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Tonight's lauded season finale of "Lost"? Yeah, there was 10, maybe 15 minutes out of the entire two hours that was any good. And those 10 or 15 minutes had to do with one thing and one thing only: revenge upon the Others.

You want a rant? I got your rant right here...

Spoilers ahoy.

Yeah, I can't help it. I have to say tonight's episode of "Lost" jumped the shark. They just went all retarded. Why?

...well, check after the link. There's spoilers, not that it matters I guess.

Read more.

Don't let the title completely fool you, this entry is a rant, as much as anything else. And don't think that I'm some sort of pop culture otaku; I'm usually behind the curve when it comes to such things, especially music.

But I seem to consume a fair amount of it anyway, and so here we are.

What do I really have to say about pop culture? Read on...

Based on what I've been writing (ranting) about "Lost" recently, I was contacted via email by a woman doing a feature story about the subject who wanted to interview me (also via email).

The twist? It's a Brazilian television Lost fan site entirely in Portuguese.

Globalization, ya gotta love it. It's cool seeing my name and site in print, even if I don't know what the article is saying. It's here: "LOST" JÁ ERA? TEMPORADA DESANIMA FÃS E PERDE AUDIÊNCIA NOS EUA.

Guess it's time to fire up the Google translator...

I'm starting to think I'm becoming a parody of myself with these "Lost" posts. I'm also thinking about coining a new phrase: "to pull a Lost." It should be self-evident what I mean by that, but: to start out strong, have everything going your way... and then blow it. Which seems to be what they're doing.

Actually, last night's episode was better than it has been this season... mostly. I'll get into that below after the obligatory spoiler warning...

Here there be spoilers!

I love this video mashup of Lost and The A-Team. I might even like it better than the actual third season of "Lost" so far!

No, this won't be quite the rant I did last week, just thoughts since watching tonight's episode of "Lost." In particular I thought tonight's Eko-centric episode was far better than last week's, but most of this is just braindump. Maybe some ranting. And oh yeah, huge spoilers.

Huge spoilers ahead, don't say I didn't warn you...

Okay, I've managed to hold out for the first four episodes of "Lost" this season, but after tonight I couldn't resist it any longer. It's a rant. It's gonna be spoilerish, and long-winded, usual disclaimers apply, etc. etc. Only click through if you're ready.

Read on... spoilers ahead.

Haven't seen a book on Lost in awhile, but they managed to slip one into the season finale tonight: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Not that it was hard to spot; Desmond only waved it around enough in a bunch of critical scenes.

As far as the season finale itself goes... I'm still trying to decide what I think about it. I think it started out strong enough. But I'm trying to decide if the last 15 or 20 minutes were weak. Definitely ambiguous, and a general "huh?" factor. And, I'm thinking, weak. I'll have to let it sink in some more.

It's like my regular Lost Book Watch feature or something. Anyway, right there on the screen in your face, Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. I don't know that it has anything to do with the overall theme or plot of the show; since Sawyer was reading it, I rather suspect the producers are just having fun with us.

"Us" being those people like myself who have nothing better to do than blog about the books that show up on Lost...

Just had to point it out (even my wife noticed it): this week's book on Lost was The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

It's going on the list...

Okay, I'm spending too much time on this, but... after reading the comments on my post last night and thinking about it more, here's how I think they should have ended the episode:

Sayid, while interrogating/torturing the Guy Who May or May Not be an Other, finds out something equally ambiguous and creepy from him—something that makes Sayid pause, sit back, uncertain of what to do next. Meanwhile, Jack and Locke are in the middle of their confrontation, just as it played out before, and while Locke is in his haste trying to enter the number, the timer reaches zero... and cut to black.

That's right, a cliffhanger ending. I'd be fine with that, I think it would much better than the cop-out hieroglyphics. It would have been a stronger ending. Keep all of Sayid's flashback, that's fine, just end on zero and forget the goofy speech with Charlie on the beach.

They totally need to hire me as a writer. :)

Yeah, this is getting somewhat regular: recording some thoughts about the latest episode of Lost. I suppose some of these might be spoiler-y, though, so I'll put it behind the clickthru. (RSS readers: well, uh, you don't get that luxury, so watch out: there might be spoilers.)

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This was an amusing read, and devilishly detailed: The Lost Ultimate Theory. I won't guess as to the accuracy of it—quite a bit seems too science fantasy for my taste—but I will say that if the producers are ever looking for new writers for the show, they should contact this guy.

I've been informally keeping track of the books that appear on Lost, so of course I caught tonight's little Easter egg. Anyone else catch the title of the book Locke was shaking through when Sawyer found him in the hatch? The text on the cover read "Owl Creek Bridge", and a quick sweep on Wikipedia reveals:

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story by Ambrose Bierce originally written in 1886.... [It] is the story of a man who is sentenced to death by hanging at the Owl Creek Bridge of the title.

You can go to the page to read the spoilers about it, I won't reveal them here. What's interesting is, I remember seeing this on an old episode of The Twilight Zone!

I don't know if it's supposed to fit into the show's mythology, or the writers just liked the book enough to put it in there and mess with people's heads. I suppose that could go either way...

So these days the one show during the week I have to watch is Lost. Any other show I could miss and catch in reruns and it's no big deal. What can I say—I'm hooked. I'm along for the ride, and despite my best intentions to simply sit back and enjoy the story as it unfolds, I find myself getting caught up in rampant speculation about—well, everything. So, it's spilling over into a long blog post that will contain spoilers and that has no central thesis, just random musings and speculation about the show.

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