Remember in the Matrix how it involved the search for THE ONE, but then there was a moment where maybe it seemed like Neo was not THE ONE, but you totally never bought that for a second because of course Neo is THE ONE — he is the protagonist! A lot of Hollywood fare revolves around finding THE ONE, but the deck is almost always stacked — you know who THE ONE is; you just wait for everyone else to figure it out. I feel like Lost is maybe a fun twist on this kind of story, spending 6 years in a search for THE ONE, with the added fun that in an ensemble show it really could be a number of people. That does …

» Continue Reading “Lost Season 6, Episode 8: Recon”

I said it before and I will say it again. Lost Season 6 feels totally energized because this is the first time in the show’s history where we do not leave groups of characters just totally unaccounted for, basically. Even though we did not see Kate, Sayid and Sawyer, their group was represented by The Man in Black, Jack and Hurley were around, and so were Ben, Lapidis, Miles and Illana.

The summary: Miles exposes that Ben killed Jacob and Illana puts him to digging his own grave. The Man in Black tries to recruit him, and when he escapes and gets Illana at gunpoint he apologizes and says he is going to The Man in Black because he is the only one who will …

» Continue Reading “Lost, Season 6, Episode 7: Dr. Linus.”

The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie for a pretty obvious reason: as the second act of the story, the bad guys are winning. As Dante learned writing the Divine Comedy, it is always more fun to hang out with bad guys than good guys. This far into season 6 of Lost we are clearly in the second act of the final season, and, right on schedule, the bad guys are in glorious form. I can only assume that while I am writing this a series of Youtube clips are being thrown together, scoring the final moment of “Sundown” — The Man in Black’s bad-ass slow-motion walk away from the temple with his crew — to any number of songs, including “Damn …

» Continue Reading “Lost, Season 6, Episode 6: “Sundown””

My favorite scene in maybe all of Lost is from The Shape Of Things to Come, the Ben-centric season 4 episode. They are in the Dharma house on the island and Keamey shoots Alex. Ben is just in shock until suddenly he hits a wall panel that opens to a new room and the door shuts behind him. The new room is a fancy James Bond room and Ben goes to the suits on the far wall, pushes them aside, and slides a panel back revealing an ancient rock wall with Egyptian markings. This is what Lost does best: opens up new spaces. It is like a video game — a lot like Myst as several of my watching companions have remarked. You are always …

» Continue Reading “Lost Season 6, Episode 5: “The Lighthouse””

By Charlie W. Starr

Here’s what we know: there are at least two major references to C. S. Lewis in the TV show, Lost. One is a character named Charlotte Staples Lewis (the “C. S.” in Lewis’s name stands for “Clive Staples”). The other is a secret Dharma Initiative lab in California nicknamed the “Lamp Post.” So we know someone on the Lost writing staff or one of its producers is a Lewis fan. Here’s what I can’t prove: that the latest twist in the new season of Lost may be influenced by Lewis as well.

The final season of Lost opened on January 2^nd, 2010 with a new surprise. At the end of season five, our heroes—stuck in time in 1977—tried …

» Continue Reading “Lost and C. S. Lewis: Connections on the Fringe”

John Locke episodes are always the best ones, and this was no exception. This was the episode where I really started to feel like Lost is serious about answering some questions, and this episode featured all the human emotional anchoring I was looking for in LAX. (To be fair, it may have been in LAX, I just did not appreciate it because of the 8 months I had to wait to watch it). And our final story arc was advanced and clarified. I may be overstating it because it JUST ended, but I feel like this may be one of my favorite Lost episodes ever. Not top 5 but top 10.

For one thing we had lots of time on Lost stuff I like all …

» Continue Reading “Lost, Season 6 Episode 4, “The Substitute””

Geoff Klock, Lost, recaps

» Continue Reading “Lost season 6, episode 3: “What Kate Does””

Total Spoilers.

Kill Bill, my favorite movie of all time, does a bit of a trick between its two parts. Volume 1 is a kick-ass action spectacle. Volume 2 is suddenly all character driven, and features one nearly bloodless kill where volume 1 featured dozens of exploding corpses. Going from volume 1 to 2 is a test — are you in this merely for the violence? or are you in this for the storytelling?

Over the years, Lost has put us through a similar kind of test. The show was originally designed to be just a realistic island survival story with no science fiction/fantasy elements. Season one reflects that — it is mostly realistic. Stories about hunting boar and whatnot. The sci-fi/fantasy button …

» Continue Reading “Lost Season 6, episode 1: LA X”

The last season of Lost premieres tonight, and it’s shaping up to be the first really BIG, really ANTICIPATED television event of the year. If you plan to tune in and then obsessively talk about not much else the following day, we have the recaps for you!

We’re pleased to introduce Geoff Klock as our official Lost re-capper during the sixth and final season. (You can also find him at his blog, and here are his past Smart Pop essays.)

Tune in every Wednesday for his recaps and enjoy the big premiere tonight!…

» Continue Reading “Last season of Lost: Get your recaps here!”

Finished with your holiday shopping yet? Yeah, me neither.

The internet has brought us many wonderful things, but one of my favorites is easy access to an explosion of television-related merchandise. Below we’ve put together a few last-minute gifts for the TV addict in your life—none of which requires braving a mall.

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For the True Blood fan . . .
A 4-Pack of TruBlood or a Merlotte’s t-shirt

HBO is clearly at the forefront of the tv-related-merchandise game (check out the rest of their store here), but their True Blood stuff is the best. Their TruBlood is gorgeously packaged, and apparently pretty tasty. Their Merlotte’s shirt is a great, subtle bit of fanware (compare, for example, to shirts with the actors’ faces on …

» Continue Reading “Holiday Gifts for the TV Lover”