The Sky's Alive With Turned On Television Sets
I'm cheating and posting this Friday because Saturday is going to be my no computer day and I'm going to make tamales and draw and stuff.

I saw in the news somewhere that Lost has been losing viewers and this person was putting forth the theory that it was like The X-Files and people are turned off by the confusing and convoluted plot. I was a HUGE X-Files fan and I loved the show continuously regardless of the convoluted plot until Mulder left because the best part of the X-Files was the connection between Mulder and Scully and not whether or not aliens were vaccinating the Klingons, or whatever.

Lost started losing me last season when it became less interesting and most of the characters became unsympathetic. Why do I care about these people?

Nothing happens on this show. We never move forward. It's the same thing over and over. If I have to watch one more close up of Kate's trembling lower lip and then outburst that "because they're going to kill ___" [insert Jack or Sawyer] one more time, I'm going to brain myself with the remote control. We're, what nine episodes into season 3 and we've seen how many characters? I love Jack, too. But an entire episode about his tattoo?

It started losing me halfway through last season because it was so awful and Michael couldn't go 5 minutes without saying, "My son!" and then Claire couldn't go 5 minutes without saying, "My baby!" But then, the end perked up and I got back into it. I don't hate the show but it's not my first choice when the DVR is filled with shows.

And while I'm bitching about shows, let's talk about 24. I wasn't even going to watch 24 but I have some fans in my office and I didn't want to be out of the loop if it turned out really good. The only thing I like in 24 is Jack Bauer. But holy crap, this show wrote the book on the same thing over and over.

Every season we have to have a bunch of really stupid bystanders to stand around saying stuff like, "Jack, what's happening?" and "Jack, I'm afraid" and what about scene after scene after scene where they download the schematics of the Louvre onto Jack's PDA even though they're top secret but somehow it always works and there are never any platform issues or software glitches. Chloe says, "Jack, I can't do that." and Jack says, "Chloe, you have to try." And 2 seconds later: ta da! It's done. In less time that it takes to update your operating system they can redirect satellites and have a team at the landing pad in a remote area located 4 hours of gridlock away.

And then there's always someone trying screw-over the president. I'm going to delete from the DVR and just keep up by overhearing people talk about it at the office. Maybe.

Finally, I'd like to talk about Heroes. I liked it enough to add it when it started and I've enjoyed it. They have Steven-freaking-Carrington on the show for Pete's sake. But holymoly has a show ever gone from zero to we-take-ourselves-too-damn-seriously faster? And it's kind of like the shows above, we're barely moving forward. I want something to happen. Not just everyone standing around crying/bitching/confused about their abilities. I thought The 4400 had abilities.

I'm sticking with the show although the Niki/Jessica plot is completely uninteresting. But I love Matt Parkman and I really love Hiro, my favorite TV character in a long, long time.

Also, just in case I haven't said it lately, Veronica Mars is the best thing on television.

Bob took this photo I can't remember what year, maybe 2000-ish and we were at a Filmpark in Germany.