Tivo Travails: end of season wrap-up

 

With Memorial Day weekend having just kicked off the summer season, and closed off the 2005-2006 TV season, we have a lot to celebrate. Here are some of those things (and just to keep things from getting out of hand, I'll limit my list to ten -- or twelve -- items)*:

1. Everwood did not make it to the CW. After four seasons, the show was getting too expensive to produce and the ratings were decent but not good enough to warrant a pick-up.

It's a miracle that the show lasted long enough for Delia to get Bat Mitzvahed, but thank you CW for knowing when to say when. Sorry fans but your campaign was a failure...

2. I don't know if I am happy or sad about this, but I'll put it on my list anyway...Scott Wolf, former object of my desire back in his Po5 days, seems to have had a series picked up for the fall schedule. So even though Jake from Everwood will cease to exist, Scott lives on.

3. Veronica Mars got picked up for a third season. Full 22 episode order. Though season 2 was not quite as strong as season 1, the show was able to sustain its unique tone, as well as continue the mystery elements from last season in a logical, compelling manner. Thank you, CW. Airing after the Gilmore Girls next year, I believe this show has a chance to find an audience.

4. We won't have to wait another 2 years before we see the next installment of the Sopranos. Even without Adriana, this has been an excellent season and I applaud having brought Drea back for the brilliant cameo with Cosette last week. New episodes will air within the next six months or so.




5. We learned who the Carver was, and it was horrendously predictable and anticlimactic. No more need to EVER watch Nip/Tuck again. Take that one off the season pass, permanently.



6. I have kicked my Real World habit. I watched neither the San Diego nor the Key West editions. I did watch the RW/RR challenge (Gauntlet 2) but I think I'm even tiring of those. No Miz? No Trishelle? Pshaw.

7. Joey got cancelled. 43 episodes late, but it got cancelled.

8. Rather than just being a re-do of its British predecessor, the American 'Office' found its own rhythm and produced often hysterical results. The funniest show on television.

9. That is, the funniest show other than Kath & Kim. You must watch this. It's ghetto-ized on the Sundance Channel (not sure why it wound up there, it has nothing to do with independent filmmaking) but seek it out and you will be rewarded. Warning, it takes a while to get used to the accents, so give it a chance.

10. Though I've only seen about five minutes of the much praised Top Model, I thank Tyra Banks for teaching me how to 'smile with my eyes'. It was the most informative segment of reality television I have ever encountered. I now understand why ANTM fans are so rabid in their support of the show.

11. Sometimes, great TV isn't actually on TV, but on the internet. Thanks to sites like TV-Gasm and YouTube, we can all catch missed segments -- like the Clay Aiken K.D. Lang makeover on American Idol, which the Dabbler can't watch without the threat of divorce, or old pre-SNL Andy Samberg clips -- as well as viewer-created montages and mini-films that are sometimes as entertaining, if not more so, than network fare. Take for instance this merger of Marissa Cooper's death on The O.C. with the aforementioned Idol. So much more than the sum of its parts. Brilliant. The revolution will be internet-ized. (And a big thanks to Fox, too, for letting the acting-challenged Mischa Barton out of her contract.)

And finally, what you've all been waiting for...

12. Lost got more confusing over the past year, but all is not lost (I couldn't resist, even though the pun, if it's even a pun, is completely unfunny). Help is on the way in the form of my friend (and DoD subscriber, I believe) who is joining its writing staff. I know she will make sure the show stays both interesting as well as challenging.

In the meantime, I would like to offer my theory of what's really going on with the folks stranded on that mysterious island. If the Lost writer happens to read this, I'm sure you will confirm how brilliant and spot on this theory is compared to others circulating on the web.

To recap, the final episode showed us some backstory for Desmond, the character who Locke et al first encountered when they discovered the Swan hatch (though Jack had met him some years before while both were doing some athletic training in the same stadium).

We learn that Desmond was on some sort of self-imposed exile, a journey in a sailboat named for the love of his life whose father forbade him to see her, trying to buy Desmond off unsuccessfully. Unfortunately, Desmond's journey saw him wrecked on the same island Oceanic would eventually crash into. But it would be more than three years before Locke would open the hatch and find Desmond stranded there alone, to push the button every 108 minutes.

Except for that one time, which Desmond and Locke come to realize caused the plane crash of Oceanic on September 22, 2004.

So here's the theory: if Desmond had been in the hatch for over three years at the time of its discovery by Locke, then that put him there as early as September, 2001. You see where I'm going, right? Wrong!

When we see the hatch in 2001, it is equipped with the same washer/dryer as it is in 2004. A late model GE or Maytag (or maybe Kenmore, since this is the network that brings you Extreme Makeover, Home Edition) set with an orange color. Having purchased my own washer/dryer around 2001, I know for a fact that these models were not on the market.

Therefore, the Lost island is actually a top secret appliance testing lab, which requires really dirty, grungy people in order to get the washers as effective as possible. Some nasty ring around the collar can result from continuously sweating for 50 days on end without bathing.

Further proof? Kate, Jack and Sawyer were all very clean and groomed when taken by the others, but since Hurley continues to be a veritable perspiration factory, the others sent him away. When people are too clean, they either die, or are taken by the others who will then train them to become either appliance repair technicians, customer service reps (you thought you were calling Bangalore?) or Best Buy salespeople.

Forget the whole purgatory theory. Forget the whole virtual reality mental hospital theory. Poo-poo to those who claim the island is a eugenics lab started by an escaped Adolph Hitler (who is now named Alvar Hanso, even though Alvar Hanso's bio plainly states that he was part of the WWII resistance). Clearly, Lost is where new washing machines are born!

-------

And there you have it. Tivo is taking a much needed break. See you all in September. I highly recommend watching the clips that I've offered links to and offer a money back guarantee to anybody who enjoys them less than they did Cinderella Man...