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Reviews TV

Lost Re-View: Season 1 episodes 1-3 – The Crash and Kate’s a fugitive

The first few episodes establish some of the significant themes of the series. The backgammon game with light and dark pieces and the idea of two opposing sides.

Having an Iraqi former Republican Guard as a sympathetic major character in 2004 on US television was a bold move and it reinforces the idea that we need to discard whatever notions we might have of who the enemy is in this show.

Sawyer starts off as a bit of a rogue who is somewhat of a tragic figure and who initially tries to do the right thing, but is soon diverted along a different path when people start thinking of him as an antagonist so he continues to act this part that has been foisted upon him.

And with Locke we seem to have come full circle over the series as he starts off in these three episodes as quite a sinister and potentially dangerous character.

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Reviews TV

The Lost Re-View

In anticipation of the final season of Lost which will be broadcast in early 2010 I have decided to watch again the entirety of the five previous seasons so as to reassess what went before with the knowledge gained from later episodes.

However it is likely that things which seem significant in hindsight are so only because the writers took it upon themselves to develop things which were initially meant to be inconsequential into something larger.

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TV

The Wire quiz – written by McNulty, Freamon and Carcetti

The Wire quiz as published in The Guardian.

I got a pretty respectable 13 out of 16. The question Who do Chris and Snoop give up to Cheese? completely stumped me.

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Reviews Surveillance TV

Who’s Watching You?

First episode of the BBC’s documentary Who’s Watching You in which Richard Bilton uncovers the hidden world of surveillance in Britain. Quite wide ranging in its scope it takes in everything from RIPA abuses by local councils to surveillance carried out by unmanned drones.

It was a little disjointed as it tried to be balanced in its approach and show both the good and bad sides of surveillance. I think the very fact that the BBC has produced a documentary like this is great and hopefully it will spark some debate amongst the general public about the need for blanket surveillance.

Do the benefits to society outweigh the costs? I think in many cases that the answer is no. For example public CCTV which many people are in favour of because they believe that the cameras reduce incidence of crime. If we consider just in financial terms and ignore possible infringements of civil liberties does spending hundreds of millions of pounds make sense when there is evidence that they have a negligible effect on reducing crime although they are useful in catching criminals after the fact. So the question must now be are our CCTV systems in Britain worth the massive cost just to catch and convict the number of criminals it does. Could the money not be better spent by putting more policeman on the beat?

I think viewers may have had their eyes opened with the part of the programme about ANPR (Automatic number plate recognition). I’d be surprised if the majority of the public knew that ANPR even existed let alone how extensive it was and how long the data that was collected by systems across the country was retained for.

Two more episodes to follow, but on the evidence so far this seems like an interesting and important documentary.

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Reviews TV

Lost 5.16 & 5.17 – The Incident

We finally get to meet Jacob, not only is he real but he has intervened in our Oceanic 815 survivors lives at crucial moments in their pasts. White shirt, and he’s joined on the beach to see the arrival of what is possibly The Black Rock by a man who wears a black shirt presumably he is Jacob’s dark counterpart.

Rose, Bernard and Vincent are alive and living a happy peaceful life on the island away undetected by both the Others and the Dharma Initiative. Being together is all that matters. It’s always something with you people.

In my experience the people that go out of their way to tell you that they are the good guys are almost always the bad guys. The circle of ash was broken and so whoever was constrained to the cabin has escaped. They believe it was somebody other than Jacob which suggests that it was the man in black which means that it was not Jacob that spoke to Locke and therefore the others may have been following the orders unwittingly of Jacob’s nemesis.

Jacob resurrects Locke after his ‘fall’.

It is about love. Rose and Bernard. Sun and Jin. Love eventually triumphs over adversity. “Your love is a special thing”. Jacob speaks excellent Korean, in addition to English and Russian (?).

We finally get to see the accident in the operating room that formed the basis of the story that Jack told Kate in the pilot episode where he overcame his panic and was able to repair the damage he’d caused. Interestingly it seems the reality of the situation doesn’t quite match Jack’s perspective, he believes that his father was undermining him when in fact Christian was genuinely helping him to overcome his panic and believe in his ability to operate.

The Oceanic survivors are there on the island for a reason. Jacob it seems is playing a long game and is placing his pieces for the final showdown with his nemesis.

Again with the love theme. Juliet loves Sawyer so much that she would rather that she never met him than worry that she might lose him.

Hurley is a great barometer for establishing other character’s intentions because he is so open and has no agenda which means that people tend to be open and honest with him. Hurley and Jacob’s conversation in the taxi cab shows Jacob to be a good man.

So that’s how Pierre Chang lost his arm!

Heartbreaking to see Juliet die.

Richard knows what lies in the shadow of the statue, what he says in Latin apparently translates to “He who will protect/save us all”. Does that mean Jacob? The man in black has manipulated Ben into killing Jacob but it seems that Jacob was expecting it and that although he’d prefer Ben not to carry out the act he is sanguine about it.

Juliet not dead yet and with eight hits manages to set off the bomb and the screen goes white. What the hell does this mean?

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Reviews TV

Lost 5.16 & 5.17 – The Incident

We finally get to meet Jacob, not only is he real but he has intervened in our Oceanic 815 survivors lives at crucial moments in their pasts. White shirt, and he’s joined on the beach to see the arrival of what is possibly The Black Rock by a man who wears a black shirt presumably he is Jacob’s dark counterpart.

Rose, Bernard and Vincent are alive and living a happy peaceful life on the island away undetected by both the Others and the Dharma Initiative. Being together is all that matters. It’s always something with you people.

In my experience the people that go out of their way to tell you that they are the good guys are almost always the bad guys. The circle of ash was broken and so whoever was constrained to the cabin has escaped. They believe it was somebody other than Jacob which suggests that it was the man in black which means that it was not Jacob that spoke to Locke and therefore the others may have been following the orders unwittingly of Jacob’s nemesis.

Jacob resurrects Locke after his ‘fall’.

It is about love. Rose and Bernard. Sun and Jin. Love eventually triumphs over adversity. “Your love is a special thing”. Jacob speaks excellent Korean, in addition to English and Russian (?).

We finally get to see the accident in the operating room that formed the basis of the story that Jack told Kate in the pilot episode where he overcame his panic and was able to repair the damage he’d caused. Interestingly it seems the reality of the situation doesn’t quite match Jack’s perspective, he believes that his father was undermining him when in fact Christian was genuinely helping him to overcome his panic and believe in his ability to operate.

The Oceanic survivors are there on the island for a reason. Jacob it seems is playing a long game and is placing his pieces for the final showdown with his nemesis.

Again with the love theme. Juliet loves Sawyer so much that she would rather that she never met him than worry that she might lose him.

Hurley is a great barometer for establishing other character’s intentions because he is so open and has no agenda which means that people tend to be open and honest with him. Hurley and Jacob’s conversation in the taxi cab shows Jacob to be a good man.

So that’s how Pierre Chang lost his arm!

Heartbreaking to see Juliet die.

Richard knows what lies in the shadow of the statue, what he says in Latin apparently translates to “He who will protect/save us all”. Does that mean Jacob? The man in black has manipulated Ben into killing Jacob but it seems that Jacob was expecting it and that although he’d prefer Ben not to carry out the act he is sanguine about it.

Juliet not dead yet and with eight hits manages to set off the bomb and the screen goes white. What the hell does this mean?

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Reviews TV

Lost 5.12 – Dead is Dead

Lots of answers but with them come more questions. Like where did Charles Widmore get a horse on the island?

Ben is lying about knowing that Locke would be resurrected by the island as he was truly very shocked to see Locke welcoming him back to the land of the living. What is in Illana’s crate?

Ben and Ethan are carrying out Widmore’s orders to kill Rousseau but Ben steals Alex instead. this is pre-purge so the two of them must still be living amongst the Dharma initiative and not yet fully members of the Others.

Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn are really great in this episode as Ben and Locke and I love that their roles are now somewhat reversed with Locke knowing more than Ben about what is going on and what to do next. Is Caesar dead? That was fairly short lived for what I thought would have been a new major character. He’s dead before he’s made barely any impact.

Who are Illana’s gang protecting the island from and what purpose are they protecting it for. Why didn’t Ben recognise later that the Oceanic Six had been members of the Dharma Initiative. What about Sawyer, Jin, Juliet and Miles whom he has lived with for three of his most formative years and during a period of time that major events happened including getting shot by an escaped prisoner.

Because what is about to come out of that jungle is something I can’t control. Then Locke emerges. Big clue to suggest that Locke is in fact just a manifestation of the smoke monster.

What lies in the shadow of the statue?

Hieroglyphs depicting Anubis communing with the smoke monster.

Did it let Ben live because he’s taken responsibility for the death of Alex. Presumably Alex was not really there and so Ben was talking to an aspect of the monster and then talks to Locke who is I think yet another aspect of the monster.

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Reviews TV

Review – Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.21 – Adam Raised a Cain

Season 2 is coming to an end with one hell of a spate of excellent episodes and with each one John loses someone significant. This week it was the turn of Derek whose death was one of the most brutally short and unsympathetic deaths of a major character on television (outside of HBO dramas anyway). It was however very fitting for the show as the very premise of the show is the brutal struggle to prevent or ensure the virtual annihilation of the human race by the machines.

Weaver seems to confirm that which has been suspected for a while that John Henry is in fact not destined to become Skynet but that humanity’s survival depends on his survival. The third faction that we saw in the future may be established here and now through Weaver and John Henry, working against Skynet but not with the humans. It may be that humanity’s survival is too important to be left in the hands of human beings (they will disappoint you).

The little girl that plays Savannah is wonderful, she has a great rapport with Garrett Dillahunt as John Henry. Donald, where’s your trousers? has never been so haunting as it was here.

Derek’s death and Sarah’s subsequent arrest might just be the final push needed to transform John into the John Connor that is capable of saving the human race and leading the resistance against Skynet.

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Reviews TV

Lost 5.11 – Whatever Happened, Happened

Roger Linus is not quite the abusive douchebag we’ve been led to believe he was, he is genuinely very concerned about Ben when he sees Jin bring him back suffering from the gunshot wound inflicted by Sayid. Roger is remorseful about how poor a father he’s been.

Cassidy has an interesting interpretation of Sawyer’s sacrificial leap from the helicopter. He did it because he’s a coward.

Miles and Hurley’s conversation is very meta and explains how we are supposed to believe time travel works on the show i.e. not like Back to the Future, you can’t change your future by changing the past. Which presumably means that Ben cannot die and Sayid’s attempted homicide was futile.

Jack refusal to help save Ben is because he’s come to realise that perhaps he was getting in the way of what the island wants. But Kate even after all that Ben had done to her does everything within her power to save the life of younng Ben.

Odd that when Sayid was torturing Ben in the Swan station that Ben didn’t recognise him as being the same guy he helped escape from the Dharma initiative and subsequently shot him.

Juliet makes the suggestion to Kate that maybe the Others can do something to save Ben and in her expression there seems to be some realisation that of course all these events were meant to happen as it is this that leads Ben to eventually join the Others.

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Reviews TV

Lost 5.10 – He’s Our You

Shocking end to this episode of Lost in more way than one. A teenage Ben is shot by Sayid in 1977. Shocking because it is almost unheard of for a child to suffer a violent death of US network television. And if he is indeed dead what does this mean for the show? He can’t be surely as according to Daniel Faraday “whatever happened, happened” so the past cannot be changed so if Ben is alive in 2007 then he must somehow survive this.

Two thoughts/theories on this.
1. Assuming Faraday is correct and the producers of the show have said that there will be no time travel paradoxes then young Ben will survive the gunshot. Is this event the catalyst that turns a quite sweet kid into the manipulative cold hearted Benjamin Linus we’ve come to know?

Typical Lost irony would be that the man Sayid hates for turning him into a monster (or to be more precise turning him back to monstrous actions as we mustn’t forget he had been a torturer in Iraq) is a monster himself because of being betrayed and shot by Sayid in 1977.

2. However perhaps we have been misled up to this point and Daniel Faraday is wrong (or lying) and this is a course correction of a sort as we were shown with Desmond trying to prevent Charlie’s death. Perhaps Ben was never meant to become the leader of the others plus according to Christian he was never meant to turn the Frozen Donkey wheel to move the island. If Ben had died as a child then all the events we have seen so far in the series would have played out quite differently, this is probably the best argument for him surviving this incident.