I try, but I can't help myself. Sorry.

Josh writes:

So, the season finale of Lost. I am mindful of the fact that it hasn't screened here yet, but I want to get this down while I think of it, so I'll keep the rest of it off the front page. Spoilers follow, but nothing major -- certainly nothing about the bit where Sawyer turns out to be Jesus and the monster is revealed to be made entirely of cheese. Anyway.

So, by and large who gives a fuck, eh? I could make predictions about where it's going from here...

...that "Jacob" will turn out to be Santa Claus, held captive on the island by the Others (he has lists of who's naughty and nice; he can give you whatever you want; he's there with Polar Bears from the North Pole -- it all makes perfect sense)...

...that the story will be complemented by the arrival of private investigators David Addison and Maddie Hayes, whose sexual tension will be dragged out into a seasons-long plot point, collapsing the show entirely when it finally pays off...

...that the majority of Season 4 will just be home video footage of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof fucking you in the ass and high-fiving...

...but that holds little interest for me. Or for you, I imagine. What does interest me is the reactions of the fanbase. Here we have a typically wanky Salon.com review, where they try to tell us that if we don't like Lost and want answers we're just being impatient and childish and we just don't get it, man. Make sure to read the replies, many of which point out that it's not just the constant teasing/padding in the storylines; it's the fact that the characters are forced by the writing to be such uncurious motherf*ckers in order to enable the teasing/padding.

And over at Lostpedia.com, the events of the finale appear to have finally driven them over the edge into full-on fanboy obsession. How else to explain the ever more desperate and grasping attempts to find references or homages in everything that happens? That bit where Charlie hits Desmond in the head with an oar? That's a homage to the bit in The Talented Mr. Ripley when Matt Damon hits Jude Law in the head with an oar and a homage to the bit in Pirates of the Caribbean where someone hits someone in the head with an oar. The bit where Charlie talks into a microphone? Clearly a sly reference to the bit in Star Wars where Han Solo talks into a microphone. The best (and yet worst) by far, though, is:

• Rose makes Bernard repeat he is a dentist, not Rambo. This is a homage to how Dr McCoy repeated [sic] claimed he was a doctor, not something else.
• It's also a reference to Rambo.

I dare say it is.