…the end of my desire to re-watch the run of the show on dvd.  Here I thought the finale would be so ground-breaking, so explanatory, and so intriguing that it would make me want to re-watch the entire show again, just to see how it looked after it was pulled all together.  But I was wrong.  I don’t want to watch it again, and they didn’t pull it together.  In fact, my feelings couldn’t be further from what I had hoped – I want to forget that I was ever hooked on a show called Lost, and I want to forget that a show called Lost ever existed.

The tv show Lost premiered in 2004.  The premise always seemed intriguing – a group of people survive a plane crash only to be faced with unforeseen mysterious challenges that await them on a mystical island.  I meant to watch it during its inaugural season, but I had a new baby in 2004, and tv was not one of my top priorities.  After Lost’s first season ended, however, the water cooler buzz just became too intriguing for me to resist, so my husband and I began to catch ourselves up on the first season, thinking we could always drop the show if we didn’t like it.  But like millions of others, we were hooked – Lost was great.  WAS.  Somewhere along the line, the show lost (haha) quality and many viewers at the same time – I’m thinking this was around the time of the infamous Hollywood Writers’ Guild strike of 2007-8.  Many tv shows went on an indefinite hiatus at that time, some did not return, and some, like Lost, were never the same.  Lost became famous for throwing out a ton of loose ends, new characters and questions each new episode – without ever offering answers or resolutions.  Many viewers lost (ahem) the ability or desire to follow the show, and Lost lost (cough cough) much of its fan following.  And that’s when Darlton (the collective name of the show’s production / writing team Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof) announced an end date to Lost – all of our many questions and loose ends would be concluded at the end of the 2010 season.  And my husband and I, like many other almost-lost Lost fans decided to  stick around.  After all, we reasoned, we had invested all this time already, why not a few more seasons, especially if we were going to get our answers?  We were anxiously awaiting the finale tonight, but unlike the anticipation of true Lost fans, we were just excited that we could have our Tuesday nights back.  Much of the buzz compared Lost to reading a good book – when you get near the end, you think, what am I going to do when this book is over?  It’s so good!  I can certainly identify with the good book analogy, but I would not apply it to Lost – we were just happy it was ending.  So I guess disappointing isn’t really the word I would use to describe the finale.  I was half-expecting no real answers, considering the original bait and switch, but I couldn’t really believe that they could get away with such a thing.  And I am disappointed that I wasted a whopping four and a half hours (count ’em) on this tonight!

The first 2 hours were a re-cap special, which was less helpful than I thought.  The first half of it was the actors reflecting on the show and giving inside info about filming techniques, etc.  I’m thinking, why would they show this before the final episode airs?  It didn’t make sense to me.  Now I’m thinking it was just another way to grease the wheels of Lost fans to overwhelm their tiny minds and brainwash them into being happy with the craptastic finale.  There were also these “Lost Transmissions” – letters from audience members incorporated into scenes of Lost.  They used footage from old episodes of Lost to make it look like Lost characters are actually reading fans’ letters – for example, a scene with computers had a fan’s letter written on a computer screen and the characters reacting to the “letter”.  It was really stupid, and no, I’m not just upset that my letter wasn’t chosen.  I didn’t care enough to write a letter, just as I don’t care enough to stay up really late, pointing out every one of the clues I found that the cast and crew of Lost KNEW their finale would be incredibly awful and disappointing.

So anyway, then the finale episode itself was TWO and a half hours, and NONE of the questions were answered.  NONE.  All of the “true lovers” were paired up, and that provided enough fluff to keep Lost fans preoccupied and happy with the end, or so the producers hoped.  Not the case in this household.  In fact, if you ask me, in many of the interviews with the actors, you can catch hidden statements that they were not happy with the ending and didn’t think the fans would be satisfied.  In fact, Darleton themselves made a series of disclaimers during the re-cap special.  I’m not going to waste more time on Lost by pointing everything out though.  I stayed up until 11:30 to watch this garbage and another 30 minutes writing this, and that’s long enough.  Goodbye Lost – and GOOD RIDDANCE!

Oh yeah, a quick list of the few of many Lost loose ends they failed to tie up, just off the top of my head there are plenty more:

The temple and the guy who was in charge of it.

Sayid and Claire changing, having something dark inside them.

Drug smuggling with the Mary statues on the small plane that crashed – a man named Echo and his brother appearing to Lost survivors – for example, Hurley in the mental hospital.

The Numbers

Walt

Walt’s Comic Books

Whidmore’s connection to the island

Polar Bears

Miles’ father – Dharma guy on Dharma Initiative training videos

The whole show in general – the ending didn’t make sense to me at all

And I have one last thing to  say – the 10 seconds of the water-skiing squirrel on the news after Lost was more entertaining than the Lost finale.  At least my night was redeemed – thank you, water-skiing squirrel!

*An addendum – it was too late last night for me to write about the extremely entertaining Jimmy Kimmel Lost special, so I’ll just share the alternate Lost endings he had on his show – they are very funny and although meant as jokes, any one of them would have been better than the REAL series finale.  Sigh.

What seems like ages ago, I was a big fan of Lost.  I didn’t watch the first season when it aired, but all the buzz about it got me curious, so my husband and I gave the first season dvd’s a try – and really liked it!  But then the second season of Lost wasn’t as good, mainly because there were way too many questions and loose ends brought about – we couldn’t figure out why they weren’t concluding some of the mysteries instead of adding tons of new questions each week!  When production was temporarily halted because of the writer’s strike a few years ago, things on Lost really went downhill.  But we had invested the time in watching it, and because the show’s creators announced a definitive end date for Lost – this is the last season – we decided to stick it out.

So last night’s highly anticipated last Lost season premiere was… eh.  Only so-so, I would say.  First, the show opened with really cheap-looking computer animation showing the island underwater, what was that?  And there was a recap episode before the premiere, thank goodness for that, but between the 2 episdoes, we saw the same climatic scene 3 times in 12 minutes!  And the recap episode didn’t help as much as I would have hoped – 12 minutes into the new Lost, and I was officially lost.  My husband tells me that there are now two sets of each character, but I somehow missed that.  If it’s true, I don’t like it.

Ugh…  I like the concept of seeing flight 815 before it crashed, but all the actors look 6+ years older!  Especially Boone!

The end of the episode was breathtaking, although I remain confused…  were any of these people aware of what had happened?  The time travel throughout the various decades?

I guess I have to watch the premiere again; I feel like I’m missing something… actually I’m missing a lot of things.  The show is still entertaining, but I am so glad it’s almost over!  It really require more thought and more of a time commitment than I have to  give to tv right now!

We were all over the place this past weekend.  I guess it was the nice weather…  wait, it rained Saturday!

It started with game night on Friday night – my intentions were to take it easy and end somewhat early so we could rest up for a big day with the kids on Saturday.  It didn’t end up that way – we began the weekend by staying up too late!  But it was a fun game night, kind of a different crowd, so it was interesting to mix it up a little.  Our new friend brought presents for the kids to game night, and I can’t express enough gratitude – she basically saved game night!  Our will-be-5-yr-old-tomorrow Sammie was in a mood, and seeing the new friend (the presents didn’t hurt either!) actually got her out of the mood she would have otherwise stayed in all night probably – thanks Mary!

Saturday we were going to take the kids to the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, Michigan.  My husband and I (and Taylor in her fetal days) went there in ’99, and we loved the zoo.  We found out it was only about an hour and a half drive from here, so we decided to check it out.  An hour and a half drive doesn’t seem like a long time if there’s no traffic and the kids are good!  Besides, an hour and half drive home after a busy day can sometimes (if we’re lucky) cinch the deal and put all 4 of them asleep for the night.  Well, anyway, it was raining on Saturday.  And we didn’t want to take 4 kids through an unfamiliar zoo in the rain.  So we ended up at Crazy Pinz in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  It’s a place where they have arcade games, bowling, mini-bowling, mini-golf and the kids’ favorite, Ball-O-City – a giant play area with levels and tunnels and balls to shoot at each other.  I was really happy when my husband pointed out the Chicago Cubs game playing on the huge tv in the bar.  So I stood over there and watched the Cubs wriggle out of a dicey situation – they had been winning 4-0 when all of a sudden, Houston scores 4 in the 9th and ties it up!  They also had bases loaded, but the Cubs got out of it somehow and came back with a win in the bottom of a 9th!  The bar at Crazy Pinz erupted in a cheer – Cubs fans everywhere!  So we stayed there for awhile and then got home late but not too late for us to catch up on watching the season finales of our two favorite tv shows – Lost and The Office.

I guess I should save it for another post, so let’s just say we were really happy with the finales of BOTH shows.  Lost actually answered a lot of questions that were outstanding, and it can finally be seen how events are starting to come full circle for the characters.  Something awesome occurred on the Office, well, it was alluded to anyway, but I think it was obvious what the next development is for the Pam and Jim characters.  Ahem.

Sunday after church we decided to reclaim our Saturday plans and head up to Battle Creek to Binder Park Zoo.  Sunday was a gorgeous, picture-perfect day weather-wise, and it ended up being a great decision – it would not be fun to tour this zoo in the rain with 4 little kids.  The zoo is mostly outdoor, and there is a bit of walking if you want to see the majority of the zoo.  You climb aboard a (free) zoo tram that takes you 5 minutes into the wilderness, err Wild Africa as the zoo calls it.  But whether it’s the wilds of Michigan or the savannas of Africa, the view that awaits you when you arrive in Binder Park’s Africa is breathtaking.  Beyond the authentic-seeming African village is a wall, and beyond the wall:

Click the picture to see a larger version – those are zebras and Thomson’s Gazelles grazing in the huge pasture.  And a clutch of ostrich eggs (real?) on the edge of the exhibit (lower right middle of picture).  The giraffes can go out there too, but they are usually over here:

where you can FEED them!  It was a great day at a great zoo, and we even saw an animal I had never heard of – the Patagonian Mara.  Fully grown they are about 35-40 lbs. (the one here at Binder Park is 9 mos. old and about half that), and they are rodents most closely related guinea pigs.  At Binder Park, the keeper was in the cage with the mara, and she was jumping onto his leg and doing tricks for food – very cool.  I didn’t get the best picture; there was a tree in the way – again click for a larger pic, maybe you can actually see the mara:

The Binder Park Zoo also has a cute rabbit exhibit where the kids can crawl through a tunnel and end up “in” with the rabbits, a cool children’s zoo (housing the happiest Guinea pigs I’ve ever seen – the first time I’ve seen Guinea pigs that weren’t squealing with fright or freaking out), and a carousel, among other fun things.  Here is my son on his first carousel ride:

And two of my 4 happy kids at the zoo:

And my other two riding a giant ant:

So…  a great weekend, even if we were never home sweet home.  I was going to share my pastor’s story he told on Sunday, but this post is long enough, that will have to wait for another post!  Until then…

BEWARE OF POSSIBLE SPOILERS (but I will try to avoid them)

I must say that the wait was well worth it.  I will say that the plot was typical J.J. Abrams.  Anyone who watched Alias or watches Lost knows that his plots can be convoluted at best.  That being said, everything that made the past series was present in the film but non-Trekkers should also enjoy it… provided that sci-fi is to their liking.

The how and why of the destinies (I don’t think the word is out of place, at all) of the two lead characters are laid out.  The brash, looking before he leaps and darn the consequences of Kirk was dramatically portrayed by Chris Pine.  The balance of the mixture of Vulcan/humanity of Spock was brilliant.  I almost thought that Zachary Quinto was a young Leonard Nimoy.  In fact, I thought the 7 ensemble characters of the Enterprise command were each portrayed quite well.  Dr. McCoy’s first impression of Spock is hilarious… and how did he get the nickname of “Bones”?  I still have a hard time seeing Chekhov on the bridge this early.  Maybe as a member of the crew in some smaller capacity, but it just seemed strange.  There is another relationship on board that I’m not quite sure fits.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away.  However, the villain sets out on a mission of vengance that could have catastrophic effects upon the universe.  Isn’t that the way all of these seem to follow?  Final verdict:  While the plot is somewhat out there, the characters fit like a glove and made the movie quite fun.   It was better than Star Trek V… so it was far from the worst.

I had a really stressful day yesterday.  The kids went completely crazy at night – was it a full moon?  I didn’t check.  Even if that was the case, other little things kept going wrong also.  Little things – things that really  shouldn’t matter.  Except that when those little things are added up, they equal one bad day.  So I thought I could beat my stress by looking forward to watching some BASEBALL on TV.  Yes, that’s right, I said BASEBALL on TV!  And it’s only early March –  we haven’t even changed the clocks yet!

I just happened to look on tvguide.com yesterday to see if I could look forward to a new episode of Lost, and I noticed that my favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, were set to play their cross-town rivals, the Chicago White Sox and it was going to actually be on tv in our little corner of NW Ohio!  Even though it’s only spring training, that brightened my mood considerably since it’s been MONTHS since I’ve gotten to watch baseball.  With the way my day was going, I was sure something would go wrong – the tvguide had made a mistake and we didn’t get it, Vegas (where the game was played) would disappear into a sinkhole, something like that.  But 10:00 finally rolled around, and the game was on!  AND, the teams were putting in their starters rather than their scrub players, which meant real, actual baseball to watch!  So I felt better; I relaxed and sat down to watch the game, and of course, that’s when my  two middle children (the trouble-makers of the brood these days) decided to start fighting.  So it wasn’t peaceful, but I did get to watch the game.  And it was a good game – the Cubs were down, but then they tied it up, but of course the Sox came back to win.  A disappointing outcome for such an otherwise great game.  But the good news is, it was only spring training so who cares  who won!

After the game I left WGN on the tv, and I was treated to an episode of the old tv show Alf.  Remember Alf?  It was a sitcom from the 80’s about a family who discovers an Alien Life Form (ALF), and takes him in to live with them.  Alf is a furry wise-cracking puppet with an affinity for cats (to eat!), and the family must keep him secret so he doesn’t get taken away.  Alf was a huge fad in  the 80’s; there were toys, lunchboxes, a cartoon spinoff, you name it.  After the Alf episode, on came the Steve Wilkos show (he’s the former bodyguard from the Jerry Springer show who now has his own trashy talk show – I wrote about this in a previous post, probably because of my disbelief that they would actually give this guy air time).  And that was my cue to hit the sack for my lovely 4½ hours sleep.  So far, today has been a little better, although our trouble-making 4-year-old is at school.  Tonight I’m looking forward to a brand spankin’ new Office episode – YIPPEE!  But first I have to get through a few boring meetings.  Sure hope I don’t doze; I am awfully tired!

While the Benihana Christmas episode is about to begin, I saw on my email that a surprise guest is coming to The Office for the hour-long post Super Bowl episode.  Jack Black will be dropping by the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin and what the plot will concern is anyone’s guess.  Will he be bringing surprises of his own?  Will we see a wedding, perhaps?  Maybe an appearance Jan and her baby and a resolution to that plot line?  What do my fellow watchers think?  Sorry, D.

Many post big game episodes have done really well.  Most also feature celebrity guests like “The One after the Super Bowl” episode of Friends featuring Julia Roberts.  The brilliant series Alias (that was cancelled way too soon) had a memorable post game episode.  Unfortunately, J.J. Abrams seemed to put the spy series starring Jennifer Garner on the back burner while making way for his new series Lost.  There were also Simpsons post Super Bowl shots.  Hopefully, the Dunder Mifflin crew can bring another great addition to the post Super Bowl hour.

If you were planning to make a space in your upcoming holiday season to see two rather high profile movies, it would be wise to consider changing them or you will be waiting a LOOONG time in line. A few weeks ago, the reboot of Star Trek by Lost head guy, JJ Abrams has been shoved from Christmas Day to May 8, 2009. More recently, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been rescheduled for a July release. Not entirely sure why but articles suggest that the writer’s strike from earlier this year may have something to do with it. However, producers claim that the sixth installment of the cinematic adventures of the boy wizard is in the can ready to roll. Some speculate that changing the release date will help in the long run as Warner Bros. previously had no big releases set for midsummer.

As far as the latest franchise to get a face lift, I say ENOUGH already. We will probably be subjected to a totally new interpretation, with an entirely new cast, and be asked to forget everything that came before. Leonard Nimoy is set to make an appearance as an aged Mr. Spock. Of course, Mr. Shatner is bitter because he was not offered a spot in the role that made him famous. However like every good captain, Kirk DIED in Generations (although Bill in his profound wisdom did revive him in a series of spin-off novels… talk about ego). And we will again ask the question, when exactly DID Chekov come aboard the Enterprise. Another sign that this will be an entire relaunch of the series (only the names are the same to not protect the innocent?), it is simply entitled Star Trek (no bloody A, B, C, or D; but wait, they dropped the number after 6, I think).

My favorite shows are on tv Thursday nights, and last week’s episodes of both shows were really good.  The Lost episode and the Office were up to par for sure, if not even a little better than usual.  And some great news we got while watching ABC – it seems we won’t be entirely without tv this summer since they’re bringing back our favorite reality show, the best one ever in my opinion, The Mole!  This show revolves around 12 contestants who perform various tasks.  In past seasons the tasks have involved navigating around strange countries and scavenger hunt-type things.  The contestants work together to try to add money to the “pot”; except for the twist: one of the players is a saboteur, the Mole, who tries to work against the other players, trying NOT to get money added to the pot.  Obviously the Mole cannot be obvious about his or her identity because if he or she is the last one left, then the Mole wins the game.  Each week, the contestants take a quiz about the Mole, and the person with the fewest correct answers gets eliminated.  There has been 4 seasons of the Mole, the first 2 being hosted by Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor, and the next 2 being celebrity editions hosted by Ahmad Rashad.  The show has not aired since 2004, and I have missed it!  It is very entertaining, and I am VERY excited it’s coming back to tv, especially since I will be going into Lost and especially Office withdrawl this summer!

Especially compounding the tv withdrawl this summer is that the episodes of my favorite shows were extra good last Thursday!  Lost actually answered more questions than it asked, they actually continuted some of the hanging plot lines instead of giving us new ones to ponder, and no new characters were introduced!  Part 2 of the season finale airs in 2 weeks, and last night’s episode really whet my appetite for this season’s cliffhanger!

The Office was back to being utterly hilarious this week.  The plot line with Toby’s replacement being under the impression that Kevin is “special” was my favorite.  I was also glad to see the return of Jan, though part of me was disappointed to discover it wasn’t Michael’s baby (according to Jan anyway – maybe a twist to look for next season?).  Michael’s new “love” for Holly was sweet and intense, but he actually might not be too far off this time – she seems like she might be a good match for him.  I loved the part where he breaks into a Yoda impression after she says yoga, she just stares at him like he’s bizarre, but then she breaks into a Yoda impression of her own.  This might be a match made in heaven!  But then again, Michael had to be an idiot and gloss over Holly’s invitation to get dessert…  typical Michael Scott behavior!  I can’t believe we’re back to waiting months for the show to come back on again!  At least The Mole will keep me busy with tv – I highly recommend it!

Because I know all of my faithful readers have been dying to learn the answers to last Saturday’s tagline quiz (aside from the one who provided additional clues to the answers), I will now reveal the correct responses.

!. The Fly (1986 remake starring Jeff Goldblum and Gena Davis)

2. Jurassic Park (which was pretty much a gimmee… again with Jeff Goldblum… purely coincidence)

3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (rather plodding kick off of the movie franchise which will be relaunched Christmas Day, 2008 and is being directed by “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams)

4. Aliens (the best of the Sigourney Weaver starring quadrilogy…. I have yet to try the two Alien v. Predator films)

5. Toy Story (a third is in the works…. interesting)

6. E.T. – The Extraterrestrial (again, a bit obvious. Harrison Ford was married to the screenwriter, Melissa Matheson at the time of its release and was supposed to have a cameo as a school principal. Steven Spielberg felt that the actor’s presence would be too distracting to the cast and crew and his scene was cut. Did not hurt either the movie nor Mr. Ford’s career in the least).

Blockbuster.com

My blog title is just about as creative as last night’s episode – not one of our favorites.  Let’s start by referring you to the tvguide.com blog.  Thank goodness our regular writer is back.  Not only does she give a complete synopsis of the episodes, she likes to make it interactive by posing interesting questions to the viewers:  https://community.tvguide.com/blog/Lost/800062566

And, as a bonus this week, tvguide.com had a really interesting Q & A with some of the Lost cast members.  It wasn’t just interview-type questions either; it was cast members asking the producers questions about what’s going to happen in the show.  I think I learned more from this Q & A than from last night’s episode!  Check it out here:  https://www.tvguide.com/news/lost-questions-answered/080304-01

Keep in mind that since this is a synopsis of last night’s episode, there will be SPOILERS ahead, so don’t read if you don’t want to know what happened!

When the episode opened last night, we see Juliet in makeup, which tells us this is either a flash-forward or a flash-back.  My first thought (and likewise with the tv guide blogger it turns out) is that it’s a flash-forward and Juliet is one of the ‘Oceanic 6’.  We soon find out that this is not the case; it’s actually a flash-back, and BOOM – here are 2 new characters for us all of a sudden, Harper and her husband, Griffin.  Later in the episode, we find out that Griffin has met his demise already, so at least we only have Harper as a new character to contend with.  I don’t know about everybody else, but I don’t remember Griffin from previous episodes.  They showed him when the Others saw Oceanic 815 fall from the sky, and the tv guide blog mentioned him interacting with Ana Lucia, but I personally don’t remember him.  If I wasn’t worried about being reminded of a thousand loose ends that haven’t been tied up, I would go back and watch the episodes with Griffin in them.  And speaking of Ana Lucia, her name has come up a lot lately for someone who has been dead for awhile.  During the preview for next week’s episode, they mentioned that we will “see a face you never thought you’d see again.”  Please, please do not let it be Ana Lucia!  Luckily, I think Michelle Rodriguez was too much of a liability for the show to ever resurrect her character – I hope.  Didn’t like Michelle Rodriguez (couldn’t she afford a taxi or better yet, to not get drunk at the Lost party rather than drive home?  She ruined her up-and-coming career – what a moron), and I didn’t like Ana Lucia one bit.  And speaking of coming back, tonight’s episode marked the reappearance of the eerie whispering in the forest, along with the numbers (there was a safe on the wall behind a painting, how corny, but the combination to the safe was some of the numbers that played such a major part in seasons 1 and 2 – haven’t seen them much since).  The eerie whispering and the numbers are two things I really hope they will explain someday…  And speaking of questions, here are my questions after watching tonight’s episode:

1.  Locke says to Ben, “There is just one more thing I want to know.”  WHAT?  There is really only ONE more thing Locke wants to know from Ben?  I would have a million questions for that guy!

2.  Why does Ben say something about kids asking for their mother?  Are the Zach and Emma he is referring to HIS kids?

3.  Do Farraday and Juliet know each other?  In tonight’s episode they seemed to, but before this, they didn’t.

Also tonight, there were 2 interesting quotes which I will leave you with:

1.  Ben pulls a video tape labeled Red Sox out of the safe, and says, “I taped over the game.”  I found it kind of cheesy, but my husband thought it was funny.  Cheesy or not, it was pretty funny to hear Ben say that in that calculatingly evil tone of his.

2.  Juliet says, “It was very stressful being an Other, Jack.”  I guess you had to see it, but it was a very entertaining and intriguing line, hearing it after all we’ve been through, especially when the Others were so mysterious for so long.  The tvguide blog mentioned this line too; it was very noteworthy.

I was disappointed after this week’s episode because again, there are more new characters and less answers than ever.  The cast Q & A they had on tvguide.com helped to cheer me up a little though; it gave me hope that the producers and writers do have some idea of where they’re taking this show because I do have my doubts that they know what they’re doing or where they’re going.  I just hope next week’s episode is better.