The House Next Door

I go into this episode in similar, St. Elsewhere-referencing detail, in a piece running tomorrow at flakmag.com. What I don't do in that piece is give Garcia the love he is due, so I'm glad you did.

Garcia definitely deserves love. He's a phenomenal actor, and he's very lucky to have ended up in a role where he can demonstrate that.

So you thought of ST. ELSEWHERE too, eh? I am glad the episode put the kibosh on Dave's suggestion pretty fast, because if it had been allowed to fester in the public mind, viewers would have really felt as if the series was yanking their chain. Fantasies and hallucinations are one thing, but suggesting that the entire series is just one guy's dream would definitely have qualified as a major buzzkill.

I've become too conditioned by this especially irritating trend in pop culture to not have my radar up, so pretty much 5 minutes into the episode when Bruce Davidson made that bunched up face and said something to the effect of "I'm not sure who Dave's doctor is but..." I actually had to say out loud "so we're all in agreement Dave doesn't exist, right?" (Fortunately, and unlike Hurley, there were actual other people around to hear this) Dave's whole "it's all in your head so jump off a cliff" speech reminded me less of St. Elsewhere's finale than it did Total Recall and the scene with Sharon Stone trying to get Ahhnuld to wake from "his dream." I'd say it's a very fanboy comparison to make, but look at the show we're talking about.

I've grown especially restless with this season as the flashbacks have become the show's un-ending excuse for dragging its feet. 2 weeks ago we learned that Sun was pregnant, but thanks to the show's current pace we'll be well into season 9 before she starts sporting a Katie Holmes-style prosthetic belly. But more depressing is the confirmation that all of the show's characters can't escape their genre archetypes as from all evidence available every single character on the show was either a criminal, victim of a criminal, horribly debilitated or just plain old supernatural all in a way that will be specifically attuned to that evening's episode. I can deal with the mountain of contrivances that pile up on the island, it's the ones back on the mainland that frustrate me. It makes me long for the character who's back-story doesn't involve an elaborate con or a stay in the mental hospital or an affair with their stepsister (ah but then it would be too mundane to warrant a flashback and we might have to actually focus on what's happening on the island). So while the pan to Libby in the mental hospital was a great reveal it's also indicative of how infuriating the show is. Great message it sends too: Ah no wonder she likes the fat guy, she’s crazy! The other big irritant is the cause and effect, "oh I get it, since Jack couldn't save that patient he's become obsessed with saving so-and-so on the island," Intro to Psych as character development. I stick with the show for those fleeting exhilarating moments when against their better instincts the show's writer's dole out actual useful information (last week's Lockdown episode was chalk full of ‘em) but I suspect no pay-off is going to be worth the annoyance which has become standard operating procedure.

There isn't much you say that I would disagree with. In fact, this is the first wholly positive piece I've written about LOST in months. Most of my Star-Ledger columns have complained about the same laundry list you recite here. But against all odds, LOST mesmerizes me. Maybe the concept is strong enough that it can withstand almost any number of missteps. A lot of the time it's just infuriating, boring or silly. But when it works, it's astonishing -- Jack bascially torturing Boone in the name of "saving" him, the hatch episode last week, much of the Season One finale, any scene with Henry Gale (who keeps me guessing no matter what), and some of the closing sequences that play out silent with music, while a Steadicam moves from character to character, visually joining the individual castaways into a community (very Jonathan Demme).

I could fill up this comments section with a list of lines, scenes or whole episodes that made me roll my eyes, yet I'm still hooked, and I'll probably stay hooked. It's like that old joke cited by Woody Allen in ANNIE HALL: "Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, 'Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.' The other one says, 'Yeah, I know; and such small portions.'"

And since we're airing grievances, it really irritates me that they cast Kevin Tighe, the official go-to guy for smiling evil, as Locke's smiling, evil dad. I wonder if it irritates Tighe as well, since he's clearly not old enough to be Terry O'Quinn's dad (and that "young guy" makeup they put on O'Quinn sporadically doesn't exactly sell the illusion).

I hear you about Tighe (at least he's not still driving around in that monster truck from Roadhouse), although one positive thing I'd meant to include in my last post that got lost somewhere along the way, is that for the most part no show uses its featured guest spots better. Just this past season we've had Clancy Brown, Kim Dickens, Bruce Davison, Julie Bowen, MC Gainey and a surprisingly sexy fifty-something Katey Sagal all show up just long enough to make us wonder why they're not getting more work. How long before they create a role for Robert Forrester to play?

I think you're dead on about Henry Gale, and how riveting and twisted that particular subplot has become. He's so moon-faced and wide-eyed and soft-spoken you really find yourself unable to believe he could be part of something insidious and yet that scene of him strung up in the armory, all coiled menace-like... it reminded me of Hannibal Lecter before he become a punch line.

Even more than 24, this is the show that was created for DVD. Not just for being able to compulsively check back for clues, but when watched in a couple of 3-4 episode chunks the dramatic lulls and infrequent airing schedule are no longer an issue. I watched the first season over the course of 10 days and if I wasn't already hooked I'd probably just wait for the dvd for season 3 rather than put myself through this again.

All due respect to Fontana’s glorious mindfuck of a capper, but I’m not alone in assuming that the inspiration here was actually Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Normal Again” by way of Fight Club (with a dollop of Cuckoo’s Nest to season). For the mental hospital setting, sure, but also because St. Elsewhere presented a definitive reinterpretation to the series, whereas Lost’s “what is reality” headgame merely tossed in some ambiguity to never be resolved. (Buffy’s ambiguities were rougher and more convulsive—the episode ended not in “reality” but with the purportedly illusory Buffy locked up in her cell—but the implications were still dropped as quickly as convenient. I.e., by next week.)

Though I agree this was a fabulous episode, mostly due to Garcia. I imagine he was cast just for comic relief, the lovably snarky everyman who could point out any excessive absurdities in the show’s plotline, but when the writers realized what an actor they had on their hands his part deepened commensurately. Which makes me wonder, assuming this bit of Hurley’s backstory had already been worked out for the character before casting, what this episode would have been like if Garcia hadn’t turned out to offer more than sharp comic timing and a charmingly fatalistic frown. More of a goofy romp, Garcia and Handler bantering like Abbot and Costello?

“What hooks me is the "Twilight Zone” sci-fi-as-morality-play vibe, the sense that this island is not exactly real and not exactly a fantasy or dream, but is instead a dramatic tabula rasa for the characters, a place where metaphors become tangible, real enough to see and touch and even converse with; basically an immense psychic theater-in-the-round.”

The best explanation for why I’m still watching. Well, that and O’Quinn. God, it’s truly heroic how week after week he manages to drag something heart-wrenchingly human out of the clichés tossed in his lap. Even last week’s marriage proposal, a groaner of a scene if ever one should have been, had me clenched and teary by the end as every facet of Locke’s fear and rage and hope flashed bright: a distressing thought tossed off with a subliminal hand wave here, a declaration of devotion rushed out with too desperate longing there. Whatever the ultimate judgment on the merits of Lost, I’m convinced O’Quinn’s Locke is going in the books as one of the great performances in this history of television.

andrew dignan: “…very single character on the show was either a criminal, victim of a criminal, horribly debilitated or just plain old supernatural all in a way that will be specifically attuned to that evening's episode.”

Well, Michael seems to have just got caught up in a nasty break-up (I think Walt’s supposed psychic ability is a red herring), and Jack doesn’t seem to have any skeletons in his closet beside Oedipal guilt. But yeah, if Rose and Bernard ever get a flashback where they putter in the garden, walk through the Bronx Zoo, and kiss each other and go to sleep after Nightline, then I’ve got a new favorite episode.

Though I don’t mind the flashbacks too much, as so far all their excesses and contrivances tie right in to my Ridiculously Geeky Explanation for What’s Going On ™.

And I always thought if Peckinpah had been born 25 years later and were making his '70s movies now, Tighe would have been a shoo-in for his stock company.

Matt, I think the last-second shot of Libby was intended to throw the episode's "resolution" into doubt. Libby talks Hurley out of his solipsism by describing her pre-Hurley life after he accuses her of being a figment of his imagination *because she looks so familiar*. So if a viewer was convinced that it wasn't all Hurley's dream by the Hurley/Libby clench, the purpose of that last flashback is to undermine that conviction. *I* don't think it's true because it would be a terrible resolution of the show, and because the show has a long list of physical manifestations of imagined things dating back to Walt and the songbird. But I think the point of that last shot is to rook the gullible.

anon, the reason I think it is more likely a reference to St. Elsewhere than anything else is because I think the episode is slyly referencing the real-world discussion of just what the "answer" to the show is. If we're talking about "it's all a dream" as the explanation for a series, Tommy Weestphall really is the gold standard.

http://www.flakmag.com/tv/lostdave.html

I've had much more patience with LOST this year than the assembled. The flashbacks are some of my favorite bits, and I appreciate how they allow the pace to be slowed down nicely. And one of the things I like MOST about the show is the slow movement of show-time. Two months or so of time has passed for the characters in nearly two seasons? Brilliant. I guess what it comes down to for me is that the flashbacks still engage me - some more than others, sure, but given the show's penchant for turnover, there will always be new characters to get backstories on, too. Eko, Ana Lucia, Rose and Bernard soon, maybe Libby before the season is out.

The flashback contrivances that andrew complains about don't bother me because it's my assumption that these particular people were collected and brought to the island for a reason. So the many criminal pasts and the many interconnections we've seen aren't coincidence, but part of some larger design. Or at least I hope they are! ;)

anonynmous' suspicion's of their intentions for Hurley changing are borne out, I think, that the character only got one flashback last year, whereas this year, he got two. And I agree with all--Garcia is brilliant. His binging moments were played perfectly - the moment was painful, not humorous.

Sean: You're probably right about the intent of that final Libby closeup, but I can't imagine many people fell for it, or at least I hope they didn't. And I definitely hope the show steers clear of the "It's all a dream" angle, because there's already too much info contradicting it. I saw that closeup as simply an explanation for Libby's affection for Hurley.

And on that note, Andrew, I have to disagree that there was a subtext to that closeup that said, "Oh, she's crazy, that's why she loves the fat guy." There's middleground here between a conventionally beautiful woman being totally blind to Hurley's admittedly large girth, and your proposed reading. (I admit some viewers might see it that way, though.) As this relationship has flowered in the past few episodes, I've found myself cynically thinking, "No way would that woman be able to ignore Hurley's size and just see his personality." Looks count in this world, it's just a fact. To my mind, the flashback connection established in "Dave" between Hurley and Libby didn't neutralize that fact, it just re-framed it in a way that deepened both characters -- even though, like so much on LOST, I wish it had been done with more subtlety.

PS to Sean -- I wanted to read your piece but when I entered that URL, nothing came up. Then i went to the magazine's title page and tried to click to it via the main menu and it didn't come up there, either. Is it the magazine's webite, or is it the fact that I'm using Safari for web browsing?

I'm not nearly so enchanted with Michael Emerson. Surely I'm not the only one who watches and says, "So Spacey turned them down?"

Matt, rewatch the last 2 minutes. When Libby and Hurley are walking down the hill, as soon as she is far back enough that Hurley can't see her, her expression changes dramatically - it looks to me like disgust, so I think we're supposed to infer that Libby does not really have any affection for Hurley at all. It's a put-on for some reason yet to be explained, but probably connected to the fact that she knows Hurley from the institution.

Also I can't think of Tighe as a generic bad guy, to me he's still Roy DeSoto from Emergency!, which is showing my age I suppose.

Hello Matt -

I read your Sopranos interpretations weekly; you're a sharp writer and it's been a pleasure digging back into coverage of Tony and Co. that's not merely fawning boilerplate.

We caught the 'Normal Again' vibe as well - glad to know we're not the only dorks - and it's good to hear recognition for Jorge Garcia, who's a bright spot on the show (you get the sense the writers, who generally haven't impressed me this season, have greatly deepened their understanding of Hurley).

All else aside, I have to disagree that this was a great episode or even a particularly good one overall. It took half a scene to figure out that Dave was a figment of Hurley's imagination, after which point (and a bunch of Brad-Pitt-in-12 Monkeys wistfulness on my part) the episode felt like a bit of a slog toward the finale. Hurley and Libby's scene together was nice, but the 'Don't call me a figment - it's insulting' line had our house laughing derisively. The dialogue on the show isn't occasionally bad, it's usually bad (all the more remarkable that Terry O'Quinn is giving such a titanic performance); the need to render the characters obtuse to delay narrative gratification is harder to put up with each week.

As you say, the island is essentially a living metaphor - that's been my sense for a while, and I buy that as an easy and accepetable out for the writers vis-a-vis plot believability - but it's worth asking:

* Is Hurley's catatonia interesting? Is his need to eat compellingly handled? I say no.

* Has Libby's affection for Hurley manifested in any way up 'til this week, other than as part of her general affability and mild maternalism? Nope. The near-kiss at the opening came out of nowhere, solely to justify the finale of the episode. (Yet another 'saved from the abyss...by a kiss!' cliffside confrontation, riddled with cliches.)

* Has Hurley been written compellingly in relation to the other original characters? Not lately, he hasn't. The relationships on the show have gotten more schematic, more like chess moves rather than complex human interactions. (Witness Charlie's scheming with Sawyer a few weeks ago.) Hurley might have a rich internal life, but it pops up this week only (I predict) to be more or less submerged until the next Big Hurley moment.

The close examination of Hurley points up just how shallow the peripheral portrayals of the characters are on Lost. There's none of Milch's generosity, or Whedon's supporting-player vivacity, on that island. Jack and Locke are fascinating (Fox has improved tremendously over the course of the show) but their flashbacks are rapidly losing steam; I suspect Hurley's well is rapidly running dry flashback-wise, and now the writers have to give him an interesting role in the realtime story. I wonder whether they're up to it. I love the show, in a way, but you're right: it's riveting in spite of its great flaws. Its strengths are almost accidental.

-- Wally (Wax Banks)
http://blog.waxbanks.net

Matt, after I read your post, I checked and had the same this-piece-does-not-seem-to-exist problem, but whatever the problem was, it's better now.

vanya, I rewatched the last 2 minutes after I read this same opinion on a message board. I do agree Libby's expression changed, but I feel there was a little more ambiguity to it... the last dialogue exchange was Libby reassuring him he could change. The change in her expression to a grim one could be her remembering herself, institutionalized. It could be something else, as you say, and I've seen it suggested that Libby is pulling a long con on Hurley, or whatever. I hoonestly don't know. I do agree the final shot raised more questions than it answered. I do think it worked best as a punchline.. Hurley is reassured he couldn't have made Libby up out of thin air, but of course he could have, because he did know her before, and just didn't remember.

Yeah, that's a good point about her strange expression during the walkaway -- though her affection for Hurley during the kiss seemed sincere to me. It's also possible that her expression has nothing to do with her feelings for Hurley at all. Who knows where they're going with this?

Yes, the characters are all archetypes -- stereotypes is usually a better way of putting it -- and a lot of the Hammer-on-the-head dialogue has a daytime soap's forehead-smacking literalness. Like a lot of well made network series, LOST takes big risks with form but has no faith in its ability to communicate subtext organically, secure in the knowledge that viewers will get it. Terrified that people will find it too ambiguous, they underline too much. But like I said, every now and then, they hit one out of the park. I thought this was one of these episodes, not for the plot mechanics, but for the performances and the emotions they tapped.

Wally: "Chess moves" is a great way of defining the peripheral characters' thinness. They do seem to be moved by outside forces -- and not just the screenwriters. I wonder if we're eventually going to end up in a dollar-store version of THE TEMPEST, run by a Prospero figure we haven't met yet.

As someone who road the X-Files train all the way to the bitter end and have had little patience for Alias (how long before this show follows suit and reboots when things start to drag? tick tock tick tock) I have little faith in the so called "master plan" of these shows. Call me cynical, but aside from a hazy idea of how the story should be resolved I get the feeling they're spinning their wheels and digging real deep into their character bibles to try and pad this thing out until it reaches syndication. I’m starting to feel like there’s another reason so many of these characters are con-artists.

I think it's easier to create a Crash-like world of intersecting comic book characters (anonymous, you forget Jack performed "the miracle" of healing his wife) and harbor it under the theory of a "larger design" than to actually explore the dynamics on the island and dramatizing their day to day lives, not to mention furthering the island’s mythology. At this point we all know they're connected, the flashbacks don’t so much build upon that as they do hammer it home. I'd rather we get a slam-bang 3 or 4 seasons rather than mirroring the aforementioned X-Files and stretching this thing out till no one really cares what the answer is anymore.

Wally wrote (on a different blog): "There's none of Milch's generosity, or Whedon's supporting-player vivacity, on that island."

The show's in need of some serious herd thinning, a situation which wasn't helped by gaining the "Tailies" right around the time Shannon died (granted that was a pretty fair trade). The game around our apartment is to guess which character will be focused on next week as judged by which characters we haven't seen in weeks (oh what do you know, a Rose and Bernard episode coming up... who knew they were still on this place?). The show is so schematic that you never find yourself wondering what other characters are up to when they're not featured; like their toys put back on the shelf for another day. In a way island life very closely mirrors flashback life: we only see what’s happening if it will advance the plot at that given moment.

andrew dignan: "(anonymous, you forget Jack performed "the miracle" of healing his wife)"

O, I had. Sorry.

sean: "anon, the reason I think it is more likely a reference to St. Elsewhere than anything else is because I think the episode is slyly referencing the real-world discussion of just what the "answer" to the show is."

Referencing, yes, and certainly on the writers' minds; but the emotional burden of the episode, the notion that sweet, lovable Hurley is so guilt-ridden and anxious that a part of him would prefer institutionalization, even death, to his present circumstance, has no parallel in St. Elsewhere's finale, whereas it was the point as well of the Buffy episode.

anonymous (not me): "The dialogue on the show isn't occasionally bad, it's usually bad"

Hard to say which makes me wince the more, the stabs at tough-guy talk for Sawyer and Kate and whoever else turns out to be a long-con liar this week, or the dorm-ruminations on fate that Locke and Charlie and Eko have to spew periodically.

andrew dignan: "I’m starting to feel like there’s another reason so many of these characters are con-artists."

How more meta could you go?

Lost is a weird case with me. Objectively, I can sit outside of it and see just how ham-fisted it can be, but subjectively, I just love the shit out of it.

I've finally come to the realization that the show holds such power over its devoted audience (including myself) BECAUSE it markets in genre stereotypes (though I would argue the show has done its best to deepen and broaden those stereotypes, though it also often fails). Normally, filling a narrative work with such obvious characters would be a terrible decision, but I think it works here because the writers have taken what amounts to a century of American genre fiction and thrown it into a blender with current social concerns.

At its best, Lost is an attempt to synthesize an American mythos. It's a mythopoeic reflection back on US and our concerns. In its own way, it hasn't captures the zeitgesit; it IS the zeitgeist.

This is why the whole thing seems to work as a weird Rorschach test as well. The larger ambitions you project onto the writers say a lot about your own self and which genre archetypes you respond to.

I'm not sure this will all work as well even ten years down the road. At that point, I may get out the DVDs to share them with my children and wonder what the hell I was thinking. The show COULD last, but my suspicion is it won't. Though I thought the same of The X-Files, and I find it easier to watch reruns of that than Buffy, which was a much better show.

My thoughts on this were largely spurred by the show's occasionally indifferent reception in countries other than the U.S. and the show's weird obsession with con artists, which seems to be a type Americans are more fascinated with than anyone else.

todd: "Though I thought the same of The X-Files, and I find it easier to watch reruns of that than Buffy, which was a much better show."

For myself, the X-Files "mythology" shows are nearly unwatchable, all convoluted retcons and sophomoric anti-authoritarianism, slathered over with New Age gloop whenever Native Americans were involved. But the best monster of the week one-offs remain as fresh as ever. (Paranthetically to this tangent, whatever happened to Darin Morgan? "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" has a good claim to being the best hour of television I've ever seen.)

Maybe Lost will meet the same fate, and when you share the DVDs with your kids everyone will yawn and fast-forward through the glimpsed maps, curious sea cables, and is-he-or-isn't-he debates about Henry Gale's Otherness while remaining on tenterhooks over Jack's logistics of water transport or Sawyer's predatory interaction with Deeply Symbolic Island Creatures.

"I am glad the episode put the kibosh on Dave's suggestion pretty fast..."

Did it? I guess I didn't think that last shot was as unambiguous as you did.

"When Libby and Hurley are walking down the hill, as soon as she is far back enough that Hurley can't see her, her expression changes dramatically - it looks to me like disgust, so I think we're supposed to infer that Libby does not really have any affection for Hurley at all."

I didn't see disgust. I saw worry.

So is Dharma as Zen friendly as we may wish to believe?

These folks can't possibly be dead because none of them were quite lost enough to warrant saving. The exception being Mr. Ecko, and he's already received his grace. And why do I have the uncomfortable feeeling he's building a church out of all that bark? Say it ain't so...

Why, exactly, is Kate still on the show?

Books: "The Third Policeman", Flann O'Brien; "Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge" Ambrose Bierce; "The Brothers Karamazov" Fyodor D. Any others? Mean anything? Prolly not.

So Ecko and Charlie have that mind-bending encounter with the black cloud and say not a word, not one word, of it when they return to base camp. Uh huh...

I am sick to death of both Jack and Locke. The rational dude and the flaky guru. Uh, no thanks. Hey, where's my shower? Where's my bowl of cereal?

The ostensible leaders never ask a single frigging question, they retreat into stoney silence. Everyone's playing mental poker. If I were amongst them, me, Sayed, and Ana Lucia would possee up. We'd solve some shit.

I can't take those whining, clinging women. Ana Lucia, I love you.

I just know the revealing of what's behind the grand narrative will result in a "What the fuck, are you kidding me", disappointed response. If it wasn't for digital cable this one would slip right by.

Time travel? No. Purgatory? Those writers wouldn't dare. The dream of some mental case? That's even worse. All of the top of mind answers to this riddle are insulting. Any guesses? Does it matter? I'm thinking this thing is just a big heap of silly slathered over a steaming pile of false profundity.

So is Dharma as Zen friendly as we may wish to believe?

These folks can't possibly be dead because none of them were quite lost enough to warrant saving. The exception being Mr. Ecko, and he's already received his grace. And why do I have the uncomfortable feeeling he's building a church out of all that bark? Say it ain't so...

Why, exactly, is Kate still on the show?

Books: "The Third Policeman", Flann O'Brien; "Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge" Ambrose Bierce; "The Brothers Karamazov" Fyodor D. Any others? Mean anything? Prolly not.

So Ecko and Charlie have that mind-bending encounter with the black cloud and say not a word, not one word, of it when they return to base camp. Uh huh...

I am sick to death of both Jack and Locke. The rational dude and the flaky guru. Uh, no thanks. Hey, where's my shower? Where's my bowl of cereal?

The ostensible leaders never ask a single frigging question, they retreat into stoney silence. Everyone's playing mental poker. If I were amongst them, me, Sayed, and Ana Lucia would possee up. We'd solve some shit.

I can't take those whining, clinging women. Ana Lucia, I love you.

I just know the revealing of what's behind the grand narrative will result in a "What the fuck, are you kidding me", disappointed response. If it wasn't for digital cable this one would slip right by.

Time travel? No. Purgatory? Those writers wouldn't dare. The dream of some mental case? That's even worse. All of the top of mind answers to this riddle are insulting. Any guesses? Does it matter? I'm thinking this thing is just a big heap of silly slathered over a steaming pile of false profundity.

I haven't read everything so aopolgies i davance if these observations are redudant:

The "leap of faith" device is also very Vanilla Sky/Open Your Eyes.

Henry Gale is the full name of Dorothy's Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz.

Matt wrote:

If the film version of "A Confederacy of Dunces" ever gets made, he's Ignatius Reilly. Period.

One of the very first posts I ever made here was in agreement with you over casting Oliver Platt as Iggy. He's technically far too old now, and it's a huge shame that window has passed, and yet I'd still forgive the age discrepancy just to see him do it.

I read something recently from Joseph Gordon Green and he said the project was "back on track". (Whatever, right?)

I guess Garcia would be good for the role. Truth is, I've seen maybe 5 eps of LOST (and none of them were the Hurley-centric ones).

Am I missing out here? Should I be DVDing this show? Or would it all be for nothing? I mean is it *really* worth the time investment?

Ross: I've switched my Ignatius allegiance from Platt to Garcia, because, quite simply, I now think Garcia is capable of all the shadings required, including the bitter everybody's-a-phony-but-me thing, the core of anger and the slow-flowering romanticism. Plus, he looks like the drawing on the trade paperback.

Don't start watching LOST now. It's like diving into the deep end of a swimming pool looking for loose change. You might find a few coins, but it's a lot of work for not much yield. I'm already hooked, so it's too late for me. I tune in every week expecting to be annoyed, and with rare exceptions, like this week, I usually am.

Matt said: "I tune in every week expecting to be annoyed, and with rare exceptions, like this week, I usually am."

That's perhaps the best summation of the show I've ever heard.

Andrew: Actually, I have a new favorite summation, from KJ: "A big heap of silly slathered over a steaming pile of false profundity." But with a great score!

The first scene in Dr Brooks' office, camera's on a picture before panning down to Hurly, did anyone notice the picture above his head? An island. A prolonged nightmare of one or more mental patients, ala Phil Dick, the commingling of psychotic realities, I might be able to groove to that.

I can't and won't read this entry because I just finished watching season one and was blown away. Here's the downside, I started season two. I'm net impressed. If anything I'm kind of disappointed.

Matt said:

I tune in every week expecting to be annoyed, and with rare exceptions, like this week, I usually am.

Prepare to scoff and belittle (if not here, then in your head), but this is EXACTLY what it's like to watch DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES from week to week.

Golly. Great minds think alike. After watching this I blogged about St. Elsewhere as well. Love your blog - found it via Chris Kelly's article.

Kristen: Thanks for posting. The ST. ELSEWHERE ending was one of those rare crazy twists that was just clever enough that you didn't feel as if you've wasted several seasons' worth of your time. Definitely preferable to the so-called "dream season" on CBS' "Dallas," a crap-out so arbitrary that even the soap's staunchest fans can't defend it.

Ross: I check in on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES from time to time -- less so now that it's running opposite THE SOPRANOS. My laundry list of grievances against that series is way too long to list here. Grievance number one is the way the series uses cute music as a moral shock absorber. I wish the show had the courage to just admit how insanely selfish and myopic most of its characters are; they're nearly as self-involved as the typical HBO drama character, yet the plucky-wucky soundtrack just keeps burbling along, telling you, "Don't worry, everybody's likable and the situations aren't as disturbing as they seem." The music is so intrusive, omnipresent and monotonously cute that it brings the entire series down a letter grade. Really.

Matt wrote about DH:

Grievance number one is the way the series uses cute music as a moral shock absorber.

Hit. Nail. On. Head.

Everything you wrote on this topic is so dead on. And the amazing thing is how they get away with it because this is the type of dramatic touch that's really easy for the masses to overlook.

I call it "the twinkly music".

"Oh there it is again", I loudly proclaim when someone is shot or beaten up or arrested for drunk driving. "The twinkly music has arrived to reassure us that everything's going to be A-OK".

But surely this is a TV show? Shouldn't I want to be left wondering if everything will work out? So I want to tune in next week (or even after the commercial break)?

I like to compare DH to SOAP, because the two shows could have a lot in common, and I think DH could be a better show if the writers studied some of the old SOAP arcs and situations.

What amazes me is that SOAP was a half-hour comedy that if not in every episode, at least in every other episode, managed to engage a character or two in something that was genuinely moving and dramatic. This stupid comedy was often times able to bring tears to the eyes of this viewer and get me to care about these ridiculous people.

DH, on the other hand, tries at every turn to keep us from actually feeling something - anything. For the life of me I cannot figure out why this is. Unlike SOAP, they've got an hour every week to experiment and yet they never do. The show could actually be a GREAT TV program, if Cherry & Co. weren't so busy shooting themselves in the foot every single chance they get. Nearly every time the series begins going down a road that looks as if it might mean something, they jerk away from it as if it was a mistake to go there in the first place.

Cue "the twinkly music". Erase any possible drama. Kill the satire.

Another big problem with the show is the ensemble nature of it all. Why must it present "complete" (I use that word loosely) storylines for every character, in every episode? Why can't Susan have a week off so I can get a double-dose of Bree?

It's very frustrating and it led me to recently compare it on my blog to being the McDonalds of television shows. I always know what I'm going to get every time I "buy" the product and it isn't even remotely satisfying, but it is reliable junk food.

I just wanted to be the first to nominate the line "Is there any chance for a mercy fuck?" as one of the all-time best in Sopranos history.

It's too late in the day for me to respond to all this now, but reading this polylogue reminded me that I hadn't checked in on the Tommy Westphall Multiverse in a while. Sure enough, _Lost_ is already there, though through a rather tenuous connection (shows with an "Oceanic Airlines in them) in my opinion. The step from _Lost_ to _The Office (UK)_ is even more tenuous, but also more amusing -- and surely an accurate statement of the writers intensions. (Didn't that Charlie episode also contain a wink to _Arrested Development_?)

Anon

Ross, you captured my own misgivings about DH better than I ever have. I don't dislike the show for what it tries to do, I dislike it for what it doesn't do.

LOST and VERONICA MARS stumble quite frequently. often during the course of an otherwise interesting episode, but at least they're in there routinely trying to do something amazing, or at least something bigger than the broadcast TV norm. DH doesn't try as hard as it could. And it does seem to actively oppose engagement. Very frustrating.

Matt, you said "I was thrilled to learn that [Jorge Garcia] and Handler are going to appear together again next week."

I have seen the press release for Wednesday's episode and Evan Handler is not on it... am I missing something?

Anon: Nope, you're right, he's not on next week's episode. I got some bad information. I'll put a bracketed correction in the item to reflect that fact.

However, I'd imagine we haven't seen the last of Handler, LOST's flashback addiction being what it is.

I'm surprised nobody has stated the obvious reference with Hurley's friend...

He's from an old Cheech & Chong bit: "Dave's not here, man."

I was pretty staggered by that particular LOST, and I've long thought Jorge Garcia was the surprise breakout star (never heard of him before); and while I suspect they wouldn't dare go for the "dream" or "purgatory" wrapups, not at this point, I've been continuously surprised by the curveballs we *have* gotten. Originally I thought they might have been wise to consider this as a limited, self-enclosed series, as is done in the UK and Japan, and it's obvious that they're making it up pretty much as they go along, but still and all, if they can surprise *me* they're on to something. (Mr. Seitz also made a point of singling out the rather phenomenal music credited to Michael Giacchino; I'd wondered how he could possibly be writing all that *and* cover his feature obligations, not to mention ALIAS, but it's pretty much the same ideas week to week, not that I'm complaining, one rarely hears ambitious or interesting television scoring at all anymore).

As for Michael Emerson's mysterious Henry Gale, maybe I missed it, but did no one else remember his whacked Emmy-winning turn on THE PRACTICE as fingernail-swallowing serial killer William Hinks? (The series got so bogged down in serial killers in its last couple years that you could easily be forgiven for having lost track.)

Dan writes, "Originally I thought they might have been wise to consider this as a limited, self-enclosed series, as is done in the UK and Japan, and it's obvious that they're making it up pretty much as they go along, but still and all, if they can surprise *me* they're on to something." I still think it would be better with fewer episodes -- either a self-contained one-season run, 24 and our, or else a cable series, 10 to 12 episodes per season, with possible renewals. I really think one of cable series' great advantages over network shows is that they don't have to struggle to fill as many episodes a year, and they can pick their fights. Of course if you account for the fact that cable series really are an hour long, where network series are actually about 42 minutes once you take out commercials, the airtime gap narrows a bit. But you get what I'm saying. Sometimes limits are a good thing; they make you focus a bit. I don't think we'd have seen quite so much jerking around on LOST this year if they'd had to wrap things up in 10 episodes.

Apropos of this discussion, I don't understand why pay cable doesn't do more sci fi. Seems like it would be the ideal place for it -- particularly the adult variant. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is quite good on the Sci-Fi Channel, but on HBO, with fewer episodes, bigger budgets and almost no content restrictions, I bet it would be phenomenal.