On Alcatraz Hurley is Obsessed with an Island Other than the LOST Island

Alcatraz Monday Nights at 9/8C on FOX

Prior to watching an episode, I knew absolutely nothing about the new FOX series, Alcatraz, other than the fact this was a new J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Production, like LOST, and like LOST, had something to do with an island.

When I set my DVR to record Alcatraz I thought I was recording the premiere episode. Turns out that premiere occurred a week prior, with a pair of back to back one hour episodes.

I'm guessing had I watched those first two episodes, the episode I watched last night, it being the 3rd episode, would have been easier to understand.

From what I watched last night I am gleaning that Alcatraz is a sci-fi crime procedural. That back in the 1960s, when Alcatraz was closed, somehow a lot of inmates and some guards, got themselves into some sort of netherworld, from whence they somehow go back to the future where they take up committing the same type crimes that got them sent to Alcatraz.

An FBI agent, Emerson Hauser, played by Sam Neill, discovered that the prisoners had gone missing back in 1963. Realizing they the FBI had a big problem a brightly lit underground bunker was constructed. I don't know where this bunker is located. Under Alcatraz? Maybe?

Back in the future when one of the prisoners is captured, or killed, he is brought back to this underground bunker. The one and only episode I have watched ended with the FBI agent carrying in the body of the bad guy, over his shoulder, delivering him to an autopsy type doctor, who smoked a cigarette, while swaying to music, getting ready to do whatever it was he was going to do to the body. Bring it back to life? I don't know.

Safely off the LOST island, Hurley, he being Jorge Garcia in real life, plays Dr. Diego Soto, nicknamed "Doc." A comic book genius who knows more about Alcatraz than anyone in the world. Hurley solves the mystery of the Alcatraz bad guy's kidnapping of a little boy, somehow using some very arcane clues, like the bad guy likes cherry pie, to eventually rescue the little boy who had managed to escape from a LOST-like hatch, chased by the bad guy, who was shot and killed by the good FBI guy, right in the nick of time.

LOST like music often served as the soundtrack, which I thought odd. The mystery upon mystery element of Alcatraz is also very LOST-like.

I found Alcatraz held my attention for the hour. I'll give it another hour and see if it still holds my attention.

Monday nights at 9/8C on FOX.

The End Of LOST & 24, One Jack Dies, One Jack Lives

Sunday night the last LOST episode aired. Monday night the last 24 episode aired. In one the Jack character dies, in the other the Jack character lives to fight another day.

In the Battle of the Finales, for me, 24 was a much better closing act than what LOST came up with.

Now, I enjoyed watching the final LOST.

But.

I thought promises were made that LOST mysteries would be explained. That did not really much happen.

And I thought, way back when, early on with LOST, that the creators clearly said that the explanation was not that they were all already DEAD. Now, I may be somewhat imagination challenged, but isn't that basically what it came down to?

But, dead from the start? Killed in the first plane crash? Or later. Who knows? What about the season ender that had the Oceanic 6 getting off the island? But, then, if you start down the path of asking questions, you've given up on suspending disbelief, which is what you basically agree to do when you start watching an imagination epic like LOST.

Now, with 24, a suspension of disbelief is also required. But, I've always found that easy to do with 24. The thrill ride has always been so entertaining. The ending seemed perfect to me. We sort of had a plotline resolution. President Taylor wised up in the end. Chloe came to Jack's rescue. Again. Convincing Jack not to do a really bad thing, talking him out of assassinating the Russian president.

And once more we see Jack walk off into the sunset, pretty much a fugitive, with Chloe promising to look out for him.

There seemed to be plenty of unresolved plot to give 24: The Movie a good start. Punishing the Russians for their bad behavior. Then there is that peace agreement with Dalia Hassan's IRK, or whatever it is called, country, that still needs to happen.

And. President Logan bungled killing himself? He survives? Will he be a vegetable? Or an even better villain?

I can't remember the last time I went to a movie. I'd be tempted to see 24 on the big screen. If the reviews are good.

LOST: The Final Episode of The Final Season

Saturday night ABC ran the first two episodes of LOST. The DVR recorded it, but I've not watched. I assume the episodes have been re-done with captions to point out various bits of information that were a mystery when first viewed.

Tonight is the End of LOST. It does not seem all that long ago since Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on a tropical island. But that happened on September 22, 2004. Who would have thought when LOST started that it would take viewers to places TV viewers have really not gone before, not courtesy of a single TV show.

LOST sparked debates about philosophy, science vs. faith, numerology, literature, history, love, hate and a whole slew of blogs and on-line discussions full of doctorate level analyzing.

LOST is promising that tonight will be a satisfying ending, with most questions answered and mysteries resolved. Tonight's LOST viewing starts at 7 Eastern Time, 6 Central. The first 2 hours will be a re-cap of the past 119 episodes, followed by the 2 and 1/2 hour finale, title "The End."

I really don't see how LOST can be wrapped up in 2 and 1/2 hours. There is an awful lot of explaining to do.

Jin, Sun & Sayid Lost on LOST

Last night we lost 3 major characters on LOST. The plot is really moving in fast forward to its end, or so it seems.

Sayid, the lovable Iraqi torturer, went out in a heroic submarine blast. Jin and Sun, only recently reunited, also died heroically, in the blasted sinking submarine.

This episode we had a good dose of Bad John Locke, to hate, and Good John Locke, on the mainland, in a wheelchair, to like.

It is a testament to the cleverness of LOST that it pulls off a Bad and Good John Locke and makes sense doing so.

It appears the way the plot is going, that the few remaining survivors are now in a battle with Bad John Locke, aka the Smoke Monster, aka the Man in Black. Who knows how many of Charles Widmore's people survived last night's gunfire.

And we still have Desmond somewhere on the island, likely key to being very helpful in the final battle against Bad John Locke.

My guess for the LOST final ending is that the side story we've been watching all season long, you know, where the plane never crashed and they all made it safely from Australia to the U.S., well, that becomes the final reality.

Which would mean Jin and Sun are not dead. Nor is Sayid.

Then again, this is LOST, I really have no clue how they can possibly end this amazing TV show in a way that makes sense. All I know for sure is we are watching what is certain to become a television cult classic.

LOST: The Final Season Two Part Opener

Well, The first 2 hours of the final season of LOST did not fail to deliver. When LOST delivers that means I'm confused and the plot has gotten more wonderfully convoluted.

LOST opens where it began, only this time the plane does not crash, but continues on to Los Angeles. We swoosh back to LA over and over again throughout the first 2 hours, and, I assume, will be doing so throughout the final season, seeing what happens to the various people if the crash on the island never happened.

So, was it that nuclear blast that ended last season that fixed everything? No. Somehow that nuclear blast managed to bring the people who were stuck back in the 1970s, back to the present.

A present where the evil, or I think it's evil, black smoke monster is now under the control of who or what took over John Locke's body.

Ben killed Jacob upon the orders of the non John Locke. Jacob then appeared, dead, to Hurley, telling Hurley he has to get Sajid to a temple, the whereabouts Jin knows.

But, before that can happen they hear Juliette crying out for help. They realize they are at the remains of the Swan station. Much frantic effort goes into getting to Juliette, who dies in Sawyers's arms, but not before whispering something that Sawyer could not understand, but later learned, via Miles, the Death Whisperer, that Juliette had said, "it worked."

Now, we the viewers knows "it worked" meant they were no longer stuck in the past. But Sawyer does not yet know he is no longer stuck in the past, so "it worked" made no sense to him.

As Sawyer buries Juliette, with the help of Miles, Kate, Hurley, Jack and Jin take Sajid to the Temple, where they are captured by a group of others. Jacob had made clear to Hurley that the fate of all of them depended on Sajid being saved.

After they were captured, by the Others, Hurley reversed their situation by mentioning they were sent by Jacob. The leader of the others then opened the guitar case Jacob had given him, to find a big wooden symbol. The leader broke the wood thing and took out a piece of paper that apparently had the names of our captured heroes on it. And some other dire message that made the leader eager to revive Sajid.

When Sajid, at first ended up dead, and Hurley mentioned that Jacob was also dead, this sent the Others into extreme defensive measures, preparing for the arrival of the Black Smoke Monster.

We see the non-John Locke come out of Jacob's giant foot home to tell those on the beach that he was very disappointed in them, this after he knocked out team leader, Richard.

Hour 2 ends with Locke heading towards the temple and Sajid suddenly back alive, after the Other's leader had demanded to see Jack, after which a scuffle erupted.

So, the main mystery, I guess, is how do they finally manage to reverse their fate and land in LA without incident? And how did the island end up under water, which we saw during a very cool sequence near the beginning, as Jack stared out the plane's window to the ocean below?

Best show on TV.

LOST Loses Its Audience By Time Traveling Confusion

I still enjoy LOST. Is there any other show currently running with as convoluted and complex a plot? But, as much as I like it, I can understand why the show is hemorrhaging viewers.

I mean, I'm all for suspending disbelief when need be to enjoy a good story. I've no problem with the incredible level of disbelief suspension required to watch 24.

But, LOST really pushes it.

I'll just use part of the current plot line to show why people have bailed.

We saw John Locke get off the island during a series of island time travel hiccups. We saw Ben Linus kill John Locke. We saw a convoluted, Ben Linus engineered, return to the island involving the voodoo mother of one of the Widmore people back on the island that had all the escaped castaways back on a plane, once more, piloted, by the same pilot who helicoptered them off the island.

The island once more pulls a plane off course. It crashes. Now here is where the audience starts to get antsy. Sun, Ben Linus, the pilot and a lot of the other people, on the plane, crash in the present moment. But Jack, Kate and Hurley, on the same plane, crash sometime back in the late 1970s, they are back in time where the Dharma Initiative is still in full swing.

Then, Jin, shows up in a Dharma VW Van, amazed to see his former island mates. In a touching reunion Sawyer shows up. Hurley gives him a big hug. Sawyer, Juliet and Jin have been living with the Dharma people, as one of them, for 3 years!

Then Jack, Kate and Hurley somehow also join in. Eventually, somehow Sajid shows up, totally confused by it all. He's kept a captive with the Dharma people thinking he's an Other, with his friends unable to fix it. Eventually Ben helps Sajid escape, after which Sajid shoots the little kid version of Ben. Saying he was a bad man who needed to die.

Has Sayid been paying no attention? How can he think he could kill the little kid version of Ben. Meanwhile the Ghost Whisperer guy from Widmore's crew, who also now works for Dharma, had a funny conversation with Hurley explaining the logic of them not really being there due to that time shifting thing. It got very convoluted as Hurley tried to understand and then confounded the Widmore Ghost Whisperer by asking why Ben did not recognize Sajid all those years later when Sajid tortured him, after all, Sajid had shot him, one would think Ben would remember. The Ghost Whisperer said he'd need to think on that.

And then in the latest episode, John Locke is now back out of the coffin, totally alive, with Ben on a judgment quest with the Smoke Monster. After a lot of MYST like machinery tweaking Ben was face to face, so to speak, with the Smoke Monster, who flashed Ben memories in front of him, including the killing of his daughter. Apparently the Smoke Monster was satisfied with Ben's reactions and did not kill him.

I am not sure, but I think the latest episode established Ben as a good guy and John Locke now in control.

See why people bail? It's exhausting just to remember and type a little bit of the plot.

Jin Lives On Lost

I just read that the producers of ABC's LOST said, prior to the start of Season 5, that this season there would be less flash forwarding and flashbacking.

Okay, maybe there is less of that WHOOSH noise, followed by a time change. This season we seem have substituted the WHOOSH for the FLASH. Bright flash of light and we travel time.

It is quite entertaining. On this week's episode the FLASH flashed just as Sawyer saw what was screaming in the jungle. Kate helping Claire deliver her baby.

That FLASH brought Sawyer and crew to their old camp, abandoned, with a canoe left behind. They decided to paddle out of there. Suddenly bullets start flying. From who, who knows? But to the rescue comes the FLASH.

Now they are in a raging storm. They make it to shore. We then see a life raft struggling against the storm. Is it the same storm? The life rafters spot a body floating on debris. They pull the body onto their raft and make it to shore. Daylight comes. The life rafters are speaking French. They roll over the body. It is Jin, husband of Sun. And he is alive.

The Frenchies do some arguing. The woman among them calms them down. Then offers Jin some water, as she asks his name. Then she tells him her name is Danielle. Danielle Rousseau. Look of shock on Jin's face. Then WHOOSH. And a spinning LOST logo.

Or did the WHOOSH and the spinning LOST come after Sun pulled a gun?

There was a lot going on back in the United States with Kate, Jack, Sayid, Hurley, Aaron and Sun. And of course, Benjamin Linus. All were assembled on a dock on the Pacific, towards the end of the episode, which may have ended when Sun pulling a gun on Ben, demanding to know what is going on, with Jack pleading with her to listen.

It is hard to remember the sequence in which you watch things on LOST. At least it is for me. Loving it though.

LOST

I had myself a big night of TV watching Tuesday night. I watched both American Idol and last Wednesday's LOST.

LOST has a new episode on tonight. I knew if I fell behind I'd never catch up, like what happened with Prison Break. I got an episode behind, and then another. And now Prison Break's season is over with me having 9 unwatched episodes sitting on my DVR. And Prison Break has been cancelled. There will be no next year.

Lost week's LOST started off very weird. I think maybe I didn't record a couple minutes. It just launched into this strange thing where Ben was talking to a woman. There would be a tinkling noise and then a caption below telling us who the person was or how they fit into things.

I thought this will be very annoying if it does this the entire episode.

I wondered if I'd blundered and made a mistake and had somehow started up one of those re-cap episodes, but no, it was the latest LOST episode. So, I started over, the woman gives Ben a dire warning that he has to get everyone back on the island, or God helps us all. Cut to the LOST intro.

Next thing I know it was like I'd missed something. Maybe I fell asleep the last time I watched LOST. I couldn't remember why or who the people were our guys on the island were running from. I remembered that Desmond had to find Faraday's mother.

Next thing I know there are some explosions and "Others" with bows and arrows capturing some of our guys. Eventually we learn they've time shifted back to the mid 1950's when America supposedly was trying to test an H-Bomb, which caused the "Others" to have no choice but to eliminate the Americans.

There was some Latin spoken between the bad guy "Others" and Julia, a former "Other." With subtitles. You don't hear a lot of Latin on TV.

Good guy, time shift expert, Michael Faraday convinces the "Others" leader, that guy who is all over the world. And time. I think the name is Richard Alpert, that Faraday can diffuse the bomb.

While bomb diffusion is happening Locke is talking to Alpert, trying to explain he is from the future. Where Alpert was telling Locke how to get off the island. When the time shifted on him.

Meanwhile Desmond forces his way into see Charles Widmore, demanding to know where Michael Faraday's mother is.

Back on the island, while Locke forcefully questions Richard, another "Other" gets all agitated and wants to shoot Locke. Richard tells Widmore to put down the gun. Widmore? Locke asks. Are you Charles Widmore?

Yes. I am.

So, Charles Widmore, the devious plotter behind so much of LOST, is another "Other." It's all too much for a mortal to comprehend.

An incoming noise had Locke saying it's happening again. And then they time shifted once more, leaving the "Others" to go to another time zone.

I think that is when we heard the telltale loud "clunk" noise and the rotating LOST logo.

LOST is being good this year. So far.

TV Or Not TV

I haven't written about anything I've seen on TV for over a week. Why, I do not know. Partly using a DVR is to blame, in that I've always had trouble getting around to watching something I've recorded. Also I've been enjoying reading.

Right now, this Wednesday's episode of LOST is sitting, unwatched inside my DVR. I'm liking LOST so far. Though it can be quite confusing.

The DVR works great for American Idol. I can fast forward through the commercials and anything that bores me, reducing the viewing time to less than a half hour. I am enjoying American Idol, for the most part, though the sad sob stories are getting a bit tired. But I guess that is just part of the new, kinder American Idol.

I did manage to watch Wednesday's Top Chef, last night, a day after the episode ran. I was surprised to see Jeff get told to pack his knives and leave. I was glad Carla finally won a challenge. Carla is one of my all time favorite reality tv show people. She's funny.

I also managed to watch Monday's episode of 24, a couple days late. 24 is being real good, so far, this year. But we are only about 5 hours into the day. 24 gives away too much info in its preview of the next week's episode. The preview showed the bad rebel leader terrorist guy who wants to take over Sengala and has taken over America's information infrastructure to try and stop America from invading his country and at the same time arranged to kidnap the current leader of Sengala.

Well, we learn in the previews that Jack and Crew find the bad guy. It appears he gets blown up. I would have preferred to be surprised.

LOST Returns January 21, 2009

I don't know why, but LOST isn't going to return to TV til next year. Due to my age-related memory problem I'll need a real good re-cap or I'll be totally lost.

ABC says LOST will start its 5th season on Wednesday, January 21, 2009. The day after President-Elect Obama becomes President Obama.

How has it already been 5 years that LOST has been confusing me?

When LOST returns it will be with a 3 hour premiere. Back to back episodes titled Because You Left and The Lie. Before the new episodes air the hour preceding them will be a re-cap of the previous 4 seasons.

I'll need to watch the re-cap.

Is Lost Lost?

What's happened to LOST? LOST is about the only scripted non-comedy show that I watch. It ended last season with so many plot twists that it'll be hard not to be confused by LOST whenever it does return.

LOST is all about surprises and twists and stuff that makes no sense. I never thought anyone would get off the island. But 7 or 8 did. See, it's been so long I don't remember.

So many mysteries cropped up in the final episode, I had to watch it twice. I never watch anything twice. For some reason the Iraqi, Sayid, is running around the world killing people under the direction of the former bad guy, head of The Others, Ben. Why is he doing that?

Last we saw Ben he was "moving" the island. We saw the island disappear. Where did it go?

Was that John Locke in the coffin? If so, how did he get off the island? If it's not, who is in the coffin?

Only today did I realize Lost was lost. It had been seeming as if something was missing from my TV, but I couldn't remember what it was. I don't even remember what night LOST was on, it's been so long.