LOST copycats!

Looks a lot like this Mattson Creative print, no?

666 Park Avenue: Is Gavin the devil?

In arguing with a friend over whether or not Gavin was 'the devil,' I stumbled upon a couple possibilities I hadn't thought of before...

(1) What if Olivia is really the evil one and he's just doing her bidding. The last episode sort of put my mind at ease on that one, but still, it would be a good twist.

(2) What if Gavin is working for someone else. The guy in charge rarely does his own dirty work, after all. Does Gavin have a boss?

And speaking of Gavin.... how much do you think of John Locke when watching this show? Or rather, the Smoke Monster, I guess. But when he starred down that elevator shaft and a light shot out? Um, hello. It's the hatch!!

666 Park Avenue = Lost

New Fall Show Review: Revolution

Revolution doesn't technically premiere until 9/17, but it was available OnDemand (and I think it is on Hulu too), so I figured I'd get ahead of the game and check it out.

Did you / do you like any of the following shows:
The Event
FlashForward
LOST
Alcatraz
Fringe
Terra Nova

If you answered 'yes' to any of those, you might as well give Revolution a shot.  It'll probably get cancelled (like 4/6 of those did), so hey, it isn't a big commitment anyway.

In case you missed the bazillion promos - basically we lose all power/energy. Like... no lights, no cars, and apparently, they don't even have pens (watch for the guy from Breaking Bad/Once Upon A Time writing with a giant pencil at one point).

And hey! We get this awesome shot of East St. Louis 15 yrs from now with busted up playgrounds!

Good try, Revolution, but East St. Louis already sort of looks like that. 

I know, I know. How does that make sense? If we know how electricity was invented - why don't we just reinvent it? If we know how wind energy works - why not just use that? It makes absolutely zero sense. According to my boyfriend, this is a show 'for people who don't understand science.'

I'm not too caught up on details. It's a TV show! Who cares! But my issue is this - it needs to be believable, if only for a little while. The first 40 minutes of LOST were completely possible. Plane crash on an island. Sure, a lot of people survived, but whatever. It's a show. It wasn't until the very last few minutes of the pilot that we heard the monster in the jungle. We were intrigued. We realized that wait - this wasn't just a modern day Gilligan's Island. This is something more.

Revolution just isn't smart enough. The comment 'this is a show for people who don't understand science' is a real problem. LOST pushed viewers. When it came out, TV was getting dumber and dumber. Reality was king. But LOST dared to be the thinking-man's show. It had literary references you had to Google to understand. It had Easter eggs hidden in nearly every episode. We saw all of its predecessors dumb themselves down to help the audience understand - Flashforward always replayed scenes that were referenced, instead of just hoping their viewers would remember what happened two weeks ago. Terra Nova blew its budget with 'cool' dinosaurs instead of focusing on plot and character. Revolution is heading towards the same fate.

We do get a lot of LOST-y feelings from the show. 'Juliet' plays mom to 'Charlie' and wife to 'Ben.' Hearing her say their names in the very first scene of the show made me feel like I was watching LOST all over again. The music sounds similar, there's a plane (and believe me, I searched for 'Oceanic' on the side) and it ends with someone sending mysterious messages on a computer that could have flew out of the Hatch when it exploded and landed in this lady's attic. I wanted so badly for her to respond to the final "So.... Now what?" message with "4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42."

BUT WAIT - mysterious messages? I thought they didn't have power? 

Oh yes, now you're hooked, eh?

Grey's gets LOST

[WARNING: This is the first 6 minutes of the Grey's Anatomy season finale. If you don't want to watch it.... stop reading.]

But seriously. When I heard there would be a plane crash in the finale, I, of course, thought of LOST. But this HAS to be some sort of homage. The opening scene, the music... is this for real? I always thought there should be some sort of LOST / Grey's crossover. Two gorgeous, dark-haired doctors named Shepard? That is no coincidence.

Is This LOST?

They have Gin. They have a jungle. Heck, last season even featured boar hunting and a bunker in the jungle... and now John Locke?!

'Deleted' Scene

Because this is hilarious, awesome and it's been too long since I had something about LOST to post about.

LOST art.

Sawyer Returns!

EW has learned exclusively that Josh Holloway — who played James “Sawyer” Ford on ABC’s Lost — is in the process of closing a deal to make a cameo in Community’s two-part season finale. It’s set for May but no date has been announced.

Holloway’s character emerges as a mysterious figure who shows up on campus during another game of paintball. The two-parter is a sequel, of sorts, to “Modern Warfare” — last year’s memorable episode that began with the Dean announcing a prize for a game of paintball. It devolved into campus-wide battle.

via EW.

Namaste! Happy Valentine's Day!

Love. Here's more.

Charles Widmore

Okay, I'm not a big 30 Rock fan (I know, I know, it's the best show ever... whatev.) but I am a LOST fan so naturally, I adore this.

The Final Print

Get in Character

Sorry for the LOST overkill... but these are too good to ignore.

 

Thanks for the find Design Fetish

It only ends once.

Love this comment on TV Fanatic regarding the LOST finale...

The show spoke to us. More than anything, Lost rose to prominence because fans loved to debate it and discuss it online, at work, in restaurants. In many ways, we're responsible for its success; not just because we watched, but because we became immersed in it. In this way, the finale didn't just speak to Jack, it spoke to all of us: we aren't dead, but we are part of a community that relied on each other and had an incredible, memorable experience with a group of strangers.

Oh, and if you're wondering when I'm writing my wrap up thoughts on the finale... I don't know yet. I don't even know if I am going to write anything. If I'm ready to write anything.

Just know that I loved the finale. I loved the show. I was not disappointed. I'm not going to pretend to know it all, but I'm not mixed up in theories. I'm not asking any more questions. What happened, happened.

Lost + Cats

Thanks Google

A reprint of 'A Love Letter to Lost'

To commemorate my love for Lost, a repeat of my post from Girls Guide...

A Love Letter to LOST

I’ll admit, your resident TV & Movies Maven (that’s me, by the way) has been feeling a little uninspired lately. Usually, I have tons of entertainment related topics I want to write about, but coming up with an idea this week was nearly impossible. I even went to Twitter with suggestions, and even you, my loyal followers, could not pull through (thanks anyway).

How is it that something I love so dearly (yes, I’m still talking about TV & Movies, and I see nothing wrong with describing our relationship in terms of ‘love’) could leave me so uninspired?

Perhaps it’s because I have fallen way behind in many of my favorite shows (Fringe, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, Greek, One Tree Hill, Grey’s Anatomy, America’s Best Dance Crew…). Perhaps it’s because most of the recent movies I have watched were nothing short of terrible (have you people ever seen Dreamcatcher?) But I have a feeling that my lack of inspiration in other TV & Movie-related business is because all of my focus, all of my energy, all of my brainpower, is being focused elsewhere.

Work, you ask? My new blog, perhaps?

No way. Lately, all I can think of, all I want to read about, all I care about, is my Tuesday evening date with Sawyer. And Richard and Ben and (Un)Locke and Kate and…. well, you know, the rest of the Losties.

Yes, I am a LOST fan. And not just a ’sort of’ LOST fan. I’m one of those crazy intense LOST fans that the Onion warned you about.

I watch the show. I read the blogs. I rewatch the episodes (multiple times). I pick apart the theories I find online. I have seen all the bonus features on the DVD. I even watched this 20 minute LOST-inspired fan video (and it’s only part one).

I’m not going to sit here and tell you to watch LOST. I’ll probably ridicule you for not watching, but I seriously do not want you to just start watching now. That would be ridiculous. Not only would you not understand what was going on, but, perhaps more importantly, you probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

You see, LOST is a lot more than a show about a group of people stranded on an island (it’s also about smoke monsters and temples and time travel and an indestructible dog named Vincent, but I digress…). LOST is about characters. The producers have prefaced this season saying that if the mysteries don’t matter to the characters, then they don’t matter. Period.

I have been trying to tell people this since the first season. You don’t have to watch the show for the mystery, you don’t have to try to solve every puzzle- just watch it for the characters. Every episode is filled with incredible performances that can make you laugh (Hurley), make you cry (RIP Juliet), and make you shutter with fear (Man In Black/Locke/Smoke Monster, you freak me out). The depth the writers have given these characters is unreal. It’s what kept me coming back in the third season, when many fairweather fans claim the show jumped the (Dharma-branded) shark.

What you really have to appreciate about LOST is what it has done for television. In a time when networks were feeding us one silly reality show after another, LOST came along with it’s mythology-based story. Hoards of viewers flocked to the Internet to share their theories on blogs and make fan videos on YouTube (LOST premiered in September 2004, Blogs really hit the mainstream that same year, YouTube launched in February 2005. Coincidence… or fate).

LOST made (and still makes) people think. Unlike reality shows, which assume that all of us are weight/beauty-obsessed hoarders looking for love, the creators of LOST gave us something smart. They challenged us. When everyone else was underestimating the American public, LOST took a chance.

Some are calling it the most important television show of the decade, and I have to agree. In my opinion, LOST forever changed American television.

Again, I’m not going to tell you to start watching LOST (because then you will probably call me and ask annoying questions), but I do have one favor to ask of you…

Leave the LOST fans alone.

We are passionate. We are crazy. We are obsessed. And we only get to be like this until May 23, 2010. So cut us some slack, okay?

And when you decide to jump on the bandwagon and want to borrow my DVDs, just let me know.

RIP Lost

Ratings vs. Chatter

Which matters more- rankings or engagement?

Check out this article about Optimedia's new Content Power Ratings for television shows, or read this little diddy-

"Optimedia's "Content Power Ratings" combine viewing data from TV, online and mobile devices to measure audience engagement with specific TV shows. While Optimedia has compiled its rankings for two years previous to this one, this year's compilation is the first to include social-media data from Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Facebook fan pages to better track a particular show's "engagement.""

Basically, they are putting emphasis not on the number of viewers, but on the viewers themsleves- on the chatter, the loyalty, dare I say, the fervor of the fans.

Take for example, my favorite show in the universe- LOST. Is it number one in the rankings? No. It is number 34 actually. But it made it to number 2 on the Power Ratings list because of people like me and Matt that love it so much.

Or, think about another favorite of mine- One Tree Hill. Season after season, it is on the chopping block to get cancelled, and season after season, its crazed fans swoop in to save it. The make petitions, they send letters, they tweet about it, whatever it takes. It was/is in the same position this season, and rumor has it the CW is ordering another 12 episode season. Success. (Oddly enough, OTH is not even on this Rankings list, which I think is weird).

Check out the more from the Rankings list....

So, what do you think? Should programming be based on straight, traditional numbers ratings? Or should it be based more on a scale with these 'power ratings'? 

For a long time, people have said that numbers matter because more people watching = more people seeing ads = more companies buying ads = more money for the networks. I'm not so sure that equation matches up anymore.

It has started to matter more who is watching, not just how many there are. The 18-49 demo has become a gold mine for advertisers. If you are failing in that demographic, you are failing. Period.

Or (again) think of Lost. The ads for the finale are runnning for something like $900,000. Not bad for the #34 show on television, right?

The internet changed everything. Duh. People are more engaged in their television shows than ever. And I think that has to count for something....

Out with the traditional Nielsen Rankings, in with the Power Rankings!

Oh and PS: I hate American Idol. Do you have to be #1 in everything? Geez.

LOST EW Covers!!

O. M. G.

I must have all of these covers. Or at least Locke, Ben, Sawyer, and Jack.

Thanks for the heads up ODI

LOST. love. LOST. love.

Last night's LOST episode was too good for words.

Here's a theory I read at TV Fanatic that I really like...

Eloise told Desmond that he had the life he always wanted, specifically: the admiration of Charles Widmore. Desmond should accept it, be happy and stop searching. Why? He wasn't ready for the truth yet.

What is that truth? This is my theory: it's related to a deal those on the island made with FakeLocke. He's been manipulating people throughout the season, inching closer and closer to his goal of freedom. His main strategy for conspiring to leave the island? Convince the castaways that he can make their dreams come true.

You want Nadia to be alive, Sayid? No problem! Wanna see Jin again, Sun? I can do that! Care to be a mother to Aaron, Claire? Follow me!

In each instance, FakeLocke is trying to get people to take his side over Jacob. And what's been the theme that both Widmore and Jacob (the two men opposing the Man in Black) have tried to hammer home to anyone that will listen? If FakeLocke succeeds, the world that we know will end. There's no way of understanding exactly what this means, or how it will take place, or a million other questions hanging over Lost.

But Eloise's speech, and Daniel's subsequent hypothesis about his own past, lends credence to the idea that FakeLocke promised everyone their very own heaven in exchange for his freedom, but you know what they say: be careful what you wish for.

Because something is missing in this Man-in-Black-created universe. It's something Charlie saw in his near-death experience: love.

It sounds cheesy, but think about it: Sayid isn't actually with Nadia in his Sideways world. Jack is divorced, Sawyer ruined things with Charlotte, Desmond is completely alone. These individuals may have been granted their wishes by FakeLocke, but the result was far from the ideal life they had envisioned once they conquered their past demons.

What does all this mean? Who knows. But Daniel made it clear that this Sideways world is not the life they are "supposed" to be living ("What if this all this wasn't supposed to be our life? What if we had some other life, and for some reason we changed things?") .

Something went wrong, and all signs point to that something having a lot to do with Jacob's nemesis. The Man in Black may have told Richard, in "Ab Aeterno," that he was NOT the Devil - but it certainly seems like our castaways have made a deal with someone evil that has resulted in a major, loveless shift to their universe.

Could that be FakeLocke's plan? The danger of releasing that cork? He may not literally destroy the world, but he may remove the concept of true love from it.

My only problem here is the 'love' has never been one of the big LOST themes (in my opinion).... Ah well.