Television

In which Byzantine and Angry Teti liveblog the latest episode of 24. This week: Josh is nearly kidnapped, the Russians are on the brink of war, and the word “component” is said many, many times.

Read on at your own risk ... spoilers abound »

This is what happens when you catch LaKisha’s final performance on American Idol right before Lost (no, I don’t watch AI).

Read on at your own risk ... spoilers abound »

Is it just me, or was last night’s Lost exceptionally good? Man, to think I was prepared to write the show off entirely around the mid-season mark.

Actual meaningful plot revelations… more Henry Gale… lots of Dharma Initiative goodness… and, of course, Locke. And a nice dose of random weirdness thrown in for good measure–you know what I’m talking about. Good stuff. I assume that, because of all the storyline-advancing material this episode contained, the next 10 episodes will consist entirely of Charlie flashbacks, Skate make-out scenes, and maybe even the return of Michael so we can all relive the excitement of him yelling “WAAAAAAALLLT!!!” every twenty seconds.

(Don’t worry, I’m already pressuring Angry Teti to post one of her post-episode commentaries.)

I haven’t had much to say about my favorite shows Lost and 24 lately. Lost has gotten really good again, and has wormed its way back into my heart until I’m back at a Season 1 level of enthusiasm for it. I’m really pleased with all the mysteries, the answers we’ve gotten so far, and especially the development of the Locke and Jack characters. I’m less pleased with the amount of screen time devoted to Sawyer and Kate making out, but when it comes out on DVD I’ll be able to skip past that, so it’s all good.

As for 24, well, there’s always next season.

Byzantine sent me this article about plans to end Lost in 2010 after three short seasons of sixteen episodes each. I have mixed feelings about this.

I think the end date is an excellent idea. Much as I’d like to imagine I’ll be watching Lost well into my old age, I don’t think I can handle another X-Files-style degeneration. The writers keep saying, and just said again on the latest official podcast, that the Lost story has a definite endpoint, which is the way it should be.

Three short seasons, though, is kind of annoying. I assume the point of this is to sell 3 more DVD collections instead of two. But those hiatuses (hiatae? hiatii?) are going to be really, really long, and the seasons really short. That might be a little too little parceled out over too much time.

I’m planning on watching anyway, of course. And will probably buy the DVDs too…the likelihood of continued “Skate” dullness notwithstanding.

Nothing that happened this episode made one lick of sense, as far as I could tell. Like Palmer’s 180: guess the writers figured a nuclear strike is always more exciting than no nuclear strike, which is true, but still. I suspect they had no idea what to do next now that Fayed and […]

Read on at your own risk ... spoilers abound »

There’s a new Geico Caveman commercial, and I think it’s my favorite:

I’m impressed that they were able to top the original:

The humor works really well in 15 and 30 second spots, but I wonder how it will do in sitcom format.

I find that I have less to say about TV shows that I like than ones I don’t like. And I’ve really liked the last 4 episodes of Lost. The first half of the season nearly lost me with its soap-operatic tendencies and general dumbness, but the last four episodes have gradually been […]

Read on at your own risk ... spoilers abound »

It’s not often that one finds oneself feeling nothing more than “meh” about an episode of 24, but that’s what happened last night. About 10 minutes after it ended, I found myself having a hard time remembering what happened during the episode. And as I reflect on it today, I have a hard […]

Read on at your own risk ... spoilers abound »

Last Saturday seemed to be end-of-the-world day. I enjoyed bits and pieces of Day after Tomorrow, Deep Impact, The Core, and Sum of All Fears. It started to get comical after a while, but nowhere near as comical as South Park’s take.

In Lice Capades, an infestation of head lice plagues South Park Elementary. Cartman becomes determined to find out who had lice and blah blah blah, who cares … the story of the lice is where it is at. Trevor, a decent family-louse, becomes conscious of the effect the lice are having on the environment and warns others of the imminent doom. A wild ride of survival ensues, with all the wonderful background music, drama, and “camera work” that you would see on the big screen. Be sure to look for supposed similarities to Robocop, Planet of the Apes (original), LOTR: The Return of the King, and The Thing.

Favorite quote:

Lice President : “Who put you in charge?”
Travis : “God did, when he killed my wife.”

Looks like you can watch Lice Capades online at southparkzone.com. As long as you are there, make sure you also watch Make love, not Warcraft, one of the best SPs ever.

Season two of Twin Peaks is finally available on DVD. I’ve seen only half of the second season—I never watched the show while it was on TV, and my source for episodes dried up midway through. But I at least made it to the episode where they answered the core mystery of the show. At least… I think they answered it. Who knows?

I really enjoyed what I saw of the show (seasons 1 and 2), but a lot of it is fairly incomprehensible and you have to wonder if David Lynch really has anything to say or if he just wants to see how crazy his stuff can be before it gets canceled. If you think Lost is getting a bit odd… well, you should really watch this. Smoke monsters will make perfect sense after meeting the Log Lady, seeing a crazy lady create and demonstrate silent drape runners, and watching Agent Cooper solve a murder by throwing rocks at bottles and drawing on a blackboard. Yeah. (Also, that scene was awesome.)

And of course, TWOP has full recaps of all of the episodes in case you do acquire the DVDs and need some snarky commentary (in addition to the snarky commentary in your head).