Lost Finale Earns a Split Grade (SPOILER ALERT!)

[Warning: some serious spoilers ahead.]

I loved the first two hours and fifteen minutes of the finale. Then the show apparently went off the rails. Wait, was everyone was dead all along? Lame, lame, lame! However, the more I think about the finale, and read what other people have to say, the more I’m convinced that my initial reaction was wrong. Here’s my current interpretation of what went down in the season finale, starting with a little background on how we got here:

The first three seasons of Lost followed the characters in the present and flashed back to their pasts. Then, in Season 4, we followed the characters and flashed forward to their future off of the island. Season 5, of course, treated us to some actual time traveling. So what the heck happens in Season 6? The nuclear explosion at the end of Season 5 led us to believe that we were following the characters in two separate timelines. Wrong! Season 6 follows the characters in the present and flashes to what happens to the characters after they die.

I did not realize this at first. The finale stunned me because I initially thought that the island was purgatory. Maybe even just Jack’s personal Purgatory. That would have been terribly disappointing. If the island was Purgatory, then why did we follow anyone but the main characters? What was the point of all the island mysteries? Why did the relationships between the characters matter, if they weren’t real?

However, the show as a whole makes much more sense if we realize that the sideways world is Purgatory. That means that the island storyline from Season 6 was simply a completion of the island storyline from season 1-5. And the sideways world stands on its own, as the place where all the characters go when they die. (I can’t say it’s the future because it’s the afterlife and it doesn’t matter when they died; time is meaningless there.)

This interpretation is much more satisfying. So the island world was real? Then the island storyline was a terrific capstone to the first five seasons of Lost. So many great moments: the epic mano a mano confrontation between Jack and Locke (with an awesome cut to a commercial break), the escape of most of the main characters, Hurley serving as the guardian of the island with Ben by his side, and of course Jack’s death with Vincent lying by his side, bringing the show full circle. I give this storyline in Season 6 an A.

Sure, they left a few mysteries unsolved, and we never got a physics lesson on the time travel and how the island worked. But who cares? As someone else pointed out, nothing was lamer in Star Wars: Episode I than the fact that the Force was actually caused by something called “midichlorians.” Did we really want the season finale of Lost to end with a lot of expository quasi-scientific dialogue? Not me. I was happy with the focus on the characters, the end of the epic struggle with the Man in Black, and of course Jack.

That brings us to Purgatory. Unlike the real-world storyline, which was terrific, this one leaves me slightly dissatisfied. I can’t quite put my finger on why, though. Was it the fact that everyone was dead? Maybe, but that’s less of a problem now that I realize that the character were alive for the first five seasons and half of six. Was it the fact that it brought a religious aspect to the show? It’s hard to make that complaint when a major theme of the show since Season 1 has been science vs. faith. Nor was the religious aspect of the show sectarian. As the episode made clear with its symbolism (the windows in the church, etc.) it wasn’t endorsing any religion in particular. I say Purgatory, but really the afterlife storyline could have been any way station on the way to the next life. Heaven? Reincarnation? Merging with the universe? Who knows. Maybe the problem with the Purgatory storyline is that the details of what happened earlier in the season don’t particularly matter. (Does anyone care about the Kate episode?) On the other hand, this storyline had some great moments, and all the awakenings and reunions in the finale certainly delivered some emotional satisfaction.

I need to think some more about this. For now, I’m going to give the finale a split grade: A for the real-world storyline, B for the purgatory storyline.

How to Fix the Baseball Playoffs: Emulate the NFL

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig recently formed a 14-person advisory committee to brainstorm ideas for realignment. And boy, did they brainstorm:

[O]ne proposal gaining "strong support" is a concept referred to as "floating realignment."

Aimed to increase competitive balance, and lessen the dominance of the Yankees and Red Sox, the idea is to allow teams to be, in Verducci's words, "free to change divisions from year-to-year based on geography, payroll and their plans to contend or not."

That's pretty radical stuff. The example used by Verducci involved the Indians, who are in a rebuilding phase and also struggling financially, voluntarily moving to the AL East to gain the revenue benefit of 18 home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox. Currently, they get eight.

Meanwhile, a team like the Rays or Orioles, facing the ordeal of competing annually (and often futilely) against the mighty Yankees and Red Sox, could switch over to the AL Central for a season and have, at least theoretically, a better chance of making the playoffs.

One proviso is that no team could join a division more than two time zones outside its own. Keep in mind that this is merely a proposal and very preliminary. But apparently this could even entail teams switching leagues, the numbers of teams in each division changing from year to year, and possibly having interleague games throughout the season in some years if each league winds up with 15 teams.

Holy cow! Obviously such a proposal has its problems. As Bill Simmons pointed out on a recent podcast, this gives owners of small market teams an incentive to tank so they can switch to the AL East and get the financial reward of playing against the Sox and Yankees. But at least the Committee is thinking outside of the box.

Here’s my half-baked proposal: split each league into two divisions. Six teams from each league compete for their respective league championship. Those six teams consist of the two division winners and four wild cards. The two division winners get homefield advantage and a first-round bye. The four wild-cards play in the first round, and the two winners advance to play the two division winners. Then things proceed normally. The two second-round winners play each other for the league championship, and the league champion plays in the World Series.

This proposal is inspired by pro football. The NBA and NHL let too many teams into the playoffs—it’s hard to care about the regular season when half the league makes the playoffs. On the other hand, baseball lets in just four teams. That’s too little. The NFL gets it just right. Six teams per conference, with the top two seeds in each getting first-round byes. Six teams per conference strikes the right balance in letting in the really good teams while still ensuring that making the playoffs is an actual accomplishment. And I love the fact that the top two seeds get first-round byes. It makes regular season games that much more meaningful.

So why not just adopt the NFL approach wholesale? Realign each baseball league into four divisions, like football, and send the division winners plus two wild cards to the playoffs? Because baseball can’t support four divisions. First, MLB have to expand by about four teams to fill out the divisions, and baseball doesn't need more crappy teams in marginal media markets. Second, having four divisions would make existing divisional inequities worse. Thanks to the salary cap, the balance of power in the NFL is always shifting. But in baseball, powerhouses like the Sox and Yankees outspend their rivals year after year. Pity the poor suckers stuck in a four-team AL East. Having two divisions and four wild cards lessens the pain.

Another advantage to having just two division winners and four wildcards is that power imbalances between the divisions matter less. If one division really sucks, the other division can send three or even four wildcards to the playoffs. Why reward mediocrity?

The most obvious downside to the two-division plan is that it would lessen the number of games between traditional rivals. Because the Sox and Yankees would share their division with more teams, they would presumably play fewer games against each other. But there must be a workaround. Maybe MLB could remedy this by increasing the percentage of games played within each division.

Problem… solved! You’re welcome, Bud Selig. Feel free to show your appreciation by cutting me a big fat check. Actually, what the heck—just cut out the middleman and send it directly to the law school. That tuition isn't going to pay itself. Thanks!

Lost

Just watched the second episode of Lost. It was a Kate episode, so it wasn't very interesting. But I'm still optimistic about the final season. The season premiere was lots of fun, and I like the two-timeline (two-universe?) concept. I'm also liking the addition of John Hawkes (Sol Starr in Deadwood, Dustin in Eastbound and Down) as one of the Others.

Bill Watterson gives first interview in 20 years

Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson gives his first interview in more than 20 years:

Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist -- how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!

But since my "rock star" days, the public attention has faded a lot. In Pop Culture Time, the 1990s were eons ago. There are occasional flare-ups of weirdness, but mostly I just go about my quiet life and do my best to ignore the rest. I'm proud of the strip, enormously grateful for its success, and truly flattered that people still read it, but I wrote "Calvin and Hobbes" in my 30s, and I'm many miles from there.

An artwork can stay frozen in time, but I stumble through the years like everyone else. I think the deeper fans understand that, and are willing to give me some room to go on with my life.

It's good to see that Watterson hasn't gone completely Salinger on us. To be fair, he hasn't has been entirely absent from the public sphere-- he wrote an excellent review of a Charles Schultz biography for the Wall Street Journal in 2007:

We discover, for example, that in the recurring scenes of Lucy annoying Schroeder at the piano, the crabby and bossy Lucy stands in for Joyce, and the obsessive and talented Schroeder is a surrogate for Schulz.

Reading these strips in light of the information Mr. Michaelis unearths, I was struck less by the fact that Schulz drew on his troubled first marriage for material than by the sympathy that he shows for his tormentor and by his ability to poke fun at himself.

Lucy, for all her domineering and insensitivity, is ultimately a tragic, vulnerable figure in her pursuit of Schroeder. Schroeder's commitment to Beethoven makes her love irrelevant to his life. Schroeder is oblivious not only to her attentions but also to the fact that his musical genius is performed on a child's toy (not unlike a serious artist drawing a comic strip). Schroeder's fanaticism is ludicrous, and Lucy's love is wasted. Schulz illustrates the conflict in his life, not in a self-justifying or vengeful manner but with a larger human understanding that implicates himself in the sad comedy. I think that's a wonderfully sane way to process a hurtful world. Of course, his readers connected to precisely this emotional depth in the strip, without ever knowing the intimate sources of certain themes. Whatever his failings as a person, Schulz's cartoons had real heart.

At an intellectual level, I can understand Watterson's desire to withdraw from public life. But personally, it strikes me as a huge waste of a fine writer. He doesn't even need to draw any more comic strips. Just get a monthly column in a newspaper or something. (Or, dare I say it, write a blog. He always hated commercialism... well, you can't get less commercially rewarding than a blog! Trust me on this one.) Throw us a bone, Bill!

Long live the long take

Check out this article on the “20 Greatest Extended Takes in Movie History.” Two of the takes really stood out for me. These were fight scenes from two action movies, Oldboy and The Protector.

Most fight scenes these days seem to be shot in the Bourne Identity style, featuring quick cuts and a shaky camera. I actually enjoy this style in movies where the fighting is supposed to be brutally realistic. It can capture the confusion of a real fight. But in some films, like the Batman movies, the quick cuts just annoy. The movie is about a guy who wears a cape and rides the Batmobile, for God’s sake! Show us what is going on.

Words cannot express how much I love this scene from Oldboy:

The camera slowly drifts down the hallway as Min-Sik Choi’s protagonist battles his way through multiple protagonists to reach the elevator at the end. But this isn’t your typical martial arts movie where the bad guys considerately charge at our hero one at a time. No, Choi must fight his way through the whole crowd over the course of three solid minutes. It's exhausting. Even the music sounds tired. Just a terrific scene.

The other extended take I wanted to point out is from The Protector:

In contrast to the scene from Oldboy, this camerawork here is almost playful, occasionally leaving Jaa to glance down at the people streaming through the lobby below, and allowing Jaa to slip behind a wooden screen, revealing his location periodically by shoving an unfortunate guy’s head through the carving. I say playful, but a lot of work went into this shot. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to film. According to the article, this take took one month and five takes to shoot. If there’s one flaw, it’s that Jaa never really confronts more than one guy at once. Not a surprise—Jaa has never been like Jackie Chan, who likes to choreograph elaborate fight scenes with multiple opponents.

John Scalzi wrote an interesting article awhile back that argued that Bourne-style jump-cut scenes may become less common as more and more action films are shot in 3D. In Avatar, you may have noticed that Cameron shot a lot of long takes and avoided quick cuts as much as possible. That’s because rapid cuts in 3D require your eyes to repeatedly refocus. Think Transformers gave you a headache? Believe me, it would have been much worse in 3D.

Long live the long take!

Our prisons are now safe

U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit votes to uphold Wisconsin prison's ban of Dungeon's and Dragons.

Bad Boston Accent Alert

30 Rock producer Robert Carlock stands behind Julianne Moore's Boston accent, claiming: "I know people who sound like that. Take the train." [Hat tip to my friend Laura for the link.] Um.... no. Let's go to the tape:

I'm a Boston native, and I have NEVER heard anyone who sounds like that. It's like she's an alien from another planet, dropped into Boston and trying desperately to imitate a Boston accent, but failing miserably because her mouthparts just can't handle human language. For a real Boston accent in a movie, look no further than Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting (he lays the verbal beatdown around the one minute mark):

How do you like THEM apples?? Anyway, Moore's accent is like Peter Sellers' French accent in the Pink Panther movies: hilarious despite (or perhaps because of) its complete disconnect from reality.

The Top Dramas on Television

For some reason (*cough*procrastination*cough*) I’ve decided to rank what I believe are the best drama shows currently on television. Note: I haven’t seen Mad Men yet. From everything I’ve heard, it would probably make this list.

Except for Breaking Bad, these four shows may not be on the same rarefied plane of television greatness as The Wire or The Sopranos. But they’re not far away, and they’re definitely on a whole different level from every other drama on TV. They’re also all deep enough to reward repeated viewings. Here we go:

1. Breaking Bad

High-school chemistry teacher Walt Whiteman starts cooking meth to pay the bills after he is diagnosed with lung cancer. Sounds like fun, huh? Believe it or not, this HBO show is the best program on television. There’s a surprising amount of dark comedy here. So many people knock their roles out of the park in this show: Walt’s younger, pregnant wife; his disabled son; his foul-mouthed DEA agent brother-in-law; and his drug-dealing sidekick Jesse (who Walt flunked out of chem class back in the day.) But at its heart, Breaking Bad is a character study of one person, Bryan Cranston’s Walt. Quiet, mild-mannered Walt appears at first to be a weak man. But every episode strips away another layer of his personality to reveal the steely core beneath.

Favorite Episode: Season 1, Episode 3. “… And the Bag’s in the River.” Walt bonds with Krazy 8, the meth dealer he and Jesse have bicycle-locked by the throat to the pillar in Jesse’s basement.

Here’s an amateur trailer for the first season I found:

2. Lost

Lost is a sprawling epic, flawed but wonderful. Among its many strengths: a non-linear plot, enduring mysteries, and more fascinating characters than you can shake a stick at—as well as an admirable willingness to kill them off. Of course, these strengths are also Lost’s weaknesses. If you like tidy resolutions at the end of each episode, stay far, far away. Lost often wastes episodes on story arcs that go nowhere and fail to expand our understanding of the key characters. Season 3, in particular, was such a wandering, pointless mess that I gave up on the show for a year. That being said, Lost offers great rewards to those with patience. Seasons 4 and 5 are serial drama at its best, so I recommend sucking it up and forging through the annoying tangents. In some ways, Lost reminds me of Deadwood, another great but flawed show that featured an abundance of characters and meandering plotlines. I’m just glad that Lost, unlike Deadwood, has survived long enough to work out the kinks.

Favorite episode: Season 1, Episode 4, “Walkabout.” John Locke’s origin story. Key quote from the wheelchair-bound Locke: “Don’t you tell me what I can’t do!”

Here’s the clip:

3. Friday Night Lights

I was having trouble putting into words just how good Friday Night Lights is, so just go read the impassioned plea Bill Simmons wrote back in 2007 to save FNL from cancellation:

On Aug. 28, NBC released the American DVDs with a "satisfaction guaranteed" gimmick. Now if you continue to ignore FNL, it's only because you're trying to hurt me. If you do give it a shot, let me recommend the impeccable acting, the lively football scenes (although they tend to go overboard on exciting finishes), the risky story lines and especially Coach Taylor's family, the most authentic household in recent TV history. Every nuance is nailed, every hug seems genuine, every fight makes sense, every sarcastic barb and flustered reaction ring true. If there are better TV actors than Kyle Chandler (Coach) and Connie Britton (Mrs. Coach), I haven't TiVoed them. Pay particular attention to the astonishing two-parter in which an older assistant sets off a racial powder keg before a big playoff game. If FNL were Michael Jordan, Lyla Garrity's slam-page episode would be the 63-point game in Boston (the coming-out party), and the two-parter would be the 1991 Finals (the moment considerable potential is realized).

What he said.

Favorite Episode: Season 3, Episode 13 (season finale), “Tomorrow Blues.” I can’t say too much without spoiling a key plot twist, but never have I wanted to scream louder at a television character than I did when Matt Saracen walks in the door to his grandmother’s house at the end of this episode. “Noooooo! You’re making a mistake!!!” Just devastating.

A nice little bonus when watching FNL is how much music it uses from one of my favorite bands, Explosions in the Sky. This promo offers a little taste:

4. Dexter

I wasn’t quite sure about including Dexter on this list. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. Michael C. Hall turns in an A+ performance as Dexter Morgan. It’s not easy to play a sympathetic serial killer. And the show is tightly plotted, with strong supporting characters like David Zayas’s Angel and Julie Benz’s Rita. I just can’t shake the feeling that Dexter isn’t nearly as substantial as it seems at first glance. Will people really be rewatching Dexter twenty years from now? Maybe it’s just hard to care about a main character that rarely feels human emotion. Still, I decided that Dexter merits inclusion for its amazing consistency, if nothing else. I can’t think of a single bad episode.

Favorite episode: Season 1, Episode 10. “There’s Something About Harry.” Sgt. Doakes, who has always been creeped out by Dexter, finds himself imprisoned in a cabin in the woods after confronting Dexter with evidence of his killings.

Coming up in a week or so: the runner-up dramas and why they didn’t make the list. Also, top comedies.

Shaq misses entire second half with pulled pork sandwich

The Onion delivers some top-of-the-line sports reporting:

CLEVELAND—Cavaliers center Shaquille O'Neal suffered a frustrating setback during his team's victory over the Toronto Raptors Tuesday night, when he was sidelined for the entire second half of the game with a pulled pork sandwich.

O'Neal, who scored 12 points and grabbed three rebounds during the first half of the game, returned to the bench at the beginning of the third quarter, clutching at the pulled pork sandwich and informing trainers that it was incredibly tender. A member of the Cavaliers' medical staff said that when he attempted to examine the pulled pork sandwich, O'Neal flinched away and grunted sharply.

Yo Scott

God I love the Internet. Here's the link.

Mediocrity rewarded

Jay Leno will host the next White House correspondent's dinner. You know what you're going to get with Leno: a safe, bland speech with a few chuckles here and there. Ugh. I guess they didn't want to risk another Colbert situation:

Hilarious, but Colbert's 2006 speech pulled no punches. It made some people at the dinner a little uncomfortable. So the next year they brought in a guy named Rich Little who specializes in Richard Nixon and Johnny Carson impressions. Not exactly the cutting edge of comedy. 2008 and 2009 were a bit better with Craig Ferguson and Wanda Sykes. But now it's back to bland with Leno. You know what the weird thing is? Leno used to be funny too. Don't believe me? Check out this grainy video from 1992.

Where did it all go wrong?

Brett Favre: The Natural

This Sunday, I will celebrate my last day of freedom before classes begin by watching playoff football. Sadly, my beloved Patriots will not be playing. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy watching the games. In particular, I’m looking forward to the Vikings-Saints game, featuring the legendary Brett Favre. As you may have heard the football announcers mention once or twice, 41- year-old Favre has basically been a god among men this season. Seriously, check out his statistics: 4000+ yards, 30+ touchdowns, the highest completion percentage of his career, and the fewest interceptions, by far. It’s no stretch to say that Favre is having the best season of his career.

I cannot emphasize enough how sure I am that Favre has achieved this remarkable feat by purely NATURAL means, COMPLETELY UNAIDED by any sort of “performance-enhancing” substance. That is not to suggest that Favre’s historic season can be explained merely as the result of better teammates, playing all his home games in a dome, or a desire to show the Packers that they were wrong to let him walk. No, chalk this one up to genetics. Favre is the greatest athlete since Barry Bonds, the “late bloomer” who put on forty pounds of naturally occurring muscle in his late thirties. Favre, too, has undoubtedly reached peak physical condition at age 41. All it took was a relaxing summer trucking around the ol’ Missouri dirt farm, interspersed with the occasional workout, and boom! Nature took its course. If there’s one thing I’ve learned following sports over the past few years, it’s to be completely unsuspicious of middle-age professional athletes having historic seasons.

Human Target: a Zachary Quinto situation?

Just saw the pilot episode of Human Target on Hulu. Not bad. The highlight for me was Jackie Earle Haley as a professional investigator/hacker/all-around creeper named Guerrero. You may recall Haley as Rorshach in Watchmen, where he turned in an A+ performance in a B- production. In this show, too, Haley seems far more interesting than the rest of the cast. Let’s hope that this doesn’t turn into a Zachary Quinto-in-Heroes situation, where diehard fans suffer through scenes featuring the rest of the cast while waiting for serial-killer Sylar to appear and punish the other characters for their wooden acting and poor comedic timing. If you’ve ever seen Milo Ventimiglia attempt to display an actual human emotion other than “pissed off” or “pouting,” you know what I mean. Left: Ventigmiglia tries to achieve a non-annoying facial expression. Fails.