After three months, I am re-opening my personal blog. I won’t be blogging a lot like before, but I will possibly be publishing a few posts a month.

First issue to rant about: TV shows. I am unhappy with both “Lost” and “BattleStar Galactica”, among others.

The finale of BSG left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I have written all that is to be written in the discussion here. In a recap, my problems with BSG:
1. The dreaded God element.
2. Too many boring drama queens.
3. Too many loose ends because of poor planning by the writers.
4. The pointless flashbacks in the finale.
5. The technophobia in the finale.

Then, there’s the new spin off of BSG, called “Caprica“. That show, I already hate it more than anything. It’s a fucking family melodrama rather than sci-fi, trying so desperately to find the golden rule between geeks and their girlfriends. Thing is, I don’t have a girlfriend. I hope the show burns and dies.

Here’s another new show, that’s complete drama nonsense: “Kings“, on NBC. Boring like hell.

And then there’s “Lost”. Which as you know, I am a big cheerleader for. Well, I am kind of pissed off with Lost in this season. The show is just not very addictive anymore. No, it’s not because of the dreaded time travel (that drove lots of viewers away), but because of the shift in the show’s direction, and subsequent misdirection of the viewer away from the real heart of the show: the survivors.

You see, “Lost” was always about 48 survivors, and how to get away from their crash island. On season 5 instead, they killed off about 40 out of the 48 survivors, and they didn’t show us at all if Rose and Bernard survived or not. Instead, all they show us is island mythology and nothing else. We have invested FOUR FUCKING YEARS on the survivors as a WHOLE, and now it’s like they don’t matter anymore. I mean, what was the fucking point of having Jack trying to get back to the island, if there are no survivors left to save, and in order to get there he had to crash land MORE innocent people, and most importantly, not even having him ASK Sawyer once: “what the fuck happened to the rest of the people I left you with?”. Nothing! Nadda! Like there were never survivors in that island!

And don’t forget that Rose and Bernard, while not major characters, even had their own flashback episode back in season 2. They spent $4 fucking millions on that episode! We invested in their storyline too! And the writers haven’t made a fucking peep about them!!! And the actors are not listed as guest stars in the upcoming episodes either. This is simply a disgrace to our expectations. The Lost forums are FULL with questions about Rose and Bernard! Now, after 4 years, we have to somehow switch our brains towards another goal?

I often rant against the over-the-top melodrama of BSG, but Lost has lost all of its drama this season — drama which made it so successful back in season 1. Now, it’s just some crazy stuff happening, one after another. It’s like someone pushed the fast forward button.

And don’t get me started about the NUMEROUS production errors in this season. I usually find 1-2 myself for each episode, and I am not even trying. From the bad editing on Desmond’s face when he sees Ms Hawking, from the crew woman caught in the frame and appearing behind Sun! From Charlotte’s real age fiasco, to the “numbers” heard on the Ajira radio (they should not be broadcasting in 2007), this new season is just plain SLOPPY. No wonder Lost lost 25% this year in ratings. Even the actor who plays Sayid doesn’t even try anymore to hide his British accent.

You might say “well, Lost is a complex show, so errors will happen”. Sure, but thing is, “The Wire” was also a very complex show, and by God, I have never witnessed a single production or continuity error! Very solid writing, planning, and shooting. There are many people out there who say that The Wire is the best show ever. That maybe true (it’s also Obama’s personal favorite). While I enjoy The Wire, I can’t get into it too much because: a. its plot is truly depressing, and b. I don’t take drugs, so the whole ghetto thing doesn’t represent me. But aside my personal nuances, The Wire has some no-nonsense writing. Lost doesn’t (anymore). In fact, I feel that the two main Lost writers lost the plot this season.

In the episode titled “316″ we saw the protagonists “zapped” away from the plane, rather than seeing the plane actually crashing. On the same episode it was revealed that the Oceanic 6 must re-create the circumstances of the Oceanic 815 flight as much as possible in order to make it to the island.

What if the island was “pre-programmed” to search for certain “patterns” on flights that happen to fly above the invisible island? Just like the “grep” command on UNIX. In the flight 815 there were these few special people on it that the island expected them to arrive for a long time. The plan was to zap them out of the plane in order to have them fulfill their destiny on the island. Instead, the plane crashed. So, what happened?

Desmond happened.

The “expected” timeline was changed by the only person that is able to affect timelines, Desmond. By not entering the numbers on the computer in time, the island released a big amount of electromagnetism affecting the operational abilities of the island itself. This temporary interference disabled the “zapping” abilities of the island, and the electromagnetism broke the plane in pieces instead. The island only had enough time to make sure the safety of as many people as it could, hoping that among the survivors the special persons will survive too. In the series it was said that no one should have survived that crash, and yet, enough of them did. Because the island intervened just in time.

This theory also explains why the red-shirts Oceanic 815 survivors ultimately died. It’s because they should have not survived (or crash there) in the first place! This is also enforced by Ben’s “who cares?” in the episode “316″ when Jack asked them what would happen to the rest of the people in flight 316. The island is not interested in them, and so it’s possible that flight 316 never crashed anywhere. The co-pilot took over when Frank zapped out of there along the rest, and no one noticed anything more than a temporary disturbance. This is what it should have happened in Oceanic 815 too, if it was not for Desmond.

Because more people than it was required survived, a different timeline emerged. The original plan might have been for the Others to pick up the people zapped in the island (people who were in “the list”, like in the case of the abduction of some of the tailees), give them a tutorial as to what the heck happened to them, and then let them fulfill their destiny (which according to some it will be a “saving the world” scenario). Instead, we had many survivors, they created their own little team, and combated the Others. Coupling this with Ben’s behavioral shortcoming to give up the leadership to Locke early on, the Others and the Losties created a scenario that didn’t serve anyone. The island right now is probably not happy with any of the two sides…

Some will ask why the island was pre-programmed to search about these special people, but given that time travel is possible on Lost, it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy plot: someone from the future (Jacob?) went back in time, in the ancient era when Egyptians colonized the island, and made sure the island knows about these special people that it needs to bring together when it recognizes some patterns in the sky. The island might just be a big computer (or a spaceship) of a sort. And Richard Alpert is the ageless keeper of the island making sure it’s safe, while it’s waiting for these special people to arrive and fulfill their destiny. Alpert and Ben do not know who the special people among the survivors are (except for the case of Locke), they only know what Jacob allows them to eventually know via “the list”.

However, if the destiny of these special people was just to be fulfilled as originally planned, we would have not had TV suspense. Every character would just do what they were meant to do and that would be that. But you can’t constraint a twisted TV show like “Lost” is to having the heroes just do what they were supposed to do. There has to be a twist, a twist that changes the rules, and brings chaos to “what was supposed to happen”. That’s the suspense that the show actually brings us: not a boring, canned version of what’s supposed to happen, but what actually happened. And Desmond with his timeline-changing abilities is the plot device for this twist. As in a Greek tragedy, Desmond unknowingly, but ironically, paid back the island –a place that he so much despises– with a huge platter of revenge for keeping him prisoner there for 3 years. This theory makes Desmond the “variable” to the “Lost” saga, another ironic reference as the direct opposite of the popular Desmond-centric “The Constant” episode. “The Variable” is also the title of an upcoming episode!

The beauty of all of it is that both science and faith are important to understand the mechanics of it all. Locke’s faith, and Jack’s scientific disbelief fit perfectly, as this theory entertains both the destiny/fate element in the show (that Locke’s so fond of), and the scientific/technological point of view that Jack will ultimately unveil as being behind it all. So both of the two lead characters are right. And both are wrong, by being blindly devoted to abstract notions (Locke), or disturbingly close minded (Jack).

I am such a “Lost” cheerleader, am I not? Sorry, I can’t help it. Best show of all times! The only piece of art that carries me away.

Adam wrote a very to-the-point review of “Heroes”, which I agree completely. A few moments later, I stumbled upon the following video, a brand new ABC promo for “Lost”. And damn did it bump my adrenaline to the max!

I can’t wait for season 5 to start in January!

< spoilers >
* In this season we will see Radzinsky, the guy who was there before Desmond in the hatch. The guy was only referenced once 2.5 years ago in the show, and here we are, he’s got a major guest role this season!
* How are we going to see him, you ask, as he’s dead? (for those who pay attention to “Lost” the way they should, Radzinsky committed suicide). Well, the island moved in both space and time, and our losties left-behinders will join the Dharma Initiative! In the past!
* You gotta see the leaked pictures with Sawyer in a Dharma suit! “Head of security” no less! And with a pseudonym! It seems that while Sawyer’s role was down-graded in the last season, he becomes the defacto leader of the left-behinders in this season.
* A part of the Oceanic 6 will make it back to the island, joining the left-behinders in the Dharma era. All this will happen before we reach the half of this season.
< /spoilers >

Writing the above it also just occurred to me that translating “Lost” to other languages via dubbing doesn’t work well (e.g. as they do in France), because the show has such subtle references to things, or carefully done sentences that hint things that will happen 30 episodes later, that the people who do the translation can’t possibly know (as they are not part of the writing team of “Lost”). So if you are watching “Lost” via dubbing, stop doing so now, buy the DVDs, and watch the show in English, or you will lose part of what it is “Lost”: the puzzle references and hints. That’s where the whole beauty of “Lost” is. Not in a dry, funny-sounded, dubbing.

Gosh, I hate dubbing more than ironing clothes.

UPDATE: Listen to the embedded promo video above, at the very beginning, mark 00′:02″. You will hear a voice (presumably Locke’s voice) saying something non-understandable. Now, if you reverse the audio at that point, you will hear instead “Am I… when?”. And this is my whole point about “Lost”: even their god damn ads include hints and puzzles to keep people busy decrypting & theorizing. As I said before, “Lost” is the ultimate geek/nerd TV show, if you don’t watch it, you are the one who misses out!

Ewan McGregor describes how it’s like to be Scottish, on the Oscar-nominated movie “Trainspotting“. Best scene of the movie, in my opinion:

This reminds me of the kind of feeling some of us have about Greece. We love our home with all our being alright, but we just hate all the shit around it, plus, we don’t love it for the same reasons every-day Greeks do. So I think is this similar to what the Scottish author of “Trainspotting” had in mind when he wrote that dialogue. It was love, and anger, at the same time.

* You know how I know that we are in a recession? This is the first year that SciFi Channel didn’t produce a mini-TV series for December, as they traditionally do.

* In last night’s “UFO Hunters” episode, the 1997 Phoenix Lights sighting was investigated. The Phoenix Lights is the most blatant appearance of a UFO over a large population — even the (ex-pilot) governor of Arizona saw the humongous object that night over Phoenix. However, something stroke me at the end of the episode. You see, the producer of the show, Bill Birnes, is a blind believer on UFOs. He runs the UFO Magazine and more often than not he jumps to quick and otherwordly conclusions (something that’s not true with his collegues: the level-headed and all around very cool guy Pat Uskert who I interviewed back in April, and the ex-Nasa scientist, skeptic and real hot Dr. Ted Acworth). So basically, this is a show that has a… professional blind believer, an open minded guy from next door, and a skeptic scientist running it — which is why I like the show. Now, at the end of the show, Ted (the skeptic) said that there’s something more is going on with these lights, Pat believed that this is indeed an alien UFO, and Bill said that… this was an experimental military vehicle. And this was curious to me, how this major sighting, with hundreds of people that saw it and recorded it, the most solid mass experience in the history of UFOs, is just a “military vehicle” according to the blind believer, Bill. And then it hit me. I realized that the whole thrill of conspiracies and UFOs has its base exactly in the mystery about them. From the moment you make the phenomena “common”, where everyone can see a UFO, or believe in it, or even if the government comes out and says “yes, there are aliens visiting this planet”, the whole mystery goes away. And people like Bill are mystery and thrill seekers, they are not there to find the truth about the phenomena, but to satisfy their own psyche! If aliens were to be revealed to us, Bill would be devastated! This reminds me a lot of the “Twin Peaks” TV show. No matter how much people were crying out to the writers to reveal the mysteries, when that happened, the ratings went down, everyone stopped watching the show. Everyone was on board for the mystery, no matter if they THOUGHT they wanted the truth. They didn’t.

* “Heroes” is a fucking mess. So Sylar kills Nathan/Pete’s father with a fucking bullet? Why not stop the fucking bullet, take his brains out so he can take his powers? Sylar is a power-seeker, and the father is the most powerful villain, so why not use him? The writers of Heroes need to be fired. All of them. I hear that Pushing Daisies’ writer Brian Fuller is back to the show, but it’s too late now. And Hiro losing the “light” immediately after getting it? Why not the guy stealing it before Hiro got there if it was that easy? And how was Claire able to get back to the Nakamura house so easily? This show needs to be canceled. Now. They create a show for geeks, but the show is not written by geeks, and so details like this are easily observed by most of us. It’s like trying to sell to Jay Leno a racing car that was designed by novelists instead of engineers.

“316″ is the title of episode 7 from the 5th season of “Lost” that returns on TV this coming January. But what does it mean? “Lost” is full of such puzzles of course, and that’s its whole beauty. Now, there are two ways to go at the problem. We can either take the 316 number as a number, or as a meaning.

If were to take the 316 as a number, we need to find a formula to fit it in the 4 8 15 16 23 42 numbers, as these are the mysterious numbers that every Lost fan learned to love. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a formula about it. If we take the numbers as a meaning instead, and searching on Google for it, doesn’t return anything of value.

Maybe some back-reading would help. Episode 6 is called “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”. This is John Locke’s story under the pseudonym of “Jeremy Bentham”, after he came back to civilization from the island and had to conceal his true identity. During that episode, we see how Locke is killed (this is not a spoiler, we already know he’s dead, and in a coffin).

So, what if we try to see the 316 number with a religious subcontext? Religion won’t be the first time Lost is using it for its puzzles. So, this is what John 3:16 says in the Bible:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

So I think that this episode has to do with the resurrection of John Locke, back in the island. Besides, the actor still has a contract with the show.

Sawyer is my favorite character on “Lost”, mostly because he has such funny lines, delivering them while he’s dead serious. Sawyer has a southern, almost redneck, accent, that makes his performance even funnier. The following quotes are taking place in the island their plane wrecked, and in the jungle, far from the civilization.

Locke: Does any of this look familiar from when you were coming back?
Sawyer: Well, yeah, there’s my favorite leaf. How could I forget this place?

Sawyer: Put your mangos where your mouth is.

Sawyer (sarcastically): So, a tribe of evil natives planted a ringer in the camp to kidnap a pregnant girl and a reject from the VH1 has-beens. Yeah, fiendishly clever.

Jack: Where’s Locke?
Sawyer: I don’t know. I think he said something about going to the store for a pack of smokes.

Sawyer: Doctor playing golf. Woo, boy howdy, now I’ve heard everything. What’s next, cop eating a donut?

(Sawyer just shot a polar bear)
Kate: Where did that come from?
Sawyer: Bear Village. How the hell am I supposed to know?

Jack: You know how to handle a gun or not?
Sawyer: Well, I know at least of one polar bear that seems to think so.

Jack: Sawyer…
Sawyer: One second, I’m like this close to the high score on Donkey Kong.

Hurley: Did that bird just say my name?
Sawyer: Yeah, it did. Right before it crapped gold.

Ana-Lucia: Shut up. When I tell you to do something, you do it… I say move, you move… I say stop, you stop. I say jump, what do you say?
Sawyer: You first.

(Sawyer is asking Kate for a kiss)
Kate: Are you serious?
Sawyer: Baby, I am tied to a tree in the jungle of mystery. I just got tortured by a damn spinal surgeon and a genuine Iraqi. Of course I’m serious. Hell, it’s only first base.

(Ben shot Locke with a gun, but Locke keeps protecting Ben)
Locke: Apart from his mouth, he’s completely harmless.
Sawyer: His mouth put that hole in your gut?

Sawyer: Brother, you gotta wake up and smell the goat crap here.

Sawyer: I don’t know if you Islams got a concept of karma, but I get the sense this island just served you up a heapin’ platter of cosmic payback.

Jack (angry): Get up.
Sawyer: Why, you wanna see who’s taller?

Sawyer: My uncle. He uh… died of a brain tumor.
Jack: What type of tumor was it?
Sawyer: The type that kills you.

(Sawyer has headaches)
Kate: That’s it, get up.
Sawyer: What?
Kate: Get up. You’re going to Jack [the doctor].
Sawyer: Do I get a lollipop?
(Scene switches to the caves where Jack diagnoses Sawyer)
Jack: Have you ever had a blood transfusion?
Sawyer: What? No.
Jack: Taken pills for malaria?
Sawyer: Nope.
Jack: Have you ever had sex with a prostitute?
Sawyer: …..What the hell has that got to do with anything?
Jack: Is that a yes?
Sawyer: Yes.
Jack: Have you ever contracted a sexually transmitted disease? [Sawyer doesn't respond] I’m going to take that as another yes. When was the last outbreak?
Sawyer: Go to hell, Doc.
[Sawyer leaves the scene, annoyed]
Kate: I know he deserved it, but…
Jack: He just needs glasses.
(Jack goes back to the beach to find Sawyer)
Sawyer: If you’re looking for a stool sample, you can forget it…

This article at the Macleans magazine angers me. Apparently, TV execs want to move away from serialization and back to episodic TV, like in the ’80s and most of the ’90s. They have literally instructed their writers to move back to episodic TV.

The reason for this is because of the natural viewer attrition serialized shows get over time, and subsequent falling ratings. Unfortunately, as the article correctly states, the shows that have the most cultural impact are the serialized ones, not the episodic ones. Especially sci-fi mystery shows like Twin Peaks, Lost, the X-Files alien mythology arc, and BSG. Cult shows will never go away. CSI and “The Mentalist” will though.

Sure, not everyone wants a mind fuck every week, but there are some geeks like me who do. So why can’t we have that, especially when there’s space for both kinds on TV? After Lost is done in May 2010, there will be nothing as compelling on TV anymore for people like me. I keep praying that Lost’s writers, Damon and Carlton (aka Daltron), have something like this in store for us. A step beyond Lost, I am hoping for another mystery scifi series, or a grand story about the whole Marvel universe (not just a single super hero or team).

The article in question was linked by some Lost news sites and the discussion goes around these lines: people who can’t deal with shows like Lost are just dumb. Or just old and tired. Lost is an interactive game where your mind has to work at 100% to get what the hell is going on. I say that let these people have their own shitty, brainless, TV shows, but throw a bone for us who try to use our brains a bit more, too.

My JBQ agrees that Lost is the only show that elevates TV into “true art”. It’s a kind of storytelling that can’t be done with any other medium. He also notes that the kind of people who watch serialized shows are easier to target with ads. Which is why Lost and its 12 million viewers, being the most pirated TV show ever, and offering the full HD episodes for free on their site, makes more money for ABC than CSI:Miami’s 17 million (aged) viewers do for CBS. And will continue to make a truckload of money for ABC long after Lost is all done in 2010. Because it’s a cult show, and cult shows never die.

Removing serialized TV is a mistake in many levels. If the TV execs don’t understand that, then they are very short sighted and only care for their current job rather than their company’s future.

If you read any serious analysis of “Lost” around, you will find it getting compared to “Twin Peaks” all the time. The two shows are of course very similar in many ways, but we didn’t have official confirmation about “Lost” being artistically the natural continuation of “Twin Peaks”, until now. Damon Lindelof, one of the two geniuses behind “Lost”, said recently:

“The show that REALLY affected me, however, was TWIN PEAKS, which I’d watch every week with my dad. He’d tape the show on his VCR (remember those?) and we’d watch the episode AGAIN right after it aired in our quest to pull every last clue out of the show. The idea of a TV Show being a mystery and a game that spawned hundreds of theories obviously was a major precedent (that’s a fancy way of saying we ripped it off) for LOST.”

I am very happy how Damon has evolved the whole idea behind “Twin Peaks” (my review) to something so much better, like “Lost” is. Here’s hope that someone in the future will evolve “Lost” itself to a step beyond it too.

In the same interview, the two writers also say that they won’t be revisiting Libby’s story (to the dismay of many fans online), and that seasons 1 and 2 won’t get released in Blu-Ray individually — which of course pisses me off, as I would need to buy a final boxset to get these two seasons in BD, even if I would already own all the seasons by then. Very unfair for us loyal customers.

Elsewhere, the first sneak peek of Lost’s new episode in January was released too. Not a major spoiler, don’t worry.

MGMT is the new band that I love. They are playing “psychedelic electro-alternative rock”. And they are successful in the alternative rock scene in the last few months. If you like the “Muse” or maybe even the “New Order”, you will love the MGMT too. Listen to their song “Kids” below (video is unofficial, does not depict the actual band).

Interestingly, my favorite song of the band is not a single (yet). It’s called “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters”, listen to it below. Psychedelic to the max!

And if you happen to like the MGMT, you might just like the 3OH!3 too, another duet, who play “electronic rapcore” music. That’s rap that has rock & electronic elements. The music video of their most known song is here, although this specific song is more pop than rapcore (compared to the rest of their songs).