When I want to escape from reality, I like to drop down one dimension. See, I live in a very real 3D world, where every object within my grasp can be reached, grabbed or poked. Hell, even that slap that I usually get in return comes at me in all its three-dimensional glory. Four if you count the stinging sensation it leaves behind.

Despite this, the gaming industry is determined to follow Hollywood’s lead and try to get consumers to cough up more coin for yet more hardware. We’ve already seen a number of games given updates to allow them to run on the new 3D TVs, and Nintendo has recently launched its latest handheld unit, the 3DS, which provides the effect without the need for those gangly goggles.

The point is, I see no point in 3D gaming. None. Not as currently constituted. Until I’m jacking into the Matrix or firing up a holodeck and actually living the life, I’ve got no use for slapping on a pair of glasses that dim the screen, all so a handful of tracers can try to fool me into believing they’re headed towards my brain pan. Sorry, I’m not buying it. If they want me to feel like I’m really bounding off a Koopa’s head, I better feel it to believe it. Give me full tactile gaming instead of cheap parlor tricks any day of the week.

Somehow, I don’t think I’m alone, and I think the gaming industry is going to see yet another 3D fad rejected. In fact, 3D entertainment has a long history of wowing the masses at first glance before ultimately being rejected. It happened with 1950s monster movies, and again in the early 80s, when the slashers started hacking away at us from the silver screen, tossing a bucketful of green and red-tinged gore into the audience. And now we’ve got James Cameron and his CGI Smurfs to thank for the latest push for 3D.

That we can now buy 3D sets for our homes is the ultimate irony. See, the whole reason this fad came around once again is because movie studios and theater owners were looking at a declining marketplace. People don’t go see first-run movies the way they used to do. Sure, the big event pics get asses in seats, but most of the time that’s good for only one weekend. The number of repeat viewers peaked with 1997’s Titanic, when every teenage girl flocked back to the multiplex in hopes Leo would leave Rose to wilt and somehow take a chance on them. The days when people would return to see the same movie over and over again are gone with the wind.

Now that we live in an age when we can legally grab that first-run flick and project it in our own homes on TVs that rival the theaters (in terms of picture quality and the reduced likelihood of gunfire), people just wait a few months and watch it on their own time. And those that don’t want to wait, simply obey the pirate code of parlay and brave the bit torrents.

So, the industry looked for ways to bring people back, and once again that dusty old gimmick was pulled out of storage, given a fresh new coat of paint and set down before the masses. That’s where Cameron comes in with Avatar. The thing is, his flick was an anomaly. It was a tech demo meant to sell the promise of 3D, but it took tons of money and years of filming to pull that accomplishment together. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie and saw it projected on the big screen. But the majority of 3D flicks are quick cash-grab conversions that end up making the final product unpleasant and unwatchable (such as last year’s Clash of the Titans remake). It’s for this reason that I’ve only seen Avatar projected in 3D, and I would’ve been perfectly content watching it the old-fashioned way. Even when I bring my kids to see the latest Pixar flick, we always angle for the brighter 2D screening.

So 3D was brought out of storage to save the day and bring people back to the theaters. Yet barely a year has gone by and suddenly the marketplace is flooded with 3D sets, essentially sending people back to the comfy confines of their homes, scrapping the launch moments before liftoff. And of course, the console game developers have decided to jump on that rickety bandwagon.

Well, that’s a risky gambit. There will always be the fringe technological elite who buy up every new shiny bauble. The geeks love their “precious.” But the mainstream masses—those who took about 10 years to program a VCR, six years to fully adopt DVD, and have just now, in the last two to three years, finally put money down on a flatscreen—are unlikely to flock to new 3D sets, which require expensive glasses all for a gimmick that very rarely fires on all cylinders. So, the market is pretty slim and my gut feeling is, that’s the way it’ll stay. Home entertainment will eventually revert back to its original two-dimensional programming, albeit on better and better looking screens, and 3D will fade into the woodwork until we get to that grand future Hollywood has oft-promised and rarely delivered.

But first, I want my freakin’ hoverboard.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 35 comments

True confession time.

I applauded loudly the day Nintendo made a million Zelda fans bawl with their cel-shaded Wind Waker announcement.

When I discovered that Solid Snake’s mission in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was merely prologue to Raiden’s revelation, I tipped my cap to Kojima.

And in Halo 2, when Master Chief was kicked to the curb as we followed the Arbiter down some tricky, twisty paths, I saw the series in a whole new light.

Each one of these “controversial” decisions was a ballsy decision made to shake things up in service of the game, and I think gamers would be wise to embrace this outside-the-box game development. By definition, a game is a “problem” to solve. When you can predict every move it’s going to make, where’s the fun in that? So, I applaud any developer who seeks to throw us a wicked curve when we’re sitting on the fastball.

I raised those three examples for a reason. Each one of them led to incredible ire, igniting flame wars in the forums and gaming communities. In the case of Zelda, people decried the pretty pictures before they even had a chance to sit down and play the game. It was immediately dubbed kiddie, not the mature view gamers had hoped for when they first caught site of a lean, mean Link tussling with Ganondorf in that epic Spaceworld 2000 demo.

The only thing juvenile about it was that knee-jerk reaction. Hell, any gamer worth his salt should have looked upon The Wind Waker’s cartoon aesthetic and seen it for what it was: the first, full-blooded embodiment of those fabulous illustrations that dotted the original Legend of Zelda instruction booklets. That game, and its next few successors, used the booklets to voice a tale that the technology at the time could barely whisper.

Finally, the developers had the power to bring that vision to vibrant life. The result was a true work of art, the stuff of which my childhood dreams were made, stuff my adult self was mature enough to really appreciate. The cel-shading only served to render the game timeless, as its look would never go out of style. The same can’t be said of our current Gears of War and Call of Duty clones that live in the Uncanny Valley of current technology and will one day be doomed by it.

With Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima performed the unthinkable. He took that series’ major draw–Solid Snake–and removed him from the equation. And he did it all without anyone in the enthusiast press ever catching on until they sat down to play the game. If you take a look back at the wall-to-wall preview press, it all focuses on the game’s extended prologue–the insertion and takeover of a massive tanker steaming through the Hudson.

Sure, the game begins with players controlling Snake as he stealthily works his way through the imperiled ship, and all of the Metal Gear hallmarks are in place. But this is merely a master setting the chess table. Kojima aims to toy with us. By the time the ship capsizes and Metal Gear Rex is sprung, we’ve had the rug pulled from under us. Snake’s gone–first thought dead, then rumored to be leading the bad guys–and we’re in control of a whiny, golden-haired brat. We’ve lost Han Solo and are stuck with Luke, a trade no sane person would ever willingly make.

But I see the genius in the move. By seeing Snake through Raiden’s eyes, the character only grows larger in stature. He is Legend. And by the time Snake and Raiden team up, the myth of Solid Snake has been seared into memory.

That Kojima would then answer all that fanboy whining by giving us control of Snake, albeit Snake’s predecessor–and setting the action in the sixties–is the icing on the cake. As if that wasn’t enough, he capped things off in Guns of the Patriots by giving us a grumpy old geezer to control. The guy is a mad maestro with a wicked sense of humor.

Finally, there’s the famous Halo audible that left fanboys crying foul. After putting players in control of Master Chief for the opening salvo, we cut away to a Covenant tribunal, where an Elite named the Arbiter stands trial for Master Chief’s meddling in the first game. It’s in this sequence that the reality of his (meaning my) actions becomes muddied. What initially appeared to be a heroic act in the first game is viewed as heresy from the other side.

While the Arbiter might be swept up in a political conspiracy, as voiced by Keith David he is given great gravitas. He believes in what he’s fighting for. Suddenly, I’m rethinking everything I’ve done and seeing things through a new set of eyes. A change in perspective augments everything I thought was right. Any game that compels such cogent, questioning thoughts is doing something right. As much as I enjoyed Master Chief’s journey in that game, I couldn’t wait to get back to the Arbiter and learn more about this fascinating enemy.

Of course, fanboys kicked and screamed that if they couldn’t play with Master Chief, then they were going home. And that’s a shame, as it’s apparent Bungie took those criticisms to heart, with The Arbiter given much less to do in Halo 3. Sure, he was by your side, but he had certainly been sidelined.

I think that’s a tricky arena for developers to enter. Sure, you want to listen to what your fans like and dislike, but there is something to be said for the element of surprise. Sequels do well because people like comfort food; they love getting a second helping of something they enjoyed so much the first time. But as so many parents have found, embedding a sneaky little vitamin in the meal can bring about great benefits. When developers take chances and give us something we weren’t expecting, the rewards are vast. We grow as gamers.

This summer, the one film I’m looking forward to among a crowded field of genre fare is JJ Abrams’ Super 8.

With only six months left to go, Abrams has kept this one remarkably close to the vest. We know that it’s set in the 80s and pays homage to Steven Spielberg’s late seventies/early eighties work. When Abrams pitched the idea to Spielberg, the guy immediately jumped on as Executive Producer. Nobody knows the plot, although the trailer hints that it could be connected to Area 51. Aside from that, we know Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) is in the cast. And that’s all we know.

As a kid, I stared in awe at Spielberg’s innate ability to marry suburban reality with supernatural and extraterrestrial forces. As an adult, I grooved to Abrams’ epic myth-building, fervently following Alias, Lost and Fringe to some fantastic final destinations.

It’s almost as if he made this movie specifically for me.

I’m going to remain dark on this one, and then I’ll be there opening night. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed the discovery of a movie–with next to no knowledge about what was about to screen–since I went with a neighborhood friend to see Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark in the summer of 1981. My fire was lit then, and I would later devour every scrap of info I could find on my most anticipated movies, to the point where the element of surprise was robbed. I did it to myself, and I’ve often proceeded to enjoy whatever flick I read all about, but there is real magic in my Raiders memory. Now, as I write this six months in advance of the Super 8 premiere, I stand to recapture a little bit of that spark. That’s a gift I don’t intend to spoil.

The rest of this year could suck at the cinema. Hell, this movie could blow for all I care. All I know is, as I write this now, I couldn’t find out any information about this flick even if I wanted to…and I don’t want to…and knowing that this dream union could create something special, delivered specifically to me in a little less than six months from now, well that just brings me back to that nine-year old boy I once knew so well.

And how can that not make Super 8 my most anticipated movie of the year?

We live in an age when the element of surprise is virtually non-existent. We can know anything there is to know about anything with the click of a mouse. And anything we can’t find, that Wikileaks guy or TMZ is sure to dig it up for us.

So that’s why I encourage game developers to take chances and withhold their surprises.

While I appreciate the fast ball, toss me a changeup from time to time and really challenge me. After all, isn’t that why we play the game?

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

Tim Schafer is a gaming God.

Bow down to him. And while you’re at it, make sure you say 12 Hail Miyamotos, too.

We’re living in a pivotal time in our hobby’s existence. Video games have never been more popular. Much as the hardcore would hate to admit it, you have your Wiis and Kinect and Farmville to thank for that. The casual crowd has fully embraced gaming as a legitimate pastime, and that’s win-win for everybody. The more money tossed around out there, and the greater demand for gaming, the more we see niche genres getting some love, too. Digital distribution helps towards that end; a thought I’ll get to in a moment.

It’s not all sunshine and 1Up blocks, though. As popular as gaming has grown, the superstar developers have yet to yield cross-over household recognition. Sure, your typical soccer mom can discern Mario from Master Chief, but ask the average person to name their favorite game developer and you’ll likely get “Atari?” in response. If you ask someone to offer up their favorite film director, they might not be able to tell a Gore Verbinski from a Darren Aronofsky, but you’ll definitely get a Scorcese, Cameron or Spielberg thrown back at you.

And gaming certainly has a wealth of wizards who deserve the spotlight. Miyamoto. Kojima. Wright. Schafer. These guys are proof positive that somewhere in those labyrinthine lines of code, there lives a beating heart. One man looks at all those digits and churns out another cookie cutter shooter; another sculpts Shadow of the Colossus – gifting us a compelling argument for “games as art.”

As a longtime gamer, I appreciate all flavors, depending on the mood. There are times when a mindless shooter hits the spot, while other times, I need some brain food. Call of Duty might help me while away those long winter nights, but it’s games like Schafer’s Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts that comfort any worrisome thoughts I might entertain that it’s all just a waste of time.

I think some gamers harbor those guilty thoughts from time to time, likely a call back to when we were young and pushed from the nest with that oft-heard mother’s message: “It’s such a beautiful day outside.” Hell, like anything, as long as you game in moderation and take time to enjoy the other trivial pursuits that can entertain a life, there’s no shame in gaming. It’s how I unwind each day from whatever stresses the world has conspired to throw my way. After all, I wouldn’t walk around with my head hung in shame after watching The Godfather, should I ever actually get around to watching The Godfather. But that’s a thought for another day.

No, the point of this piece is to grant Tim Schafer his due. I know the world has moved beyond our blissfully archaic past when adventure games represented the apex of gaming technology, and Schafer has struggled a bit in getting his artistic vision to the masses. Those of us who know his name, know exactly what we’re getting in his game—an experience we couldn’t live without. That’s true even in the rare times when he stumbles a bit, such as 2008’s Brutal Legend, which painted a delightful world, gave us a unique story and then forced gamers into a watered-down real-time strategy affair that might have known the notes but didn’t quite deliver that rocking power ballad we’d come to expect. Even then, the experience of riding alongside Eddie Riggs, the greatest roadie that ever lived, was well worth plodding through the actual gameplay.

Brutal Legend didn’t sell nearly as many copies as it needed to, which is a shame, as EA fought mightily to shepherd this asset after it was unceremoniously left homeless in an Activision acquisition. EA took a chance on Schafer, but it seems gamers are less apt to take a chance on tasting anything unique. Certainly not as a main course. Gamers these days seem more open to experimentation when noshing on the bite-sized portions offered up via the various digital distribution channels such as Xbox Live Arcade, Steam and PSN.

That phenomenon could hold the key to Schafer’s future success.

In the last six months, Schafer’s crew of artisans at Double Fine have crafted two downloadable games, each as creative as the big-box products he churned out during his impressive career that began with him lobbing one-liners for the Monkey Island series.

Last October, the company released Costume Quest, a Halloween-themed romp that plays as a riff on the traditional turn-based role-playing game. The hook here is that children’s costumes morph into mighty forms – a power that comes in handy as they strive to fend off an army of candy-cribbing ghouls. Last week, the company struck again with Stacking, an adventure game that has players controlling a family of Russian matryoshka nesting dolls as they work in unison to settle a forced labor scandal. Both games echo Double Fine and Tim Schafer’s unofficial mantra that character matters.

These are the types of game experiences that nourish our gaming soul. I’ve played every Halo game, the same goes for Call of Duty, and while their broad-sweeping story beats stick with me, I’m hard-pressed to recite rhyme and verse of their narratives. All I know is I went from Point A to Point B, shooting along the way. And those games can be wonderfully cathartic. I always have a great time when playing with a party of my peers.

But the Schafer-directed games have colored my life.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 9 comments

I never buy protection.

Now, before you go fleeing for the exits thinking you’ve wandered into a Very Special Episode of The Ed Zone – relax; this is purely gaming related.

I’ll leave the pharmacy chat for Dr. Oz. No, I’m speaking specifically about that Game Disc Protection Plan that every counter jockey at your friendly big-box game store has been coerced to offer you each and every time you look to purchase another game. I guess $3 is not that steep a charge to save you from yourself. But if you have even the tiniest bit of self-control and can be counted on to refrain from using that new copy of Dead Space 2 for skeet practice, that’s three more bones that you can place as down payment on the next round of DLC that should have been on the disc in the first place.

I’m fundamentally opposed to this policy on two fronts.

For starters, my discs move from the case to the system and back to the case again. That’s the extent of their wandering. Occasionally they return to roost at my nearest game emporium, where whatever credit I get can be placed on purchasing the next Must Have title on my list. Not all of my games find this fate, but when you play as many as I do in a year, there’s bound to be a fair share that will simply collect dust. It takes something special to merit “BFF” status on my shelf. So, off they go.

By minimizing a game’s frequent flyer miles, the risk of injury or crash is seriously diminished. So whether it stays home with me or I kick it to the curb in favor of the next hotness, these discs always look like they just got their Born-on-Date that very day, even if I’ve owned the thing for a year. Not one blemish, nor scratch, nor fingerprint – and this is coming from a dude who shares a house with two small children and two rampaging labs. All have been trained to keep their paws off Daddy’s discs. And those that I trust my kids to handle are spotless. They’ve learned by watching me.

And yet, the used sections of the game store look like a forgotten M.A.S.H. unit. With boxes battered into submission, there’s no question that whatever disc that cashier places in the coffer is going to carry a few war wounds. Even the whole “Seven Days to Return It if You Have Any Issues” policy doesn’t provide much comfort. It’s bad enough I darken the doors of these strip mall swap meets a few times a month to get something new to play; the last thing I want to do is add another unnecessary trip because their merchandise never should have been bought back and pawned on me in the first place.

Which brings me to my second issue with the Protection Policy. Insurance implies that you are paying a premium to protect your most precious possessions. Yet every single square inch of the ever-expanding Used Game Section has been sandblasted by Price Stickers, Reduced Price Stickers, Coming Soon Stickers, Promo Stickers, etc. And trying to remove this adhesive assault once you’ve got the game in your mitts is a devilish task. Hell, Sisyphus had it easy when Zeus made him continually push a rock up hill, only to have it roll back down before he reached the top. With every one of these decals you remove, two more pop up in their place. And no amount of rubbing alcohol will do the trick.

My daughter once got gum stuck in her hair. An old wives’ tale told us to use peanut butter to remove the sticky substance. I have no idea who came up with that elixir (no doubt, once upon a time someone was trying to remove peanut butter from their hair and by using gum they realized the reverse was true). Regardless, those fabled old wives spoke the truth; the gum was removed without one follicle pulled from her head. To this day, I am still scratching away at a musty old copy of Twisted Metal Black masquerading as a tag sale. No amount of peanut butter will remedy my cause, not even the chunky kind.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

It’s that time of year again, when wishful lists are dutifully drafted before being checked and rechecked. That’s Santa’s job, you might argue, but I can’t leave anything to chance. Not in a household where, years ago, my wife quit frowning at the litany of digital bauble that dotted my list and began using common sense to appeal to my better nature. Did we really need a fifth 360 when a new dishwasher was demanding its way in? So, I stared down at my sweet little angels (my little boy Colin and daughter Aria) and realized quite quickly that these wee elves might be able to cobble the game carts I desire.

“Hey, I have no idea why Aria squeezed New Vegas in between The Littlest Pet Shop and Princess and the Frog discs, but look at that sweet little face. Do you really want to say no to that?”

That leads me to the safest domain on Earth, the Internet (or wait, is it a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”? I get them confused). Anyway, here I can ramble on with my Wish List in the hopes that somewhere out there, Kris Kringle will steer his peepers away from UpTreeSkirt.com to take a gander at my wish list and slot me over in that coveted “Nice” column. As I own a 360 and a Wii, and game primarily on those two systems, I am going to pick two titles per system.

In the Comments below, let me know if my choices mirror yours; or even better, tell me what rates high atop your list in the hopes that it finds its way beneath your tree.

All I Want for Christmas 2010 – Xbox 360

2. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Mike has already reviewed this on the site and gave it high marks. Even before he posted his thoughts, this one had my attention based on its pedigree. After all, this is from Ninja Theory, the developers behind the PS3-exclusive Heavenly Sword. While that game stumbled a bit with its pre-scripted combat, its cinematic eye caught mine.

With so many game developers aiming to ape Hollywood, Ninja Theory has taken the right track by drafting a gorilla of their own, bringing in King Kong himself, Andy Serkis, to provide motion-capture and help share the narrative flow in their games. For Enslaved they also drafted Alex Garland, the screenwriter behind 28 Days Later and the unfilmed Halo flick.

And that’s what I’m looking for in this game. I’m a sucker for third-person exploration games but grow weary of simple “go here because I said so” story beats. The word on this title is that the narrative hooks you and spins a great yarn. Stoke up that fire, ‘cause they got my ass in a seat.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Every year, as we close the calendar and look ahead to the next, we dream about what enchantments wait in the new year. Hell, with game developers delaying their big holiday titles with greater frequency, we have no choice but to wait, our eyes and minds teased with images of the next new “hotness,” while knowing that our thumbs will soon ache once that title finally goes gold.

Last year I took a different tack, opting to highlight a game that I was dying to play, but fearful that it wouldn’t measure up. I chose Bioshock 2, the follow-up to my favorite game of 2007 (and in my list of All Time Faves for this Decade). I knew Ken Levine wasn’t at the helm, and everything I saw simply gave me a sense of déjà vu. Been there. Done that.

I got a little heat for my completely subjective opinion, so when the time came to put up or shut up, I played the hell out of it. And for the first five hours or so, I was thrilled to be back in Rapture. All the good tidings from exploring those dank environs the first time came flooding back. But then, my initial apprehension revisited me. I realized that nostalgia was steering my thoughts, and this game, while a solid adventure, would never scale the revelatory narrative heights of the first one.

Which leads to a bit of cyclical karma as this snake keeps circling, noshing on its own tail. First I was in love with Bioshock. Then we broke up over Bioshock 2. And now I’m heartsick, seeking a desperate hope that we can really make this work again, with the revelation that Ken Levine was secretly steering Bioshock Infinite over the last two years.

Everything I have seen underscores EXACTLY what I felt this series should have done in the first place. Take the themes inherent to the original game and then EXPAND on them. Bring us somewhere we haven’t been before. And in an expert teaser, we are ripped from what appears to be a watery grave (actually a Rapture-influenced aquarium decoration) and find ourselves in a floating Utopia. With that, Levine has me hooked and has my brain engaged all over again.

Bioshock Infinite is now my MOST ANTICIPATED GAME…

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments

Last week, the video game industry held its annual convention in Los Angeles. Every year, game publishers, developers and mainstream press come together to get a sneak peek at the new titles heading our way for the upcoming holiday season and beyond at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. And each year, the conference just grows larger and larger in terms of scope and exposure, if not necessarily attendance (it’s been closed to the general public for a few years). With games occupying equal entertainment real estate as some of Hollywood’s largest blockbusters, the rest of the real world stops for a spell in June to take notice of what’s coming down the pike. You can ditch the Gamepro and scope all the sites on the Today show.

In prior years, I’ve made it an annual rite to cover each of the three big console manufacturers’ press conferences and offer the top 5 games that I’ve just got to play. Thing is, last fall we saw a new precedent develop in the industry. Publishers are afflicted with an irrational fear of Call of Duty, the FPS series that launches a new installment just before each Turkey Day.

I don’t get it.

Hollywood studios know how to counter-program, but for some inexplicable reason, game publishers think that one FPS is enough to rule them all, so we’ve started to see a number of big-ticket items moving beyond the holiday frame and into the late winter months. While that makes for a nice salve for the usual doldrums that settle in once the Christmas tree is mothballed, I think this industry is large enough for all genres to flourish at the same time. It just takes a little creative marketing to get noticed. Hell, grab hold of social networking and let Facebook do all the hard work for you. If they can get Betty White to stay up past her bedtime, I’m sure a little viral campaign could move a few additional copies of Dante’s Inferno. Or maybe that’s a tall order for that bad example.

The point is, I’ve learned from this latest E3 that the majority of compelling content shown has a slim chance of seeing store shelves anytime in the next six months. So, while Metal Gear Rising rates a Day 1 purchase with its “cut everything all the time” gameplay, it will have to wait until 2011 to grab face time on my blog. For the purpose of this piece, I aim to showcase the games I know are coming in 2010 that I’m just chomping at the bit to play. Also, there’s no rhyme or reason to how I’ve organized this post. There are lots of thoughts bouncing around in this brain pan, and I’m just gonna pour them out. Let me know what you think in the Comments below.

Before I hit the games, though, I do want to spend a paragraph or two giving my reactions to the Microsoft press conference, which focused almost solely on their new tech and less on catering to the hardcore gamers who arguably make up their loyal constituency.

Nintendo used to infuriate me with their E3 press conferences, which have worked overtime to get Matt Lauer’s attention ever since they debuted Wii Fit in 2007 and The Today Show gave it the 7 am spotlight the very next day. From that point on, Nintendo has forgotten the core audience that has brought them to where they were, and has decided to cater to the casual crowd. And their conferences were engineered to grab more air time on Ellen and Oprah than on G4TV.

This year, Microsoft, in its continued push to wrest control of the dominant market share that Nintendo holds among the mainstream gamer, took a page from the big N’s playbook and turned the bulk of their 90-minute presentation into a Kinect infomercial. Kinect is essentially and unapologetically an HD Wii. Sure, it has some amazing next-gen interface control features that enable people to make that cool Minority Report tech a reality, but the games they’ve built for this overpriced add-on to the existing Xbox 360 look like nothing more than enhanced versions of Wii Sports. There’s really nothing new being brought to the table.

And I think the major marketing push that they are going to launch in a bid to lure the casual consumers who finally put a game system in their living room with the Wii is going to fall flat. After all, to the casual eye, the Nintendo Wii looks great. Most of these newborn gamers haven’t owned a system since the NES days, so the Wii marks a major evolutionary step. I find it hard to believe that they are going to be coaxed into dropping another $200 for a 360 Slim Arcade and another $150 for the Kinect system just to have an HD Wii that plays prettier versions of Wii Bowling. So, that’s one major share of the market that should remain in Nintendo’s back pocket.

This leaves the hardcore crowd, who I think have been left cold by all this Kinect commotion. Kinectimals isn’t going to sell them on the virtual pets (unless they can unleash them on their prey), and from what I’ve found in the hardcore crowd, they tend to play games for a long time. Hours upon hours, deep into the night. For a system that is rumored to have trouble detecting players that are sitting down, I think many gamers are going to tire of running around their living room, even if Activision is able to offer a motion-sensitive Call of Duty. And talk about arm fatigue.

So, at the end of the day, this is a novelty priced too high to entice new users, offering nothing new that Wii owners don’t already have, aside from easier ways to page through their Netflix queues. It might make for a nice building block for the 360′s successor, but for this longtime gamer (and inhabitant of a Wii-60 household), it does nothing for me.

And here’s the last thing I’ll say on this before diving into the games I’ve just got to play in 2010. Nintendo might move more units of the Wii than the 360 and PS3, but one place it lags behind is in games per units sold. Sure, their systems sell a ton of games, but when you break down the numbers, 360 and PS3 owners are more likely to buy five or more games a year than Wii owners, who might purchase only one or two. With console manufacturers constantly claiming they lose coin on every unit sold, it’s the software that makes them their bank. The 360 and PS3 are holding court over gamers, whose hobby has aged nicely alongside them and who now have more disposable income than ever before. In fact, even though we are suffering through a horrible economy, gaming has continually seen an uptick. After all, once you lay down your $60, you have a month’s worth of entertainment ahead of you. Not a bad return on investment.

So, I think Microsoft and Sony need to be careful what they wish for in luring those coveted casuals, as they tend to be a fickle bunch. Don’t get me wrong, more players of all types are crucial to the success of this industry and the health of this hobby, and that’s why companies need to cater to all demographics. It’s OK to cut in from time to time, but dance with the one who brought you there, too.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Early this season, when the episode titles were announced, my eyes fixed on The End. A title so simple, so bold and so perfect. It told us absolutely nothing except the one unwavering fact – All Good Things Must Come to an End!

After all, we are the rare breed. The fans of a show who knew the exact end date two years ago. There would be no more aimless wandering and wondering once Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse secured the ‘all clear’ to plant their flag on a finale and then begin a 2 & 1/2 year journey toward that final destination. Fans knew that the show would never run on until the ad revenue petered out and ABC halfheartedly pulled the plug, and we wouldn’t feel the sting of an abrupt cancellation that would leave us with five billion story threads tattered and dangling.

Lindelof and Cuse secured Carte Blanche to tell their story the way they wanted to. While it is up for debate whether or not they had a master plan from the beginning, or simply used the iconography introduced in Season 1 as a course map for the Back Nine, there’s no denying that their mission was clear. Each episode would have a purpose even if it didn’t exactly appear that way at first blush.

So while I knew the end was nigh, the deeper ramifications didn’t sink in until midway through last week. For the end of Lost meant the end of this series of blogs. Oh yeah, that’s right, I have a personal stake in this. Where’s my flashback/forwards/sideways?

So, this is The End, and there’s only more thing to do. For the last time ever… Let’s get Lost!

I’m going to get this out of the way right up front. If your interpretation of finale’s events is that they were all dead all along, you are dead wrong. Just so we don’t have to dance around it, I’m going to come right out and lay it down. Everything that happened on the island (from the initial plane crash to the hatch discovery to the freighter incursion/rescue to the time-travel shenanigans to the 3-Year Jump ahead where we found a suicidal Jack striving to get back home to the uncorked glory hole to the death of MiB and Jack and the crowning of Hurley) REALLY HAPPENED!!! Christian Shepherd said so at the very end. Everything happened. And although Jack comes face-to-face with his “loved ones” in that eternal waiting room at the end, time is nebulous. Some of those people died before Jack (i.e. Charlie under the sea, Boone in Season 1, Shannon via gut-shot while others died after Jack), and for all we know, Hurley lived a long, healthy life as steward of the island. It was only some time, way down the line, in a land where time doesn’t matter much, hat they all “awakened” to their former life and reconnected via a very special guy, who made a promise to Jack once upon a time. “See you in another life, brother.”

The reason I say this, is that I have seen too much griping on Facebook (with people misinterpreting those final moments), as if everything was all a fever dream in Jack’s mind. What happened, happened , and couldn’t have happened any other way. Need proof? If they all died in the initial plane crash, and the last six years was all a “dream”, there is NO WAY Jack would know any of them (certainly not baby Aaron). And for those confused, baby Aaron is still a baby there because that’s how Jack remembers him.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments

When we turned the page to Monday, it hit me. In one week’s time, we’ll get the final three and a half hours of this epic tale, and then we’re done. A tough pill to swallow especially after receiving last week’s information download regarding the true nature of the island that almost unanimously fell like a 10-ton crocodile statue. I’ve scoured the web and aside from the blind faithful (every cult has them), you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who really, truly appreciated the episode.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to that and I think I finally hit upon the reason why. It’s not so much what the island is, but how we were told this in such exacting detail. Sure, the cave of light (as rendered on a TV series’ modest budget) looked ripped from Land of the Lost. And we all know this is a visual medium so if you’re going to express a heady sci-fi infused spiritual ideal, you’d better nail the visual as it’s going to tattoo itself to the mainstream psyche.

But it goes beyond that. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the show runners who penned that offending episode, made a major misstep. By opening on that shipwreck and telling a straight-forward tale, minus the usual flash back/forward/sideways shenanigans that is this show’s shorthand, the viewers immediately accepted that this is how it all went down. Don’t even bother looking for metaphor or alternate interpretation. This is the straight shizzle!!!

I think this tale would have been best told as myth. And I know exactly how they could have done it. Cave paintings!!!

On an island brimming with all kinds of cross-cultural penmanship including hieroglyphics, why not have Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley stumble across a mysterious cave? After all, the island’s brimming with them. As they investigate, they find cryptic drawings. Uncovering each puzzle piece, we flash to their interpretation of what they are seeing.

And don’t just present the story of two squabbling brothers – despite its biblical import. Let us trip throughout time to all of the major milestones that have befallen the island. Let us see this thing at creation and then pop in and out as various settlers heed the call to the island – bringing with them artifacts of their native civilizations and then ultimately lead us to the battle between Jacob and MiB. I think a cave painting, depicting this battle of the two brothers, perhaps with MiB immersed in a death shroud of ominous, black smoke, would sell his menace much better than seeing the whole story told straight. Because the way they did it just made it all seem so petty, and this tale needs to be mythic. Anyway, that’s how I would have done it.

We’ve got a few more hours left to go, so let’s end on a high note and get Lost.

What They Died For opens up moments after Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley, still reeling from the tragic events of the night before, compose themselves on the beach. Despite two weeks of wishful thinking, it appears Kate merely suffered a flesh wound and is back on her feet after the good doc sews her up. Of course, I begrudge the normally sourpuss Katie, but I will admit that I do like this ragtag band of survivors and we’ve had enough death so from here on out, she’s back in my good graces. I am, however, still taking odds on who I think lives and dies before this thing is finished. I’ll offer up my Dead Pool at the end.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | One comment

When I was in college (way back in the flannel-decked intro to the Nineties) I found that one semester, I glommed onto The Doors’ The End something fierce. As a raging Pearl Jam fan, I think I spied a kissing cousin in Morrison’s moody evocative lyricism and that song bridged worlds to PJ’s heralded disc Ten, which felt more like an anthem of my soul than Nevermind ever did. Maybe it’s because I was a year or two off from really giving off that Teen Spirit scent. Who knows?

Anyway, back then, as I chased down my Journalism degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, I found myself ‘hired on’ as a scribe for the University’s daily newspaper, The Collegian, where I quickly made the jump from hard news stories to the Arts & Living desk. There I could point my pen towards the world of entertainment, which really lit my fire. As a raging film buff, it was one step removed from my dream job destination – screenwriting.

Of course, being a dumb college student, I decided way too late (like the night before graduation) that I never really wanted to be a journalist but had my heart rooted in more creative endeavors. In another life, I should have followed my own road less traveled and beat my feet West for those Hollywood Hills the second I grabbed that diploma. There I might have found my true calling or at the very least, penned Saw VII. Ahh, perchance to dream.

The point is that The End stuck in my craw just as I was nearing my own finale. Every time I took a crack at a screenplay, I always found my scripted scenarios leading down some dark paths and the song played over and over in my head as soundtrack to those thoughts. It’s that concept (the unavoidable finality of everything) that has always intrigued me. The notion that when we know the end is coming, and how do we all individually prepare, really stokes my creative spark. The End justifies the means.

So, last night, as Lost teased next week’s second-to-last episode by drawing upon The Doors, I felt that same charge. Over the past few weeks, theories that I’ve discussed on these pages have suddenly come to bear. The surprises seem fewer as for the most part, we’ve correctly puzzled this out. And yet, I can’t help but wonder what The End holds and choke back a little bit of melancholia knowing that in less than two weeks, this is The End.

All right. Let’s get Lost.

For the second time this season, Lost dispensed with the regulars to give us an eye-opening peek into the island’s warped history. The first came when we got Richard Alpert’s episode-long flashback in Ab Aeterno, which despite featuring a pivotal turn for Hurley, largely focused on Richard and his strange connection to Fantasy Island. With only 3 episodes left, they wisely gave us some back-story on our two mysterious benefactors: Jacob and the still-unnamed Man in Black. It was a good tale that teased a few more questions while conclusively answering a bunch more. And while we got some concrete answers, as Jacob’s mysterious “mother” said early on, “any questions you have will just lead to more questions.” Take this to mean that some of what was “revealed” in this episode will largely be left to interpretation.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | One comment

A lot to cover today. Let’s get Lost.

You know you’re in for it when “Lost” opens without the trademark “Previously on ‘Lost’.” It’s as if the producers don’t want to waste any time, knowing they have a full docket before them and precious few moments to spill all the details. In other words, it’s time to get down to business.

So we pick back up with the alternate John Locke post-surgery, meeting with the intrepid Jack Shepherd, who has come to admire his handiwork while offering Locke a little twist. It seems the normally opposing forces of Jack and Locke share one thing in common: in two disparate timelines, each is being groomed for special candidacy. For Locke, it’s Jack who brings him to the fertile grounds of experimental surgery, citing a procedure that could potentially give him what his otherworld doppelganger always sought: the ability to walk. Jack offers to “fix” him and seems fairly certain that he can do so with minimal risk. But alas, the good doc finds the ability to fix everything frustratingly out of his grasp, as this Locke wants nothing to do with regaining his sea legs. And that sets Jack off on a mission to crack the core of what makes this man tick.

It’s this investigation which leads Jack along a trail of increasingly mounting coincidences. Looking to get some background on Locke’s prior injury in a bid to understand why he’d turn down a guy offering miracles, Jack runs across Bernard the Dentist, who gives him the name Anthony Cooper, but also tips Jack to a strange quirk of fate. Seems Bernie was on Oceanic Flight 815, alongside Jack and Locke. And Bernard makes it quite clear to Jack that that fact is a bit curious. It’s enough to lodge in Jack’s brain.

And when he comes across Claire, who’s carrying a special package passed on to her in his dad’s will, Jack adds another member to the growing cadre of Flight 815 passengers whose lives are steadily being drawn together. The music box doesn’t rate specific significance yet, although once again we’re treated to a mirror world motif, as both Jack and Claire catch themselves staring into their reflections. In this sideways world, that’s been a recurring trend, as if the characters are subconsciously drawn to the reflection and somehow have this nagging itch that that’s all they really are—a reflection of some far off reality. The music box also pumps out a familiar little ditty (“Catch a Falling Star”), which Claire was so fond of singing to baby Aaron.

It’s just prior to this sequence that we catch another wrinkle in time, as an unconscious alternate-Locke talks in his sleep, muttering his key catch phrases: “Don’t push the button” and “I wish you had believed me.” Echoes of another time picked up my souls that are just now awakening to their broadcast.

Jack finally tracks down Anthony Cooper, but before their little meet and greet, he encounters Locke’s beloved Helen, who warns him from prying into the drama that surrounds this tragic father and son. In a startling twist of fate, Anthony Cooper is practically catatonic, and as we would later learn, in this new reality, fate bitch-slapped the old bastard by letting him ride shotgun when Locke took the reins of a plane on his maiden flight. Once again, this poor man has suffered grave indignity, with the subsequent plane crash robbing both father and son of their ability to walk, while also leaving Anthony even worse for wear. And it’s this guilt that prevents Locke from fixing himself, for no matter how whole he can become, his dad will remain a hollow shell. And it’s here that Jack Shepherd gets to lay his healing hands upon Locke, aimed straight for his wounded psyche. While it might be instinct to hang on tight when trying to fix something, sometimes the real healing comes in letting go.

On the island, events rush forward with grave momentum. I’ll admit, I was a bit taken aback by how Sawyer and crew were captured. I usually have a photographic memory for this stuff, but it seems to me that the last time we saw them, they were sailing away on the ocean blue. Now they’re captive and being marched to those polar bear cages, with Sawyer secretly hoping someone swapped the fish biscuits with Teddy Grahams.

So, despite the fact that I felt a momentary bout of panic that last week was not a hiatus and I had somehow missed a show, I just rolled with it. They were caught, and that’s all we need to know. And in rapid fashion, MiB Locke, Sawyer and Jack kick-start the great escape leading to one of the series best lines, as Jack motions to the ominous black smoke and says matter-of-factly, “I’m with him.” Bottom line – I never get tired of the Black Smoke kicking ass.

With the gang all together for what seems like the first time since Season 4, they make their move on the plane. The pacing is so crisp in this episode. In seasons past, I could easily see the escape being an episode of its own, followed by the plane portion being another episode. But with no time to spare, MiB is on the march, and it really pumps the adrenaline. MiB saves the effects guys an extra day of work by just charging the plane as some Satanic Superman, letting his enemies’ bullets go to waste as he busts a cap and breaks a neck. And then he calls an audible, showing Jack and company the C4 he found rigged to the plane. And in a little master touch, he lays out his later plan in matter-of-fact detail while attributing it to Widmore. Simply put, Widmore had aimed to get them all in one place, where he could kill them. A plan that sounds suspiciously like what I theorized several weeks back when our brains were chomping on all this candidate conspiracy mumbo-jumbo. My feeling then was that MiB needed all of the candidates together so he could get them all killed in one fell swoop. With no candidate left to become the next Jacob, he would finally have his loophole and be free to infest the Earth.

MiB tells them this while leaving out the part in which he plans to do the exact same thing at the submarine. And that’s where Sawyer’s season-long con gets trumped by the greatest con man of all, as El Diablo gets the drop on Jack’s backpack, inserting a little C4 surprise. With 3:42 to go (and five minutes away from the surface), Jack and company realize that they have only two options. They can either go the scientific route and pull the two wires that should sever the explosive ties, or embrace the newly born man of fate, Jack, as he assures them that so long as none of them does anything to monkey with the explosives, they will be completely fine. Jack gets it right. Only Man can embrace his free will and kill himself. Of course, that blind faith proves a bitter pill to swallow for Sawyer, whose actions essentially doom the majority of them.

There Will Be Blood. I knew that with five episodes left, we were due to lose a castaway or two, but I never thought it would go down like this – and so quickly. In the span of 15 minutes, Kate is shot (and therefore not out of the woods), Sayid is lost but not before finding a tiny hint of redemption, the bewildered Frank checks out, and then we get the one-two gut-punch with both Jin and Sun going down with the sub. A moment weighted with heartbreaking impact, as we realize that these two are leaving a beautiful little girl all alone in this suddenly uncertain world. And those last moments, as Jin and Sun revert back to their native tongue to express their undying devotion before clasping hands and ultimately drifting apart, are pretty devastating.

There are still four more episodes left in which Lindelof and Cuse can cull the herd. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Reaper, and my money is on Kate succumbing to that injury and Sawyer pulling off some sacrificial heroics. Or, given Sawyer’s actions on the sub, perhaps this is setting up nicely for that final shot, in which Jack (the new Jacob) and Sawyer (the new MiB) meet on the shore for a little jaw session while the wheel of fortune spins its way around again.

See you next week for episode 6.15, “Across the Sea,” which reportedly tells the backstory of Jacob and the Man in Black. This one is billed as a huge info-dump on the true nature of the island. I cannot freakin’ wait.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments

Ever since Lost debuted back in 2004, the networks have sprinkled their Fall seasons with any number of genre fair looking to bottle that same lightning. And, for the most part, none have come close to finding their Lost, X-Files or Twin Peaks. I think these shows that instantly capture the zeitgeist before paring down to a carefully cultivated cadre of fans who would follow the show down whatever dark rabbit hole it travels, are few and far between. It’s as if mankind hasn’t the mind strength to tackle these brain benders but once a decade.

So, knowing the end was coming and that the Fall schedule would likely be chock full of another round of also-rans (Threshold, V, FlashForward, Heroes, etc.), I had the sneaking suspicion that my last Lost post would be truly bittersweet. What the hell else was I going to write about, aside from my standard nonsensical ramblings about family and whatnot? Who wants to read that, anyway?

Then it hit me. Perhaps I should pass the baton. While Lost is occupying my fever dreams of late, I have really cottoned to J.J. Abrams’ X-Files homage, Fringe, which is weeks away from closing out a stellar sophomore season.

Fringe is a curious show. I started watching it last season, lured by the Abrams stamp. I’ll watch anything this guy has his hand in – yes, even Felicity which really was a pretty decent show – and this is coming from a guy who doesn’t watch a ton of TV and when he does, sticks to the comedies or dense mythological character dramas. But Abrams won me over as a fan awhile back and I’m always eager to see what he has in store.

So, Abrams set the snare and the X-Files vibe was the bait. After all, that’s my all-time favorite TV show and although Mulder turned in his badge almost a decade ago, he’ll always be that man crush.

With all that said, Fringe should have been a slam dunk but for some reason, I just couldn’t get into it. There was a chill to the atmosphere that instead of leaving me breathless just rendered me bored. For those that don’t know, the show follows an FBI agent who is partnered with a disgraced “mad” scientist and his son to investigate strange cases that reside on the fringe of science – think things like teleportation, time travel, etc. Essentially – Fringe Division is the X-Files – which in a neat scene earlier this season got a shout out as a forebearer to Fringe division when a Congressional sub-committee classified their work as case files formerly designated ‘X’.

I had an on-again, off-again affair with show last season, until I started watching it near the end of the season last May and suddenly it clicked. The mythology they concocted (involving parallel universes) was genuinely cool, and led to a jaw-dropping finale that acted as a seed for things that are beginning to flourish now. Where I finally grabbed the hook last season, I found myself completely ensnared this year. This is a show that is rivaling Lost in terms of balancing the grand mythological beats with the smaller character drama, and it does the X-Files one better by effortlessly layering in the mythology into the stand-alone episodes. You never get the sense that the viewer is asked to sit back for a spell until the next sweep session for their next nugget of overarching plot development. They’ve been ladling this stuff all season and where it’s heading is truly compelling.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Is it just me or are these weeks flying by with reckless abandon?

Seriously, with the three-hour series finale looming on May 23, we’re only four episodes away from “The End.” And it seems like it’s only just begun.

I think a lot of this might have to do with the scheduling. For the first few seasons, “Lost” ran on Wednesdays. It made for a nice Hump Day spell. You looked forward to it all week, and when the hour was up, the weekend didn’t seem that far away. Then they moved the show to Thursdays and the wait between episodes seemed interminable.

Tuesday seems to be the best spot. We get an episode and then get busy with the rest of our week. The weekend flies in and out in a hurry, and once we’ve turned the page on that Manic Monday, we get the “Previously on ‘Lost’” reminder and then it’s straight down the rabbit hole again. That being said, this seems like the swiftest-moving season thus far. It’s gonna be a shame when it’s all done, but at the same time, “Fringe” seems to be picking up the baton nicely, so at least I’ll have that obsession to chew on next season.

All right; enough about that. Let’s get Lost.

One of the interesting aspects of this season has been the “mirror world” approach. While we’ve seen it in the alternative-sideways universe (which I’ll spend a good chunk of parchment detailing below), this approach has also bled out to the episode titles as well. In particular, the writers have been paying homage to the first season and applying little wrinkles to familiar sights seen way back when the show was young. Hence, Season 1′s “What Kate Did” became this season’s “What Kate Does.” The trend continues with the first season’s “Everybody Hates Hugo” flipped on its head in favor of “Everybody Loves Hugo.”

And that’s where we find ourselves in the opening moments. Miles’ museum-curator daddy, Dr. Pierre Chang, provides a glowing retrospective of the Man of the Year, Hugo Reyes—an award backed by a glowing recap of everything that has gone right in Hugo’s world and the good will this philanthropist has spread throughout the world. An extension of good tidings that flows completely contrary to the tide of bad luck that the original Hugo felt dogged his every step, like that nagging Hurley Bird that called out his name in the first-season finale.

And with alterna-Hurley’s positive spin on life, once again we find more conclusive proof that this alternative world could, in fact, be a “wish fulfillment” extension of the true timeline that we have followed from the beginning. More and more, these sideways jaunts appear to be the result of gifts granted to the castaways as part of a reboot. My personal belief is that this extension of the timeline came from the Man in Black making it off the island and recasting everyone in different variations of how their lives should have played out. They are none the wiser to his victory, or at least they weren’t until Desmond woke up.

This is what I touched on last week in Desmond’s episode. Think of “The Matrix.” Like Neo, Desmond has now had his eyes opened to a cruel deception. He and the other castaways are all living seemingly decent lives, recast towards a better end and oblivious to their stay on the island. But, in last week’s episode, the island Desmond was once again sent spiraling through time and space and booted into his alternative consciousness, where he influenced the other Desmond and allowed him to peek into the life he formerly had. One in which he found Penny, loved her, lost her, got stranded on an island, pushed a button for three years straight, was reunited, was shot, and was returned to the island, only to be sent on that journey. Personally, I believe both timelines are variations of each other. Everything we’ve seen since the first season, with the plane crashing and all of the deaths, really happened. As did this alternative timeline stuff. I feel that the alternative timeline is the result of MiB winning. And I think that Desmond now believes he can somehow tie the two timelines together to keep the positive happy endings he spied in “Happily Ever After,” while also making sure that MiB’s reboot works and making sure MiB is killed in the process. Essentially, a compromise of the two timelines. Hence, his mission to show the alternative timeline castaways their former lives. More to come on that below.

So, alternative Hurley comes face-to-face with the newly enlightened Desmond, who gives him the little push needed to see the light. A couple of weeks back, I talked about how I thought Jack was being groomed as the new Jacob, and I still think that’s true. That being said, I was struck by how Desmond’s approach in this alternate timeline mimics Jacob’s MO. Think back to last season’s finale, with Jacob making the rounds at various points in each core castaway’s life and placing his touch on them, marking them for passage to the island. In a way, Desmond is on a similar journey. Instead of coming right out and telling them what he knows (which would sound nuts), he’s pushing them towards this awakening. And his first mark is made with Hurley, whom he sends on a delayed date with Destiny.

This date is the one Michael so rudely interrupted when he capped Ana-Lucia and Libby in the Hatch to buy Ben’s freedom way back in Season 2. Libby had been on a run to find blankets for their picnic when Michael blew it. But, as we’ve seen all season long, this alternative world has a way of making the impossible real. And it’s here that Libby is alive, albeit still enrolled in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Hospital, the same facility where she first locked eyes on Hurley, way back when. Also the same hospital where a Connect 4-playing nut job first implanted those cursed numbers in Hurley’s consciousness.

And while this happy-go-lucky Hurley has never been in this hospital (to the best of his knowledge), Libby is already vexed by visions of the other side, seeing through this time to a previous one, when Hurley was a resident there. And as we learned last week, the key to breaking these bonds is “true love.” Charlie talked about seeing his beloved in the last moments of his life on Oceanic Flight 815, a death that was then delayed by the crusading Dr. Shepherd. Desmond, of course, was touched by Penny and immediately “got it.” And as Hurley shared a long-awaited kiss, he suddenly saw it all. A love cruelly ripped from him and a life he had indeed lived before he and the others had the curtain pulled over their eyes.

Which is why I believe MiB is behind all of this. It’s simplistic to say, but it makes sense. If he is pure evil incarnate, then it makes symbolic sense that true love would reveal the chink in his armor, the great weakness. And in the last two weeks, expressions of true love have rendered the walls between alternate timelines thin and transparent. And malleable? Love will conquer all.

Back on the island, there were some major revelations and questions answered. For starters – the whispers. Way back when the series first began, all sorts of crazy theories popped up about the true nature of the island. Many people thought the survivors were all dead and this was purgatory, an idea to which the writers tipped their caps a few weeks back in the Richard Alpert episode. Well, they are not all dead, but the dead do walk the place, and in a way, some of these souls are kept from leaving the island, held captive by the ever-escalating war between Jacob and MiB. And with the reappearance of Michael, who joins a long, sad litany of people who have died in service of the island’s whims, we learn the whispers are the restless rustling of those souls who can’t seem to break on through to the other side.

Michael appears to be doing penance for his past misdeeds. As we saw when he returned a couple of seasons back. the island isn’t done with him yet. It wouldn’t let him kill himself off island, as there was still work to be done, only to have him blown sky high aboard the freighter as a sacrifice to save his fellow survivors. And even in death, he is not free, being sent on another errand to warn Hurley off of the doomsday plot to blow up the plane. Now, it remains to be seen if Hurley is being manipulated by MiB, who we know just loves walking around as the living dead.

Despite Hurley’s warning, Iliana goes the way of Dr. Arzt and blows herself to smithereens (I’ve always wanted to write that). Ben, of course, intuits it perfectly. She has completed her mission, meaning the island was done with her, thus removing her from the tale. And again, it casts the true nature of the island (and Jacob) in a darkened light. Here was a woman whom we have seen has had a pretty torturous life. She was brought back to life by Jacob to serve him. And for her devotion and servitude, she gets blown sky high. Makes you wonder.

This leads Hurley on another desperate search-and-destroy mission. In Season 1, he wanted nothing to do with the Hatch, an edifice that he felt was responsible for all the bad things in his life. His curse. And now, with Michael’s marching orders, he aims to dash the Black Rock (and its neverending supply of dynamite) to prevent a catastrophic attack on the Ajira Airlines plane parked on Hydra Island. At the very least, we’re assured nobody else will accidentally blow themselves up in the remaining few episodes. OSHA would have a field day on this island.

In an episode brimming with mirror-image variants on prior themes and scenes, we come to yet another, with Locke brought to meet “The Package.” Locke is intrigued by Desmond’s appearance and even more so by his complete willingness to spill every detail that Charles Widmore has provided him. Of course, like Sayid, Desmond says he doesn’t feel fear, although he is not the mindless zombie that Sayid has become. This Desmond now feels he has a purpose and has embraced his destiny, knowing full well how special he truly is. Which calls to mind John Locke’s complete willingness to buy into his belief that the island and Jacob have chosen him.

It’s that belief that prompted a jealous Ben to show Locke a pit full of bodies (the remnants of the DHARMA Initiative) before leveling him with a gut-shot and tossing him in the pit. And in this episode, the wonder ball goes round and round, with John Locke (aka MiB) showing Desmond yet another island secret before tossing him in a “pit” – or down a well. One that once upon a time vexed many an islander with its tendency to play havoc with instrumentation; signs of a massive electromagnetic pocket. Now, knowing what MiB Locke now knows, did he toss Desmond into that well to kill him or because he feels it will have a beneficial effect on his plans?

The jury is out on that, but the act could have colored the final scene, in which we now find Desmond parked outside Locke’s school. After fending off Ben’s inquisition, Desmond takes aim at Locke and runs the helpless man down in the street. While Locke has a long, sad life brimming with these cruel twists of fate, this has all the earmarks of a targeted assassination. Desmond might be aiming to show his fellow survivors the other side, but I’m not sure that was his intent here. It’s not like we saw him presiding over the marriage of John and Helen and ushering in another example of true love. Instead, this makes me think that Desmond has returned to this body with some new memories, memories of an evil Locke tossing him down a well. And now he has a new wrinkle on time. Not only must he show the survivors the light, he also needs to eradicate the darkness to set things right. And I believe that he believes MiB does indeed succeed and continues to reside in the off-island frail body of John Locke. The ultimate “Twilight Zone” ending. MiB makes it off of his island prison and creates this alternate timeline, yet he himself remains imprisoned in John Locke’s frail body. But not for long. Not if Desmond has anything to say about it.

That’s all for this week. See you next week for Episode 6.13, “The Last Recruit.”

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

A lot to chew on this week. Let’s get Lost.

I mentioned last week that I had a sneaking suspicion Desmond was the “package” Widmore ordered, when he described it as a “who” and not a “what.” After all, Henry Ian Cusick has been listed prominently in the credits since the Season 6 opener, meaning the producers weren’t going to waste our intrepid time traveler on a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo conversation with Jack. So, it was just a matter of time before Dezzie popped up, and as soon as he arrived at the tail end of last week’s episode, I knew we were in for a satisfying hour. Desmond’s episodes are always in lock-step with Locke’s; they’re always heady with the mythological beats, and they always plumb the emotional depths that are so core to this tale.

Therefore, “Happily Ever After” serves as a fitting ending to the themes posed in Desmond’s last great story, one of the series’ best hours – Season 4′s “The Constant.” In that one, we followed Desmond on his journey through time, a pilgrimage kick-started when he turned the fail-safe key in the hatch and sucked in countless volts of electromagnetic energy, a concentrated blast of power that should have killed him but only served to illustrate Eloise Hawking’s assertion that Desmond is both special and key to the island’s mysteries. The event sent his consciousness on a warped trip through his life, a journey in which he was fully cognizant of the fate that would befall him later on. It was a brave episode that did a great job of defining “Lost”’s version of time travel; it’s not so much a physical journey, but one rooted in the mind. And it made it crystal clear that Desmond is special, as was memorably demonstrated in the emotionally cathartic moment when Desmond reached across space and time to cold call his lucky Penny on Christmas Eve and pledged his undying love, thereby planting the seeds that would grow into his rescue and his reunion with his beloved.

It’s worth noting that in Homer’s “Odyssey,” the hero follows a world-spanning journey across the sea in pursuit of his beloved Penelope. I’ve always said that at its core, “Lost” is about these characters and is ultimately a story about love. Penny and Desmond’s bond is the key to it all, and based on what was revealed in this episode, this could be the uniting force needed to stave off whatever dire fate the Man in Black has planned for the world. More on that in a moment.

So, “Happily Ever After” begins with Desmond waking in Charles Widmore’s makeshift science lab, safely ensconced on Hydra Island. As we have six episodes left until the finale, Charles doesn’t dance around facts; he comes right out and says that Desmond was kidnapped from his hospital bed (where we last saw him after taking a bullet from Ben when the bug-eyed bastard went gunning for Penny to even the score with Charles). Desmond is told that he is special, having been the only person to survive a massive blast of electromagnetic energy, and that it would be easier for Charles to show Desmond where he fits in the grand plan, rather than simply telling him about it.

So Charles Xavier…errr Widmore…marches his makeshift X-Man over to the science lab to show him a little experiment he and the evil Tina Fey have whipped up. But before Desmond can chase the caged white rabbit down whatever wormhole its headed, we get a quick demonstration of the defunct DHARMA tech. With one red-shirt technician fried, Widmore decides the hell with the bunny and simply throws Desmond in the box to see what happens. After all, it was only a few hours ago that Smokey was sniffing around the sonic fence threatening imminent war, so there isn’t much time to waste.

And that’s when Desmond gets a second blast from the past. Only, where the first time Desmond was sent spiraling backwards to the key moments in his life (with his contemporary consciousness aiming to change the past to avoid the island and keep Penny in his sights), this time Desmond is sent to the alternate timeline. During the course of his trip, we get some fairly conclusive evidence that these sideways trips have not been a waste of time, they do have meaning, and they might in fact be the key to the happy ending that the Lostralians deserve. I’ll explain more as I continue.

We open on Desmond at LAX. He has a very quick run-in with Hurley, who points Desmond in the direction of the luggage carousel and a chance meeting with the very-preggo Claire. In that meeting, we get yet another deviation from the original timeline. Way back when we first learned of Claire’s backstory, we found that in a consultation with a sham psychic, Claire was informed that she was having a boy and that she could be the only one to raise her child. The psychic seemed convinced that if she didn’t, dire things would occur. In the alternate timeline, Claire claims that she doesn’t know the sex of the baby, although in one of his first cases of deja vu, Desmond seems fairly convinced that she should expect a boy. These little flashes would continue.

Desmond is met at the gate by a helpful limousine driver, George Minkowski (Fisher Stevens), and once again a face from the past has been recast. George was the dude on the freighter who Desmond and Michael confronted and soon learned was “unstuck in time” in Season 4. He had been the radio operator, and when they encountered him, his brain was fried, apparently a result of getting too close to the island without following the precise coordinates required to get there. He shared a similar fate with Faraday’s research assistant and, ultimately, the same time travel that Desmond survived ended up frying Minkowski’s brain. But in this alternate timeline, George is “Driving Mr. Dezzie” on a meeting with his boss, the surprisingly chummy Charles Widmore.

In Widmore’s office, we learn that Desmond and Charles are on great terms, as Penny has never entered Desmond’s life. Desmond Hume is Charles’ right-hand man, getting him whatever he needs, which at the moment includes bailing out the drug-addled Driveshaft founder, Charlie Pace, who is currently locked up with the LAPD after his unfortunate balloon mishap aboard Flight 815. While in Widmore’s office, Desmond stares longingly at a very familiar sailboat, and we spy a curious painting of scales balancing white and black rocks. This might be an alternate version of events, but elements continue to bleed through both times.

After Desmond picks up Charlie, the two have an interesting conversation over drinks, during which Charlie reveals the first hint that these two timelines we have been following are indeed completely connected. There have been some haters on the Internet who feel all this sideways stuff has been a colossal waste of time, simply employed by the writers to mark time as they tick off the minutes towards the finale, but I’ve always felt there was a purpose. Sure, it’s been a slow burn, but as we learned in this episode, it’s also been necessary, and finally we’re beginning to see the connective tissue. And Charlie’s tale of his final, fleeting moments on Earth, when he saw the other side and with it, true love, only helps illustrate my theory. This whole series has been about the random interconnectivity between people; the strange ties that bind us. No matter which way the die is cast, there are certain unavoidable connections that will come into play one way or another. Charlie has never met Claire in this life, but for one blissful moment he knew her completely; he felt her deeply and he loved her always. And it’s that haunting passage that transports Desmond further down the rabbit hole.

And the wheel of time rotates once again, placing Desmond in the similar circumstance of helplessly watching Charlie drown. The moment when Charlie turns his head, ready to accept his fate while pressing his palm against the glass, finally shatters the tenuous bond between both worlds. In that instant, Desmond sees through to the other side. “Not Penny’s Boat.” And with that flash, he is now on a mission to find the true love he’s never known.

At the staging grounds for Widmore’s party, Desmond seeks out Widmore’s wife, looking to give her the bad news that Driveshaft won’t be delivered in time for her big event. We learned early on that Driveshaft was booked to play alongside Widmore’s musician son. Knowing that Faraday is the son of Charles and Eloise Hawking, it appears in this life he has followed his pursuits as a young pianist (shades of Jack’s son) and has never chased his temporal dreams.

This meeting with Eloise was key because it neatly mimicked a scene in “The Constant.” In that episode, Desmond met Eloise, who at the time appeared to be the kindly proprietor of a jewelry shop. When she correctly intuited that Desmond was about to take actions that would change his time stream, she stepped out of her role and acted the part of cosmic crossing guard, telling him exactly what he could and could not do. That moment is repeated here when Desmond attempts to track down Penny Milton’s identity, thereby forging a connection between the two disparate timelines. And in that moment, Eloise drops her guard and gives Desmond the slightest peek behind the curtain. She makes it clear that he is not ready to make that connection, nor meet that woman. Not in this life, anyway.

But lurking out there is Desmond’s Constant, the musician Daniel Faraday, who drops another bomb. He tells Desmond a tale of a dream about a woman with whom he is absolutely obsessed: a very familiar red-headed museum employee (Charlotte). Though he barely knows her, he feels a burning desire to be with her. And that love creates another connection to another world, waking Daniel in the middle of the night with complex theories that he scribbles down, without any inkling as to how his brain could arrive at something it takes a physicist a lifetime to formulate. For the third straight time, we see that love finds its way.

And though he is not supposed to muck with these disparate timelines, Desmond is influenced by Daniel and does indeed find his fair maiden, running up the same steps that once upon a time, in another life, Desmond climbed to share a chance meeting with Jack Shepherd. A meeting that Desmond concluded with the prophetic salutation, “See you in another life, brother.”

It is Penny’s touch that sends Desmond back to Hydra Island, seemingly cognizant of what has happened to him. Though he was only out for a few seconds, he has lived another lifetime. And in that other lifetime, he directs George to get the Flight 815 manifest, as he has something to show the other passengers. So, while Widmore might believe Desmond is the key to bottling the dark genie and saving the world, Desmond also now holds the key in both timelines to unite the two. To bridge the gap.

My feeling is that ultimately one of these timelines will end (or will be “bottled”) while the other will continue as the sole remaining constant timeline. Desmond will help Widmore end one of them, because in this alternate sideways universe, we have now been given a glimpse of the happy endings to come.

See you next week for Episode 6.12, “Everybody Loves Hugo.”

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

No fancy opening this week. We’re just gonna’ get Lost!

Well, that settles it. We’ve almost exhausted the sideways trips per character, with the exception of Hugo. In two weeks, we get an episode titled Everybody Loves Hugo at which point balance will be brought to the force and my guess is that the last 7 hours will be focused on the end game. Speaking of which, the title for the two-hour finale (airing on Sunday, May 23) has just been released. Fittingly, it’s called The End.

So, here we got a twofer, showing Jin and Sun in their LA adventure – an episode that once again served the needs of the story by moving chess pieces around while also sending us a bit backwards in the sideways tale to show us how Jin ended up on ice.

Prior to Sayid’s discovery of Jin in that walk-in freezer, we had seen Jin being carted off by Customs Officials in the Season Premiere. That’s where this episode opened. With Jin released from custody and given back Mr. Paik’s watch. Unfortunately for Jin, Customs was holding on to the $25K that was to accompany Jin on his mysterious errand – putting him in a bad predicament with Martin Keamy – the once and future mercenary who in this alternate tale is one of the millions who can successfully pull off a Christopher Walken impression.

A few interesting wrinkles occurred in this sideways tale which sort of changes our perception of what we’ve been seeing. There are many out there who believe that everything we’ve seen in this alternate tale is a result of changes made when Jughead detonated – hence the whole idea of a splintered alternate timeline. The theory was that both timelines share exactly the same events pre-Oceanic Flight 815’s departure, but these changes were then effected on the back end. Of course, we’ve already seen that’s not entirely the case in this alternate universe, since Sawyer is a cop and not a crook. Nadia is alive and kicking. And now we discover that Jin and Sun never married as they pleaded with Keamy to keep their secret from Sun’s Dad.

Knowing that Jacob was originally present at their wedding (where he laid his healing hands upon them), this now makes me believe that we are seeing a world where Jacob never existed – or at least one where his influence wasn’t felt. And in this world, things have changed – some big, some small – but all likely significant.

The interesting thing about this alternate storyline is that the side characters are peppered with those we’ve met before. It’s almost a reincarnation sort of thing – with Charlotte popping up here and Miles there, etc. They’ve all been “recast” in different roles – although all seem to be destined to come together. I guess this brings “soul mates” into the equation. The Package reintroduced Mikhail Bakunin – the one-eyed watchmen of The Tempest station in Season 3 who ended up fried by the sonic fence. And as fate would have it, Mikhail ended up losing his eye in this world too. Which makes you wonder if the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Unfortunately for Jin, it turns out his errand was to effect his own demise. Now, in the original timeline, Jin was on a similar errand. In that world, he’s married – but he was still on course for LA where he was to deliver a watch. Despite the fact that he is married to Sun in that world, would the end have been the same? Was he on the same date with destiny in both worlds?

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

It’s official. We’ve hit the halfway mark of an 18-hour season. And I can’t think of a better way to crest the hill than with the long-awaited Richard Alpert back story, Ab Aeterno, which not only fleshed out everything there is to know about this ageless stranger but also stands as easily one of the two or three best hours of this show. It was that good, and if the finale can come close to matching the emotional and mythological crescendos hit here, then we are in for a real treat.

Before moving into the meat of the show, I wanted to touch on one of my usual off-topic tangents. I was reading late last week that all signs point to this being the final season of 24. There is some chatter that it may move to NBC but I think that’s an outside chance – an audible that will only be called when NBC clears pilot season and sees how their deck is stacked for next year. The conventional wisdom seems to point to the show making the jump to the big screen.

I bring this up for two reasons.

24 is in the grip of yet another lackluster season – making me really count my blessings that ABC allowed the Lost producers to complete their show where the story directed them and not simply march on at the behest of ratings. And secondly, I hope that when we finally say aloha to the island, it is on the backside of that salutation. This has been a helluva’ journey and there’s no doubt that the show could continue to draw some ratings – and certainly a sizeable cult – meaning the producers and ABC are leaving a lot of money on the table. I’m all for allowing them to mine the property via alternative media (comics, games, books, etc) but I see no reason to ever pick back up with our castaways years later – on screens big or small. This has been one of those “once in a decade” entertainments, and for once, it looks like it may just end in a very satisfying manner. When the final page is turned, let’s let the story settle on the shelves of memory where every once in awhile we can dust it off and declare – “Geez, They don’t make ‘em like ‘Lost’ anymore.”

All right – enough with all that. Let’s get Lost.

Ab Aeterno is Latin for ‘since the beginning of time’, and while that doesn’t exactly triangulate Richard’s birth date (he appears to have been born on the Canary Islands somewhere in the mid-1800′s) it does underscore the entire theme of the show and really bring to light the very meaning of the island. Before we can dive head first down that rabbit hole, I wanted to chase the little tease of current events we got at the beginning of the show before the segue way to an all-Richard hour.

The episode opened by giving us a few additional moments of Jacob’s meeting with a mangled Ilana. We learned that Jacob directed her to guard the 6 remaining candidates – information that she later shared in that fireside chat at the beach. Now, Sun seems to think she’s the Kwon that’s mentioned but I think she’s wrong. I think it’s quite clear that it’s meant to be Jin as Jacob appears to believe running the island is a man’s job. Hey – he’s from a different time (perhaps the beginning of time). People and deities must not have been as enlightened way back when. Besides, is Jacob really going to tear Sun away from her child to act as stewardess to the island? My guess is ‘No’.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Well, this was unusual. I’m a Sawyer fan. And I’ve made it abundantly clear in these posts that when you strip away all the mystery, mythology and smoke monsters, what truly compels us to follow Lost is the intricate character dynamics. We love some of these people, and loathe others. And we’re dying to see how their lives turn out and how the various threads pull together – especially over the last few weeks.

So it’s a complete shocker to me that I found a Sawyer episode completely boring. Now, each season, I always look forward (with tongue firmly in cheek) to the requisite Kate episode – knowing we’ll chase our sour with the sweet. But Sawyer eps usually deliver – mainly because I love the character and it’s always fun to see his latest con. And while this episode helped to lay the framework of his newest (and most dire con), I can’t help but feel that the sideways stuff did nothing to develop the off-island storyline. It felt like filler and a time killer and with only 10 episodes left, that feels like the wrong play. That being said – next week we dive into the Richard Alpert mythos so I’m chalking this up as a slight speed bump.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get Lost.

I’m going to quickly dispense with the off-island shenanigans of Starsky & LaFleur as it should be a quick run through. The big twist here was that when confronted with those proverbial “two roads diverged”, Sawyer took the road less traveled (at least by him) and instead of chasing a life of crime, decided to slap on a badge.

Aside from the clever callback to one of Sawyer’s past cons (the suitcase of money set as bait for an unsuspecting mark), the off-island stuff did underscore the fact that this sideways universe represents “alternate career paths” – at least for some of our beloved castaways. And I think that’s a cool conceit but not one that necessarily needs 30-minutes of exposition to hammer home.

It was cool to see Sawyer and Miles playing buddy cop. The two bonded in their 70′s flashback, and I think they have good chemistry. If Locke and Ben are pitching a show together in real life – how about green-lighting Sawyer and Miles in an butt-kicking cop yarn? I’d watch that.

Once again, we see similarities bleed through from one timeline into the other. In this version, Sawyer is still hunting the con man that caused the murder-suicide of his parents, and it’s still Anthony Cooper. As we learned in Locke’s sideways trip, he’s apparently on good terms with his Dad so it leaves you to wonder if his Dad is still the same Cooper and if so, has that deception not been revealed?

Also, we know that this Sawyer also went to Oz but the jury is out on whether he was once again duped into murdering the wrong guy.

I think my biggest problem with these sideways trips is that they don’t seem to be closing the loops, and with fewer episodes remaining, it’s going to take a masterwork to tie these new binds with all the on-island stuff. I’m holding out faith that there is a master plan behind all of this, but it also seems very late in the game to call an audible. We’ll see.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

I think I know where these alternate timelines are going. At the beginning of the season, it was reasonable to assume that everything we saw on the island was part of the straight chronology – the timeline we’ve been following since the very beginning. So, Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on the island. The pilot was eaten. Hatches were cracked. Tailies were found. Tailies were killed. Secondary islands were discovered. Others became DHARMA became original Others. Shacks rocked. Donkey wheels were spun. Everything got groovy as we did the time warp back to the 70′s. Jughead blew his stack. Jacob lived. Jacob died. MiB Locke began assembling his army. Sawyer called someone tubby. All that happened in one constant timeline – no matter where the island happened to pinball to.

Then there is the second timeline, which we originally thought was an offshoot of this timeline, a line splintered by the detonation of Jughead, thus introducing the concept of alternate dimensions into the sci-fi hodgepodge that Lost peddles so well. And that seemed to make sense…

But then MiB Locke began his recruitment drive – offering impossible dreams to anyone who would take up arms and follow him off the island. And as the Devil whispered deep into their hearts, mining for more souls, a new theory took form. Perhaps, all of this alternate time line stuff we’re seeing is actually wish fulfillment. In essence, we’re getting a view of the back nine should MiB win. The big reboot – where formerly dead people are now back among the living, and loyal followers have been granted that which they most desire, with a bit of a twist. So, Sayid pines for Nadia and while MiB resurrects her, he also places her agonizingly beyond arm’s reach of Sayid – in the embrace of his bro.

It remains to be seen – and there are some holes that need to be plugged – but it’s interesting nonetheless, and last night’s Ben-centric episode helped to underscore it a little bit, while also providing a bit of a wrinkle to the theory which I’ll iron out below.

Without further adieu, let’s get Lost.

In a twist of my usual formula, I’ll center on the “on-island” stuff first before hitting the alternate time line. So, we opened with Ben running from the temple massacre and quickly coming upon Ilyana and her decimated posse. Ben lets them all know that Sayid has gone completely to the dark side, having killed Dogen and Lennon, and then Ilyana immediately keys in on other murderous deeds – namely what happened to her father figure, Jacob. Enter our own private Ghost Whisperer, Miles, who quickly intuits that Ben was the man who sunk a dagger deep into Jacob’s heart. Miles leaves Ben with a fitting warning – “Uh oh”.

Ilyana calls Jacob the closest thing to a father she’s ever had and I think it’s proper to interpret that with a capital “F”. Given the little bit of back story we have of Ilyana – badly beaten (or burned) in a Russian hospital – she appears to have been a recipient of Jacob’s healing touch. She has pledged her life to follow her Father – to be his protector, as well as that of any candidates he finds along the way. Either way you interpret her meaning, it doesn’t bode well for Ben.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments

Like another famous castaway, I write to you one-handed, having just had a wisdom tooth extracted with nary a coconut or sentient volleyball around to comfort me during my recovery. Halfway through what should have been a very routine extraction, the oral surgeon offered me the bravery prize. When they start cracking wise like that, you know things aren’t going 100% according to plan.

Anyway, I made it through without a tear shed, knowing I had a night of ice cream and “Lost” in my future. And as we hit Episode 6, just two episodes away from the hump, it feels like the pieces are falling into place. The game board seems set and Lindelof & Cuse have everything in place as we rush head-on towards the end of this rare event – a densely mythological, heavily serialized show that’s being allowed to lower the curtains on its own terms – at the best possible time.

Before we run through my medicated thoughts on last night’s episode, I wanted to drop two quick tidbits.

First, Entertainment Weekly reviewed Season 6 in its latest issue, giving it an “A” and keying in on something we talked about a few weeks ago, namely that Terry O’Quinn is teaching a master class in acting this season. I agree wholeheartedly, and I sincerely hope the Emmys finally notice this guy’s awesome body of work.

Secondly, at a recent “Lost” promo gig in L.A., Michael Emerson (Ben) let slip that he and O’Quinn (Locke) are being shopped around in tandem for a new mystery series for the fall. I’d follow both guys anywhere their walkabout leads. During the same event, Nestor Carbonell (Richard) brought the house down when he voiced complaints that the worst thing about the Hawaiian rainy season is that it plays havoc with a dude’s guyliner.

All right. On that note, let’s get “Lost.”

As MiB Locke continues his recruitment drive, we come to Sayid, who becomes the focus of this episode. And once again, the episode number matches the order of Season 1 flashbacks.

Off island, in that alternate universe, we see that Nadia is still alive and well. She has made it to LA and at some point has married Sayid’s brother. The two share domestic bliss in a quaint little stretch of suburban utopia (reminiscent of Othersville), where Sayid comes a-callin’ with some freshly picked flowers. Quickly defusing an awkward moment with his bro, who correctly intuits that Sayid harbors feelings for Nadia, the two settle down to a nice dinner pregnant with ill portents. While this off-world Sayid is not the stone-cold assassin that his stint on the island would drag out of him, his Iraqi torturer past is still in the cards, a fact that his bro tries to use to his advantage when he needs someone to get him out of a sticky bind involving a local loan shark.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

About a week ago, I found an article on EW.com in which Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly announced their post-“Lost” plans. That got me thinking: how about dreaming up some future career marks for some of my favorite “Lost” cast members?

Before hitting that proverbial wish list, I’ll cover Fox and Lilly.

According to Fox, he aims to ape David Caruso and turn his back on TV for good. After a successful run on “Party of Five,” followed by his arc on “Lost” (his character was originally written with Michael Keaton in mind), he wants to explore the Hollywood hills and make his mark in the movie biz. While I think that’s a decent plan – to trade on his goodwill from this show – I’m not sure Fox has exactly what it takes to be the strong leading man on the big screen. While I like the dude, there’s a dryness to him (think David Duchovny) that works better when establishing a long-running character. TV seems to fit him just right. Besides, we’re still basking in the Golden Age of television drama. I’d take “Friday Night Lights,” “The X-Files,” “Lost,” “Millennium,” “Battlestar Galactica” and countless other shows rather than most multiplex fare any day.

But I get it. Television drama is a long haul, and multiple seasons have got to wear on the soul. Factor in a show that drenches its actors in several layers of grime and tosses them out into the great wide open of steamy Hawaii and I’m sure a nice cushy “desk job” looks good to these folks right about now. But I think Fox should choose carefully and pass up the second-rate leading man roles that will be tossed his way (think big-budget B-movies such as “2012”) for sharper-hewn character work. He’d make a decent CIA analyst in a Bourne flick, for example.

As for Evangeline Lilly, she’s apparently getting completely out of acting. I don’t buy it. It sounds like the same brand of exhausted hyperbole that celebrities spout whenever they just need a little R & R. It’s like that time Stephen King kicked writing four novels ago. So she’ll be back, and if I were her agent, I’d steer clear of heavy dramas in favor of something light. Let’s see if Evie has got some comedic chops. Guest her on “Community” or “How I Met Your Mother.” I think she’d surprise us. That should speak volumes about how I feel about Evangeline Lilly. There’s a fine line between the character and the actor, and I think she’s got talent. I just don’t like her character. But I’d like to see more of her work.

As for the others, first and foremost we need to see more Josh Holloway – and not just shirtless, ladies. If there is one guy who has really grown on me over the years, it’s Sawyer. At the beginning, he was the redneck jerk. But somewhere along the line, he became the charming rogue and ultimately the heart of the show. He is all grimy nobility. And I think he would make an awesome action hero. There was a lot of talk a few years ago concerning an “Escape from New York” reboot. At the time, Gerard Butler was tapped to take on the iconic Snake Plissken role. Not bad, but for my money, Holloway would make a great Snake. I’d like to see that edgy blend of mirth and menace tapped. This is a guy who should demand leading-man stature.

Terry O’Quinn (Locke), on the other hand, will continue an indelible career of great character choices. I’ve followed this guy since the mid-1980s slasher flick “The Stepfather.” Early on he was tapped as the psycho. Then he took on the military roles. When he essayed “Millennium”’s mysterious mentor, Peter Watts, I thought the role was a perfect fit. The same goes for his CIA spook in “Alias.” But John Locke is the role of a career that only grows more interesting with everything he does. I’m not going to predict O’Quinn’s future, because I think he has a long career ahead of him in these unique character roles. He’s like the small screen’s Gene Hackman, and he should be treasured for that.

© Ed Humphries for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)