nothing hopeless about it.

If you were an animal, what would you be?

A sea turtle.

What's your sign?

Stop. Or maybe, Yield. Depends on my mood.

What's in your iPod/MP3 player?

I don’t have one. But Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are currently keeping me company while driving.

What's your least favorite chore around the house?

Putting the clean clothes away. I usually just have piles: pile o’ clean clothes, pile o’ dirty clothes. Sometimes there’s an ambiguous pile, as well. I just hide the piles in my closet when I have company. Please don't tell my mother.

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Coffee. That’s also my favorite flavor of vegetable, meat, and friend.

Cats or dogs? Elvis or the Beatles? Sam or Dean?

Cats. Beatles. Dean.

Next week: Jess Lynde!

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NewsFlash: Dennis Hopper, 1936-2010

Dennis Hopper passed away today at the age of 74 from complications related to prostate cancer. Here is a great explanation of the course of his career (from his wild days to his less-wild days). Here's another one. And another one. Let's thank the man who brought the counter-culture to everyone else's attention. Rock n' roll will never die. ... Read full post

FlashForward: Future Shock

“It’s a math problem, right? How would it possibly tie all of those things together?”

The math problem of the week is how to get one train headed towards Chicago to crash with another train headed towards Detroit before the 10 year-old gets sick of doing word problems for homework. The easiest way to cause all the necessary FlashCrashes to happen at precisely the right time? Change the variables, change the constants, change the relationships of distance, rate, and time. Re-write the problem.


Olivia and Lloyd were suitably awkward, even after he convinced her to re-enact their flashes (with clothes on). At some point during a commercial break, though, Olivia bowed down to the great god of fate and decided that she and Lloyd were having a special moment. Or maybe I should say: the writers changed all the problems of their relationship. As much as I like both actors, and even the chemistry they have together, theirs was not an organic kiss.

Really, it was orchestrated by Gaius Baltar, who kept urging them to get their equation on. And I just realized that Gaius Baltar is the most brilliant part of this series: he is not a real person. He is a show-writer inserted into the narrative to get it back on track, a wildcard whose magical and impenetrable directives can force people into unnatural situations. My goodness, who knew that all along there was an actual agent of destiny interacting with our characters and standing in for the creators?

Gaius played with the strings (see, even an implicit puppet-master thing there) on Mark’s board to spell out the time of the next flashforward. Only a FF writer would do such a thing and substitute irrelevant mysteries for honest interactions and communications between characters. Or, if you’re not buying my meta-fantasy: wow, what an absurd plot device ex insane person. (Ditto the person who accessed the large hydron accelerator from off-site to cause an other blackout.)

Back to the issues at hand: Bryce said that everything was meant to be. He’s meant to be with Keiko. In fact, he loves her. But the truth is, he doesn’t know her. The only thing that was meant to be is him meeting Keiko, and any sense of fate or destiny is just the fate or destiny geared towards their meeting: anything else is unknown. The feeling of satisfaction, of a long-awaited resolution that surely permeated his flash? It is caused by the flash itself. But that might be over-thinking things: it’s not a realization the characters have, which means it’s not a realization we’re supposed to have.

The candy striper wasn’t being killed in her flash. She was being saved. That’s nice for her. Other flashes were slightly different: Mark didn’t drink from his FlashFlask, although he might have still had a good buzz on; Olivia and Lloyd were clothed and hadn’t just had sex; Weddick was packin’ heat in the john; Janis is giving birth to a boy (and has been kidnapped). What about Zoe’s flash? I have no idea. Demitri and Simon got to be flash-less together, but any possible awesomeness of two cool actors hanging out in a room was ruined by the fact that, ultimately, they were only in that room so we could know for sure the flash was about to happen again, and Simon was given some incredibly hackneyed dialogue

The mystery of the flashes is still not clear to me. Why did the bad guys want to blow up Mosaic? Why would the bad guys send their own people into a building minutes before it was set to explode? What’s the point of the flashes? How do they have so much power?

As far as episodes go, this was not-great. As far as season finales go, it was okay: it got us past the flashes and set up both cliffhangers and future mysteries. As far as series finales go? Weird and useless. We don’t even know if Mark is dead. (That is not the show’s fault: they filmed this well in advance of knowing they were canceled.) I did enjoy the improbable shoot-out.

The big reveal? The next blackout happens 14 minutes after the time of the original flashforward. That flash was confusingly orchestrated, as it didn’t follow any particular person. The last scene, of Charlie as older, seems to indicate that they flashed at least five years into the future. The shot of Olivia and Lloyd holding their kids was really sweet. And then the FBI blew up. And then the show was over. Oh.


Flashes:

• The security guard wanting a bribe was awesome. She’s not buying the sappy sob-story.

• How on earth did Demitri, Janis, and Simon drive all the way to Palo Alto so quickly?

• Weddick: “I’ve been so preoccupied with the flashforward lately that I haven’t had time to see what’s going on with you.”
Mark: “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your priorities lately.”
This was funny. But it wasn’t in character for Mark to realize that his problems are not the world’s problems.

• Olivia: “How does this work? Just take our positions at 10 o’clock, wait for your breakthrough?”
Lloyd: “Yeah, I think I’ll keep my shirt on this time.”

• That Other Agent: “He’s in the building, with the bombs. Where I left my car keys.”

• Demitri: “That’s cute? Is it physics humor?”

• Demitri and Simon drinking beers was weird. But kinda cool, too. Especially because it was followed by this alliterative rant:

• Simon: “I won’t let them do this to me, Demitri! I won’t let them turn me into a monster! To use my machine, my mind! Millions of people, Demitri! Millions of people don’t deserve to die!” Aaaargh, I say! Aaargh!

• Dogs don’t have flashes? That poor puppy must have been so confused. At least he had a jacket to keep him warm. Maybe he and the kangaroo can be friends.

Thoughts on the Season

We all wanted FlashForward to be the next Lost. It wasn’t. I still think that it started off strong and interesting: the early combination of mysteries, character development, and lite philosophy was effective, and I was excited about watching and reviewing it each week. (And excited about Billie’s reviews when we were switching up.) But new showrunners did not mean good things: post-hiatus, FlashForward lost its mojo. The characters became caricatures. The mysteries were revealed awkwardly, and too many arcs (both character arcs and plot arcs) were cut short, changed, or given silly answers. The dialogue became 100% exposition. Mark turned into a John Wayne parody. Question of fate, free will, and foreknowledge became in-your-face answers, usually accompanied by gunfire and explosions. The masked enemy seemed alternately all-knowing and stupid, and the overall goal of the bad guys is so ambiguous I don’t even know what to say about it. I really do think crazy Gaius Baltar mimics the state of mind the writers must have been in: frantically trying to make things happen they way they wanted them to, with no particular reasoning behind that, and with no natural way to make it happen.


One out of four kangaroos.


(Season One, Episode Twenty-Two)
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Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth (1)

Amy: “Oh please, have you always been this disgusting?”
Doctor: “No, it's recent.”

I've been looking forward to this episode ever since I heard of Chris Chibnall's involvement in it. His writing pedigree is such that, an episode written by him, commands immediate respect. Life on Mars and Torchwood were great shows (with Chibnall's episode's usually high points). I'll admit, I wasn't overly impressed with his first attempt at a Doctor Who script (season three's “42”). It had too much in common with “Planet of Evil”. But “Fragments” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” are two of my favourite Torchwood episodes ever. So I know the guy can write.

To some degree, this whole episode felt like an homage to the Pertwee era. The return of the Silurians was the most obvious tip of that hat. But there was also the TARDIS landing in the wrong place, at the wrong time (as was the norm in Worzel's day), not to mention the mining plot, which shared many story elements with 1970's episode “Inferno” (i.e. a team of science boffins, drilling through the earth's crust, attempting to mine its rare resources... etc). And the idea of brokering a peace between the Silurians and mankind was an idea first explored in the imaginatively named "Doctor Who and the Silurians". I guess, after 47 years, it's only natural a show's going to repeat itself.

As someone who remembers the Silurians from the "good old days", I have to say, the years have been kind to them. I remember their old look, vividly. Particularly their wibby-wobbly hands. Thankfully, since their last appearance in "Warriors of the Deep", the art of prosthetics has come on in leaps and bounds; meaning that -- visually, at least -- the modern day Silurians are a vast improvement over their latex-clad ancestors. The addition of CGI, however, was less impressive. I'm pretty sure we could have done without that tongue lashing out. What on earth was that about? It looked dreadful.

Whether the Silurians are a strong enough adversary to carry a two part story, I guess time will tell. It's hard to judge after just one episode. I like them in theory. I know aliens trying to take over the earth is a relatively jaded concept. But having the Silurians pre-date humanity is an interesting twist, raising the age-old ethical question: who has the legal right to claim it as their home? Its native (albeit hibernating) inhabitants, or the current (albeit long-residing) populace.

They even gave us a lady Silurian! Alaya was kind of hot, too. A reptile with breasts? Works for me! Oddly enough, I found Neve McIntosh more attractive in character (prosthetics and all) than as a normal person. I'm not sure what that says about me. Nothing good, I suspect.

And I hate to keep banging the Matt Smith drum, but, he was brilliant again tonight. When is he going to be crap so I can slate him? Intellectually, the Doctor's a giant; but Smith's boyish exterior fools you into thinking he lacks experience. And at times there's this vulnerability about him. I was quite moved when he said to Rory “I need you by my side”. It's as though he thrives on having good people around him.

There's nothing of Tennant's messianic hero about Smith's Doctor. When Ambrose started laying into the Doctor for losing Elliot, I kept trying to picture in my mind Tennant acting out the same scene. I couldn't. Smith takes what's written on the page and makes it breathe in a way that's completely unique to him. Behind all that bluster, there's this wide-eyed innocence. But sometimes, his Doctor's so focused on the chaos going on around him, he loses sight of the fact that the humans aren't seeing things the same way he does. He forgets he's there to protect them. When he was being scolded by Ambrose, his face was an absolute picture. He looked so guilty... so young; like a naughty schoolboy in front of an irate headmistress. But underneath the surface there's still that sense of menace, bubbling away; most notably present when he refused to take up arms against the Silurians.

Amy had a quiet episode in comparison. But what we did get of her was both claustrophobic and unsettling. Her getting sucked into the earth was bad enough. Did they really have to incarcerate her in a glass container and then gas her as well? (*shudders*) I did laugh at her "are you shushing me?" outburst. Goodness knows where the bravado came from. I'd have been screaming the place down. And I don't know whether anyone else's noticed tonight, but Amy smiles a lot around the Doctor. Every time he does something eccentric she has this big grin on her face. Which is more than can be said for Rory. He spent much of tonight's episode thoroughly miffed at the Doctor. After the promise of Brazil, Wales must have been a bit of a let down. And the Doctor losing Amy didn't help matters.

I wasn't overly impressed with Meera Syal contribution. Her portrayal of Nasreen Chowdry felt lacklustre; though whether that was because of uninspiring dialogue, or mediocre acting, I'm not altogether sure. I did enjoy her solitary clap at the Doctor's motivational speech, however (quickly followed by a close examination of her nails). But her romance with Tony lacked any real impact. I hope it's not some weak set-up for an "unexpected" death next week.

In summary, a decent enough episode, without being particularly memorable.

Bits and Pieces:

-- I wonder if Elliot's dyslexia will have any significance later in the story? It may just be a character trait. But they did draw our attention to it several times.

-- Nice use of silence when Elliot asked the Doctor whether he missed home.

-- How does Alaya know who's going to kill her? Is that third eye in there somewhere... giving the Silurians new abilities?

-- Syal's the second member of the Goodness Gracious Me team to turn up in Doctor Who this season. Nina Wadia played the part of Dr Ramsden in “The Eleventh Hour”. I wonder when Sanjeev Bhaskar and Kulvinder Ghir are going to turn up for some steak and kidney pea (sic).

-- What's going on with Tony? His shoulder was all green (not to be confused with Al Green). Obviously that completely unrealistic Silurian tongue packed a venomous punch. I'd love to venomously punch whoever was responsible for that crappy CGI.

-- The Silurians settlement looked lovely. I know I've been knocking The Mill a lot of late (most recently in the sentence above), but nice job chaps.

-- Amy seems able to integrate herself seamlessly into whatever situation she finds herself in. Rory, by comparison, always seems lost at sea. He was even intellectually bested by a ten year old boy tonight. Oh, the shame, Rory.

-- Nice catapult. It reminded me of the Doctor pulling out that water pistol back in season four's “The Fires of Pompeii”. The amount of crap he must have in those pockets.

-- Why did Rory make such a song and dance about Amy's engagement ring? Was it just a plot device to draw him away from the main pack? Or is there something else going on, of which we're not yet privy?

-- Will future Rory and future Amy's presence turn out to be important later, I wonder? There were quite a few strange things thrown in tonight. They must surely be there for a reason.

-- What was all that nonsense about Amy dressing for Rio? She always wears short skirts, doesn't she?

-- Mo was reading “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson.

Quotes:

Doctor: “Behold... Rio!”
Amy: “Nu-uh!”
Rory: “Not really getting the sunshine carnival vibe.”

Amy: “Oh please, have you always been this disgusting?”
Doctor: “No, it's recent.”

Nasreen: “What are you doing here and what are you wearing?”
Amy: “I dressed for Rio.”

Doctor: “Ministry of Drills, Earth and Science. New Ministry, quite big, just merged. There's a lot of responsibility on our shoulders. Don't like to talk about it.”

Amy: “What's pulling me? What's under the earth? I don't want to suffocate down there.”

Tony: “You're not making any sense, man.”
Doctor: “Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up.”

Elliot: “I can't do the words, I'm dyslexic.”
Doctor: “Oh, that's okay. I can't make a decent meringue.”

Elliot: “Have you met monsters before?”
Doctor:”Yes.”
Elliot: “You scared of them?”
Doctor: “No, they're scared of me.”

Rory: “Can't you sonic it?”
Doctor: “Its doesn't do wood.”
Rory: “That is rubbish.”
Doctor: “Oy, don't diss the sonic.”

Amy: "Did you just shush me?"

Doctor: “Oh I do hate a monologue. Give us a bit back. How many are you?”

Alaya: “I'm the last of my species.”
Doctor: “No you're really not. Because I'm the last of my species and I know how it sits in a heart.”

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Lost: The End - Musings from a Non-Lostie

Unlike many of you on this site - writers and readers - I'm not a rabid Lost fan. I know, hard to believe those exist, right? I followed it obsessively the first season, pulled my hair out during the second, and then decided that the only way to enjoy it for what it is was to wait until each season was over, and watch the episodes all in a row. I never had theories on what the Island was, didn't get any of the number stuff unless people pointed it out to me, and had no clue what an Easter egg was - much less, tried to interpret from it. As I often say in my Glee reviews, I don't want to think when I watch TV, I just want to enjoy it.

Yet, the Lost finale has got to be one of the most haunting episodes of television that I've seen in as long as I can remember. Was it intellectually satisfying? No. I didn't have a clue what the Island was until I started reading all the blogs and reviews the next day. Did I roar in frustration at the ending? I'm pretty sure that my dog is still hiding under the couch from Sunday night. But I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop feeling it. Somehow, something has ... shifted.

The End of an Era
Part of it is that, with the finales of Lost, 24, and Law & Order this year, it really does mark the end of an era. Fan or not, these three shows defined and influenced television for the better part of the last decade. With the premier of Lost and Desperate Housewives 6 years ago, ABC firmly reestablished itself as a major player amongst the broadcast networks. Not only that, it redefined our expectations of a good show, and became a major leader in emotionally compelling storytelling. Since I hated Friends and Seinfeld, and don't take my teeth out every night, NBC and CBS never held much appeal for me, respectively.

Lost and 24 mainstreamed my personal favorite type of television - serialized story arcs. Before then, yes, there were fantastic shows such as Buffy, but those shows tended to be on smaller networks (UPN), or cable. Lost and 24 (initially, at least) brought back intelligent storytelling, and didn't treat the viewer like your typical Glenn Beck fan. Lost and 24 made the small screen just as hot as movies. Suddenly, actors like Gary Sinise, Glenn Close, Alec Baldwin, Edward James Olmos were following Kiefer Sutherland (dammit!) into what had previously been seen as the wasteland for failed movie stars. In fact, stars are going onto TV to prove themselves as respectable actors - 22 episodes allows you a lot more room to develop a character than 120 minutes.

Musings on The End...
But it was more than just the end of a cultural landmark. The reveal about what the Flash Sideways really was stunned me. Not so much out of surprise, because when I think back now about Season 6, it makes a lot of sense. I was shocked because it really hammered home that Jack was dead. Sun and Jin were dead. Sayid was dead. There was no magical, happy world where they continued to exist after death on the Island. OK, there was, but it wasn't real, they weren't alive.

At first, I was pretty disappointed. Not only did I not get a single answer about what that frakking Island was, but they didn't even have a happy ending! I make no pretense about wanting my tv/music/culture to be realistic and gritty. If I wanted to be depressed, I'd read the news, not listen to Fiona Apple. I wanted a freaking happy ending. I wanted Kate to be with Jack. I wanted them to "live" happily ever after. I wanted them all to live happily ever after.

My only consolation was that, at least it wasn't BSG. Purgatory, heaven - those had all been prominent themes in Lost; it didn't feel completely random like Starbuck disappearing. (Yes, I'm still bitter about that.)

... and After
But there's a beauty about the "afterlife" construction of Flash Sideways that really touched me. I'm Catholic, and I believe in Heaven, so I wasn't as thrown off by the blatant Jesus references like many sci-fi fans tend to be. I also sort of-kind of believe in Hell and Purgatory - personally, I think that life on Earth is kind of it. If you don't make it your first life, you keep getting recycled back in others here until you "redeem" yourself. (Just as an aside, I'm strongly influenced by Jean Paul Satre's No Exit in my view of what Hell is.)

So the Island as Purgatory always made sense to me, regardless of how the writers intended it. But Purgatory has a strongly negative connotation - you're not here, you're not there, it's like having a mullet. So does the idea that souls who were killed or done wrong cannot rest until they are avenged, a la Sixth Sense. You're still stuck. And for the most part, you can't do anything about it - you need Jennifer Love Hewitt to help you move on, or something absurd like that.

Why the flash Sideways is so compelling, then, is that not only does it reunite you with the ones you love - rather a given for Heaven, if you ask me - but it gives you the chance to work out your issues and put your souls to rest. Like the characters on Lost, most of us are deeply flawed, and most of our regrets come from what we ourselves can, can't, did, didn't, or should do. Most of us - God willing - don't suffer from a violent death, where you need to be avenged; when you look back upon your life, it is really our own conscience that we struggle with, not the actions of others.

So the beauty of Lost is that, with this, after-ish life, we are in control of our destiny beyond what we do in the living world. I mean, if you only have 2 choices - Heaven or Hell, the decision is going to be based on the sum of your life. If the only way to get into Heaven was to be perfectly good all the time, God must be a pretty lonely dude up there. So regardless of what our lives end up to be on balance, there's a good chance that there are still issues that you haven't worked out when you die. And, at least for me, the resolutions that stay with me are the ones that I figure out on my own.

Look, I'm not a terribly deep person, and I admit that. I loved Sawyer because he's hot, I like Britney because she's bouncy, and I literally will leave a room if people start discussing politics or religion. I want to be happy, not right. So the fact that Lost stayed at the forefront of my mind for almost a week is really saying something.

Does it make me reevaluate my faith, my science, or my worldview? Not necessarily. But it does give me another layer to think about. It also, honestly, made me think about my priorities in life. If I have a Flash Sideways, I want it to be with the people I love, not my job or a stupid title. And that means I need to focus on building and strengthening those connections, not just get promoted.

Aha! Now It All Makes Sense!
So now I look back on Season 6, and I have to say, the writers were quite brilliant. Not necessarily even, from a storytelling perspective, but really quite clever in how they handled the "awakenings". If you notice, the major reunifications involve someone who'd already died. Libby, Charlie, Shannon, Locke, Daniel and Charlotte, and of course, Sun and Jin. I never noticed how many characters lost their mate, their loved one until I saw all these couples back together. (I argue that Locke was Ben's soulmate - not romantically, but from an intellectual and spiritual equal perspective.)

It also makes sense why everyone familiar was converging all in one place. Even for Lost, it's pretty implausible that everyone from one flight ends up at the hospital at the same time. The character connections in the flashbacks occurred throughout the course of their lives. Yes, they were all connected in some way - spiritually - but still.

On a completely unrelated note, I loved that the final fight was between Jack and Locke. It was always about Jack and Locke. That it wasn't really Locke didn't matter; the symmetry was poetic.

So. Do I know what the Island was? Sort of, yes intellectually, but not really. It didn't connect for me, it's more like trivia I read on Wikipedia. Do I understand what happened as a consequence of Jughead? Do I know why they were time traveling, why it stopped, and how Good/Evil/Light/Bad/Smoke Monster has to do with time travel? Frankly, I don't even understand the last sentence I just wrote. But now, upon reflection, I find the Lost finale to be more than emotionally satisfying - it stirred my heart, my brain, and my soul.

It took me 5 days to get there, but now, I love it. That, my friends, is amazing television in my book.

A Final "Thank You": Like many of you, I found this site because of Billie's reviews of Lost and Buffy. I want to take a moment and thank you, Billie. There have been many a-times where I've been unconfused about this show, and many more, thanks to your fantastic reviews. And now that I'm written a few of my own, I can genuinely appreciate how much talent goes into writing not only an insightful review, but a succinct and entertaining one as well.
... Read full post

Star Trek: The Naked Time

Spock: "We have three days to live over again."
Kirk: "Not those last three days."

This episode is so beloved by fans that later Star Trek series incarnations deliberately recreated it. And there's a good reason why: you learn a lot about someone when you get drunk with them. In this episode, we got drunk with most of the crew, and had a fabulous time. Well, except for the six deaths on the planet, Joe Tormolen's suicide by butter knife, and nearly crashing the Enterprise into Psi 2000.

What did we learn about the crew? Lots of fun stuff. Sulu sees himself as a nineteenth century swashbuckler, and has a rather amazing chest. Kirk is seriously stressed and pressured by his job, and has a thing for Yeoman Rand. (The attraction escapes me.) Nurse Christine is madly in love with Spock, and knows how little chance she has with him. (That attraction doesn't escape me.)

The highlight is Spock's crying jag in Briefing Room 2. Beneath his ultra cool exterior, Spock is concealing an emotional maelstrom. He's sorry he can't love Christine back, sorry he could never tell his mother he loved her, ashamed that he feels friendship for Kirk. Marvelous performance by Leonard Nimoy. There's a reason that Spock was such a huge sex symbol with the geeks in the sixties and seventies.

This was the first time we saw Spock do his famous neck pinch. We also saw Scotty in the "Jeffries Tube" for the first time, and everyone falling out of their seats when the ship broke free of the planet. Practically everyone in the cast took a turn at the helm or at navigation. To top it off, they accidentally discovered time travel. Quite a nice payoff, and terrific set-up for future episodes.

If you're new to Star Trek and you don't like this episode or the next one ("The Enemy Within"), give it up. You're not going to like the rest of the series, either.

Ben says...

Okay repeat after me, in a potential biohazard zone we keep our gloves ON!

That said, this is as much fun as you can have with a biohazard. I loved this episode as a kid and I love it now. It really is drunk people will be drunk people. Some are fun (Sulu), some will find trouble no matter what (Riley), some are morose and brooding (Spock) and some get their freak on (Nurse Chapel), but none should be allowed to pilot a star ship drunk. Riley has perhaps the best line of an episode full of great lines with, "No dance tonight" (been there, buddy). It's atypical of Star Trek with its lack of a deep message or theme (which is part of what made Star Trek good science fiction, if not always great TV). However, this is one of the few first season episodes that features serious character development and it establishes character traits that stay with us throughout the series and beyond. Spock completes his transformation from the character in "The Cage" who was distinguished by yelling and pointy ears to one of the most beloved (and lusted after) characters in sci-fi history. But I think the best development may well have been with Uhura. She establishes herself as someone who could hold her own with the male cast in the one scene with Sulu, and ensures that her future on the show is as something other than an African American Yeoman Rand.

Back to Billie for bits and pieces:

-- Star date 1704.2. The planet was named Psi 2000.

-- Riley (in a lovely performance by guest star Bruce Hyde) serenaded the crew from Engineering. I've always particularly liked how he punched buttons as accompaniment, and blew on doors to open them.

-- We learn that the warp engines are powered by a controlled implosion of matter and antimatter.

-- The environmental suits that Joe so idiotically circumvented were made from repurposed shower curtains. Unfortunately, they looked like they were made from repurposed shower curtains.

-- It was confirmed that Spock's blood is indeed green. (And yet, his lips are pink. They should be chartreuse, shouldn't they?) Spock is also a lot stronger than Kirk; when he hit him, Kirk practically flew across the room. Ouch.

-- The guy who replaced Sulu on the bridge may had had the worst reading of lines in the entire series.

-- Sulu's remarkable chest deserves a second mention. Spock looked good in a form-fitting tank top, too.

-- Christine's hairdo was pretty extreme, especially for a nurse who was on duty. I know they were just trying to be futuristic, but most of the exotic female hairstyles looked like they were about to go trick-or-treating.

-- In case you're new to all this, Christine was played by Majel Barrett, who was married to creator and executive producer Gene Roddenberry. Majel Barrett Roddenberry was in nearly every incarnation of Trek, as Number One in "The Cage", Lwaxana Troi in Next Gen, and the voice of the main computer in nearly everything.

Quotes:

Kirk: "In a critical orbit, there's no time for surprise."
Scotty: "Unless you people on the bridge start taking showers with your clothes on, my engines can pull us out of anything."

Sulu: "What do you mean, what do you do with it?"
Riley: "Self-defense? Mayhem? Shish-ka-bob?"

Christine: "He's dead, Doctor."
It's something of a continuing joke that McCoy says, "He's dead, Jim" in every episode. Let's see if it's true. I'll record it if it's said.

Sulu: "I'll protect you, fair maiden."
Uhura: "Sorry, neither."

Kirk: "I'd like you to teach me that, sometime."
Spock: "Take d'Artagnan here to Sick Bay."

Scotty: "I canna change the laws of physics!"
This is another famous line that is supposedly in every episode. Except it's not.

Four out of four Vulcan neck pinches,

Billie

All of our Star Trek reviews are archived here.
Original air date: September 29, 1966
Season 1, episode 4
Photo credit: Memory Alpha

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Glee: Theatricality

Finn: "Don't you get it? ... We live in Ohio. Not New York or San Francisco or some other city where people eat vegetables that aren't fried."

I knew it was too much to hope for another smashing success like "The Power of Madonna", but man - "Theatricality" was just a mess. And not in a Lindsay-Lohan-entertaining hot mess kind of way.

"Theatricality" was just completely disjointed. Like Will Schuester at the end, the writers had no idea what was the point of this episode, or this assignment. It felt a long Gaga promo mated with a bad Afterschool Special. The thing is, at least Gaga and Afterschool Specials are generally entertaining. This one was just weirdly depressing.

Unlike some other fans of the show, I generally don't mind when Glee is plot-lite, either being a thinly veiled vehicle to go from one song to the next, or just letting the music tell the story. The problem was, almost none of the songs had any relevancy to the plot, or added much to the story - the one exception being the odd-but-impressive acoustic version of "Poker Face" sung by Shelby and Rachel.

On top of which, half the time I felt like I had completely missed an episode, or an entire significant plot development. Did Jesse already go back to Vocal Adrenaline? If not, where was he? (It was hard to tell since they were covered in red chantilly lace.) How did a tape get Rachel to "go to" Shelby? That whole thing would have made more sense if Shelby/Jesse planted the Gaga clues so that Rachel would go check it out. And why does a house with 2 and 1/2 bathrooms only have 1 bedroom and a basement? What kind of stupid parent would ask their teenage child to share a room with another teenager? Most kids stop sharing rooms when they're 10.

Honestly, I was really, really looking forward to tonight's Glee after the string of epic season/series enders. Lost, Fringe, Grey's Anatomy - even Chuck! - were emotional roller coasters that had me bawling the better part of the last two weeks; I thought Glee would be a nice, absurd palate mental break. Plus, after that Lost finale, the last thing I wanted to do was THINK! Ask questions! Be confused! Honestly, I should never have to think when it comes to Glee. That's like asking to find political commentary in a Britney Spears song.

OK, my rant is done. My head hurts. On to the scoring...

The Good:

• Figgin's fear of vampires, bookended by Tina's fake out at the end, was classic absurdist Glee. Plus 5. Another +1 for lady demon clothes.
  
• The Team Edward attack on poor Jacob (haha, get it?) was awesome - plus 3. I have yet to understand the allure of Rob Pattinson.
  
• Finn using a red vinyl shower curtain for his Gaga costume. Plus 1 for the costume, plus another 1 for his delivery.
• Any scene involving Kurt and Burt dealing with Kurt's sexuality gets a +5. It's shameless and lazy emotional manipulation on the writers' part, but it's still honest and touching.
• Plus 10 for "Poker Face". You know me, I'm a sucker for Glee-interpreted numbers.
  
• I hate KISS, but I'll give +2 to Puck looking very, very hot in KISSwear and his whore lips.
• Plus 2 for a nice conversation between Shue and Shelby.
  
• Plus 1 for the shout out to San Francisco. Also because its true (and sad) that "vegetarian" food outside of my beloved SF and NY consists of steamed broccoli and french fries.
• Even though it was very awkwardly portrayed, Finn's uncomfortableness with Kurt is very real. He can be fine with Kurt being gay when they are friends, but a lot less so if it starts getting personal. Plus 10.
• Total: 41
  

The Bad (I won't even bother calling it Not So Good this week)

• Um, plot? Point? Minus, like, 50.
  
• That's it? In one episode, Shelby decides she doesn't want to be Rachel's mom? It took more time to set up the whole thing. I didn't need it to be magically happy - wanting something, and actually having it are two very different things, and it is hard to go from baby to teenage girl. But if this is the end of that story, I'm going to tie up Ryan Murphy with Christmas lights and stuff Kermits down his throat. Minus another 50.
  
• "Funny Girl" was nice, and yes, Idina Menzel is fabulously talented. But how did it demonstrate theatricality? Minus 2.
• The blatant Gaga worship was kind of ridiculous. I totally love Gaga, believe me, but it was like a Gaga commercial - minus 5.
  
• Oh, and they ruined "Bad Romance" for me. Some songs should not be remade unless they're going to do something novel with it. I appreciate Gaga's voice so much more now (although I was excited to hear Santana sing again). Minus 3.
• NO. MORE. KISS. EVER. Minus 5.
• The kids wore those outfits to school all week? Really? No deductions, just a WTF moment.
• Total: -115
  

Final Thoughts
I wonder how an episode like this will stand up to the face of time. That's the danger of incorporating pop culture references into any sort of show - they may be completely meaningless in 5 years. Lady Gaga may be hot right now - she may even still be hot in 10 years - but it's just not going to be as relevant as an homage to a cultural icon. Besides the fact that the Madonna episode had a theme that tied strongly with the artist's brand (and it wasn't a hot mess).

Bits 'n Pieces
-- Kurt: "She (Lady Gaga) changes her look faster than Brit changes sexual partners."
Brittany: "It's true."

-- Shelby: "Ladies, I don't want to hear about chafing. Just because you're being forced to wear metal underwear. Not my problem."

-- Tina: "I love wearing champagne bubbles — I get to express a whole different side of myself. Because even though I'm painfully shy and obsessed with death, I'm a really effervescent person."

-- Kurt: "Yeah, you don't want to be late for your appointment at Supercuts."
Nameless Annoying Football Player: "... And you know what, Fancy? You don't need an appointment at Supercuts. They love walk-ins."

-- Rachel: "My dads are moving my therapist into our spare room."

-- Tina: "My mom won't even let me watch Twilight. She says she thinks Kristen Stewart seems like a bitch."

I appreciate Joss so much more after "Theatricality". Glee was on a roll, up until tonight. 1 out of 4 Kermit dresses. ... Read full post

Chuck: Chuck versus the Ring (Part II)

“Your brother does have a knack for getting into trouble. You’re going to have to protect Chuck, be there for him no matter what, because you’re his big sister. Can you do that for me?”

Part Deux started off with a flashback that we didn’t entirely need: Ellie’s care and concern for her little brother was not a mystifying part of her character. It’s the natural role of any big sister, and I’ll bet all the big sisters who saw this episode got just as choked up as I did. It does make her concern more complex, though: she’s not just watching out for Chuck, she’s honoring her father.

Chuck and Ellie had different experiences of their dad. She balanced the checkbook and looked out for her baby brother. Chuck got to know his father and his father’s world, albeit obliquely. But when Chuck said that his dad was a hero: well, sort of. But there’s nothing heroic about abandoning your children. Lots of people can be spies, even great spies. But parents aren’t really replaceable.

Chuck had a hard time taking care of himself, though--and wound up relying on a dad ex machina to save his day. His flashes got increasingly painful, and just when it seemed like this episode would regain its sense of whimsy (courtesy of Morgan and Casey, mostly), things turned dark again. Those flashes...if I knew more about Superman, I would make some sort of kryptonite comparison. Or craft some cute phrase like “what makes you stronger also kills you.”

Shaw said that his plan to detonate the BuyMore—and take over the world—didn’t have anything to do with Sarah. If you feel like you have to say it, it’s probably not true. Why was his motivation so personal? I have no idea. He betrayed them. The inner thought processes of beautiful people are always a bit beyond me, though. And he wanted their last stand-off to be all poetic, with him in black and Chuck in white. Strobe lights, Jeffster: it was so staged, which was both funny and weird. It would have been so much more effective to just shoot Chuck. Oh, well. That wouldn’t have worked for the renewal.

And what will that renewal bring? Some of it comes courtesy of dad: turns out Chuck downloaded the IIe version of the Intersect back when he was a kid, and he managed to use that knowledge to take down Shaw and gain the Governor. That wasn’t the last gift from Papa B, though: now Chuck has access to a Raiders of the Lost Ark meets the X-Files cavernous warehouse of information, and a clue that his mother has something to do with it.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. The sudden introduction of Chuck’s possibly failing mental health still feels sudden. The “surprise, secret room full of info!” just feels like a new Intersect download, albeit an external one. On the other hand, now that the whole family—including Alex—is in on the game, the contours of the show might feel different. I hope Mama B shows some remorse for abandoning her children, but given Chuck’s history with villains, I doubt it. I also hope we get more Ellie; her emotions felt a little short-shrifted to me tonight: everyone came together at the end so it felt happy, but these kiddos are still mourning their dad, right?

I’ve pretty much completely ignored the BuyMore in my recent reviews. It has felt like un-attached comic relief, and while I love a good Jeffster joke, I never really saw the relevance, especially now that Morgan is part of the spy team. I’m glad it got a fitting burial-by-explosion, and I hope Lester and Jeff manage to evade the law long enough to cut a record.

This episode was odd. I feel like I can't quite pin it down. It started off so dark, and the lightness of the all-together-now scene felt off. The cliffhanger of the previous episode was wrapped up a bit too neatly, I think: just a click of a button, by mistake, did it. But I guess it got us where we needed to go, and I certainly enjoyed it along the way.

Bytes:

• Morgan: “Reach for the sky, dirtbags!” This reminded me of Serena’s Glee reviews.

• Shaw: “You’re right. I don’t want to kill all these people. However, I do want to kill Chuck. And I wouldn’t mind killing you, too.”

• Chuck: “He’s gonna drop it.”

And Pieces:

• That flash of the Ring operatives made it look like there were only about 20 people involved.

• Disguises! We got disguises!

• The iPhone. Perfect for all handcuffing situations. I can’t believe Morgan broke his own thumbs.

• Chuck was wearing a Superman t-shirt in his flashback.

Thoughts on the Season:

This was definitely Chuck’s most adventurous season, as the writers tried out a variety of different arcs. It was pretty uneven, though, and plausibility is still not the show’s greatest strength: why all the will-they-or-won’t-they, if the CIA is just fine with spy couples? Why have Sarah briefly date Shaw? Looking back, I see how out of character that was, especially now that we’ve seen her and Chuck together. Oh, and remember that patch of episodes where everyone kept telling Chuck he’d gone dark? I’m so glad that’s over. Ditto the brief Spike-style head-grabbing thing, now that Chuck has the Ring of Amara—I mean the Governor.

In a way, the Shaw storyline was the best played of them all. We got to spend some time getting to know him, and even if the details of his plan in this episode seemed to be more geared towards putting on a good show than any actual evil plan would be…well, that’s Chuck. It’s got heart. And it’s also got a fourth season.


3.5 out of four reboots.

(Season Three, Episode Eighteen, Part II)
... Read full post

Chuck: Chuck versus the Subway (Part I)

“It’s been brought to this committee’s attention that the Intersect is unstable, expensive, and—most of all—dangerous.”

Shaw has gone from CIA golden boy with a dark past, to Ring agent, to dead in the Seine, to super-scary manipulator of all levels of government. Shaw isn’t just back: he’s evil and, like the organization he serves, hell-bent on world domination. Or at least, hell-bent on mean revenge. Shaw returned from the dead, slipped into the CIA’s good graces and managed to wreck havoc on all of our heroes. Really, he caused an impressive amount of damage in just an hour. Here’s a tally:


Casey has been getting to know his daughter through the tried-and-true restaurant trick. It’s a good thing so many parentless kids work in the service industry—otherwise, how would their parents ever get to know them? Casey’s attempts to protect his daughter, though, might just put her in the line of fire. Then again, maybe she’ll jump in and save the day. She is a super-awesome fighter.

It wasn’t enough for Shaw to use the CIA to create chaos: he actually threatened Ellie’s and Awesome’s relationship. Sure, Morgan was the one who convinced Awesome that Ellie was cheating…but I choose to blame Shaw, that smarmy handsome s.o.b.. Once Ellie and Awesome reunited, and Ellie got into the spy loop. The second string is taking the court in the last few minutes of the final quarter, if you get my basketball drift.

Chuck, Sarah, and Casey are the worst off, though. They’ve been captured by the CIA—some members of which are working for the Ring knowingly, but others seem to be rather clueless. Shaw has dismantled Chuck’s entire support team: the loss of General Beckman is a huge blow to their resources.

[To be honest: I don’t really understand how Shaw could have caused all this damage. After all, didn’t the CIA head honchos get a status report on how he was evil? And dead? Why was Beckman dragged away from her computer…for overseeing a project that had flaws? This is so very implausible. Am I missing something?]

What matters most, though, are the personal losses: when Papa Bartowski got shot, I got a hitch in my throat. When we saw Ellie’s reaction, the tears started to well up. And when we saw Ellie following Chuck, Sarah, and Casey—and in contact with Awesome and Morgan—I started to cry. Just when Ellie finds out that her father’s absence from her life had nothing to do with her, she loses him. It’s a lot like Casey and Alex, come to think of it.

As it stands, the least-qualified member of Team Bartowski are now the only resource left to wrest our heroes from the evil clutches of the Ring, who have all the forces of the CIA unintentionally backing them. Our heroes are demoralized, defeated, and depressed. Rest in peace, Scott Bakula. And thank you, writers, for making great use of a guest star.


Bytes:

• Awesome: “Do you think my wife is unfaithful to me because I’m not satisfying her?”

• Beckman: “The committee is here to determine if the Intersect project is a liability.”

• Ellie: “An actual, legitimate answer exists to why my father has been absent for my entire life, and you didn’t think to ask?”

• Ellie: “Morgan Grimes, the boy that took my pillow as his date to junior prom knows more about my family than I do.”

• Papa B: “We can do this. We’re Bartowskis.”

• Casey: “You picked a good one, Walker. Finally.”

• Lester: “I was wondering if I could service you in some way?”

• Shaw: “Love the new defeatist attitude, Chuck. It suits you.”

And Pieces:

• The secret spy headquarters in the subway tunnel is an Alias thing.

• The thing where the lights clue the hero into where to go—what have we seen that in before? Jess?

• I don’t mean this to sound snarky, but our heroes didn’t look at pretty as they usually do. Did anyone else notice that?

• If you’re a Band of Horses fan, I’ll bet you enjoyed this episode.

• Evil Shaw is funnier than Good Shaw.

• A lucrative Subway sponsorship is the primary reason we got this season of Chuck. So all the subway stuff was like one big joke. Or really obscure product placement.

No rating until the next episode, because this was just too sad to rate. And dark. A real death on Chuck…who knew?

(Season Three, Episode Eighteen, Part I)
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Lost: The End --- Jess says ...

Note: Given that Lost is a show that invites multiple interpretations, Billie asked her guest writers if we’d like to provide our own perspectives on the recent finale and/or the series as a whole. I’ve put together some thoughts based largely on comments I posted on Billie’s Lost discussion group. If you read both, sorry for the repetition!

I don’t think I’ve ever been so emotionally overwhelmed by an episode of Lost. Some of the plot and mythology beats were a bit cheesy and over-the-top, and I certainly have some quibbles, but, overall, the emotional moments and the larger story resolution were so powerful that I leave Lost with a deep sense of satisfaction.

I’ve spent a good bit of time today reading the comments here on Billie’s site and at several of my other favorite haunts, and have seen a lot of bitter (and not so bitter) complaining about the lack of answers and the degree of spirituality in the finale. Even Billie noted that she was dissatisfied with the religious nature of the final resolution. But aside from the raw emotion of the various awakenings --- and some of the on-island beats with Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Ben --- I think the final revelations about the Sideways universe is what affected me the most and helped me process the series as a whole.

I’m not a religious person. Like Billie, I’m more of a seeker, taking bits from various belief systems and finding the spiritual story that speaks to me. I’ve long been drawn to the idea of reincarnation, and I’ve come to hope that when you die, there is a place where your soul waits until all the significant souls in your life are gathered and ready to be born anew, to tread once more familiar paths. A space between, if you will. A Well of Souls.

In recent years, I lost an aunt and uncle to whom I was very close. They were what many would consider soul mates. One of those couples who got married as teenagers and were still the happiest couple you’d seen, even after 30-odd years. When my uncle passed away, this idea that his soul was waiting for my aunt’s got me through some difficult times. When she died a year later, the notion that they were somehow reunited before passing into the next life (or may yet be waiting for my husband and I) was potent, and comforts me still.

With ‘The End,’ the creators of Lost so perfectly encapsulated a version of this idea that I had a good long cry when the show was over last night. Even today, I’ve spent the bulk of the day crying because they managed to strike such a deep chord within me. I think they did a marvelous job of reflecting our search for meaning in a chaotic world, and the importance of the connections we make, without ascribing to any one religious view. I’m probably a little biased, because what they showed us so closely mirrors my own non-religious views. But then again, I’ve seen many commenters today expressing that they were equally moved because it also reflected back their own religious beliefs. So maybe it isn’t just my bias.

However, for every positive review I've read, I’ve seen an equal number of negative reactions (if not more). I understand that everyone brings their own viewing lens to the show and that over the years we have all experienced and appreciated Lost in different ways. That’s part of what made watching and discussing the show fun. I wish that everyone could have enjoyed the finale as much as I did, but I fully expected to see the boards covered with bitter cries of “I didn’t get my answers!” and “So, basically, we are getting this ‘God did it’ crap again!”and "Darlton should give up the creative business because they suck, suck, suck." And, boy, were they.

It’s not surprising to see so much backlash, but I am a bit puzzled by some of the complaints. I keep seeing “we didn’t learn what the island was” and “what was the point of the last six years” and “the sideways stories were basically pointless.” I couldn’t disagree more. Yes, there were lots of lingering threads put out there over the years that may have been left unresolved. But I don’t think we were left hanging on the biggest questions. And I’m feeling like when I go back and watch the series, it will flow thematically, because the characters' journeys and what was ultimately accomplished in the finale did matter.

We learned in ‘Across the Sea’ what the Island is. It is the home to what I call The Source. The heart of the Island is where “the spark of life” resides.* This life energy is a kind of powerful electromagnetism and is linked to all sorts of other “magical” powers on the Island, but basically, the Island is like a Well of Souls. If that light goes out --- the spark of life --- than the world as we know it is destroyed. There is no more afterlife. There is no more rebirth. We are soulless creatures bound for annihilation. Life as we know it would end. (And perhaps the dark hell fires shown under the "cork" would be released raining destruction down on first the island, then the rest of the world.)

(*I confess that when I first saw the glowy cave in ‘Across the Sea,’ it struck me as so completely cheesy that I was pretty turned off by the core mythology they were presenting. The visuals of the light well and the hell fires beneath in ‘The End’ didn’t fare much better in the eye-rolling department. But I've started thinking the problem is that something so ethereal and spiritual is just hard to visually depict. It is bound to look somewhat cheesy. The more I think about it, the more comfortable I am with the notion that the Island was essentially the Source of life, or the Well of Souls. Even though it looked ridiculous.)

Who created The Source doesn’t matter. You can assume it is God, or some other all-powerful universe-creating force. It is open for interpretation (which as noted by many, is the beauty of the show and the finale). The Source has been there since time immemorial and it has always had a protector. When another protector comes along from wherever, the previous protector dies.

Jacob became the protector through his mother’s manipulations and, in a fit of rage, sentenced his brother to life as a disembodied soul hell bent on destroying Jacob and getting off the Island. Because he knew his brother was actively plotting to kill him, he needed to find a replacement and started his grand search for candidates. He wanted someone that didn’t have attachments and needed the island as much as it needed them. That’s how our “lost” Lostways were drawn to the Island. Because their arrival also coincided with Smokey finally finding a way to kill Jacob, it fell to our band of damaged heroes to take on the job, destroy Smokey, and protect the island. The whole show has been about them finding redemption, community, and purpose so that several of them would reach the point where they would choose to make the sacrifices necessary to protect the Island and thus save all of humankind.

What they saved wasn’t just the Island, but the space between this life and the next. The Sideways universe. The place that presents an opportunity for closure --- closure that may not have been achievable in life. By fixing the Source, Jack preserved this place where souls can work out lingering issues and be reunited with those that were most significant in one’s life. If we are something more than a sack of meat bound to this mortal coil, then this space between that makes letting go and moving on possible matters. As such, the Sideways reality is an equally important part of the journey (for the characters and the audience).

So it all mattered. What they did in life mattered. The painful losses and sacrifices mattered. The journey that put them through hell and back mattered. The shared alternate reality in the Sideways ‘verse mattered. The final destination (eternal rest, rebirth, what have you) matters. Sure it is more a "man of faith" answer than a "man of science" one, but if you are going to tackle big themes like life, death, redemption, community, and what it means to be human (which to my mind are themes and ideas that have been the core of the series since Season 1), then you are probably going to end up more in a faith-based place than a science one.

It is funny. I absolutely expected to be deeply confused when the finale was over. I thought I'd be running to the message boards to have it all explained for me. But, instead, I was emotionally engaged throughout --- from Jin and Sun waking up, to Aaron being born, to Sawyer and Juliet finally talking about that coffee date, to discovering Richard and Lapidus survived, to Kate shooting Locke, to Hurley choosing Ben as his Number Two, to the plane taking off, to Locke and Ben’s final heart-to-heart, to Jack and his dad hugging it out in the church, to the happy reunion of the Lostaways inside the church, to that brilliant and absolutely perfect final shot of Vincent laying down next to Jack and Jack’s eye closing --- and when that last title card came up, the basic arc of the series as a whole felt very complete and clear. For once, I understood what the show had been about (with room for interpretation, of course) and what it meant to me, and it made sense in a beautiful and profoundly resonant way. I couldn't have asked for much more from the ‘The End.’ (Except for maybe an explanation of how Ben got out from under that tree.)

Final Note: It’s been a joy sharing Lost with Billie. It is through this show that I have come to know her and to have the wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts on this and other shows with her readers. Thank you, Billie, for sharing your Lost love through this blog and your discussion list, and for inviting me to be a part of the Billie Doux community. I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

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Lost: The End

Jack: "I'm fine. Just find me some thread, and I can count to five."

I was deeply moved; I cried and cried. Emotionally, it was an incredibly satisfying finale. But intellectually, I feel cheated, and mildly disappointed.

The Island

The Island story ended where it began, with Jack dying in the same spot. I was so moved that Vincent was with Jack at the end. I can't even type that without crying.

There were so many callbacks and so many great resolutions, and I won't list them all. I'll just note that I especially liked Jack, Locke, and Desmond and the big hole with the light below. That Richard found a gray hair. That the Man in Black's death echoed Locke's fall from the eight-story building. The Jack/Smokey fight at the Cliffs of Insanity was beautifully filmed. Loved Jack kissing Kate goodbye -- a long, sexy kiss, too, instead of something pure.

Hurley sort of won the Island lottery, even though he didn't want it. It was so like him to refuse to leave Jack, and to take on the guardianship when he was asked. He got Ben as his new Richard in the bargain, too, which was just marvelous. I loved that Ben was indeed undercover in an attempt to defeat Smokey, and wow, did he redeem himself; this may have been my favorite plotline in the finale.

We don't know for sure if 316 made it to Fiji or whatever, but we can believe that it did because we were carefully told that the flash sideways afterlife wasn't limited by when you died. Kate told Jack near the end, "I've missed you so much." I think that suggests she lived a long time after the plane left the Island. Kate and Sawyer could have indeed wound up together; they did jump off a cliff in tandem, and you can't waste symbolism like that. Claire might have returned to Aaron, and raised him. And Hurley may have found a way to get Desmond back to Penny. We'll never know, but it's pretty to think so.

The Flash Sideways

It's funny how I'm okay with Jack dying, but not with him going to Heaven. Go figure.

I remember back in season one when the writers promised that the Island wasn't the afterlife. Guess they couldn't resist, after all. I'm getting tired of science fiction shows that I love ending on deeply religious notes, and I'm disappointed that Lost chose to go out that way.

It's not that I don't believe in an afterlife. Sometimes I do. I did a lot of religious seeking when I was in my teens, trying different religions, reading and taking classes. I eventually came to my own conclusions about what I believed. And I think they took the Christian symbolism too far. Jack became a man of faith and was saved; he died to save the world from evil, and went to Heaven, and he even had a wound in his side. I don't care that the flash sideways (or purgatory, or anteroom to Heaven, or whatever) was carefully nondenominational; Christian Shephard of the metaphorically loaded name was the one who explained it all. Deeply moving, as I said. I cried through it. And then I resented it. I wish they hadn't gone there. Alternate universe, yes. Heaven, no. I wanted the sideways to be all of them alive somewhere, and they weren't.

Other than that, it was wonderful. It was like a party celebrating the end. "Unbelievably Heartfelt Reunions R Us." And yes, it was the very definition that most people have of Heaven, that the people we love best are waiting for us there. We got it all: Sun and Jin and their baby, Sayid rescuing Shannon, Daniel meeting Charlotte as he was living out his dream of performing with Drive Shaft. We even got the much desired Sawyer and Juliet coffee moment, in front of Jack's candy machine (symbolism alert there), followed by a great big smooch.

The one that tipped me over the edge into outright sobbing was Kate delivering Claire's baby again, culminating in that intense Charlie/Claire moment. And I kept crying right through to the end. Again, Ben's story may have been the best: I was especially touched that he didn't think he deserved to join the rest of them in Heaven. We always knew there was a very good man hiding inside of Ben. Okay, we didn't know. We suspected.

Were all the trapped souls released from the Island when Desmond popped the cork, or when Jack killed the Man in Black? Christian's presence in the church intimated that that was what happened, and that was why the Sideways Losties could finally go into the Light.

What have we learned?

I don't have the heart to list more stuff. There were lots of details we never did learn, like why Walt was special, why Claire had to raise Aaron, and so on. But pretty much every character-related string was tied up. Hey, Heaven is pretty much it.

Jack's eye closing at the end made me think that maybe the Island was a metaphor for life's journey. We're born -- eye open -- we struggle through our lives and hopefully learn and grow, and... in the end, we're right back where we started? No, that doesn't work in a karmic sense. You know what? I'm going to just leave this. I've written enough about metaphor and meaning in Lost. I'm done.

Character bits:

-- Hurley told Jack, "I believe in you." Jack said it back to him.

-- I loved Jin's face when Sawyer said he was LAPD. "Hello... detective." One of my favorite moments.

-- Juliet's last name was Carlson and of course, she was an obstetrician. We all knew she'd be Jack's ex.

-- Sideways Kate had Island hair and no makeup on top of that gorgeous dress and heels. It was an odd look but it made sense.

-- Rose and Bernard got Desmond out of the well. I like to think of the two of them and Vincent living out their retirement on the Island, possibly getting together with Hurley and Ben occasionally for tea.

-- Did Boone already know the score in the season opener? He was so serene. He was the first to die, so maybe he had the most time to work through his issues.

-- I'm glad Christian (John Terry) got to be in the finale. Alan Dale wasn't. I guess Widmore is still working out his issues, like Eloise and Ben. And Nadia. And possibly Keamy. What was Jack's son, David, though? David never existed. And will Aaron be a permanent baby in Heaven?

-- Sawyer got in several instances of "Son of a bitch" and some great nicknames: Bigfoot, Blondie, Doc, Chesty, and so on. He even called the Man in Black "Smokey," which made me think last week's "Flocke" was deliberate.

-- Six people left the Island in a plane: Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Frank, Miles and Richard. The Ajira Six.

Bits and pieces:

-- The episode began with the Oceanic plane's eye opening, sort of, as Christian's body was unloaded. And ended with Jack's right eye closing.

-- The opening cast list was simply beautiful. I loved that they listed everyone, not just the official stars of the show.

-- Several Lost episode titles were worked into the dialogue, like "The Long Con" and "What Happened, Happened". I'm sure I missed a lot of them.

-- The concert was at the Golden State Museum of History, or whatever. "Golden State." What a pun.

-- Charlie's tatt, "Living is easy with eyes closed" had the second line on it: "Misunderstanding all you see."

-- A dirty plastic Oceanic bottle got to be the holy grail this time. Very appropriate.

-- In my opinion, the last Lost special, "The Final Journey," was the best Lost special. The actors talking about their memories of the show and their favorite scenes made it a thousand times better than the usual straight exposition. And it was narrated by Titus Welliver (Man in Black). The "Final Transmissions" were also fun. My favorite was "Roses are red, violets are blue, 4 8 15 16 23 42."

-- The Losties sat at Table 23 at the benefit. This finale aired on the 23rd, and was 108 minutes long. With 108 minutes of commercials.

Quotes:

Jack: "Jacob didn't say anything to me about Desmond."
Sawyer: "Doesn't sound like he said anything about anything."
Hurley: "That's kinda true, dude. He's worse than Yoda."
Sawyer: "All right. Y'all head to your heart of the Island, and I'll go get the magic leprechaun out of that well."

Sawyer: "I'd ask you along, but that'd take all the fun out of me telling you you can't come."
Kate: "Guess I'll just have to resist the urge to follow you, anyway."

Hurley: "I got a bad feeling about this." This is the line that was in every Star Wars movie.

Hurley: "This would be so sweet if we all weren't about to die."

Jack: "I'm going to kill you."
Smokey: "How do you plan to do that?"
Jack: "It's a surprise."

Jack: "You're not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you're nothing like him."

Kate: "I saved you a bullet." Yippee ki-yay...

Miles: "I don't believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape."
I was tempted to make this my lead quote, but I felt it would be dissing Lost.

Desmond: "You were right, Jack."
Jack: "There's a first time for everything."

Jack: "I'll see you in another life, brother."

As we've all acknowledged several times, it was impossible for the producers and writers to satisfy every fan with the conclusion of this show. But even though I was unhappy with where they went, I believe this finale was a masterpiece. (Hey, at least it didn't turn out to be someone's dream.) I'm not sorry I spent six years writing about this show. It's been a helluva ride, and I got more than my money's worth.

Four out of four polar bears,

Billie

All of my Lost reviews are archived here.
(Season 6, episode 17)

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Why VD Doesn’t Suck

I didn’t like it any more than you did: the Vampire Diaries pilot was, as Billie said, Muppet Babies with fangs. High school only feels overwrought when you’re in it, and the stakes of this show were underwhelming, to say the least. Girl has vampire boyfriend. Vampire boyfriend has snarky vampire brother. Some friends with superpowers, and some friends without. The writing was pedestrian, the acting wooden, the plot redundant. We’d seen this and read this before. But then, somehow, it got better. Here are the top ten reasons you should join us for the Great Vampire Diaries Re-Watch of Summer 2010:

10. The Cast. They have chemistry. The show films in Georgia, which gives the young actors some distance from the fever-dream of Hollywood, and they’ve made it clear in interviews that they’re getting along well. It shows. While Elena’s friends, especially Bonnie, don’t really grab my interest, the interactions between Elena, Stefan, and Damon start to feel natural and honest by about the fifth episode.

9. The Dialogue. It gets better. Some of the sparkly honesty of the interactions has to do with the writing, which definitely improves after the pilot. The kids talk like kids talk. The adults talk like adults (or maybe adults who spend too much time with kids). This isn’t a Joss Whedon show: you don’t watch it and suddenly start adding the letter y to make modifiers out of nouns, or hitting a strange beat in a sentence to make it punchy. It’s not Joss, and it’s not supposed to be.

8. The Labyrinthine Plotting. Borges would have a hard time puzzling it out. There are vampires and maybe-werewolves. Dead ringers and dead parents. Live parents with dark secrets. Events in the past that haunt the events, and people, in the present. On top of all of that, the main characters are high schoolers, so they’re constantly fighting, breaking up, hooking up, lying, and crying. Sure, the mysteries ostensibly shape the plot—but the character’s reactions to those mysteries keep the story moving, and the writers don’t take shortcuts with the ramifications of any major events. Stuff matters, and it doesn’t go away in a week. (See #4).

7. It Takes Place in a Bubble. Well, not really. But Mystic Falls is a small town, and it’s a bit like Hotel California: even the undead can’t seem to leave. There’s no bluster about the End Of The Known World. It’s about people in a small town, dealing with small endings. Maybe it’s just because all of the other shows I review (and watch) are so Cosmically Important, but the miniature scale is a nice break.

6. Sark from Alias. He is in the last few episodes of the first season. He’s delightful, and this show treats him better than Heroes did, although not as well as Alias itself.

5. The Other Adults. Elena’s and Jeremy’s aunt is young and vivacious; history teacher Alaric is far more interesting than he should be (the actor gets points for that); and a few cameos, including one from Mia Kirschner of The L Word, keep the high schoolers interacting with grown-ups. The real adults (the moms and the mayor) have a part to play, too—and they keep the kids out of it, just like in real life. This isn’t Buffy: the whole town is involved.

4. Character Development. The characters have more than one note. Some have two or three. Even supporting players, like Caroline, get mini emotional arcs that affect the rest of the characters in a delightful ripple effect. This is a show that knows what it is doing, and know that sometimes plot has to come from within.

3. Bromances. I love them, and VD has a few. The back-and-forth relationship between Stefan and Damon is the best: those two have more issues than the New Yorker. But Damon’s relationship with Alaric…well, as I said above: this show knows what it is doing in terms of character development and taking things slowly. I do admit it, though: both of these bromances shine because of:

2. Ian Somerhalder is Frakkin’ Awesome. He’s incredibly hot, yes. I’ve noticed. But his character has some depth, and he waffles (see above re: character development). He’s hard to pin down—if some characters get two or three notes, he gets a whole octave. His line delivery is snarky and deadpan and knowingly over-the-top, but he also lets the other actors shine: every scene with him in it is a better scene than it would be otherwise. I stopped thinking of him as Boone after four episodes. I think that says enough.

1. What Else Are Your Going to Do This Summer? For those of us stateside, it looks like the CW will be airing the episodes, starting with the awful pilot, the week after the Lost finale. (Yes, that’s how I mark time.) A few episodes are available for legal streaming at the CW website, too—and for download a few other places. I’ll review the episodes as I can get my hands on them.
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