MagneticMediaFed

Full Lost details coming up right after the break…

(more…)

“Is that a whale?”

I finally sat down and watched some television last night. It was a pleasurable experience. Enjoyed some Heroes, a little Friday Night Lights, some Lost, Knights of Prosperity, and even managed to formulate some thoughts on the shows, which I’d like to share with you right after the break…

(more…)

On Saturday I was talking to a friend about Veronica Mars. Her feelings about this season have been lukewarm at best. I found this moderately shocking as most people I’ve talked to have felt the past half-dozen or so episodes have been as good as any. Granted things started off slow. I blame the writers trying to figure out how to play the whole “college” angle, the misguided decision to have the preliminary arc deal with the pursuit of a serial rapist (haven’t we all ready done that?), and having a mostly neutered Logan moping around the first six episodes. Since the winter hiatus, however, the show has been nothing shy of tip-top. My friend didn’t really agree. In fact, she went as far as saying that she hopes the show ends this year so she doesn’t have to watch it anymore. Bold.

An interesting point was raised during our discussion. She said that perhaps one of the reasons Veronica Mars has been leaving her cold is because she’s watching it after she watches the increasingly disastrous Gilmore Girls. Can the bad taste of one show ruin one’s appreciation for another? I think it can. I’ll explain further after the break…

(more…)

A few brief words on Lost before I get to the more pressing matters: kinda boring episode, no? Oh well, what can you do?

The good news is (at least for the next few weeks) if Lost doesn’t deliver, we can always fall back on the shockingly rock-solid goodness of Friday Night Lights. What’s interesting is the difference between a mediocre episode of Lost and a mediocre episode of Friday Night Lights. The latter is still going to be the best thing you watch all day, even if it isn’t the best in its own series.

Most of the story lines this week were good if not especially riveting. The gold came from Matt and Julie and Julie’s attempt to lose her virginity in the most emotionless and scientific of ways. There was great tension and comedy between the two, not the least of which being the visual of two moderately horny high schoolers trying to get it on under the watchful eyes of what seemed like dozens of mounted deer heads.

Conversely the scene with Mrs. Taylor trying to talk her daughter out of sex was heartbreaking. There really isn’t much a parent can say in instances like this that could honestly change the mind of a child who has all ready made a decision and Mrs. Taylor’s attempt seemed to say this as much as she would have liked to have said, “Look, I’ve mistakes.” Connie Britton is a fantastic actor.

Comments on last night’s television selections coming up after the jump…

(more…)

Last night’s television selections were top notch. Thank you TV Gods! Let’s start with the show no one watched: Friday Night Lights.

Since the series premiered last October I’ve been waiting for them to tackle the very apparent race issues in Dillion, Texas. What made this week’s efforts so brilliant was how such a weighty (and rarely seen on network television) subject was played against one of the funnier b-stories they’ve had in the “Powder-Puff Football” game. It’s hard to work race into a single episode without it coming off as an After-School-Special discussion topic (luckily it appears this weeks actions by the team’s black players will be carried over into the story lines for at least the next week). Still, the motivations were direct but never seemed forced. I liked how Smash went from having more or less no real opinion on the school’s (and the town’s) divide to being an organizational leader calling for their football practice walk-out.

Also interested was how the whites were responding to all of this controversy. In classic American fashion their comments would always sound encouraging upon first listen but after replaying back in one’s mind came off at best close-minded and at worst horribly racist. Friday Night Lights succeeds like few mainstream entertainments do because this difference is never just flat out said.

On the cheerier side of the fence, the Coach’s reaction to his daughter being picked quarterback for Powder-Puff football was priceless. For a character who is seen smiling so rarely, it was great to see him teaching Julie Football Theory 101.

Also, did anyone else think that Landry’s thoughts on “pheromones” might have been one of the weirder things he’s ever said?

Over on ABC, Lost kicked off is sprint to no where. More on it right after the break…

(more…)

Well the wait is over (assuming anyone, anywhere has actually been waiting with nervous glee for Lost to return this year). Tonight at 10 (that’s an hour later for those of you who only know American Idol) Lost comes back for 16 straight episodes. The best thing you can say about the series at this stage in the game is the show has so alienated its fans since last October its return tonight will be met with few expectations. Really, as long as an actual episode is broadcast and as long as no one gets caught in a bear trap I’m wagering most people will be pleased.

Personally, I feel I may have been a a little rough in hindsight on the fall finale. Yes, it sucked, but there have been Heroes episodes this season that have been far worse (and more maddening). Lost’s curse is being a show that has the potential every week of not only being great, but elevating the medium. It has the ideas. It has the creative talent to pull it off. It has the acting. So when these forces don’t pull you aren’t just disappointed, you’re pissed off.

Now that some of the steam has been let off, and now that the nations attention has been redirected to other ensemble sci-fi-drama-adventures, Lost might have the room it needs to surprise us — which is about all you can ask for at this point.

Have fun watching.

Last week at the winter TCA Press Tour the creators of Lost declared that they will be ending the series around the 100 episode mark. This was suppose to quell the restlessness amongst the fans that feel the show’s writers have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. It’s the type of announcement that doesn’t exactly solve this problem, but it does give everyone a timetable to figure out an answer. Lost will end, and hopefully that motivation will spark some decent plotting for these last two seasons.

Similarly, Heroes was rumored from the start to have stand-alone seasons. Whether or not this is still the case is up for argument. Personally, as someone who has had a love/hate relationship with the show, I hope season one ends with some solid resolution (i.e. New York City either blows up or doesn’t). Unlike Lost, Heroes has the advantage (like Veronica Mars) of telling one story over 22 episodes and then starting fresh and doing it again the next season. I go on after the break…

(more…)

Who? The cheerleader. Why? To save the world. Oh, OK… Who again?

Heroes is as good a show as it is a disaster, and after nine episodes I’ve decided that I’m OK with that. The show has strengths. Those strengths should be marketed to the American public to get them interested in tuning in. Unfortunately, the NBC promotions department seems to be run by a pack of super-smart, drug-addled chimps. “Save the Cheerleader Save the World” is Heroes tag line. This is fine. But there gets to be a point where you have to say, “OK, I get it,” and move onto something else– or at the very least pull back a little. In last night’s TERRIFIC episode various characters must have used the phrase at least five different times. This, in addition to the endless barrage of promos and publicity materials beating us to death with the message.

The easiest comparison would be the Lost numbers. Both represent an unanswerable plot force, but with “the numbers” the work is always on the side of the audience. The sometimes excessiveness of “the numbers” was for the most part fan fueled. Sure, they play a critical role in the show, but in terms of marketing, ABC has always left the mystery of “the numbers” to the fans.

As for ‘Saving the Cheerleader,’ I’m all for it. She’s way cute. Just quit beating me to death with it. Not just during the show, but after, and in between acts, and in Chyrons on the lower third of the screen, and on bus benches, and inside the back of my eyelids, and…

If you’re going to start up a season, only to stop six episodes in and then make your fanbase wait 14 weeks to finish out the season (all be it straight through until the end without taking a week off), you better end those first episodes in a drastically different place than where you started. This? This was nothing. As far as I’m concerned, this was a total Brayton to the viewers by the supposedly brilliant Lost writers. Look, we all know they’re making it up as they go along (which for reasons unknown to me people seem to find offensive) and I have no doubt they’re sincere in their efforts, but that doesn’t mean you can pass off nothing for something. Find yourself painted into a corner? Write the fuck out of it! That’s what they had to do with the Mr. Eko mess from last week, and did so rather brilliantly I felt (did anyone else notice that there wasn’t a single frame of his dead body on the screen this week? Curious, no?). Instead, we were given a cliffhanger where everything being ‘hung’ was based on information we more or less received six months ago.

The thing is, all of this is completely forgivable. I don’t mind being jerked around only to have to wait three months before seeing the inevitable non-conclusion. Honestly, I don’t. But! When you dangle Nathan Fillion in front of me a minute into the episode and then give him less screen time than the god damn polar bear, that’s where you lose me.

I have fourteen weeks to decide if this is truly an executionable offense, or simply poor planning, but as of right now, I could easily see jumping this sinking ship.

Next week, Daybreak???

Why? Seriously. Why?

Say what you will about Lost this season, (I’m of the opinion that these first five episodes are leaps and bounds above the first five from last season) there is no denying the fact that the character Mr. Eko was extremely popular. This raises the always valuable question: at what point is a character unkillable? For example, you can’t kill off James Woods from Shark. The show doesn’t really work without him. See, his character’s name is in the title. Ensembles are a little harder to draw that line, especially when the character in question isn’t even an original castmember. More thoughts after clicking below…

(more…)

I don’t really have a lot to say, except for the fact that I love the “new” Lost. Last week was the “old” Lost. Last week was all about confusing, whats-the-point, circular storylines where you’re dropped off a few steps behind the point where you started. This week was good, and almost exclusively due to the sheer number of times in the episode some one was brutally punched in the face. I like Lost when its less about these huge unanswerable questions, and more about punching someone in the face. You can tell a lot about a character by how they try to punch someone in the face, or how they handle having someone else punch them in the face, and frankly, when you’re fifty-one episodes into a series sometimes you just need the show to punch you in the face a couple times and wake you the hell up. Or maybe I’m just regressing back to my savage state.

Elsewhere in the episode, Jack seems to be making friends, and not getting punched in the face. The biggest problem (and a problem that seems to be showing itself at shorter and shorter intervals) is the backstories really haven’t had much of a sting lately. When you see a Sawyer flashback, you expect to be wowed by the tripple-double-double-crosses. This week, eh, not so much. The Lost writing machine where all of the good story ideas come out of, must have exploded last February for the episode when Sawyer took the guns. Since then things haven’t been all that — with the exception of last season’s finale. That was all that.

And while I can’t write a post without comparing the two, I should state for the record that I mostly enjoyed this past week’s episode of Heroes and only found myself fast-forwarding through a couple scenes of the show. It definitely isn’t the soul-crushing experience it was three weeks ago, and dare I say I look forward to this coming Monday.

Oh, and was anyone else disappointed that Sawyer didn’t have the pacemaker after all. The “your heart/brain is going to explode if you go below 50 miles an hour” seems to be the J.J. Abrams equivalent of showing a car trunk open from the inside, but damn if it doesn’t create some tension.

True story: last night I got home from the Beck concert, watched Lost and sat down at my computer. I had this cool idea that I was going to call a friend of mine, talk to him about the show and then transcribe our conversation (which was agreed upon before the call) to use as today’s post. I figured it would be something a little different. Perhaps MMF readers would get a kick out of it. But then I spilled my beer on my keyboard. Now, the spacebar doesn’t work at all and the rest of the keys stick, so I’m typing this from my roommate’s room (thanks Paul!). Anyway, now that I’m at a different computer I can transcribe that conversation, and you can read it by clicking below…

(more…)

Alright Lost, we have an issue here. First of all, great episode. I was thoroughly entertained throughout. Watching it I kept thinking to myself, “This is exactly what this show needs! Action! Adventure! Love!” And how could we leave out intrigue? Sawyer planting one on kiss after spending the afternoon staring at her ass in the hot hot sun, AND THEN getting into a huge fight with a couple of The Others. Fists, guns, tasers, the show had it all. There was Sun, Gin and Sayid planning there attack. The flashback was marked with lost love, redemption, and a guy getting thrown through a glass coffee-table. I guess what I’m saying is that Lost should really be more like James Bond. Sure, the mystery and all that nonsense is fun, but it doesn’t put asses in seats. I want to be entertained! And I was. You did that right-on, Lost, but then you had to go and do something so completely objectionable I almost chucked the remote through the television. You can’t, and I mean CAN NOT, dangle Trixie (Paula Malcomson) in front of us and the kill her off (presumably) in the same episode. That just shouldn’t be done. You better hope she survives that gunshot wound to the stomach, or I could very well riot.

Also, how hilarious was it when “Mr. Linus” says to Jack, “Patience, patience.” I kind of felt like he was talking to all of us, no?

But seriously, Trixie/Colleen better be coming back.

 Lost kicked off its third season last night. By the third season of any popular show there really isn’t a need for an advocate to get people to tune in (unless it’s called The Wire or Veronica Mars). Lost all ready has its audience, and they are mostly faithful, but it is certain that they will slowly dwindle away over the next four years as the show finishes out its run. I am a Lost fan, and I intend to ride out the show for the foreseeable future, but I’m no longer in the game of telling people that it is without a doubt THE show to watch — mostly because, well, it isn’t. There’s more to say after the jump…

(more…)