Thursday, May 14, 2009

Spoiler.



So, I'm pretty sure they blew up the nuke last night on LOST. I mean, who knows with these things? But there was a slight fizzing sound and the screen washed out all super-white after Juliet who was not-yet-dead banged on the device with a rock, and everyone knows that a bright all-encompasing flash is cinematic lingua franca for thermonuclear detonation. But don't worry. Even though there was a nuclear explosion and the island and everyone on it was instantaneously vaporized, they'll be back for one more season. After all, it's LOST.

I, for one, am glad they lit the bomb off last night and didn't put it off to the end of the series, which would have been a cheap wrap-up. Now they have to reconcile whatever devastation to the space-time continuum that they have wrought, which should be interesting. You know they just had to detonate the thing. It's one of the unchangeable dictums of dramatic storytelling: if you put a gun in a story, sooner or later you have to use the gun. (Or, in this case, a big A-bomb with the word 'jughead' chalked into the side.)

How was the show? Was it heavy-handed? Over-wrought? Melodramatic? Yes, yes, and yes. And awesome! And now I can get on with my life, thank Jacob. It'll all be back in 2010, so I'm free until then unless there's another dumb Hollywood strike which would screw up EVERYTHING. Well, okay, I'm not entirely free yet -there's still the final couple hours of 24 on Monday. It turns out the other day was not quite the end of the season, as it conflicted with the finale of House -which I gave up on since they started scheduling it during bathtime. (I caught the end though: so-and-so got married and House went crazy and got shipped off to an asylum. Good enough for me.)

I can only handle two shows, anyway. There's just not enough time or attention span in the world for three or more full shows. Everything else I view, like Mythbusters, DWTS, American Idol, Deadliest Catch, or the news, I'll see six minutes of and I'm full. It's all I need to get me through life. Maybe I'll catch House reruns over the summer, or something. I miss it. And Mrs. Ditchman misses it too, she said. It's a great show.

Mrs. Ditchman. Mrs. Ditchman sleeps through every episode of Lost. And since Lost went all the way to 11:00 (!) last night, I admit it was something of a struggle to stay awake for the nuclear event. Then the news comes on and Mrs. Ditchman wakes up and asks me what she missed. It's Lost! You missed everything! Uh, and nothing. We all did. Then she asks -and this after every episode- "But what happened?" And then you say, "Well, whatshisname died. Again. And there was a massive explosion and everyone died. And that one guy who talks to the dead is the son of that other guy. And also it turns out that that one guy with the gun is not a bad guy but a good guy." And then she says, "Huh?" And then you say, "I don't know! They went into the future and then had a flashback!" And then she says, "I'm lost" and I guess that's what the producers are going for. The bastards.

But it's fun! Since there's only one more season, I think I'm going to try and watch the whole series over again on DVD later this year and see if I can glean a better understanding of where they're going with it all, or even if it makes a gnat's ransom of sense. You gotta respect a show where every character is named after a famous philosopher, scientist, or biblical character. And then set it in the tropics on a '70s commune and throw in a bunch of Star Wars references and time travel and a polar bear and a submarine and a nuclear bomb. What utter silliness. What attractive women. What good tv!


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