From the Armchair Of

Josh writes:

Television -- that's a good topic. Everyone watches television. Yes. Yes, you fucking do. If you're one of those "Oh, I never watch TV -- all the shows are crap and the news is too sensationalistic and OH I'M JUST SUCH A FUCKING FREE-THINKING INDIVIDUAL!!!" types, then I put it to you that A) You are a liar, and B) Death is coming for you. And by "death", I mean "me". And by "for", I mean "while thinking of". No, that's not right.

Anyway, of all the ratarse shows I watch on TV, Lost is not among them -- I haven't seen a single full episode. According to the Rules of the Internet, I am therefore much better qualified to talk about it than all the "so-called experts" who actually sit through it every week.

You know that game where you go to give someone something, then pull it back as they reach for it and go "ah -- gotcha!" again and again and again? That's Lost, that is. "You've got lots of questions, I know -- here's... lots more questions! Moo hoo ha har!" What kind of finale was that in Season One -- the shocking revelation is that there's a hole in the ground?!*

Now, I don't watch it, but various people I know do, so I keep myself informed on each episode's happenings, not because it's important that I know what my friends are talking about when Lost comes up, but because it's important that I know more than my friends when Lost comes up. To this end, I tend to read through episode summaries online, which means I only need to give up a couple of minute a week to know what's going on, and because the summaries are posted as the episodes screen in the US, I'm several months ahead of people who watch it here. It also means that I don't have nearly as much invested if it all turns to shit, a la The X-Files.

I'm pretty sure it was around the time of the X-Files movie that it became undeniably plain that the writers were just making shit up as they went, spinning out an increasingly twisted plot as long as possible, as opposed to working to a pre-determined ending. And then came Millennium, which seemed to be like that right from the start. Lost claims to have a grand plan all thought out -- maybe they can pull it off and not build things up to the point that no ultimate revelation could possibly explain all the crap they throw at you, maybe not. The important thing is that I'll be watching Season 15 of America's Next Top Model at the time and laughing.


* For what it's worth, my predicition for the Season Two finale is that they don't press the Jolly Candy-like Button and let the timer reach zero, at which point there's a loud noise, everything shakes, and it fades to white -- TO BE CONTINUED, YOU CREDULOUS FUCKS... Possibly there'll be a confusing jumble of images that the geeks can go through frame by frame while they wait for Season Three.