I can’t say I have the greatest memory in the world (it took me most of my formative years to learn the alphabet. Longer to learn love). In fact, most everything I do should be forgotten. But, wait, what was I doing?
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Uncategorized | Tagged: Brad Pitt, Comedy, Entertainment, Glee, Lost, Television | 
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Posted by Sang
What is also of note is just how much attention the Twilight sequel is getting. That movie is going to make a fucking fortune and my head will fall off due to prolonged periods of long, drawn out head shakes of disapproval.
1 Comment | News, Television, Uncategorized | Tagged: Chuck, Comic Con, Heroes, Lost, True Blood | Permalink
Posted by Sang
Thanks to Tostie14 for posting the whole damn thing on Youtube! It’s always entertaining watching Lindlelof and Cuse shooting the shit on Lost. This last season cemented Lost as one of the greatest, most fucked up, television series ever to grace my hawk-like eyes. Pretenders have come (Invasion, Jericho, Heroes) have come and gone (or, in Heroes’ case, proved to be a first season fluke) while Lost continues to chug along with a full head of steam. The second season kiiiiind of underwhelmed, but the rest have been either strong or very strong.
Leave a Comment » | Television | Tagged: Comic Con, Entertainment, Lost, Television | Permalink
Posted by Sang
See you in another life, brotha'
It’s 4:30 in the morning and the sandman seems to have skipped over me tonight so I’ve just been watching some informercials. And then a new thought on the Lost finale struck me.
Where the hell was Desmond? But it’s all becoming crystal clear now.
I fully believe Desmond will become the most important character in Lost’s final season. There’s simply been too much build up with the character from a plot stand point for him not to be. Faraday drove home the point that for whatever reason Desmond existed outside of the time stream, able to remember multiple time events. This means that whatever becomes of Jack’s plan, Desmond will still remember everything. Because of this, I do believe that Jack’s plan ultimately succeeds andhe new season will open up with everyone landing in LAX just as scheduled on that first Oceanic flight. Everybody goes about their lives, Jack to bury his dad, Kate to jail, etc, as if nothing happens. Things finally seem okay.
And then somewhere in England a Desmond who never went on that boat race, never crashed on the island, and never reunited with Penny will suddenly “remember” everything that happened in that other timeline. He’ll remember what happened on the island, marrying Penny and having a son. And now all of that is gone and I believe it’ll be his drive to undo what Jack did, to save his marriage and child, that will be key next season.
If I had control of the series, this would definitely be the route I would go, at least for the early parts of the season. Go from last season’s relative spectacle to a more intimate story of love and lost with Desmond, which has time itself steal everything away. This would be a kickass plot thread if the writers choose to go that route. A Desmond that’s desperately trying to fix time itself for the sake of his never born kid. That’s epic material right there.
Of course, that’s just my 2 cents.
Leave a Comment » | Television | Tagged: Desmond, Entertainment, Lost, Television | Permalink
Posted by Sang
That's a deal breaker
With all the finales nearly up, I’ve been bombarded with a whole bunch of shows trying to finish up their run. On the one hand, it’s pretty much been a consecutive string of really high quality programming, on the other hand, most of my favourite series are done until the fall (or forever). So how did they fare? Here’s my countdown of the top 5 finales over the past week. Chances are it’ll be revised depending on whether 24 or Ugly Betty’s finales are up to snuff.
Leave a Comment » | Television | Tagged: Ent, Entertainment, Fringe, House, Lost, Supernatural, Television | Permalink
Posted by Sang
This picture was taken when Matthew Fox still cared
I’ve been pretty vocal about how stupendously awesome this season of Lost has been. So enthused was I that it was simply inconceivable that the show could’ve lived up to the self induced hype.
And it didn’t. Not that it wasn’t any good, it definitely was, but that nothing mind blowing happened. What was in the metal case those mysterious people who keep asking “what lies in the shadow of the statue” I called early on, and so when they make their ‘big’ reveal it was more “huh, that’s cool,” than “Oh my fucking baby Jesus!” As for finally revealing who Jacob was? That was also a pretty big let down, what with him being an even bigger mystery now than he was before. Oh, so he’s been in the background of every main characters life? *Yawn*
A positive from the ho-hum Jacob reveal is the realization of the audience that the thing Locke and Ben had seen in the cabin wasn’t Jacob, but rather the disembodied ghost of some dude who has a thing about finding loopholes to kill Jacob. That was a pretty neat turn of events, finding out Locke was being manipulated by the bad guy this whole time.
I was also glad Miles pointed out that maybe, just maybe, what Jack was planning on doing with the bomb might be the cause of the event, not the prevention. I always get annoyed when characters don’t point out this fallacy in time travel stories. Too bad apparently nobody paid attention to our poor Asian ghost hunter.
It was nice seeing Jack and Sawyer finally throwing the gloves off and having at each other, but the fight was just this side of satisfying, with it ending abruptly. It was bloody and intense, but it didn’t last long enough. Back in the present (well, two years ago) there was just a lot of walking, cryptic conversations and a broken path of ash. Not exactly the most interesting of events.
As for Juliette’s ‘death’, I knew instantly that it was a red herring because there was no requisite Sad Lost Theme playing while, or shortly after, she ‘died’, all while everything is moving in slow motion. This has become such a troupe of Lost that without it, unless you see someone being shot and confirmed dead (or throttled by a smoke monster), you can’t be sure they’re actually dead.
Well, what about the patented Lost cliffhanger? Well, this ain’t no “We have to go back!” It’s no moving island. Just a rock, a nuke and a white light. A real big let down that doesn’t exactly leave you salivating for next season’s premier. Especially with the very previous scene had someone saying, “they’re coming.” Kind of ruins the, “are they going back to the future or aren’t they?” debate that could’ve happened.
In the end, it was a perfectly serviceable episode of Lost. Shit happened, mysteries revealed, more mysteries added, mysterious Egyptian tombs, etc. The usual. But for a supposedly explosive two hour finish to what’s been an astonishingly great season, it left a lot to be desired.
Leave a Comment » | Television | Tagged: Entertainment, Lost, Television | Permalink
Posted by Sang
Saying its been one crazy fucking season would put it lightly. Lost went from the mysterious “what the hell’s happening show” to the mysterious “it’s a fucking time travelling show?”
And damn if it hasn’t been a fun ride. It’s probably handled the sensitive matter of time travel better than any science fiction show has, setting up concrete rules that it has yet to break and that makes sense with the continuity, to an extent, of the previous seasons. You can’t change the past, and that’s that. No matter what you do, what happened, happened. A simple solution to the Grandfather paradox. You can’t kill the grandfther, or in this case Benjamin Linus, in the past because he’s alive in the present.
It’ll be tonight’s 2 hour finale that sees if what has so far been a steady adherence to the ‘rules’ of time travel unravels or not. With what’s happened so far, I doubt Jack will succeed in his plans to blow up the island before they had ever crashed there, therefore undoing everything. One, because that would be the biggest fucking cop out in TV history and two, there’s still one more season.
Whatever happens, this is going to be one crazy episode. If you haven’t yet, you have have roughly five hours to catch up on the season. Wikipedia helps.
Leave a Comment » | Television | Tagged: Lost, Television, TV | Permalink
Posted by Sang
I'll miss this show so much.
Television, more than any other media form I can think of, lives off of consumer trends and tastes. In other words, 95% of TV series that survive are based on pre-established industry formulas. You have your copper shows (L&O, Mentalist, NCIS, CSI), where every episode encapsulates a singular mystery (maybe 2) with the off chance of an ongoing backstory if the creators feel risky. This can also span enforcement centred shows like The Unit and 24.
Secondly you have your medicals. Grey’s Anatomy, House, Private Practice fall into this, where it’s basically the copper equivalent, only switch out crime with medical mystery, and streetwise cops/specialists with emotionally damaged doctors.
Thirdly, you have your reality shows. The less said about them, the better. Aside from a few genuinely great ones like Amazing Race and So You Think You Can Dance, they all range from absolutely deplorable to mildly amusing. he networks know they aren’t exactly pushing out timeless material, but they had ads they need showing and they need to show them to as many people as possible.
Looking at the top 20 rated shows for broadcast in any given week you will see these three categories easily dominate at least 14 spots. This past week saw these shows taking up 15 spots. That’s not saying these shows aren’t good. They have to have at least a certain level of inherent quality to have so many viewers tune in, but you can argue they aren’t exactly original.
Well, here are a handful of network shows that I feel have no right to exist, not because they’re bad but that they’re unlike any of the shows that dominate the ratings. These are the shows that defied the bottom line. They don’t fit any easily definable formula and networks probably could easily get just as many viewers, if not more, putting out a procedural. And yet they live! Well, some of them. A few have been cancelled, unfortunately, but they were still given full season runs when their ratings would say a repeat of House would’ve gotten twice as many viewers.
NOTE: I’m omitting cable shows seeing that they constitute a fairly low percentage of TV viewers and we all know they have some crazy shows networks would never touch. And the cable networks know it. Also,I’m only looking at shows currently on air.
2 Comments | Television | Tagged: Entertainment, Heroes, Lost, Supernatural, Television | Permalink
Posted by Sang
Beating its fellow networks to the punch (so fast, in fact, that I didn’t even notice until today), ABC announced its fall renewals. Though largely devoid of surprise, it did bring with it a number of disappointments. Let’s break down the scripted shows that got the go ahead and those that got an axe to the side of the cranium (sort of. We don’t know if they’re actually cancelled).
Does anyone actually think she's ugly? Isn't that false advertisement?
Renewed:
We still love you Mr. Fillion. In a bromantic kind of way.
In The Dark
The reality renewals I don’t give two shits about but maybe you do: Extreme Makeover, Supernanny, Wife Swap, AFHVs, and ratings cash cows Dancing With The Stars and The Bachelor.
Initial announcement from the Hollywood Reporter.
3 Comments | Television | Tagged: Castle, Desperate Housewives, Entertainment, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Television, Ugly Betty | Permalink
Posted by Sang
See the background? We used to call that Chicago before "he" happened.
It’s been one topsy turvy TV season, and instead of waiting until it’s over, I’d rather come prematurely…with my thoughts on the series’ thus far. I have nothing better to do, and for all intents and purposes, my current opinion of these shows probably won’t change with the hand full of episodes they have left. I’ll (probably) update this article when the television season’s over and done with.
So, without further ado, and in no particular order (though I could’ve conceivably done it alphabetically rather easily) :
24 Season 7
We have a backwater African nation taking over airplanes with a mythical super device that looks like a toaster, we have the same African nation’s dictator trying to kill the President, and we now have US companies trying to kill EVERYBODY. Yep, this is 24.
And I’ve been loving it every bit. Jack Bauer’s been doing exactly what we love him for – wanton brutality. If there is a sore spot, it’s been the new tertiary characters. People like Garofalo’s Janice and the bitch/douche/whore of a first daughter really slow things down whenever their onscreen. But then again, whenever we’re not seeing Jack dismembering someone, everything’s relatively slow.
Rating: 24/10 – Did you honestly think I could’ve resisted this?
Lost Season 5
Lost has made possibly the gutsiest move in television history. It went from a supernatural, freaky, myserious serial that millions loved, and essentially became and outright hardcore science fiction show. Time travel, baby. That’s what I’m talking about. And the show has been magnificent because of it. Though I miss the flashback’s, what else can be explored with these characters? Do we REALLY need to see any more daddy issues on the show? It seems every character has a shitty dad.
Rating: 7.5/10 – I’m lost for a summation (you can tell by now I can’t resist the obvious).
Heroes Season 3: Volume 3 and 4
I already wrote a lengthy article of how I feel about heroes. It’s two posts down.
Rating: -3/10 – Trying to warn people about this atrocity makes me a far greater hero than anyone on the show.
House M.D.
I’ve been a sucker for this series since the beginning. Gregory House is probably the best non-Bauer character on TV right now. He’s not even that dick that you know has a heart under his rocky exterior. He’s just an outright douchebag extraordinaire, and that’s what makes him so tantalizing. That’s why House puts to shame the drvel that is Grey’s Anatomy and what used to be E.R. This season hasn’t been stand out, but an average House season is still 9,298 times better than the last two seasons of Heroes.
Rating: 7/10 – Humanity is overrated.
I wished all blood splatter analysts were this awesome.
Dexter Season 3
After last season’s annoying clingy bitch from rehab arc, Dexter was back in fine form this season. Back to the killing and tense drama we loved the show for. Miguel as Dexter’s “first friend” was an inspired move, but who’s kidding – did anyone actually think a duo of serial killing amigos would ever last more than six or seven episodes?
I also liked where they left the show. Rita’s about to have little Dexter and everything seems bright for Dexter’s future. Which is all very tantalizing as we all know how al of that’s going to go.
Rating: 8/10 – Definitely a step up, but still not as great as the first season.
Battlestar Galactica Final Season
And it all ends not with a bang, but a contrived whimper. The last half of the season was really all over the place. And in the end, it all kind of peters out as they find our Earth and start all over again. *Gasp* That means we’re all Cylons, right? I knew Boomer looked like my grandmother. Great final space battle though. This show probably has the best choreographed and filmed space battles in any television show or movie ever. They’re just so damned intense. Unfortunately, there was only one this season.
Rating: 6/10 – Hey, THAT’S why pyramids exist all over the wor*barf*.
Mad Men
This series made me pick up smoking…in my head. But man, I was this close (I’m currently putting my index finger and thumb this close together [this means approximately 2 mms]). I’d say Mad Men is an acquired taste, but if you had acquired it like I and a million other guys did, you were thoroughly satisfied with this season.
Rating: 7.5/10 – He looks like a cartoon pilot! (Geek points for pointing out that reference)
You don't mess with Walter Fucking White
Breaking Bad
A little watched, but thoroughly awesome AMC show. Man, do all the good shows go to that channel nowadays? They’ve got Breaking Bad and Mad Men, two perennial Emmy winners and what does HBO have? True Blood? If you’ve never seen Breaking Bad, go out right now and rent/but the first season right now. I’ll wait.
Back? Now watch it, it’s only seven episodes. I’ll wait again…Done? Good. Now you’re a man. Season 2′sso far been just as great.
Rating: 9/10 – Bryan Cranston is a badass? Almost as badass as Dakota Fanning, even! Who would’ve thunk it?
Well, that does it for the “TV Season Thus Far…” article. I’m sure I’m missing a few shows worth mentioning, but I’ll include those in my more conclusive “TV Season” article.
2 Comments | Television | Tagged: 24, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Entertainment, Heroes, House, Lost, Mad Men, TV | Permalink
Posted by Sang
Kotaku Joystiq
