Your faithful live-blogger, about to watch and blog the latest episode.

Major spoilers below the fold . . .

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After their stupid commercials promising that the time of questions is over, and that it is time for answers I feel like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men.
"Them" being the producers playing the Nicholson role, and "Us" being we, the viewers, playing Tom Cruise.

Us: Show creators, are you going to finally give us some answers?
ABC Network as the Judge: You don’t have to answer their questions! Just keep them watching...
Them (to ABC): I'll answer their questions!
[to Us]
Them: You want answers?
Us: I think I'm entitled.
Them: You want answers?
Us: I want the truth!
Them: You can’t handle the truth!
[pauses]

Them: Listen John Q. Public, we live in a world that lives and dies by ratings, and we have to guard those ratings by any means necessary. Whose gonna make a show as good as we can? You? You, there, on the couch, liveblogging an episode? We have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for fictional characters, and you curse the writers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know. That making you wait, as tragic as it may seem, probably boosts ratings, and saves the jobs of all our lowly gaffers, make-up artists and key grips. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, entertains you. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me making this show, you need me making this show. We use words like art, drama and character-driven. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending our craft. You use them as as fodder for the water-cooler. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to people who enjoy the entertainment that we provide, and then questions the manner in which we provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and watched the show. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a pen, and start writing your own show. Either way, we don't give a darn what you think you are entitled to as long as you watch the show.

Here's some things I want answers to:

What happened to the children? You know the ones the others kidnapped from the original crash site, and then later from the tailies. What did they want with them? Where are they now?

What about the "special" kids? You know Walt and Aaron were both supposed to be special. How? Why?

Why were the numbers on the hatch? And why did Hurley hear them mentioned? I know you think you answered that question, but you really haven't put it all together yet.

Why does the Island move? Through time, through space, whatever. And come to think about it, why was Ben allowed to come back since he claimed anyone who moves it, can't come back?

What is the origin of the Island's special properties?

Wassup with Christian Shephard? He's important. Have his appearances been real or Smokie?

Why doesn't Richard age?

I tried not to list the obvious questions, which they seem headed towards answering, like "Who is Jacob?" and "Who is Smokie?" I'm bringing up the questions they seem to have forgotten about. I'm afraid the show's gonna end without them answering those questions, and I'm gonna be mad.

What about you? What answers do you feel you are entitled to?

I'll be live-blogging tonight's episode (possibly slightly delayed as I'm waiting for my best half to arrive home).

As promised, the time for Questions is OVAH! We'll get Answers tonight! Boodles of 'em . . .

. . . R-i-i-i-g-h-t.

***** MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD *****
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I'll be taking the live-blog duties tonight. I'm already on pins and needles. Will DreadLocke kill Richard? Is he allowed to? Who's the blond kid with all the rules? How will Sawyer get back up the cliff? Is my name written on Jacob's graffiti ceiling? Doggone it, will Dana finally kill Kevin and spare us any more of that awful subplot!?!? (Oh, wait. Wrong show).

Major spoilers below the fold . . .
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Bill may be liveblogging the ep too, but I'm gonna give it a whirl tonight. Maybe it'll be fun to compare/contrast our takes.
Might be a slight delay here and there even though I'm trying to watch it live, b/c I'll be doing so via DVR and pausing here and there as I go.

Read the rest of this entry . . .

I tried (twice!) to get through the first season of "24." It never took. Couldn't stand it. 6 hours in, I just wanted that whiney chick out of the barn already.

But even though I have no desire to waste another five minutes of my life on "24," I find myself enthused and enthralled by Brant Hansen's dramatic recaps of the episodes.

The videos are not available to embed, but you can watch the latest here. It makes "24" come alive with awesomeness.

Let the live-blog begin.

Did I tell you how happy I am that this is (apparently) a Kate episode? I didn't? Wha?

****** WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD ******
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This is pretty interesting: a comparison of the Pilot and this season's Premiere.



Live-blog coming here in a bit (I think).

Liveblogging 24 again this week. I'll keep it up as long as strength and interest remains, although many people are leaving this show due to its implausible and redonkulous plot-lines. As I've always said, when you've lost Jen, you've lost America.

****** Major spoilers below the fold ******
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This post is probably for nobody but myself (and maybe nhe), but I have some thoughts on the current season of "Big Love," which is a brilliant work of televised art . . .
Read the rest of this entry . . .

No liveblog tonight (because, are you kidding me? It's TWO HOURS. My fingers would fall off). Plus we have friends from the College and Young Singles over to watch, and I wouldn't be much fun hunched over a laptop the whole time.

But feel free to leave your thoughts, theories, and impressions in the comments.

LOST IS BACK!!!

***** Expect Major Spoilers in the Comments Thread *****

The events of the following semi-live-blog take place in semi-real-time . . .



********* Spoilers below the fold **********
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A somewhat-delayed Liveblog of the latest episode of 24 is below.




******* SPOILERS FOLLOW ********
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I've finally watched the first four hours of day 8 of that most ridiculous but strangely compelling action drama, 24

******* Spoiler-ish talk below the fold *******
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How "Lost" characters make a sandwich.
Some examples:

Jack
1. Gather ingredients
2. Point gun at ingredients and shout “HOW DO I MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF YOU?!?!?”
3. Breathe heavily through your nose as though you were about to hit ingredients
4. Give up and make the sandwich yourself, and eat it bitterly

Kate
1. Make separate sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with jelly
2. Take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich, declaring it the best
3. Take a bite of the jelly sandwich, declaring it the best
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum
5. Follow peanut butter or jelly sandwich into grave danger

Sawyer
1. Throw the jar of jelly at wall, sneering “I don’t need no sandwich”
2. Call the mascot on the jar of peanut butter lots of clever nicknames
3. Huff and puff and stomp around and grumble a lot
4. When no one’s looking, make perfect, even, symmetrical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit in a corner, enjoying every bite

Locke
1. Sit idly by, believing that the ingredients will find a way to make a sandwich out of themselves
2. Lose faith and make the sandwich anyway
3. Realize that you were the instrument by which the ingredients chose to make a sandwich after all
4. Run around the room and grab everyone’s knives, insisting that their sandwiches will do the same in time

Was reading in Entertainment Weekly today that the success of CBS' "The Good Wife" (starring Julianne Marguiles) has led to a rush of new projects with female leads. The whip-smart Hollywood execs reason more shows with female leads can capitalize on "The Good Wife"'s good ratings.

This is because Hollywood execs are non-contributing zeroes who think the viewers of shows like "The Good Wife" are the same kind of viewers as "Who Wants to Marry a Midget Chef with Octuplets?". Clearly we are drooling (feminist?) idiots who watch a show because a woman is the star.

I started watching "The Good Wife," which I would not be inclined to be interested in for the very reason the TV honchos are highlighting it -- it looks like a chick show, because the premise looked engaging. I kept watching it because the writing and acting are impeccable. It's a great character-driven legal thriller/family drama with stellar dialogue. I don't watch it because it has a female lead any more than I watch "Lost" because it has mostly male leads. I watch them because they're interesting to me and good.

I wonder if there's anyone on these television decision-making boards who is saying, "Um, why don't we just create compelling content?"

I am currently getting my first exposure to Glenn Beck.

He reminds me of the guy in classes at high school that we all didn't necessarily disagree with but we rolled our eyes when he started talking anyway. I think the word insufferable comes to mind.

I sort of want to punch him. (In the love of Jesus, of course.)

He's apparently about to tell us where god is. (Lower-case because his god used to be a man, and my God -- the real one -- did not.)

Update:
He's now talking about putting God back into whatever, and is saying that God told the Israelites if they'd only follow the Ten Commandments, they'd be free.

This is not only wrong, it leads to damnation.

But I'm willing to bet, that as he's appealing to the concerns about the Ten Commandments being taken out of national monuments, etc., that a lot of his evangelical viewers agree with him.

My wife and I bought a new place about six months ago. We're way out in the country now. We're so far out that a local bumpkin we know told us, "Wow. You're further out in the country than we are."

If we wanted to (which we don't), we could link up with satellite TV. Other than that, though, our only option is to hook up our boob tube to the huge antenna on the side of our house. The coaxial cable, though, has been sliced and since I'm not much of a handyman, I've put off the project now for months upon months. Therefore, we've been without any network TV now for six months.

We do occasionally watch DVDs, but for the most part our TVs (we have two) go unused. It's refreshing to never hear the noise of television in our home. I don't think TV is evil (even though much of the content is evil), but I do think it makes a heck of a lot of noise. Not only that, those boxes are straight up ugly. I mean, unless it's a TV, who would want a big, black, dust-collecting rectangle in their living room? (We've got ours inside an armoire.)

With all that said, I'm going to have to figure out the coaxial thing because Lost is going to start up again in the spring. The Island doesn't accept any excuses.

Speaking of Lost, I still have yet to watch the last half of last season, so don't drop any spoilers in the comments!

Jon Stewart parodies Glenn Beck.



HT: BHT

Starts kinda slow but then gets all kinds of awesome.



HT: Jamie Mulhern