Friday, February 29, 2008

Back with LOST

So I'm sorry about the delay in posts -- Midterms have been pretty awful. But they're pretty much over, so I can get back to doing the fun stuff. On with LOST.

Sorry I didn't get to give you my feedback on last week's Kate-centric episode Eggtown (best of the season so far?). I won't go in-depth because I have to break this week's episode down, but let's go over the major points.

I told you about Aaron! I forewarned you that Kate would be taking care of Claire's baby. This could mean that Claire is still on the island in the future with the other survivors, but more likely that she suffered the same fate as Charlie, Boone, Shannon, Libby, Eko and Ana Lucia. We should assume that Aaron does not count as one of the Oceanic Six, so there is still two more "survivors" we need to find.

Why didn't Jack want to see Aaron? It's his nephew, what's the catch? Kate obviously wanted him to come back to the house, but Jack is scared. Speaking of Jack, what a story of how they survived the crash. 8 survivors, and Kate helped a bunch of them live when they crashed. So Claire must be one of the two that survived the crash but didn't survive the island, my guess for the second is Sun (suffering the same fate -- having a baby but then "dying"). And Jack still loves Kate, of course.

Miles is trying to blackmail Ben for $3.2 million dollars -- why?? The ghostbuster apparently doesn't have allegiance to the economist and is willing to switch to Ben's side. Also, why $3.2 million? Why not $3 or $5 million? We'll figure that out eventually. I love what Locke did to Miles after he found him with Kate. Every action has its consequence, and Miles had to snack on a grenade.

Now for the new episode of LOST that aired last night, the Desmond-centric The Constant (best of the season so far? - see the running theme with my posts?)

Whoaaaaaaaaa! So we had flashbacks.....flashforwards....that was supposed to be it. But with Desmond we can have....mind-time travelling. Leave it to the creators to give us a third option to confuse us, but man do we love it. Let's break it down.

Desmond is easily one of my favorite characters on the show (I'm going to do a post on my favorite LOST characters another time), however, Daniel Faraday has quickly cemented himself up there. He is just awesome. He understands all that is the island. We'll get into him in a second.

Desmond's conscious can time travel. This episode he kept going back and forth between 1996 and 2004 and if he couldn't stop it he would meet the same fate as Eloise the lab rat and Minkowski -- his brain would overload, short circuit, and he would die. Faraday, who we find out knows all about mind time-traveling, tells Desmond that he must find a constant; something that he cares deeply about in both time periods that he can latch onto: Penny.

Faraday is amazing. Simply put. Easily my favorite of the new comers and quickly climbing the charts. He gets the island, he really, really gets it. However his mind is obviously not all there. But he knows what's going on with the island. I'm going to come back to him at the end.

Charles Widmore, Penny's dad, won an auction that featured the manifest of the first mate of The Black Rock, the ship marooned on the island with the castaways. The first mate also happened to be a member of the Hanso family. And as we know Alvar Hanso made the Hanso Foundation which was on the lost island, until Ben came along. This shows us that there are definite ties between Widmore Industries and the Hanso Foundation.

Desmond, after seeking out Mr. Widmore, get's Penny's address and goes to see her. This is after he broke up with her so she's not very happy to see him. Desmond explains to her that even though its crazy, in 8 years, he's going to call her and she must pick up. With time running out in the present, Desmond comes back with Penny's number in hand, just as Sayid repairs the phone in the radio room. Desmond calls Penny, and after a while (a long while), Penny picks up. They say they love each other and that no matter what they'll find each other. It really was a good LOST moment.

Ben's man on the boat probably sabotaged the radio room, and he definitely let the guys out of the locked hospital room. Who is this man? Well, it's Michael, let's be serious. Frank needed to go on heading 305 degrees, on Eko's stick it said North 305, and Ben told Michael to go on heading 305 in order to leave the island....that should solidify that Michael is the man on the boat. And what a man he is.

Back to Faraday, he is flipping through his journal at the end of the episode, and he comes to a page that says, "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume is my constant." So it's safe to assume that Faraday, like Desmond, can mind time travel. My guess is that he made himself a guinea pig back at Oxford after Eloise's experiment worked. This makes sense with regards to other items as well, such as:

When Faraday first dropped on the island what did he have on him? Oh yeah, a picture of Desmond and Penny. Funny, considering the freighter is NOT Penny's. How'd he come across this picture, and why does he have it? Because Desmond is his constant.

Also in the same episode, Faraday's flashback has him crying as they're discovering the Oceanic 815 flight wreckage. His caretaker asks him why he's crying, and he says he doesn't know. Now I originally said he had made some calculations as to how to find the island, and those were the co-oridnates he gave his people, and they found the flight wreck instead. But now I'm going to say this: his mind has been to the future and he knows that they survive. He meets Desmond in 2004. He knows that there should not be flight wreckage, yet he doesn't really know...if that makes sense. It's like a gut feeling when you know something isn't right even though all the evidence points against you're feeling.

That's it for this week's breakdown. Next week we have a Juliet-centric episode. Keep checking back everyday as I continue to catch up on my blog posting.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Apologies

I recently received a comment from "the bod" (which is a pretty awful name Todd) which I'm choosing to address. I've been swamped with midterms this past weekend and week so I haven't been able to update as frequently as I would have liked. As soon as everything calms down I promise to break down last week's LOST episode as well as give you my thoughts on the Oscars which aired this past Sunday. Just stick with me and we'll all get through this unscathed. Until then...

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Lost Tonight! The Wonderful World of Kate Austen

LOST is on tonight at 9pm on ABC and it's a flashforward featuring the lovely Evangeline Lilly as Kate. Apparently we learn something about her or she does something tonight that will shock even her most devoted fans. Sounds good to me. Tune in and tomorrow I'll break the episode down for you.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Weekend Backtrack: All-Stars & Wires

Well the weekend is over, and I'm not sure what to think of it. Friday I stayed in and ended up doing work for my midterms coming up. Saturday I did the same thing, but that was more of a staying in because All-Star Saturday was that day, and man, was that something else. And Sunday was the All-Star game as well as the next installment of The Wire. Let's break it down.

ALL-STAR SATURDAY
We can skip the team shootout and skills competition (although it is worth nothing that Deron Williams now holds the record in a flawless final round against hometown hero Chris Paul) and jump straight into the Three-Point Competition and Dunk Contest. The only thing really worth noting for the 3-Point Competition is that Jason Kapono is the best pure shooter in the league. Last year I attended All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas and during the competition the section I was in was assigned to Jason Kapono, meaning if he won the contest then we would win a "special prize." So I cheered for Kapono and he won and I won a free shirt, was pretty cool. Naturally this year I am going for Kapono again because he didn't let me down last year, and he didn't this year. He made the final round with a first round 20 and then in the finals tied the record of 25. He's tied with Larry Bird. Now that is pretty freakin' sweet. Then that was done, bring on the dunks.

Finally, creative thought is back. No more doing what the older dunkers did in "new ways." Creative, original thought, has returned in the form of Gerald Green and Dwight Howard. Moon and Gay are high flyers, but they're creative image was not as bold as Green's or Howards. Gerald Green and the Birthday Cake. He placed a cupcake at the top of the rim before the dunk and lit a candle. Then threw the ball up to himself, caught the ball, blew out the candle, and then dunked the ball. Showing this from the point of view from the backboard was actually pretty amazing. Check it out.

That should've had a higher score, but his dunk didn't top Howard's dunks.

With three dunks that I can say are three of the best dunks I've ever seen, Howard proved that big men can fly through the air. I can't even describe the dunks, just check out the video.



ALL-STAR GAME
The All-Star game was pretty sweet. I didn't watch the last quarter of it because I had prior obligations, but I watched the highlights and what a game it was. The West crawled back into it and almost took the cake led by Chris Paul's 16 points and 14 assists. But Ray Allen's 14 fourth quarter points, including three straight 3's, and LeBron's power dunk, were just too much to overcome. Sidenote: After the first quarter I said the score would be 131-129; the actual score ended up being 134-128, not too shabby. LeBron was named MVP for the second time in three years. Fun, fun game.

THE WIRE
Episode 7, titled "Took," aired last night. However I had already watched that last week so I was looking forward to episode 8 that would come on HBO On Demand Monday morning at 12am. "Clarifcations" was, to say the least, surprising. I really can't ruin anything for you, because well, something monumental happens that I did not see coming until literally the second before it happened. I am extremely distraught over this and I can't in my right mind post the spoiler here because it would be doing you fans an injustice. I'll talk about what transpired next week after it officially airs on HBO at 9.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Pineapple Express Red Band Trailer

This looks to be all sorts of awesome. Starring Seth Rogen and James Franco about two stoners who are on the run from some hit men, this looks to have all the typical laughs of an Apatow produced movie. Check out the Redband trailer for it below (Redband means not allowed in theaters).

Sayid, You Mothaf*$%er

I have no idea what Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have been drinking, but damn I want some of it. Their creative genius has been off the charts outstanding this year. Three stellar episodes this year so far. It's clear the genius that was behind the first season of this show has been back now for a number of episodes (dating back to last year), and this episode was no different. In fact I would go so far as to say last night's episode was one of the best of the series, and that's saying something, because I've said that about every episode this year so far. Let's break it down.

FLASHFORWARDS
Last night was Sayid's flashforward and it's revealed that he is also one of the Oceanic Six. We see him enjoying a nice morning round of golf when a stranger approaches to him and makes a friendly wager with him. Sayid agrees and continues to explain to the man very casually that he is a member of the Oceanic Six. The man is visibly startled about this and upset, takes his swing (wins) and then attempts to leave without taking the payment. Sayid doesn't let this happen, as it turns out the payment was to shoot the man dead. Bam! What a way to open it.


Next we see Sayid in a coffee shop in Berlin ask a woman for directions. The woman seems to remember Sayid from somewhere but can't place it. He tells her that he's a headhunter (corporate recruiter) and she tells him she is the assistant to an economist. They arrange to go on a date and take it from there. He leaves the coffee shop and calls his employer saying he made contact, then drops the phone in the garbage (Alias anyone??).

They're next preparing to go to the opera and she tells him she's not going to take her beeper which is the way her employer reaches her. He's in town about twice a year and she's supposed to be at his side immediately if he beeps her (they're either not very technological or they don't want to be contacted/found). Sayid says that he'll take the beeper, and justifies it by saying she shouldn't be fired because of him. So we know now for a fact that Sayid is just with her to get after her boss.

The next flashforward we see them in bed, presumably after sex, and she's complaining that she doesn't know anything about him. She wants to know what he's up to now and doesn't care about the plane crash and whatnot. She tells him she loves him, and he reciprocates the feeling. Then her beeper goes off. She gets up in a hurry and says she has to go. Sayid gets up and tells her that she has to leave Berlin, saying that he doesn't want her in danger after what he does to her boss. He says her boss is on a list (another list, more on that on the bottom) and that he's going to kill him. She gets visibly upset, saying is that all you do, kill people without see who they are and how good they can be. Sayid says her employer is not a good person. She comes back from the bathroom and shoots Sayid in the shoulder. BAM! She asks who he works for and he says nothing. She calls her employer saying that he won't talk and that she didn't kill him and that she's going to bring Sayid to him. Sayid sees his gun in his jacket and distracts her, then gets her gun and pops two in her chest, shes dead. DAMN! Plus, she has the same bracelet on that Naomi had on. Say whaaaa? Check on that below.

In the last flashforward we see Sayid getting his bullet pulled out by his employer. He asks if the other employer, the economist, found out who he was working for and Sayid said definitely not. We then see his employer is none other than the great Benjamin Linus. He tells Sayid he has another name on the list for him to go after. Sayid says now they know they're going after them, and Ben says, "GOOD!" Wowowowowoowowowoow!!! Let's put all this on hold for a second and check what's going back on the island.

RANDOM THOUGHTS
Another list. There's the Oceanic 815 Flight Manifest List. Jacob's List (which we don't understand yet). The list of people Michael needs to bring back to get Walt back. Interesting.

Disappearing cabin. Locke can't find it. Hurley ran into it twice in two different places. What is up?

Ben's secret closet. Had a bunch of clothes and tons of foreign currency and tons of passports. So all of this, plus the photo that the boat people had on them tells me two things: 1. Ben is a liar (which we knew), and 2. Ben has been going off the island secretly without anyone knowing. How?? Another piece of Ben Linus falls into place.

Faraday's experiment with the payload. Awesome. Something tells me Faraday understands a lot about the island. He just gets it. Doesn't have a specific connection with the island, but he understands it scientifically. With the experiment though, time on the island runs slower than in real life. 31 minutes slower to be precise. That's freaky. So the gang has been on the island for 100 days but in real time it's much more than that (I'm not good at math).

Bracelets. Naomi had one, and now Elsa had one. Both people were hired to find Benjamin Linus. Coincidence??? Not on this show.

R.G. The inscription on the bracelet had those initials. Who could that be? We've been hearing the name Regina a lot. She's the voice on the other end of the phone. The actress that plays her is Zoe Bell, a former stunt double. I doubt they would have her on the show just so she could provide a voice. We'll be seeing more of her later on, and maybe those are her initials.

Staying the course. Faraday told Frank to not go off the route that they came in. Stay the same bearing back to the boat. Faraday knows shiz about this island. And could this be the same bearing 325 Ben told Michael at the end of season 2?? We'll have to wait and find out.

Oceanic Six. Who are the other two members? So far we have Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid. I've heard a lot of rumors online. I'm staking my claim. I did not come up with this so I can't take credit. I'm saying the other two are Jin and Sun. And Ben is definitely not a member.

Sawyer playing house. Pretty much sort of proposed to Kate right there. He's staying on the island and wants to play house with Kate. That's love baby.

Ben. Such an evil piece of work. But I love it. He survives the island and the boat people, and is going after the bossman. Love him.

NEXT WEEK
Kate flashforward. We'll find out who the "he" is she referred to in the season 3 finale. I think I know the answer, but I won't post it. I'll post an asterisk quiz. ******'s ***** *****.

Love this freaking show.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Officially, Strike Over! TV Updates

The WGA voted yesterday and with 92.5% of the vote they decided to get back to work! Here's what you can expect for some TV shows:

LOST Will shoot 5 more episodes and call it quits for season 4. They will cram the original 8 down to 5, and the in the next two years will tack on the 3 hours they erased from this season. The 9th episode will air 4 weeks after the 8th episode.

Friday Night Lights No more episodes to air. In fact, this show might get canned (unfortunately). Ratings are down so we'll just have to wait and see. DVD of season two comes out in April.

Smallville Expected to shoot 4-6 additional scripts bringing the season total to 18-20, by far the most of scripted TV shows.

One Tree Hill Expected to shoot 4-6 additional scripts bringing the season total to 12-14.

The Office Expected to shoot 4-6 additional scripts, which they can start filming right away, because they had a couple of scripts already written before the strike.

Heroes No new scripts until the Fall. Season 3 will be titled "Villains."

24 No new scripts until January 2009. Tony will still be playing the bad guy.