May 2, 2007 · 9:41 pm

Lost – “The Brig” Recap

Lessons Learned in “The Brig”

1. One Must Consider Purgatory Very Closely

It’s one of those things that producers have been denying for months, and yet this entire episode clearly placed purgatory as a real option, especially considering the speech from Locke’s father regarding his last moment before arriving on the island. In the end, I think that there’s a case to be made…but it’s a case being made as a red herring from the producers. [For more background on this, The Elder McNutt sends us in the direction of the Lostpedia Wiki: “The Purgatory Theory”]
The case brought forward by Naomi, and by Locke’s father, is that the plane crashed off the coast of Bali, Indonesia, and was in a four-mile deep trench in the ocean. Through the use of robot video cameras, the wreckage was verified including all of its passengers. Now, this certainly seems like purgatory would make sense, especially because Locke’s father’s last memory is a near-fatal car crash. However, let’s look at why this can’t actually be the case.

– Juliet, Richard, Ethan, etc.

Juliet is a problem because she traveled to the island without, you know, dying, although you could argue that concoction killed her. Richard and Ethan is the same problem: they clearly travel between the two worlds. The only way this could be unwritten is if the purple explosion killed everyone and began the purgatory…but some people had no ill effects, so that can’t be the case either.

– The Possibility for a Fake Crash

It’s very clear that this crash site has been seen as proof to the general public, but let’s consider it more closely. The site is in a four mile trench…that’s deep. It was investigated by tiny cameras, and has never been seen by human eyes. This means that people are able to manipulate things in whatever way they please. Would it be impossible for Dharma to control this coverage and create a fake crash site using elaborate dummies? We know that before the purple flash they were able to communicate and move between the island and the real world. This would give them plenty of time to fabricate things, so this “They have to be dead they found the plane!” crap doesn’t prove anything related to purgatory.

So, in the end, I think we need to take this all with a grain of salt. A big one.

2. Locke, first and foremost, is concerned about Locke

Locke isn’t out to help others, but rather to reconcile his own existence. Ben is playing off this, in my view, and I think it’s all a ploy. This is the second time someone has received a message of dissent within the Others (Juliet to Jack, and now Richard to Locke) and I have to wonder whether either of them was truly genuine. Do people really want a change from Ben’s leadership this time around? If I can, I figure Ben’s kind of like Gorbachev; Ben is trying to fix the Others’ problems, but in doing so he’s losing sight of the big picture. Of course, in the USSR, this brought on the failed August Coup. However, what if that Coup had a leader like Locke? I think it would be an entirely different story.

But, Soviet history aside, the situation here is proof that Locke is most concerned with his own well-being and destiny on the island. With his father dead, and with the Boone thing behind him, and with Eko’s death having purpose thanks to its coordinates, Locke is pretty well guilt free right now. Will he be able to make a difference with the Others? Only time will tell.

3. Jack and Juliet Went Up the Hill to Hatch a Plan

It’s the question I think we’re most curious about after the episode’s end: what exactly are Jack and Juliet up to. Has Juliet informed Jack about Ben’s upcoming visit to their camp, and all of their plans? Or are they cooking up something entirely different. Juliet’s motivations have always remained on the fence, and Jack’s reaction to Kate’s news was awfully strange.

Personally, I can’t know for sure what they’re up to, but I’d say that Jack is in the know regarding Ben’s plan. The question now, though, is why Ben would ever trust Juliet with any truly important information knowing her position with Jack. Is he that naïve? Or does he have something up his sleeve. Something to consider, I guess.

4. Sawyer Got His Man

Finally, Sawyer manages to come to grips with his childhood trauma and kill the man who did it to him. It wasn’t a really integral part of things, but it’s good to see some movement in Sawyer’s character. It was well-acted, his meltdown, and certainly allowed us to delve a little deeper into Sawyer’s past. He remains, however, intricately connected to pretty well every castaway imaginable (He was in Boone’s back story, his baby mama was in Kate’s, he met with Jack’s father at the bar in Sydney, etc.), so it should be interesting to see what role he plays in the show’s overall mythology as we get closer to it.

5. Rousseau + Box of Dynamite = ???

It could have just been a throwaway, but let’s keep this in mind for future episodes. Rousseau is now carrying around a box of unstable dynamite (From everyone’s favourite 1st season slave boat The Black Rock!), and knows that the Others are holding her daughter hostage. I daresay that she might be considering some form of rash action.

Want to know what else went down in “The Brig”? Continuing reading for a full recap of the episode.

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May 2, 2007 · 7:55 am

Cultural News Bytes – May 2nd, 2007

Why WordPress Rocks

First today, an extensive thank you to the good people at WordPress support for dealing with some technical difficulties in fantastic fashion. I posted last evening’s Tuesday Night TV Society, and then I kind of disappeared from the site. In fact, I was no longer an administrator, and had basically lost control of the blog. As it was late and I was heading to bed (I really shouldn’t have been up blogging in the first place), I sent off a quick message to support and somewhat expected to be dealing with it throughout the day today.

Alas, this was not the case; I had an email from Mark when I woke up this morning, and logged on to find that I once again had control of the site. This basically means that the blog was down for an entire five hours or so. Mark was extremely apologetic, but honestly: where else would tech support on a blog host going to get things done in five hours (And what is technically the middle of the night out here on the East Coast)? Many thanks to Mark and everyone at WordPress for creating such a fantastic environment. I tip my hat to you.

9 Minutes of Rat-a-too-ee

It’s Disney’s big hope for the mid-summer months, and it’s Pixar’s first film completed under complete Disney/Pixar partnership. Ratatouille began as a project under Jan Pinvaka, director of the Oscar-winning short Geri’s Game, but was radically revamped starting early last year when Brad Bird ended his vacation early to take over the project. The result was a complete story overhaul and likely a completely different film. That film, it seems, is coming along quite nicely. For those of you who watched American Idol last night (In both Canada and the US, since I also saw this), you saw an extended commercial for the film which taught you how to say its title, and sent you to Disney.com in order to watch a 9-Minute preview of the film.

This is an interesting strategy, considering that it is basically advertising their advertising campaign. However, it’s probably the right way to go in terms of getting the word out about this film. It is lacking a gimmick, an immediate appeal, outside of its Pixar quality. It is the first Pixar film since The Incredibles to really feature human characters and it lacks that film’s built-in superhero audience. Ratatouille has a confusing title, a rat as its lead character, Paris as its setting, and in many ways it’s an unmarketable film…but don’t tell that to the 9-Minute clip on Disney’s website.

For me, it’s everything Cars wasn’t. Cars was really very lifeless, if I had to lodge a single complaint in its direction. The landscapes were luscious, but the cars just didn’t convey emotion except within its supporting characters (Mater and Guido were the only ones who really stuck with me). Its action scenes were beautiful and impressive, but didn’t have the frenetic pace and energy we saw in The Incredibles…but it’s all here. There is emotion that is mature, understandable, touching. There is action that carries the story forward and seems exciting, meaningful, and beautifully animated. I now can’t help but be excited for this film’s release, much more so than any of the multitude of sequels which surround it.

Ratatouille opens on June 29th. I can now spell it without checking it; with any luck, millions more will be able to do the same soon.

The Fate of Scrubs

There’s usually a few hits a day on my post regarding the need for NBC to cancel Scrubs, and here’s a bit of an update. According to Variety, NBC aired commercials on Monday promoting the “final episodes” of Scrubs airing on Thursdays. Considering the show’s budget, and the multi-million dollar deal signed by Zach Braff, NBC really isn’t in any position to keep a show that, after losing its post-Office time slot to 30 Rock, was defeated by the Freshman drama in key demos and total viewers. On a basic level, Scrubs is not going to be on NBC in the fall (especially for the reason that we’ll discuss Re: The Office on Thursday).

However, considering that ABC signed Braff’s contract (They own, produce and distribute the show), all signs point to ABC picking it up. They’ve been looking for a comedy hit for ages, and with According to Jim and George Lopez on their last legs and with three failed comedies (Knights of Prosperity, In Case of Emergency, Notes from the Underbelly) this season, a known success would be key. Variety notes that it could still be too expensive, but ABC is in such a bad comedy state that they’ll spend the money just to be able to air the show’s final season.

So, fans of the show should be holding their breath for seeing another season of the show, but don’t bet on the peacock.

Spider-Man 3 Opens Strong Internationally

Watch today for initial opening-day results from its European tallies, but early word from Asia is that Spider-Man 3 will continue the franchise’s overseas success at the very least. It set records in Japan, Hong Kong and China, and is likely to do similar business across Europe. When it opens on Friday, it will be the widest opening ever…which basically means that its success is guaranteed. It’s funny, really: I can’t really get excited about this film, and yet it never had a chance to fail. It’s got nothing opening against it, this past weekend as an abysmal one for the domestic box office so there’s no holdover competition in the least, and there’s nothing opening on May 11th to challenge it. Basically, until Shrek 3, Spider-Man 3 can destroy the box office with no real competition. The really interesting opening will probably be Shrek 3, as I think it’s the least necessary sequel and stuck in the middle of Spidey and Sparrow (Pirates 3)…but who am I kidding? They’ll all make hundreds of millions of dollars.

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May 1, 2007 · 10:37 pm

Tuesday Night TV Society – May 1st (Gilmores, Idol, Veronica)

Gilmore Girls

David S. Rosenthal is doing his darndest to salvage what was left behind by Amy Sherman-Palladino in the span of, oh, three episodes. He’s used every trick in the book: giant hay mazes, car shopping, wardrobe changes, and even karaoke of all things. And, do you know what? It’s heavy-handed, cliched, and yet in the end…it kind of works. This being said, I worry somewhat about where things are headed. With Lorelai and Luke heading towards some sort of resolution, Rory and Logan apparently heading to the altar, Zach heading out on tour with VapoRub…everything seems very, oh, I don’t know, final. It’s like they’re handicapping the possibility of a series finale hanging in the balance, and yet they don’t seem like they’re ready for it. I just want to avoid a 7th Heaven-like scenario where things clearly came to a resolution and then “Surprise!” we need to fill another 13-22 episodes.

With 13 episodes looking more and more likely, I at least hope that the show leaves us hanging and with some sort of future for these characters that can fill that period of time. I also hope, perhaps against all odds, that Amy returns to write/direct the eventual finale. I’m sure her new pilot will fail anyways, it’s on FOX.

American Idol

Note to American Idol Producers: there are a lot of terms synonymous with rock out there, and sadly Jon Bon Jovi is not one of them. I thought this was “Rock” night, not the catalogue of the enjoyable in their own special way Bon Jovi. It basically placed the contestants into a situation where no real individuality was easily shown (I’ll get to Blake in a second) and any originality that came out wasn’t a true extension of their own tastes. If it’s going to be a single artist week, they need to have a diverse catalogue: sappy ballads and raucous “I’m awesome, now I’m going to sing about it” is not diversity, as much as there’s some quality tripe in there.

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May 1, 2007 · 8:56 am

The Return of ‘Veronica Mars’

As Veronica Mars returns to The CW tonight for what is likely to be its final five episodes (Spread over three weeks with a 2-hour finale on the 22nd), I can’t help but be a little bit nostalgic. After all, Veronica Mars was one of the shows that I was a bit late to, catching up after the 5th episode. Even watching the opening episodes out of order, I couldn’t help but become entangled within a fascinating character study and an overarching mystery story. Perhaps it is fitting that I watched it out of order, then, considering that this final set of episodes will be the first without an overall narrative leading them.

With the mystery of Dean O’Dell’s murder solved, we find ourselves at a loss: what drives Veronica forward in the absence of this mystery? She went from Lily’s death in the first season to the bus crash in the next, and then had little to no time to react before entering the rape storyline, which moved quickly into Dean O’Dell’s apparent suicide. The show has always been operating in this serialized fashion, although featuring various sideplots at the same time, and the loss of that could be seen as a loss of part of the show’s identity.

However, we need to consider just what that identity is. If this was a show purely about mystery, about a serial plot to go along with each season, we never would have gotten three seasons. It is the characters that drive Veronica Mars forward, in the end, which is why I believe that this five-episode experiment of sorts should prove enjoyable for fans of the series. Now, the show will have a chance to have its characters act and interact without worrying about connecting them to a core mystery. The mysteries of the week can be organized without worrying about the bus crash, or Lily’s death, but about who these characters are and where they should be headed dramatically.

So, in the spirit of these new character-based episodes, let’s take a little time to run down where the characters stood before this very long hiatus:

Veronica: Well, things were somewhat complicated for Veronica. She finished solving the Dean’s murder case, and felt pretty good about it, but personally she’s somewhat conflicted. She and Logan seem to be broken up for good at this point, which is clearly on her mind, and yet she’s really moving forward with a relatively clean slate. How long it stays that uncomplicated, of course, we’ll have to see.

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April 30, 2007 · 9:05 pm

Heroes – “Five Years Gone” Recap & Analysis

Why ‘Five Years Gone’ was a Colossal Misstep

Honestly, this episode was a bloody mess. It was chaotic, confusing, in the end fairly pointless, and to be entirely honest with you I thought it was comic book television at its worst. It didn’t build any characters outside of those directly involved, considering that won’t be taking place after Hiro saves the day, and it was a return to the crowded attempts that the show struggled with early on.

‘Company Man’ was great TV because it was focused, isolated, well-made. It wasn’t a comic book come to life, but real television drama. Instead, ‘Five Years Gone’ was an incredibly frustrating attempt to pander to that audience through various constructs and theories that never turned into a cohesive story. This episode could have been Hiro’s ‘Company Man’, but instead it attempted to do FAR too many things without realizing that this doesn’t make for good television. Its conclusion was a rushed mess without resonance or meaning, instead of an epic showdown. It was just ridiculous.

I’d read ‘Five Years Gone’ as a comic book. As an episode, it just wasn’t good enough. For all the details, though, read on for the full recap.

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April 30, 2007 · 9:58 am

Heroes Flashes Forward: Previewing ‘Five Years Gone’

So tonight, Heroes will be flashing forward five years into the future (As it will occur if the bomb goes off). Considering that the show had a great deal of success with flashing backwards with ‘Company Man’, will ‘Five Years Gone’ be able to achieve the same? Well, to be honest, I don’t really think so.

You see, the thing about Company Man is that it details things that actually happened. Like Lost, its flashbacks were designed for us to gain a better understanding of the show’s characters. We were able to understand the past dealings within Primatech, Mr. Bennet’s history with Claire and that organization, and in the end we got perhaps the best 42 minutes on television this season. The reason was that it mattered; it was an episode that felt like something substantial, something tangible, something meaningful.

The thing about Five Years Gone is that it will not, ever, actually matter in the core storyline. I’m no comic book fan, I’ll be honest, and this seems right out of that industry; the cheap, gimmicky flash forward into a hypothetical scenario of what could happen. The reality is that Sylar will actually be defeated (Zachary Quinto is a guest star, after all), and that Peter is likely to live. This scenario that we’re seeing, one of where the bomb goes off, is extremely unlikely to actually happen. If it was going to happen, if the things in this episode were going to pass, why would they be showing them to us now? It’s clear that things will not go down this way.

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April 29, 2007 · 11:33 pm

Plagiarism Patrol: ‘Brothers & Sisters’ goes royal

Television writers are like any of us, really; they live normal lives with the same types of interactions with popular culture as the rest of us. They watch the same television shows, experience the same classic cinema, and likely watch the same Academy Award nominated films as we do. In fact, after watching tonight’s episode of Brothers & Sisters, I am convinced that writers Alison Schapker and Monica Breen (Late of ‘Lost’ and ‘Alias’) most certainly saw one of the films nominated for an Oscar this year. For, you see, they most assuredly ripped off the basic premise of Stephen Frears’ The Queen for tonight’s episode, ‘Bad News.’

This week, one of the many storylines revolved around a helicopter crash which claimed the life of a young speechwriter who Senator McAllister (Rob Lowe) had been hard on. Kitty (Calista Flockhart) was very emotionally distraught over this, considering that she had been the one who decided that Steven would be in the chopper instead of her and the Senator. This is the real plot of things, but in the process there was an exchange that was quite literally ripped out of The Queen.

After the crash has taken place, Kitty insists that McAllister needs to address the people, and he is aghast at this suggestion. For him, this is a personal matter, and he doesn’t believe that he should have to make it a public issue. Kitty, however, insists that the people need to know how to react, and that there are people who are counting on him to set an example. The people need you, Senator McAllister!

For anyone who has seen The Queen, this likely sounds very familiar. The entire film revolves around the reaction, or lack thereof, from the royal family (Queen Elizabeth II, portrayed by Academy Award winning Helen Mirren, specifically) to Princess Diana’s tragic death. For Elizabeth, this was a private manner for her son and her grandchildren, and she felt that she had nothing to say to the public. Newly elected prime minister Tony Blair (Portrayed extremely well by Michael Sheen), however, believes that it is the Queen’s role to comfort her subjects in this time of mourning.

I seriously doubt that this was pure coincidence, although I can’t real blame Alison and Monica for turning to The Queen for inspiration; it was well-handled in that film, and it was well-handled on Brothers & Sisters as well. The show seems to like to treat Kitty as its star, and sometimes I don’t really buy it…but her storyline this week held resonance, so I guess that plagiarism was successful in this instance. I guess if you’re going to rip off something, a first-class piece of screenwriting from Peter Morgan is probably a good place to start.

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April 28, 2007 · 11:54 pm

Dear Television: Enough with the Metaphors.

It’s now officially May Sweeps (It started on Thursday evening), which means that all serial dramas are heading into their final storylines leading into their season finales. This means that they’re working overtime to make sure that everything is lined up perfectly, and that we as viewers are along for the ride. And, trust me, I understand why they do this. However, for the love of all things holy, quit it with the blatant metaphors and anvil-heavy examples.

Get it? It's a maze!

I know that Gilmore Girls is heading into its final series of episodes in what could still potentially be its last season (More on this at some point in the coming weeks, methinks), but does it need to be designed entirely based on metaphorical situations to place its characters in. It began two weeks ago with the hay maze. You see, you can’t go around the maze, you have to confront it. Just like Lorelai and Luke need to confront their mistakes in the past, instead of just going around it. Because it’s faster that way. And then Rory and Logan were going into the maze, and there was two directions to go in, and they went in the same one. Get it? Because he’s totally on her side, because the maze told me so! I honestly felt fairly stupid watching it, as if the show didn’t feel that I, as a viewer, was capable of figuring it out without an anvil-like metaphor.

And then they did it again a week later! I know that even Amy Sherman-Palladino (Creator and former showrunner) used metaphors to get across her points, but it never felt so blatant. In this episode, Lorelai and Luke tried to reconnect. In the same episode, Lorelai’s car breaks. Now, she goes car shopping with Luke, but she doesn’t enjoy it or the cars she sees. You see, she doesn’t want a new car, she wants her OLD car. Just like she doesn’t want this new awkward Luke relationship, but rather her OLD banter-filled, dented relationship with the diner-owner. Do you get it? Because Luke is just like her car.

And yet, its popped up elsewhere as well.

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April 28, 2007 · 11:55 am

An Open Letter to Zap2it.com Regarding Spoilers

Dear Zap2it.com,

I have been a reader of your site for the past number of years. I stumbled across it in my search to gain TV ratings data, and it has become a permanent stop on my entertainment news trawling ever since. It offers a wide range of commentary, quick news updates, and an occasionally biting sense of humour within its briefs that I find to be quite engaging. And yet, despite all of these positive qualities, I have a serious beef with you. Why?

Because you have spoiled more episodes of Survivor for me than I could count on my two hands.

Survivor is one of those shows, as I was discussing last week I believe, that I don’t often watch live. It is much more often that I am waiting to watch it until at the very least Friday afternoon, having not yet found the time to peruse it. And yet, during that time, I would like to be able to spend some time at Zap2it.com…but I cannot.

You insist on placing a picture of the evicted castaway on your main page, sometimes unavoidable when loading it. When Anthony was eliminated earlier this season, I knew before watching the show because I headed to Zap2it to see if the ratings were up yet. This, effectively, makes the show’s last 15 minutes absolutely worthless. In essence, these episodes of Survivor are being ruined for me.

I know that you’re trying to bring people in to read your recaps (Hell, I write my own recaps of shows all the time), but is putting a picture of the castaway eliminated REALLY necessary? Just slap a picture of Jeff Probst up there, include a little headline which hints at the episode’s actions, and then save the photo for the From Inside the Box post itself. It’s so frustrating to know that a simple change like this one could keep people from unwillingly discovering who was unfortunate enough to get the boot the night previous.

You need to realize that this is the age of TiVo, where people will often have not watched a show for a few days after it airs. This is especially true of Survivor due to the large amount of programming within its timeslot. There’s Ugly Betty, ABC’s award-winning drama. There’s Smallville, for the young teen set. And then there’s The Office and My Name is Earl for the 18-49s. And, for the unintelligent, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? on FOX. There are a lot of options here that people might choose over Survivor…and they are.

But this doesn’t mean that people aren’t watching; the recent Nielsen data regarding same-week DVR viewings showed that Survivor gained two million viewers compared to its initial same-day viewing total. That’s two million people who didn’t watch the show that night, and yet who would be entirely capable of mistakingly coming across that picture when browsing your site.

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April 27, 2007 · 3:17 pm

Breaking News: Studio 60 returns May 24th at 10/9c

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I was looking to see if perhaps Studio 60 might be replacing the finishing Raines after this week’s episode, and stumbled across something I was certainly not aware of.

According to NBC.com (And spread further by Zap2it), Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will be taking over for ER on May 24th (That’s a Thursday) at 10pm EST. This is fantastic news for those of us who want to see how this season comes to a close. There’s still at least five episodes of the show remaining to air, and there’s still an off chance that it could be picked up for next season. However, I don’t expect this to happen.

You see, while it’s great that it’s coming back, that timeslot is going to be death. There’s no lead-in whatsoever, and while I’m glad to see it’s not being dead zoned on Fridays it’s still going to be a tough battle against the lead-outs from CSI (Shark) and Grey’s Anatomy (Maybe Men in Trees? Depends, really).

Either way, get ready to complain about pretentious writing and people who just can’t sleep together without bringing religion into it. And, if you’re me, kind of enjoy it all despite those aspects of it.

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