Season 4, Episode 13 - There’s No Place Like Home (Part 2)

Think about what you watched last night. Then imagine that taking place in half the time. Thank you, ABC, for granting Lost one more hour.

This season has been, far and away, my favorite season so far of Lost…eclipsing even the first season, I think. The WGA strike actually benefited the show, in that the fat had to be trimmed, and the show was cut down to its rawest form. And the finale was a worthy sendoff.

Let’s look at what was awesome. First, Keamy. I wasn’t crazy about him when he first came around a few weeks ago, but last night he became one of my favorites. To begin with, we had this meeting of the two most able fighters on the island, him and Sayid. Best fight scene I’ve seen on television in a while. And then I thought we were going to have another Mikhail on our hands again…remember how our favorite cycloptic Russian just wouldn’t die last season? The scene in the Orchid station was one of my favorite of the night, kind of playing like a horror movie.

Which brings us to Ben. His murder of Keamy was just another example of why I love Michael Emerson. Ben knew that Keamy’s death would result in the destruction of the freighter…was it genuinely a crime of passion, or was it a part of the plan that Ben always has (as they reminded us in the recap)? Also, the thing with the wheel was kind of strange, but how do you pull off moving an island without making it look funky?

The moment between Desmond and Penny was another of my favorites of the night. It’s amazing how this little story that is almost never touched on can bring a smile to my face. She’s his hero…it’s beautiful.

Oh, and Walt got freaking enormous. They had to get him off the island…there’s no way they could explain away a growth spurt that huge in 100 days.

So, questions. Things were pretty bad in the days leading up to the Oceanic 6 leaving the island…what could have happened after that that was bad enough to make Locke leave the island? And why did he take up an alias? That makes it seem like he was taking up permanent residence back in the real world. And why would none of the survivors call him by John Locke, only by Jeremy Bentham? Here’s what Wikipedia says about the real Bentham:

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism, for the concept of animal rights, and his opposition to the idea of natural rights, with his oft-quoted statement that the idea of such rights is “nonsense upon stilts.” He also influenced the development of welfarism.

Bentham’s position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the end of slavery, the abolition of physical punishment (including that of children), the right to divorce, free trade, usury, and the decriminalization of homosexuality.

So what is next season going to look like? It’s tough to even get my head around it…I’m guessing it will be a mixture…what happens on the island after the Oceanic 6 are gone that spurs Locke to go bring the survivors back, and the story of Jack, Kate, Aaron, Sayid, Hurley and Sun inevitably heading back to the island.

Last season’s finale was nothing short of mindblowing, and had me frothing for what would happen next. While this finale wasn’t that huge, it was still a very worth sendoff to a tremendous season. I’m excited to see what happens next.

Episode grade: A
Season grade: A+

For those of you who will be at Comic Con in San Diego, taking place July 24-27, it appears that the next phase of the Lost Experience will be kicking off then. Check out the details at the Octagon Global Recruiting site, which was advertised during the finale.

Fans of “The Venture Bros” your wait is almost over. The title of the first episode of Venture since 2006 is “Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny”, and you can watch the entire episode online today at 6:00 pm on Adult Swim.com.

It will air in its entirety at 11:30 on Sunday…for now, you’ll have to settle for the clip above.

Futurama fans get ready for the next installment of the direct-to-dvd movie series. It will hit shelves on June 24th, 2008 - and will later be serialized on Comedy Central in episodic format.

I really enjoyed “Bender’s Big Score” and I’m looking forward to see this next one as well. Some fans of Futurama are upset the show didn’t get a “Family Guy” styled return, but I really enjoy the way these movies are playing out so far - it really works better than I thought it would for the show’s format.

Tonight brings the two-hour finale of the fourth and arguably the best season of Lost so far.

ABC has this to say:

The face-off between the survivors and the freighter people continues, and the Oceanic Six find themselves closer to rescue. Guest starring are Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Ken Leung as Miles Straume, Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, L. Scott Caldwell as Rose, Malcolm David Kelley as Walt, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, John Terry as Christian Shephard, Sonya Walger as Penelope “Penny” Widmore, Alan Dale as Charles Widmore, Kevin Durand as Keamy, Francois Chau as Dr. Marvin Candle, Anthony Azizi as Omar, Alex Petrovitch as Henrik and Starletta DuPois as Michael’s mom.

The fun begins tonight at 8/7c on ABC with a repeat of part one of the finale from two weeks ago.

Check back tomorrow for our review.

Doctor Who fans all over the world will be giddy once they see this trailer. It aired this Saturday during Doctor Who’s normal time slot. Amazingly, Catherine Tate has proven to be one of the best companions ever for The Doctor. I’m sorry to say I thought she was a bad choice at first - she has really done an amazing job, and I’m very glad to see her prominently featured, along with the return of Rose.

This season of Doctor Who is shaping up to be absolutely fantastic, and the trailer for this second half really has me pumped.

It’s a great time to be a Doctor Who fan.

Ronald D. Moore is gearing up for another space adventure - this time with Virtuality from Fox.

The 2-hour backdoor pilot centers around a psych officer, to be played by James D’Arcy, who is in charge of the virtual reality shows designed to keep the crew of Earth’s first starship entertained during their ten year mission.

This is one of those concepts that I’m not really sure about. I don’t quite see how this will be executed in a way that is interesting, since its basically a show about a holodeck. I mean, how are we to care about the peril the characters will be in if we know that the danger isn’t real? If the danger IS real - then why would they ‘entertain’ themselves?

Regardless, its too early to tell just yet, on how this one will play out, but it will be ineteresting to see if Moore and crew can pull it off in a compelling way. They certainly have a good enough track record to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Season 4, Episode 9 (s04e09)

This show continues to be more annoying than entertaining, even though I’m a big fan of Chef Ramsey. The people on this show, for the most part, are deplorable folks who I wouldn’t want anywhere near a kitchen that was preparing food that I might eat later.

In this episode the teams were challenged to create a full course meal in 3 six minute intervals like a relay race. Jen ultimately cost the blue team their victory by forgetting to put sauce on two dishes. As a result the blue team had to clean up Hell’s Kitchen while the red team went to the beach.

The service in tonight’s episode was horrible - or at least it was edited that way. When it was all said and done Ramsey declared the blue team the winner and asked Petroza to select the two nominations for elimination.

At the elimination ceremony, Chef Ramsey went even further, but asking Petroza to choose who should leave. His choice of Luross over Jen (who were both nominated by him) was a decision based on what was best for the kitchen - not what he wanted personally. That’s a sign of a good leader, and I think Patroza already has this competition locked up if he can keep from cutting a finger off or serving anyone raw food between now and the end.

I think Ramsey is testing him in ways that he isn’t testing the others - and its a clear sign of interest on his part.

This fall, The CW decided to allow a third party, Media Rights Capital to program their Sunday night line-up. As a result, their was no information about what was going to air on The CW’s Sunday night when the rest of the line-up was announced.

Now, however, TV Squad has a list of the 4 shows that are going to be filling the time slots on The CW’s Sunday evenings.

In Harm’s Way: This reality show about people who have dangerous jobs (it’s from the same guy who brings you Discovery’s Dirty Jobs) got a 10 episode order from the network.

Valentine, Inc.: This is a comedy/drama from Kevin Murphy, who was a producer/writer on Reaper (also on The CW). It’s about the modern day adventures of Aphrodite and her son Eros, who run a matchmaking business. Sounds like Cupid, maybe?

Easy Money: A drama about a family of loan sharks. From two people who used to work on The Sopranos.

Surviving Suburbia: A half hour sitcom that Kevin Abbott (who has written for The Golden Girls, Reba, Growing Pains, Roseanne, ALF, and was a producer on My Name Is Earl) wrote years ago, found, and decided to pitch again. 13 eps ordered.

All of these shows have gone straight into production, with no pilots produced - and aside from the fact that none of them seem to fit together, or have a theme of any kind for the night, there is very little we can say about them at this point.

We’ll just have to see what kind of production value they have, to determine if this little experiment of The CW’s pays off.

According to TV Guide, Just a few weeks after Fox kickd “Back to You” to the curb, Kelsey Grammer has joined the ABC pilot “Roman’s Empire”.

The series is a single camera comedy concerning a young guy who cannot seem to break free from his ex-girlfriend’s wealthy family. Lording over them all is the overbearing patriarch of the clan, Roman, played by Grammer.

On the June 9th episode of “American Gladiators” viewers will be treated to some serious cross promotion as the theme for the episode is all things “Hulk”.

“The Incredible Hulk” hits theaters this summer, and to help promote the film, the original Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, will join Hulk Hogan and Lela Ali as a guest host for the show, and we’ve seen Gladiator Titan decked out with green skin in all of the American Gladiator teaser promos.

Will there be any other Hulk-related surprises in store? Who knows? Maybe we’ll get a new trailer or something during the commercials.