Lost - There's No Place Like Home (3)

Okay, time to end this obsessive craziness. I've got other things to blog about. I hope.

Reason 3: The WTF moments

If I were to put the WTF moments of Lost into order, I think I'd have to put the first sighting of Jacob right at the top. Though the legendary gamechanging moment of the third season turned out to be the introduction of flashforwards in the finale, Jacob's first appearance was just as significant. Just as the show had taken a drastic turn when we first see the inside of Swan station at the beginning of season two, Jacob's ghostly nature injected a supernatural element into a show that had previously been more concerned with psychological experimentation and superscience. It's testament to the skills of the showrunners that this new mystery didn't wreck the show, and in fact has fed into other mysteries in the show that I, at least, had taken for granted, such as the whispers and the appearances of unexpected people or animals.


I'm debating whether to revise this list. A list I've not yet written, I'll admit, but still. If anything is going to make fairweather fans bleat about sharkjumping or fridgenuking, it's Ben climbing into a frozen chamber and turning a large wooden wheel in order to teleport the island out of harm's way. I can see that that leap into the bizarre would irk people, especially as the show has been pretty careful about introducing really weird phenomena, though that statement might say more about how quickly I have accepted the presence on the show of a magnet powerful enough to pull a plane off course and a seemingly sentient mind-reading organism or mechanism made of smoke. Plus, with the typically masterful performance of Michael Emerson there to sell it, I just went with it.



Sure, using a shaky looking wooden wheel to activate a force powerful enough to move an enormous landmass is definitely incongruous, but if the island was once home to an ancient civilisation of four-toed time-warping geniuses waiting for their Buddha-like messiah to arrive (or whatever the Hostiles are), then their technology would have involved wood and wheels and such like. Probably. The wheel wasn't the special part of the mechanism, it was just the lever. What lies behind the wall is what is important. Is it the "negatively-charged exotic matter" that Dr. Edgar Halliwax was referring to?A downed UFO? A black hole? Was Ben winding up an enormous spring that boinged the island up into the atmosphere? It could have been anything.

While that was the most dramatic WTF moment of the finale, there were other headscratchers as well, which open up interesting areas for speculation in the final two seasons. The next biggest event of the finale was the reveal of the true identity of Jeremy Bentham, which caused much anguish in my soul, mostly because Locke dying sucks, but also because the grim pallor and subtle distortion of Terry O'Quinn's face was horribly realistic.


While we have no idea how it happened, we can futilely speculate until our ears bleed. If he's no longer on the island, either he died while on a mission off-island, or after being exiled in the same way Ben was. If so, perhaps the island has been returned to the same spot it was at before. If it ever actually existed within the space/time continuum the way everything else does, that is. Now that he is dead, who is meant to run the show on the island? Has Sawyer stepped up? Or Richard Alpert? Are the islanders leaderless until Jack returns to fulfill what might be his destiny? And how did Locke die? Was it really suicide? If he knows something about the island being a null-space where death can be beated, he could have killed himself, knowing he would have to be returned to the island and therefore back to life. That doesn't help us understand what would drive him to kill himself, but it would explain why death would hold no fear for him. Though it doesn't explain why Ben has such a weird waxy face as well. Is this connected to Locke's death? Or is he aging backwards like Benjamin Button?


Luckily, with death seemingly no barrier to keeping actors on the show, we might see more of Locke off the island, as well as on island (if we get to see what happened on the island during the three years the Oceanic Six were in the real world, that is). That post-death existence has certainly made Claire interesting, at last. After three and a half seasons of nothingness, Claire is now finally doing something other than be a moody mom. Even better, she's not just a ghost, she's an off-message ghost.


Considering how the rest of the spooky visitors are telling their alloted hauntee to get back to the island, Claire is vehemently opposed to Aaron returning. If she is really an emissary of the island, and if Ben is right when he says that the only way to return to the island is for everyone to go back (which surely includes Aaron, Waaaaaalt, and probably Frank and Desmond too), then why is Claire saying Aaron must stay behind? Is it just because the growth spurt that the young actor playing Aaron would go through would render the show unfilmable, which would be understandable and forgivable? Or do the island's ghosts have free will? Harper's ghostly appearance before Juliet in The Other Woman seemed to be on the orders of the island, but Harper herself seemed very angry at Juliet, so maybe the ghosts retain enough of themselves to be considered partially autonomous. It's certainly food for thought.


If the teleportation was the most dramatic WTF moment of the episode, my favourite was quiet but so out of the blue that it shook me to the core and made me reconsider my apathy towards CS Lewis. Miles' conversation with her, during which he revealed that he knew she had been on the island before, blew my head apart with greater effect than if I had gone brujo-style berzonkers on iboga. All of a sudden her joyous expression upon landing on the island in Confirmed Dead makes perfect sense, and now I feel bad for thinking she was just a dope who liked the pretty trees. Her decision to stay on the island, in order to discover more about her past, was beautifully played, and made me remember one of the main reasons that I love the show; that what I often consider superfluous or ill-judged will almost certainly become important or moving in the future, so surely is it being crafted by the showrunners. Now I can't wait to find out more about her, or see her reunited with Faraday, if he's still intact following the sudden displacement of the island. Still, she'll have supersnarky Miles to keep her company.


Surely that counts for something, right?

Reason 2: The fanbase

To be honest, I'm slightly mad at some of the Lost fanbase, most specifically the fuckbat who put a Lost spoiler video on YouTube on the day the finale aired. As YouTube uses a picture from the video to illustrate what the content is like, I saw "Michael dies" in big letters, thus wrecking that shock. Wonderful. I was being very careful about avoiding spoilers as well, which made the moment all the more frustrating. This happened last year and infuriated the very people making the show, who are the people you really shouldn't be angering. What if they decided not to finish the show in retribution? It happened to Global Frequency!!! Stupid idiot leaking jerkoffs. And for what? To ruin people's day? Vengeance against Darlteluselof because they weren't interested in their spec scripts featuring Jack and Kate having sex on the bonnet of an enormous UFO? Or just a need to show off the level of their access to the show? Yeah, when I had Michael's death spoiled I was really thinking about how impressed I was at how well the person in question had sneakily eluded ABC's guards to bring us this information a few hours early. I totally didn't think about how I would like to give them a Chim-Chim cookie for their trouble. Or strand them on an exploding freighter.


It's especially annoying as the majority of fans, and the debates that rage between them, seem to delight the showrunners enough to play games with our expectations (as I've gone on about before). The finale had a nice example, with the showrunners addressing their method of keeping the viewers pleasantly confused while still slowly revealing more and more about the island. That battle between what they tell us and what the show shows us is a brilliant balancing act, played out in the Orchid station as Ben speaks for the showrunners and Locke speaks for the audience. We want to know what is going on with the fascinating Dharma guys, but those in a position of greater knowledge keep telling us to get over it.


To make it even more frustrating, Ben makes Locke sit down and watch another Dharma orientation video, a final cut of the Orchid station video that has been doing the rounds since last year's Comic-Con, which distracts Locke while Ben gets on with the business of making the island (i.e. the show) move. When it's over (or rather, when it rewinds at the most crucial part), Locke is desperate to know more, but Ben insists it doesn't matter. When the Vault explodes, it is as if a veil has been pulled back by Ben. We've been concentrating on that veil for three seasons now, but what lay behind it, i.e. the frozen donkey wheel and whatever the hell lies behind its housing, is where the real core of the show lies. The Dharma members themselves are important, as characters that have interacted with our heroes and villains (whichever they may have been), but what they were doing has no bearing on what else has been happening on the island. At least, that's how I interpreted that scene.

I also like that, considering how the Lost haters like to make out that the show is constructed to ignore the viewer's wishes (the mythical average viewer seemingly wanting nothing more than the answer to the question "WTF is up with that fuckin' island, man?", if they are to be believed), the showrunners seem to be eager to give the fans what they want, and will gauge their/our reactions to see what we want. At least, that's what this comment on Kristin Veitch's E Online column:

Dan: I'm part of the ABC Studios Advisory Panel, and they were asking questions about Michael's "fate" on Lost—very vague about whether he died or not, and also how interested I was in seeing him next season. Could this mean that, depending on the results, he might come back?! Also, when Ben says they all need to come back to the Island—is there any way he means Walt, too, and that he'll be a regular next season? Because, dammit, I miss the kid, and I need to know how he's special!
Kristin: I've unilaterally decided that Ben's declaration means Walt has to go back, too, but whether Darlton or the Island agree with me remains to be seen. As for Michael, well, that there info you have from the advisory panel is what Arsenio used to call a thing that makes you go "Hmmmm..."

Having been very nonplussed by the death of Michael, I hope that this hint is the real deal, and that Harold Perrineau isn't sulking so much that he won't come back. Fuck it, Lost showrunners, write a completely unearned resolution between him and Walt, if it makes him happy. Just get him back. Having Michael die so suddenly left a nasty taste in my mouth. Fix it! And let me hang out on set with you all and write episodes and everything. I promise my spec script features zero UFOs and lots of talk about free will and existentialism, mostly from the mouth of my new character, psychic French botanist Jean-Paul Heidegger.

Reason 1: Locke and Linus

So many plot threads were rushed through in the latter half of the season that some characters sadly got short shrift (and Miles and Faraday's flashbacks have been delayed to a later date), but my favourite aspect of the show, the relationship between Ben and Locke, was allowed time to develop to what has to be its natural conclusion. Little did we know at the beginning of the three-parter, with Locke and Ben traipsing through the jungle and trading jibes with Hurley, that their fractious partnership-of-convenience was soon to be dissolved.


Their progression from mortal enemies to grudging partners to bickering Odd Couple-style comrades was complete, and while they could never have become friends, Ben's apology to Locke for wrecking his life seemed heartfelt, though premature. Surely this wasn't the end of Blocke? Of course, as the show rolled to a close, and we realised Ben was never going to return to the island, certainly not before Locke dies, that would probably be the last time they spoke to each other. Perhaps there might be an unseen meeting between Ben and "Jeremy Bentham", but it's doubtful. After their hilarious snippy conversations in this episode, that's even more sad than it already was. And no, for once I didn't cry when Ben and Locke shook hands for the final time, but I was greatly ensaddenised.


To be honest, while it seemed Ben's motive for leaving the island was brought about by some kind of acceptance that Jacob was now communicating with Locke instead of him, the death of Alex seemed to have been a huge contributing factor to his sacrificial decision. His need to avenge her death certainly made him act rashly as he murdered Keamy, asking his foe if Widmore ordered the hit on Alex even though the evil mercenary was busy dying. His need to know who was ultimately responsible for her death indicates he is eager to even the score with Widmore, even though the ultimate cost is losing his hold on the island.


That's not such a drastic move if his status as Jacob's chosen one really is unalterably changed, though I now wonder if he was ever supposed to be the leader of the Hostiles. While Richard Alpert is willing to seek out Locke in an effort to test him during his childhood, he seemed to just stumble across Ben and choose him with little preamble. Was he just hoping to persuade an insider to help his band of hostiles to get into the Barracks? Perhaps making Ben the de facto leader of his group was the only way to convince him to do it, knowing that Ben's powerlessness was making him unhappy and responsive to promises of greater control over his life. Of course, that means the Hostiles are lumbered with a lame duck leader, but if our suspicions are true, that Alpert and the rest are immortal, then the time spent putting up with Ben's craziness would seem short compared to how we would experience it.


Ben being a placeholder leader certainly explains why he always seemed so frustrated with Jacob, and his parting shot, "I hope you're happy now, Jacob," makes sense in the context that Jacob communicated with Ben out of necessity rather than because Ben was his chosen one, and thus was less than happy with the liaison with humanity that he had been allocated. No wonder Ben has been so miserable and homicidal for the last season and a bit. Who knows, maybe he didn't even need to move the island. Maybe he did that as a screw-you gesture to Jacob.


As for Locke, he's in a weird position of being a leader of a group that knows more about the environment they are living in than he does. It's only by the acceptance of Alpert that he has any chance of being seen as a saviour by the Hostiles, though we do not know if his selection by Alpert is because he is a reincarnation of someone powerful, or is the past incarnation of Jacob (and therefore the only one who can properly hear Jacob in his shack).


Of course, Locke's obliviousness serves another purpose. He has been left ignorant of his destiny as a contrivance by the showrunners, keeping him unaware of the truth of the island as we see events through his eyes and any knowledge he has would be seen by us too. If I stopped to think about it I'd probably find a million contrivances in the show that would conspire to annoy me, so I'll leave it there. I'm happy not seeing the strings being pulled, and besides, I've been enjoying the games Ben has been playing so much I'm happy to be manipulated by the show for a long time yet.


There is something I'm tentatively unhappy about, though. As I hinted earlier, I had one problem with the finale that I couldn't get over, and has only served to trouble me ever since. While I loved the finale, and have watched it several times since just because it was so much fun and featured so many great moments, I'm finally becoming concerned about the amount of ground they have left to cover. The list of mysteries left unexplained remains enormous, and yet we only have two 17 episode seasons left to go. That might seem like a lot now, but this season was not much shorter but felt like it flew by. If next season manages the difficult task of running straight through with no breaks, it'll seem to fly by. Though I have no doubt we will finally understand the reason for the four-toed statue, and the electromagnetic anomaly, and the donkey wheel, and the true nature of Smokey, and any number of other mysteries, I've begun to worry that dozens of minor mysteries that have intrigued me will be ignored, or turn out to have been much more prosaic than I had imagined. Disappointment at the resolution of any story, especially one I have expended so much time and energy in following and thinking about, is inevitable to some degree, and I've been realistic about how the final episode will leave me feeling disappointed, but perhaps now it's beginning to hit home, that this wondrous story is coming toward a natural conclusion. I'm approximately this worried and upset...







In case you were wondering, that's not good. I'm not suddenly convinced the show will end up sucking; I still expect a satisfying ending. I just dread having no closure on some of the little things, especially some of the Dharma details, especially as they have been treated like a joke by Ben. We shall see.

But yeah, that minor concern doesn't alter the fact that season four was breathtaking, definitely the best one yet, with at least two absolute classics episodes (The Shape Of Things To Come and The Constant) and numerous astonishing moments. I'm sad that it's over, my obsession will be fed for some time to come. Once we have finished watching The Shield (two seasons in and we're deeply in love with it), we're going to go back and rewatch from the beginning, and see how much foreshadowing there is, and I might even join in with Darlton and ABC's Lost Bookclub, a lovely idea considering how densely layered with literary references the show is. Maybe this blog will be Lost-lite for a while. I think a few weeks of reading books by B.F. Skinner, Aldous Huxley and Nabokov might do me a world of good. ::picks up copy of Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy when no one is looking::

Lost - There's No Place Like Home (2)

Yes, my Lost obsession will not let me rest. Forgive my indulgence. Continuing my previous witterings about a show that finished weeks ago...

Reason 5: Awesome acting

Forgive me for banging on about it yet again, but I really believe the secret weapon of Lost is Foxy Matthew Fox, an actor who has improved leaps and bounds since the pilot. He's lucky that his character is not the typical strong leader, but is in fact a guy with a fragile psyche, trying to be a leader not because he is the best person for the job but because the conch shell was handed to him early on and he's so used to being the go-to guy that he's accepted it even as he suspects it could be a bad idea. Whereas Locke and Ben both desperately want to be leaders, thinking that it is their destiny (which it might well be), Jack is repeatedly given the role of leader even though his doubt, paranoia, and self-hatred make him a terrible candidate.


This season saw him broken by the realisation that his belief in the benevolence of the Kahanians (for want of a better word) was naïve and deadly, that not only was his promise to the other islanders broken, but that perhaps he really wasn't the leader after all. Jack has yet to figure out his place in the world, but even worse (and this is central to his continuing debate with Locke about faith), he doesn't yet understand that the island is able to show him what he is meant to be. With Ben exiled from the island and Locke dead, perhaps Jack is next in line; I doubt Locke's successor will be Sawyer, even though he is already on the island and thinks he is better than Jack, in much the same way cool cat and charmer Hawkeye used to bicker with straight-laced Captain America about who should be the leader of the Avengers.


Okay, that confuses matters, as Jack has only been crowned proxy leader by those around him, and not by the island. Maybe he has been a crappy leader so far because it has not yet been his time. Now it will come, when he gets back there. Shame he seems even closer to insanity than ever.


So yes, I've thoroughly enjoyed the ever deepening desperation and existential terror of Jack, and think Foxy's portrayal of that has been superb. Canyon remains sceptical, even after admitting (with maximum grudge), that Foxy gave the best performance in Speed Racer. His arc, which could well go from faux-confidence to psychic misery and then peace and acceptance of his role in life, is slowly becoming as fascinating as that of Locke and Ben. Whereas they are equally confident from an early stage that they are the Chosen One, Jack is just as likely to be the one who eventually adheres to the strictures of the Monomyth, though so far the showrunners have used his arc to display what can go wrong with that hero's journey. In a classic version of the Monomyth, the hero returns to the world with a gift that can aid his fellow man, but Jack has returned to the world with nothing but his doubt. It helps no one. Except for shareholders in booze manufacturing companies.


Yes, Locke and Ben have had their moments of doubt, but they have been temporary, whereas Jack's fears go right to the core of his soul. That's one of the things I love most about Lost. While many viewers gave up on the show because the answers they sought were continually pushed to one side in order to focus on character evolution that seemed superfluous and dull, it seems that the fate of the world relies on Jack getting his shit together. He's like a drunk and paranoid Moses ignoring the signs from God, and then leading his followers off the island but not knowing how to lead them back when it turns out he should have been paying more attention. Thankfully, Foxy is excellent at dramatising that. At least, that's how I see it. Canyon maintains he's just a whiny cry-baby bitch and his hair looks stupid. To each their own.

Sadly, it seems the Emmy judges agree with Canyon. According to Tom O'Neil of the LA Times, Foxy has failed to get onto the longlist for an Best Dramatic Actor Emmy, which is an egregious snub. Still, it's not all bad news for Lost. In the Best Supporting Dramatic Actor category, Michael Emerson and Naveen Andrews both got nominations (though last year's deserved winner, Terry O'Quinn, hasn't), and Foxy did win a Saturn award for best actor, so the nerds have come around on him, at least (there were also wins for Emerson and Elizabeth Mitchell, all of which makes me very very happy).


I'll get to Emerson later, but I am glad to see my hardcore Hero Of Teh Awesome awardwinner Sayid get some props. Naveen Andrews has complained in the past that he doesn't get enough to sink his teeth into, but this season has been his to own. Not just by being a total and utter hardcore badass of the utmostest, but for having his emotions toyed with by fate to such an extent that he throws in his lot with the man he once saw as the devil. His battle between his darker impulses and yearning for peace were only touched upon in the finale, but still, he's done enough excellent work this season to more than justify some award attention.


While Canyon and I cannot see eye to eye on the talents of Foxy, we do agree on many of the other great performances on the show. Yunjin Kim showed off some mad skills over the course of the finale. Sun's intense grief over Jin's broke our hearts, and her steely confidence and seeming ruthlessness in dealing with her father and Widmore were two of the most pleasing scenes. All of a sudden that seemingly inconsequential episode with Sun dealing with the blackmail of Jin's mother appears to have been crucial in showing her inner steel. The thought that she might become an antagonist, trying to undermine Jack and Ben's mission, is a thrilling one.


One thing that did irk me was the underuse of Michael, and of course what seems to be his death (though who knows what the arrival of Christian Shepherd means). I was thrilled he was back on the show, but having him die after what was pretty much an hour and a half of screentime during this season seemed completely wrong. I'm not the only one, if that interview with Harold Perrineau is anything to go by.


That said, he did semi-retract it later, either because his agent phoned him up and said, "NOOOOOO!", or because there is a chance he will be back. See point 2 below for more on that possibility.

Cuselof seem to be as good as Joss Whedon at seeing the inner potential of actors, and playing up to it. At the start of the show there was little reason to believe Jorge Garcia and Josh Holloway would be able to show as much range as they have, something I've commented on before. The finale gave Garcia a real chance to shine, as we see how his experience on the island has made him doubt his own sanity, a heart-breaking consequence of what he has been through. His interactions with his family are edgy, his smile becoming a rare sight. It's fair to say he's not the comic relief any more. Hell, Locke and Ben are funnier now, though Foxy seems to disagree.


I think my heart broke a little during the flight to the Kahana, when Frank said they were a few hundred pounds too heavy to make it to their destination, and we got a quick shot of Hurley looking guilty. That no one else on the helicopter would blame him would never occur to him; just like everyone else there, his self-hatred consumes him.

Holloway had less to do here than most, which is annoying but understandable considering how he has become side-lined following his murder of Anthony Cooper, as well as more reserved and unhappy, though this could well change now he is the Alpha Male of the Oceanic survivors. I look forward to that, but here all we had to really enjoy was that heroic sacrifice, during which he was superdashing.


Also great was his increasingly panicked reaction to Claire's disappearance. Still, I can imagine some hearts soared at the sight of our hott hero wandering around the island with a baby in his arms.


What a guy. He's so goddamn hot that even Kate, seemingly still hooked on Jack, can't help but melt when she sees Sawyer emerge unscathed from the forest. Evangeline Lilly sadly had very little to do this episode, but this reaction was perfect, a mixture of excitement, relief, lust, love, coquettishness, and, well, more lust, I guess.


Having spent a little time looking at this EW article about the Emmy shortlist, it seems most of the anger about the Lost snubs are related to the non-nominations for Yunjin Kim or Henry Ian Cusick, who was staggeringly good in The Constant. His finale featured some highly dramatic moments, including what looked like his death (though thankfully not).


His resurrection on the floaty raft got the biggest sigh of relief we have ever expelled upon seeing someone cough up a mouthful of water. Those bastard showrunners had to put us through the mill before we got what looked for a moment like a happy ending, as Desmond is finally reunited with his long-lost love Penny, and then proudly and happily introduces her to his fellow survivors. I have no shame in admitting there were tears shed.


Of course, this isn't really a happy ending, as Ben is now gunning for Penny, but for now, it was perfect. Without knowing we were going to see darker days for the UK lovebirds, it seemed strange to be heading towards a reunion for them, but now it makes perfect sense, yet more proof that Cuselof are not idiots and know exactly what they are doing. It was also great to see Sonya Walger return, here playing the adorable Penny instead of being subjected to her Gupta-esque performance as Carolyn, whose behaviour was restricted to haranguing her husband and peeing on countless pregnancy tests for ten weeks on Tell Me You Love Me. Here is a picture of her with Kate. Just to increase the hits to this page, I would like to point out that, while blogging about the week in TV during the run of TMYLM, I commented on the number of times we got to see Sonya Walger's boobs. We still get a couple of image hits a week with that term, and no, before you go looking for those images, there were no picture of boobs, merely shots of her entertaining facial reactions to getting bad news.


If you are so desperate to see Sonya Walger nude, internet surfing people, buy the HBO DVD. Hopefully you'll indulge for the nudity and stay for the deepening character arcs and variable-though-mostly-excellent performances. And now I will stop trying to artificially bump up hits with these terms. Honest.

Reason 4: The quirky mystery

With much of the finale showing us how the Oceanic Six left the island, and what happened to the island once they were off it, much of the off-kilter weirdness of previous episodes was lacking, but even so, we still got some pleasing Dharma Initiative moments. More and more we are told that the Dharma Initiative is not central to the plot, and to make things worse, Cuselof insist that the show has nothing to do with time-travel (which makes my Sirens of Titan theory seem like a total failure). More on how their off-show comments relate to the relationship between the audience and the writers in a bit, but for now, if we take Ben at his word, the Orchid station orientation video (documenting the Dharma Initiative's "silly experiments") never actually says definitively that organic objects placed in the Vault will be displaced in time. The tape stops before that, and when Locke asks Ben what the tape was referring to, the former head Other's response ("Time travelling bunnies") is dismissive and sarcastic.



So what is the Vault? Were the Dharma scientists really moving rabbits through time? Considering that later in the episode Ben moves the island and is displaced in time and space by ten months and several thousand miles, it's obvious the wheel chamber is a place of immense power, which could easily have leaked into the Vault. However, it could still be nothing more than another Skinner Box trick invented by the Initiative, testing the psychological responses of unwitting test subjects to bizarre criteria. The Vault could be nothing more than a big microwave that cannot handle metal.


Okay, so the presence of the wheel chamber definitively proves the existence of unnatural properties in that area. The only other possible proof (and this too could be subterfuge) is the existence of Dr. Marvin Candle and Dr. Mark Wickmund, one of whom could well be a time-displaced clone of the other, and as one of them has only one arm, perhaps he was the one to discover the negative effects of wearing a metallic watch in the Vault (this is purest conjecture, but makes some sense).

So what does this confusion tell us about the show? I've been mulling it over tonight, and I'm beginning to wonder if the Dharma Initiative have unwittingly tapped into the Magic Box aspect of the island that Ben once discussed. Perhaps the Vault and the numbers in Swan station started out as Skinner Box experiments, but the belief of the participants made them real. Maybe there was no magnet behind the wall, at least not until a test subject willed it into being. Same thing with the Vault. It could also explain the existence of the Pearl station. If the Dharma acolyte stationed in that station was monitoring the button-pressing activites of the Swan station inhabitants, perhaps his/her scepticism was what was really stopping the Swan anomaly from blowing up. It's a battle of belief systems; the Swan operative's belief in the imminent electromagnetic charge creates an electromagnetic charge, and the Pearl operative's disbelief in it (triggered by the recording of the number-punching information) dispels the charge. Though, of course, that expansion of the theory relies on someone still being in Pearl after the Oceanic crash, and we know that's not the case, so I'll shut up now.

This power to manifest physical representations of the imagination would certainly explain why everyone is after it, which made me remember the quest at the centre of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, as various sects of conspiracy theory-believing cultists search in vain for the Navel of the World, a place of enormous power. In that book (this description from Philip Coppen's Da Vinci Code website)...

the Knights [Templar discover] secret energy flows – telluric currents – during the Crusades. The currents’ mother lode is the so-called umbilicus mundi, or “navel of the world”. By placing a special valve in the umbilicus mundi, they will be able to control the currents, to disturb and interfere with life anywhere on Earth, with vast blackmailing possibilities against entire nations. However, they cannot utilize the currents due to insufficient technology.

A cabal of ancient warriors safeguarding a vast power and using it to manipulate the world? I'd say that sounds similar.

Okay, we're not getting any answers to that big stuff any time prior to the sixth and final season, but what about the most pressing non-Orchid question of the finale; where did Juliet get her hair done? Here she is with wind-blown locks...


...and here she is with straight, styled hair just a little while later.


Is there a Dharma branch of Toni and Guy on the island?

And now I end this part of the finale pondering, to finish the rest at another time. Terrible though it is to drag this out even longer than I already have, I am currently using a computer so utterly useless and knackered that trying to make it do anything other than blink at me is futile. Once I am in front of a computer that is not begging to be thrown out of a tenth storey window onto an exploding bonfire, I shall complete this and put my Lost musings to bed until next year(ish). Apologies for the obsession.

Total Recall

Title: Total Film
Cover date: July 2008

Mainstream movie magazines would seem to be under threat more than most from the rise of new media. There will always be a niche cinephile market for Sight & Sound, and the audience for the genre titles such as SFX and Starburst isn’t going to disappear. But considering that the likes of Empire and Total Film are propped up by big companies advertising big films, their position looks precarious; not only does every publication that covers anything to do with culture – newspapers, celebrity gossip mags, teen mags et al – carry features on, reviews of and ads for movies, but these days advertisers can easily target their marketing straight at people’s desktops and inboxes.

And yet. Empire can confidently say that it was not one of the primary reasons for EMAP to get the hell out of the consumer magazine industry, with a consistent circulation nudging 190,000 and a well-run, successful website. Its less well funded rival Total Film is also in reasonable health with a sturdy ABC figure of around 86,000. Advertisers, even with all the fancy modern marketing tools available to them, cannot pass up the opportunity to target those moviegoers who are eager enough to buy a monthly magazine.

There’s a tricky line to walk for such magazines between PR puff and genuine editorial content. Virtually everything in the mag, from the front cover to the soundtrack reviews, is effectively promoting something the readers can buy, and it’s the magazine’s job – its responsibility, even – to impart objective unbiased information, rather than just parrot publicity guff to sell these products.

One way to make yourself appear independent and maverick and not just a PR tool for movie studios is to create a fucking cool-looking cover that takes the daring step of making your magazine’s name virtually invisible:



Doesn’t that look fucking cool? Wouldn’t you gasp and simper and flutter your eyelashes and rush to spend your money on it? I would. But I didn’t, because what was actually on the shelf was this:



Sadly, a cover so reminiscent of Spinal Tap’s Smell The Glove is never going to make the newsstand because it contravenes received wisdom – black is depressing, you need a load of coverlines, you have to see the name of the mag. The bag that obscures all that shiny goodness is crude and ill-judged. Besides the shouty coverlines, the ostensibly Joker-generated graffiti all over it seems inappropriate. Various incarnations of the Joker have been kind of zany and lightly anarchic, but it’s unlikely that The Dark Knight will take this route. It might also be prudent to take a slightly more sensitive approach to this Joker considering the actor who portrays him is dead.

On the contents page we find the first example of Total Film’s unique selling point, the Predicted Interest Curve. For reviews of the bigger films, TF produces a graph indicating which it thinks are the best bits of the film and why – a neat way of summarising a review and getting some pithy humour in the mag. Here it prints a Predicted Interest Curve for the mag itself, which is a little self-congratulatory, not to mention pointless seeing as the staff presumably think most issues are pretty interesting. But this is a lucid contents page, with another pretty cool-looking Batman picture and a box pointing you to the reviews. It’s followed by a monthly planner including film and DVD release dates, plus some nice movie gags to make readers feel included and knowledgeable. (“24 June: New Jersey was founded today in 1664. Celebrate by going there. Don’t forget to visit the Quickstop. We assure you they’re open.”)

Page 12 I never cease to be amazed by the inanity of movie mag letters pages, with their standard “OMG your mag is totally better than that other movie mag!” and “My friends say [cult movie X] is stupid. Whereas in fact they are the ones that are the stupid ones and I am cool!” missives. I can’t really remember how we used to get through our lives without email but I’d happily see it banned to stop people sending fatuous messages to magazines. Elsewhere on this spread (yes, the asinine reader wibbling requires two pages) TF eschews an editor’s letter, preferring to relate office chitchat. I’ve railed against journalistic zaniness before, but I don’t mind this – even if it’s not funny, the point is to show that the staff are really into movies and make the reader feel part of a club.

Page 14 Buzz is the mag’s opening section, featuring set reports and news of upcoming releases. They go big on a preview of the next Narnia film, Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, which isn’t due for release until 2010, and there’s a substantial story on Quentin O’Shoelace or whatever it’s called, including interviews with Daniel Craig and Marc Forster. In fact there are a fair few interviews scattered through this ostensible news section – decent subjects too: Frank Darabont, Jack Nicholson, Jack Black – and just as well, because otherwise this is just stuff anyone could read anywhere, and probably did several months ago. Hey! Hey, you there! Have you heard about that movie Pineapple Express?! Oh, you have? In February, when the trailer first appeared on the web? Oh.

Buzz is scattered with mildly interesting bits, like where to find the best shorts on the internet (although if you wanted to, you could find them using... the internet), and a handful of limp attempts at humour (an act-off between Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise! That might be funny or apropos if this was 1993). The interviews and a handful of pictures just about legitimise the section’s existence, but it’s close. Actually the six-page report from Cannes is OK, but unfortunately there isn’t a Cannes every month.

Page 48 Here’s a question that’s already a hoary old standard: in an age when you can instantly check out what hundreds of Amazon reviewers and IMDb commenters think about a movie, do we really need professional critics? Yes, we do. Of course we do. Who wants to wade through 400 pages of LULZ and ZOMG when you can get properly written (and properly edited) opinions from people who know who they’re talking about? And movie magazines in particular need authoritative, entertaining reviews to keep people coming back. Any mag can print news and features of a reasonable standard, but you get to know the reviewers whose opinions you trust, your personal like-minded critics who can helpfully guide you towards the films you want to spend your money on.

I can’t get on with Screen, Total Film’s cinema reviews section. There are a couple of things to admire, such as their choice to go big on films that need championing such as The Visitor and The Mist, and those Predicted Interest Curves do provide a stamp of individuality, but overall it’s amateurish and unbalanced. It’s normal to select a handful of big or important films to focus on – 25 reviews of the same length would be monotonous – but 650 words is far too long for a movie review, unless the writer is a top-class wordsmith. In the hands of Total Film’s moderately talented staff, that much space encourages padding, inelegance and dullness.



Style-wise, TF’s over-reliance on the ellipsis drives me nuts. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional usage, but the review of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull contains five ellipses, not counting the one used legitimately to truncate that unwieldy title. In fact, they annoy me so much, I’m going to quote them.

Before Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade there was no Matrix, no X-Men, no Spider-Man...

The teenage targets of summer blockbusters today weren’t even born when Harrison Ford last donned the fedora...

Story, then... the part-time professor makes his comeback

[Indy uses] whip and wit to dodge the baddies with a sprightliness that belies his age...

Shia and Hal head off to Peru to embark on a slow bout of tomb raiding...

Dot dot fricking DOT! Every single one of those sentences would be improved with judicious use of a full stop. This is sloppy, callow writing and it damages the credibility of the reviews.

The amount of three-star reviews suggests bet-hedging and fear of advertiser disapproval, rather than editorial conviction, and I especially dislike the “If you like this movie, you’ll like these movies” boxes on the long-form reviews, with movies evidently chosen specifically for the superficiality of their resemblance to the reviewed movie. If you like The Visitor, you’ll like Green Card, because they’re both about immigration? Are you kidding me?

Page 66 The features section is perhaps the trickiest in which to maintain the balance between editorial and promotional material. It’s only natural that the features should focus on current films – the readers want to know about them and the advertisers want the readers to know about them – but does the mag have the courage to deviate from the accepted norms, to throw in a surprise here and there, to introduce its readers to something that might enrich their cinematic life?

The closest Total Film comes is a brief feature about King Of Kong, the little-publicised but well reviewed documentary about record-breaking Donkey Kong players. The lead feature about The Dark Knight, meanwhile, chooses to tell the story of the making of the film entirely in quotes from the personnel involved. I don’t expect hyper-critical analysis, but is Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman or producer Emma Thomas going to tell us anything except how amazing and heartfelt and complex and important and amazing the film is? They also continue the annoying motif of having “the Joker” scribble all over the feature, although this conceit justifies its existence when it obliterates every word of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s contribution to the piece, presumably because it was too boring for publication.



The irritating ellipses are largely confined to the reviews, mercifully, but I can’t let a couple of egregious mistakes in this feature go unmentioned. It misspells “skilfully” as “skillfully” (I could be generous and assume they consciously chose the US spelling, but this is a British publication that uses no other American spellings – and besides, it suggests the careless application of a spellchecker) and compounds the error by circling the word in big red Joker pen. Even more heinously, it uses the construction “would of”! How can a professional journalist allow that into a magazine? And it’s not as if the piece is from an inexperienced junior staffer – it is written by editor Nev Pierce, who should hang his head. Hang your head, Pierce!

The section also contains a much-needed puff piece about the underexposed American actor Angelina Jolie and some tedious blather about movie-based amusement-park rides, which frankly doesn’t belong in a movie mag and also commits the unforgivable crime of using black text on a mid-blue background, which is impossible to read. Next is a special feature on how Hollywood is supposedly embracing TV these days, which is a pretty tenuous way to link a story about the new X-Files movie, a (boring) interview with the stars of Get Smart, a few pictures of people who have recently “graduated” from TV to movies (Tina Fey, Michael Cera, um, someone named Emmanuelle Chriqui apparently) and an interview with Ben Stiller, who used to be on TV you know. The X-Files feature is particularly flannelly and craven, to the extent that it uses the badly-Photoshopped image from the goddamn poster as its opening picture:






The final feature, TF Flashback, provides a good opportunity to include a more esoteric or obscure subject. This issue wastes this opportunity spectacularly, with a sniggering schoolboyish retrospective of the life and times of Mr Charlie Sheen. A subject matter which, as well as being distasteful (the feature is sympathetic despite his history of deplorable behaviour, concluding that he is “a born survivor” and still a success), is already well publicised, thanks.

Page 127 Lounge, Total Film’s home entertainment review section, is tighter than Screen, with pithier, more to-the-point reviews of DVDs, soundtracks, books and games. (Editor Pierce loses marks again, though, for his rambling review of The Orphanage, droning on about biological imperatives for a full third of the allocated space in the mistaken belief that we’re interested in his opinions on the matter.) I’m pleased to see that it includes games, which form a large part of people’s home entertainment, and the DVD reviews highlight classics such as Picnic At Hanging Rock rather than just new titles. This section also has Instant Expert, a beginner’s guide to a period or genre, which is a nice idea and well executed. Granting this more prominence would give TF more credibility.




The issue ends with four pages of quiz and TF ❤, a quirky celebration of an underrated character. The quiz is pretty testing (not least the Spot The Difference, which I swear is two identical stills from Gone Baby Gone) and provides considerable entertainment for movie obsessives, while TF ❤ is a knowledgeable and slick way to close the mag.

Bonus The supplement crassly called Sex & Spandex: A Celebration Of Comic Book Heroines On Screen turns out to be the best thing about this issue. Rather than the leering, adolescent sub-porn the title suggests, this is an erudite and analytical look at female characters in comic book adaptations, with contributions from Mark Millar, Frank Miller, Alan Moore and psychologist Rachel Andrew. It includes upcoming films such as Watchmen and GI Joe and it doesn’t stick to the obvious, with a piece on Edie Stall in David Cronenberg’s superlative adaptation of A History Of Violence. This won’t tell serious comic book fans anything they don’t know, but I found it a surprisingly good read.



Reading Total Film is a frustrating experience. It certainly feels like it’s put together by enthusiasts who care about movies, and there are one or two examples of knowledgeable, impassioned writing here. But the cinema reviews are weak and often overwordy, while the features section lacks personality and is just too promotional. The only features I really enjoyed were the King Of Kong one and the Ben Stiller interview. While the feature on The Dark Knight contained a fair amount of information and insight from the key people involved, it could have appeared in almost any publication. There was nothing to keep me coming back to TF every month.

Being the less successful rival to the market leader in your sector should encourage innovation and irreverence. You’ve less to lose, so why not attempt to provide a genuine alternative to the frontrunner, which almost inevitably plays it safe? I thought I might find examples of this on Total Film’s website, but its blogs are simply run-of-the-mill reports and brief interviews likely to find their way into the mag at some point. They’re also infrequently posted; only one appeared between 25 May and 19 June, for example. Could the movie fans on the staff not bash out 250 words on any filmic subject that took their fancy every other day or so?

It may be that I’m asking for the impossible when I long for this type of mag. Every so often a film magazine comes along that does attempt to be witty and iconoclastic and satirical and it invariably fails. In the late 1990s EMAP’s superb Neon lasted a mere two years; Hotdog, which originated at I Feel Good, was bounced around from publisher to publisher for a while before it finally folded in 2006. But these days, when so much of the media we view is straight-up promotional, there must be room for some idiosyncratic comment, for deviation from the usual, for something to make us think, goddamnit. Total Film doesn’t appear to be able to provide this.

Hancock Defeated By Wuxi Finger Hold And Awesomeness

I was really really rooting for Hancock. Shades of Caruso loves Peter Berg, and wants his movies to make enough money that he can salvage the many box office disappointments from his back catalogue. We also wanted Hancock to be good enough to silence the doubters who have been complaining about it since it was announced, and, possibly most of all, wanted to see Will Smith being generally excellent. Well, it's made a boatload of money (and its overseas gross is big too), and Will Smith was great, but his performance was not what we expected. In fact, the film is not what anyone would have expected, and for that, we have to blame the marketers for making this look like a funny film about a self-loathing superhero when it mostly isn't, and also we need to point a finger at writers Vincent Ngo and X-Files ace Vince Gilligan, and director Peter Berg, for not knowing how to make the material they had work.

I'll go into details after the spoiler marker, but consider this my capsule review. John Dykstra's effects are pretty undistinguished and messy. Berg's decision to film this the same way he filmed Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom might have made some sense thematically, but it's a horribly ugly film with a sickeningly grey palette that made my head hurt (not helped by seeing the jawdroppingly beautiful Kung Fu Panda first).


I didn't totally hate it, though. The three leads are great, which is a big deal for me as I'm not a fan of Charlize Theron but was impressed by her in this (Canyon was less impressed). Jason Bateman is so likeable in this he steals the film, adds a lot of emotion that would otherwise be lacking, and though he at first seems to be nothing more than Michael Bluth after marrying Rita, comes good in the otherwise frustrating final act. His dramatic role in The Kingdom was no fluke, it seems. Will Smith comes out okay too, and the box office gross suggests we are still on our way to renaming the next thousand years the Willennium. That said, in terms of his career, he just made his Golden Child, or Far and Away. I hope his next project is a 100% success. FYI, I will never apologise for being a Will Smith fan. Get used to it.

Even better than those little pleasures, my personal superhero movie bugbear didn't come into play; Hancock might start the film as an asshole, but he is really a hero, a proper hero who helps people and doesn't just fight supervillains with whom he has a personal connection. One of the main themes of the movie is about wanting to do the right thing even though it doesn't seem to be worthwhile. That character trait really pleased me, and made up for a lot of the unfocused events in the latter half of the movie.


Anyway, time to carp. Kung Fu Panda praise follows later.

--------------Hancock spoilers follow-------------

The biggest problem in Hancock is the mid-movie twist, which, after we left the cinema and discussed it, isn't really a twist, more a shift in story perspective that makes the first half of the film seem like a pre-inciting incident sequence stretched to 45 minutes. That section of the movie, concerning Hancock's depression and attempts to better himself and become a beloved hero, contains many funny moments and unexpected pathos, but if you've seen the trailer, you've seen a lot of the best parts. However, the trailers will make you think this is the whole point of the film, and give no hints as to what it really is. The depression and bad behaviour of Hancock are the set-up for the big reveal later in the movie, and if you thought you were going to see a superhero spoof, you're wrong. It's a straight superhero movie with a mythology that might have made more sense in the first draft (though some people are not too keen even on that), that has been mistakenly seen as a twist movie whereas it is a story different than the one we were sold, one which has its emotional centre buried in the final moments of the film, which then crawls over the finish line with zero energy and a frustrating lack of resonance. That's a problem with the script, but also with the handling of it. It's fair to say that Berg, who re-edited the finale several times in order to beat the bad feedback from test screenings, had to change even more than just the underwhelming ending, considering how the original script featured Hancock having ejaculation issues, something that is totally absent from the movie.

Too much of the movie is lying on an editing room floor for it to make any sense. Perhaps a two hour version would work better. This ninety minute version feels like two episodes of a TV show called Hancock shmushed together to make a feature film (just like in the 70s when Glen A. Larson was trying to squeeze more money out of his creations), but sadly the Hancock showrunners have ineptly combined a mid-season comedy episode and an end-of-season high drama episode, not realising they don't quite go together. With two halves battling against each other, what's the story it's trying to tell? Even once we had picked it over while eating an excellent burger just off Abbey Road neither of us had a clue, and after tinkering with it for a long time, I doubt Berg knew either.


The second half of the movie concerns Hancock discovering that he is one of many millennia-old heroes created by the Gods to protect humanity, but forced to be apart from them due to his immense power. Luckily, the Gods knew that their minions were bound to want to settle down eventually, and so created them in pairs, where each one of them acts as a power dampener for the other, allowing them to live as a human couple if they so wanted. That's happened to every other hero on the planet, except for Hancock and his opposite, Charlize Theron. All of the others are now dead, for reasons not clearly explained. It's either old age, accidents, or "Them" that have picked them off. Who are "Them"? You've got me. Neither of us could understand that plot point, or if the evil Red, played by Eddie Marsan, is one of these "Them"s that are important enough to be referred to but not important enough to be explained. One thing that is stressed very late in the film, however, is that proximity to each other sets off the power drain, and only living as far apart as possible allows them to remain super.

I can get behind the idea of a mythology not being fully explained, so as to generate some mystery (as in Unbreakable), but if the events of a movie make no sense (as the actions of the main characters seem completely mysterious without a full explanation), you cannot connect with the events on the screen. One gets the idea that editing the movie into this empty mush has taken out a lot of exposition that might have helped. To make things worse, a lot of the information I explained above is all delivered just moments before it becomes relevant in the last five minutes of the movie, so you spend the majority of the movie not really understanding what the hell is going on, or why you should care.


It's like the latter hour of Atonement, with a lot of things happening for no explicable reason, and then the final scene comes along to straighten everything out, except that here, nothing really gets explained properly. Again, it might have been in order to generate mystery, and curiosity about the mythology, and in that sense it works, as I'm inspired enough by the vagueness to want to read the previous drafts, and hopefully see a longer DVD cut to find out more about these individuals, but as it stands, the film falls completely apart at the end of the second act, and the third act did nothing more than annoy me greatly. Contrary to the marketing, the movie is not just about a drunken hero, but with a second half as ill-formed and messy as this, I guess it might as well have been.

Even worse, some iconic moments in the trailer are either omitted or just breeze by, so badly edited is the film. It felt like every decision made in post-production was a mistake. John Dykstra's effects are rushed and unappealing, the action scenes have no oomph as the editing obscures events, and the soundtrack is horribly misjudged, either trying to generate the emotional connection that is missing onscreen, or being brassy comedy plinky-plonks you'd expect on NCIS or something equally silly. As for the leads, I liked them, but their efforts often make no sense at all. The best thing I can say about it is that I went along with it simply because they obviously believed in what they were doing, but I have no idea what that thing they were doing was. Is Hancock about loneliness? About responsibility? Does Hancock do the right thing at the end to save Theron? Or is he still out for himself? I can imagine we're meant to think of his actions as selfless, but that's just because we expect the film to follow certain conventions. As it stands, the movie doesn't make it clear enough on its own. When it was over, we were approximately this nonplussed.



---------------------Spoilers Over------------------

I think I liked it more than Wanted, and probably less than Jumper, another compromised movie from a director I like from a concept I loved, but it didn't help that prior to that we saw the eagerly awaited (by me) Kung Fu Panda, which was not only way better than anything else I've seen this year, but thousands and thousands of times better than I had hoped it would be. The opening scene alone was better than I thought Dreamworks/PDI would ever aspire to, the sequence so funny and clever and eye-blisteringly beautiful that I was helpless in the storytellers' grip. The voice casting is spot-on (especially my main man Jables, who is utterly sincere and hysterically funny), the direction perfectly judged, the action more exciting than most action films I can name, and the emotional arcs totally satisfying. The showdown between Shifu and Tai Lung was a magnificently cinematic moment, with genuinely resonant power. Make no mistake, the studio might not have made anything worthwhile before, but this is Pixar-good. I'd even put it above Cars, Finding Nemo, and maybe A Bug's Life, and possibly on a par with Toy Story 2, it's that good.


Some UK critics have treated it as a mildly amusing spoof of Hong Kong cinema (the increasingly off-target Peter Bradshaw reckoned it was dumbed-down and less sophisticated than the first two Shreks!!?!?!!!). However, the majority of critics got what it was aiming for. Even the perenially grouchy Cosmo Landesman loved it, which means we have seen eye-to-eye twice this year. The other time was Speed Racer; he was pretty much the only UK critic to like it, though the Times website has decided not to reprint it, thus making me seem delusional.


It's no wonder even critics who often turn a blind eye to genre movies understand the ambition of Kung Fu Panda. the opening ten minutes of Kung Fu Panda should have clued any viewer in to its utter sincerity. This is a real movie, a simple tale beautifully told by people who understand not only the conventions of the genre and the signifying details that make it distinct (watch the wonderful Master Oogway's final scene under a peach tree and tell me they don't love the genre and want to do right by it), but they also understand how to tell a story. Perhaps this story is less complex than what I assume the makers of Hancock were aiming for, and perhaps it is more straightforward than Wanted (a movie with a similar character arc involving destiny and self-belief), but it is almost infinitely better than either of them for one simple reason; everyone involved in the making of this film knew how to tell a story, knew what worked and what didn't, and just made it knowing the audience would be right there with them. Sometimes that's all it takes.


So yes, I recommend Kung Fu Panda with every fibre of my being. And Canyon's too! We loved it so much we're hoping to see it again this week, this time on IMAX. Something this beautifully crafted and sumptuous to look at needs to be seen on as big and clear a screen as possible. If I could describe its level of quality in one sentence while resisting the urge to just wail nonsense sounds of joy, that sentence would be, "It does everything right." It really, really does. If you've ever enjoyed a martial arts movie, you must not miss it.

End of Season Review: Friday Night Lights

At the start of its second season, Friday Night Lights faced a quandary. You’re a TV showrunner. You’ve made a first season that was practically perfect – smartly written, brilliantly cast, beautifully shot, expertly edited and so magically delightful to watch that critics fell over themselves to find new ways to praise it and the fans were unquestioningly devoted. There was only one thing wrong with it: those devoted fans numbered approximately 17. You’ve got yourself a second season with the help of the positive critical notices, but you know you’re living on borrowed time. Do you try to produce more of the same high-quality television and hope that the audiences will somehow find your show? Or do you up the ante, changing things around and introducing new elements to try to attract attention?

This has affected other shows in the past, of course. To take a recent example, Veronica Mars stuck to its guns and went with more or less the same formula second time around: an overarching season-long mystery, crackling dialogue, cases of the week, a recurring guest star imported from the 1980s, etc. Although season two was nearly as good as season one, its viewing figures barely improved, and it limped through a wildly uneven third season before The CW had it put down more or less humanely. Friday Night Lights apparently took note of this and edged more towards the second option. This was widely seen as a mistake. I’m not so sure.

Friday Night Lights introduced two storylines in the second season that were incongruous for different reasons. The killing of a potential rapist in episode one felt all wrong: it put Landry Clarke, who had previously been fairly peripheral comic relief, front and centre of the show; it cast Tyra Colette, one of FNL’s most assertive characters, as a morally weak victim; its seriousness threatened to dwarf the other storylines, which like those in the first season were about the drama of the everyday and the commonplace; simply put, it seemed to belong on a different show, and undermined what the fans loved about season one.

The other misstep, which came midway through this strike-truncated season, was Matt Saracen’s relationship with his grandmother’s new live-in carer, Carlotta. This sat badly both because it was too obvious – there were a couple of episodes of meaningful looks and coy “accidental” touches before it happened, which disappointed those of us who hoped that Lights wasn’t that show, that it was more likely to confound expectations and not be just another teen drama – and because it was a crass and predictable way to introduce a Latina character.

But although putting these storylines in the works may have been jarring, once they were in place both storylines were executed perfectly within the confines of the show. We learned a great deal about Landry (and were also rewarded with much more of the excellent Jesse Plemons), who had his faith and conscience tested by his own actions. Was he really defending Tyra? Was he overcome by his own wrath? Did it matter than his victim was a known felon and all-round scumbag? After his confession, should he take the soft option or face his punishment? To see a 17-year-old wrestle with these potentially life-defining questions gave FNL gravitas, as well as a bonus in the shape of Glenn Morshower as Landry’s conflicted policeman father.




As for Matt and Carlotta, the relationship may have started unconvincingly but it made sense from Matt’s point of view, given his anger at Coach Taylor’s departure for a job in Austin at the end of the first season. His parents didn’t care about him enough to stay in Dillon and now he had to deal with the sudden absence of his surrogate father too, so naturally he was attracted to a nurturing person with a (hot) physical presence. Carlotta may not have been much more than a clichéd Magical Latina – she even taught Matt to dance, for Christ’s sake – but when she was eventually compelled to leave for home, Matt’s anguish was genuine, and his abandonment issues flared all over again.

Aside from that Zach Gilford didn’t have a huge amount to do this season, due to the lack of onscreen football action (presumably this was seen as a turnoff for the audience, regardless of the drama it provided) and the foregrounding of other characters: Landry, Coach and Tami Taylor, and above all Tim Riggins. I don’t know if it was the showrunners’ or the network’s idea to focus on Riggins so much, but I’m sure NBC wasn’t disappointed that his pretty face was so prominent. After being little more than a brooding lunkhead in the first season, Taylor Kitsch proved himself a real talent this year, and it was huge fun watching him drift around Dillon leaving a royal mess behind him everywhere he went, somehow emerging with his local hero status and his perpetual sardonic amusement intact. My only complaint is that we never found out why he is so obsessed with Lyla Garrity – is it because she’s unobtainable and becoming ever more so? Is it just because she was, as he tells her, the best he’s ever had? Or is he really in love with her, despite the fact they have zero in common? – but this storyline was getting somewhere just as the season was curtailed, so I’ll let it pass.



Jason Street and Smash Williams also saw their screen time reduced this season, and although I can live without Street, I seriously missed the Smash. Both reappeared towards the end and although Street had to make do with a silly pregnancy storyline (do they have to have one at the end of every season?), I enjoyed watching Smash go through the humbling experience of being condemned and ostracised for trying to do the right thing by his girl and his sister. It had also seemed very convenient that he was going to nearby TMU and might be able to remain in the show after graduation, so it was interesting that his tribulations saw him end up committing to attend (presumably far-off) Whitmore University.

The biggest success of the second season was its focus on the Taylor family. Julie’s tedious acting out made her frequently annoying, but she was undoubtedly a far more realistic and rounded character compared to her teenage angel of season one. But Coach and Tami are the heart of the show and the devotion of so much time to their relationship paid off handsomely. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton were both utterly wonderful every second they were onscreen, and the writing afforded them many chances to be so. Coach had previously been presented as morally impeccable, so his expression when confronted by the sacked coach (an ace guest spot from Twin Peaks’ Chris Mulkey) whose job he had effectively stolen was shocking and sobering. And Tami, who had been more or less flawlessly infallible in season one, messed up a few times and dealt badly with several people (Julie, her sister, a journalism teacher from Cincinnati) while she coped with her infant daughter. Perhaps the best moment of the season came when Coach’s duties took him back to Austin at a sensitive moment and Tami’s struggle not to cry that she needed him nearly overwhelmed her. I was going to ask a rhetorical question at this point, but screw it, I’ll make it a statement: there is no better actor than Britton on TV at the moment.



It seems redundant to say that season two couldn’t match the almost unwavering high quality of season one: virtually nothing could have, especially when the enforced shortening of the season left much unresolved – although we can safely assume that the Magical Red-Haired Waitress Of Miraculous Fertility will agree to have Street’s child, otherwise that subplot was a complete waste of time (and Street frankly may as well be written out). Friday Night Lights is returning in 2008-9, in what must be its last chance considering its consistently poor audience figures. While it got away with a couple of near-slipups in season two, let’s hope the show can avoid further attempts at ratings-grabbing in its third year, and return to its winning first-season form.

BBC Breakfast Watch! Almost Not FAIL For Once?

I come not to bury BBC Breakfast, but to praise it! And bury it a little. Nothing big or particularly memorable, and nothing to justify a post, but it did do one thing very well this morning; make me excited about the Doctor Who season four finale. I won't say too much about it all because the thrill of being caught out by the penultimate episode was so great I wouldn't want to ruin it for any non-UK fans stumbling across this blog, but let's just say, I think about 9 million Brit Who fans are in a state of extreme freak-out-itude over the last episode.


That penultimate episode was mostly horrible, with all sorts of hilarious dialogue about Osterhagen Keys, Project Indigo, and oh Christ, yet more stupid alien languages and dire crazytalk (was Dalek James Caan secretly Drusilla in disguise?), the ever-awesome MARTHA JONES handicapped with an unflattering semi-Hitler hairdo, not to mention Penelope Wilton being annoying and Billie Piper's peculiar mouth distortion still going unexplained, plus lots of shots of her with a ludicrous spacegun, none of which helped dispel my general antipathy to all things Rose Tyler (and wow, we've got the return of her mom and useless Mickey to look forward to? Someone restrain me before I bite off my tongue with excitement).


Luckily it was saved by many superbly integrated references to previous episodes that seemed to hint that perhaps Russell T. Davies had been planning this finale all along, some top crossover moments, some all-time great line readings from John Barrowman at his most wonderfully Barrowmanesque, Richard Dawkins' cameo, and the knowledge that Canyon's least favourite Who villains weren't ruined by that godawful Daleks Take Manhattan two parter in season three. She even got excited enough to shout at the screen with joy (sample quote, "Yay! Torchwood is going to be destroyed! Go Daleks! Exterminate them all! Except Captain Jack, of course.").

The show highlight, though, was the final scene, featuring the best cliffhanger of the year. Massive, massive, kudos to the BBC for managing to keep that unbelievably big surprise under wraps; I doubt anyone knew it was coming up, and the press blackout for tomorrow's denouement has been total, as far as I can tell (I'm not about to go looking for spoilers). I salute you, as does the ever-dashing Captain Jack and the Duh Twins.


Anyway, BBC Breakfast interviewed Freema Agyeman again this morning (she seems to be unofficial spokesman for the show, as she has been on before), and she was as endearingly enthusiastic about the show as ever. She even keeps it up when talking about Torchwood. Miraculous! Obviously she was asked about a thousand times as to the outcome of that brilliant cliffhanger by hosts Charlie Stayt and Susanna Reid, and Freema kept totally shtum. That was to be expected. What did please me was the unfaked enthusiasm of all of them. It was infectious and exciting, and nothing like the usual indifferent puff pieces that pollute the airwaves in the morning. It made me even more anxious to see the finale, which is just the sort of thing these interviews should be doing. It was a rare moment of competence.


Of course, it was not perfect. Freema was in happiness mode, but Charlie, who had already turned an inconsequential interview with James Alexandrou (promoting a play) into a dour interrogation about the awful wave of knife crime currently blighting the UK, did the same with MARTHA JONES. It was the same whiplash tonal shift from, "ZOMG what will happen to the Doctor?!?!" to, "What do you think about these recent tragic deaths?" It was a question aimed at her more because of her age than her ethnic background, I think. At least I hope so. If Alexandrou got asked too it seems they think that everyone under 25 who isn't employed by the BBC is a blade-wielding scumbag or has a valuable perspective on blade-wielding scumbags, so I'll give them a break on that. Poor Freema had to downshift her mood accordingly, and amusingly praised the C4 drama Fallout instead of talking about the Beeb's coverage of same (which is nothing like as bold as the Disarming Britain season on the alternative channel).

Still, it was a rare human moment on the show that didn't involve stupidity, ineptitude, or luddite yammerings. Congrats where congrats are due. Normal service (i.e. missed cues, fear of the future, Bill Turnbull lowering the world average IQ by about 100 points) will be resumed immediately.

The View Sounds More Interesting When Described By Rosie

Though I feel dirty for linking to a Fox News post, seems Rosie O'Donnell lost control of her mouth again and compared working on The View to violent scenes from exploitative prison movies. She is reported to have said, during a warm-up for a stand-up tour:

It started out as a tea party and wound up like a women’s prison movie. There were shivs out on the table.

That was the nice quote; she said worse things in another quote. How dare she insult women-in-chains exploitation movies by comparing them to something as tawdry as The View! Has The View ever been directed by Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme? No, it hasn't. Do ladies-in-prison flicks feature anything as offensive, unpalatable, and insulting to the reputation of the female gender as Elizabeth Hasselbeck? No, they don't. Put a cork in it, O'Donnell, or I'm burning my copy of Another Stakeout.


(Disclaimer: No contributor to Shades of Caruso owns a copy of Another Stakeout in any format. This was merely an attempt to prevent Rosie O'Donnell from saying anything else from a position of zero perspective.)