Saturday, February 20, 2010

LOST: A fun TV show and a word that usually follows “Nets”!

We’ll get to Lost – the TV show in a moment, but first a quick glance at the Nets as they march towards 8 win immortality in their attempt to shatter the infamous 9-73 record set by the 72-73 76ers. Now that the Nets have hit the 5 win mark, their current 5-50 record is far better than that Sixers team that actually started out at 4-58 and those lovable Mavericks of 92-93 fame whose 11 win season consisted of a 4-57 start… Amazingly, both those teams had worse records than the Swamp Dragons who have just announced that they will be in Newark for the next 2 seasons before they move on to Brooklyn!

The key to setting the record at 8-74 will involve some more consistent losing over the last 27 games. Can a 5-50 team which has consistently been winning 1 out of every 11 games put together a 3-24 hot streak to hit that mark? A stellar 4-23 would only tie the record and a sizzling stretch of 5-23 would keep Philly in the record books! Or will they challenge the all time worst stretch run of the 1968 San Diego Rockets who went 1-32 over their final 33 games?? And if they get to the magical 8-74,… they would be 66 games under .500… Only 2 professional team have achieved that record in the last 50 years… the 40-120 1962 Mets and the 2003 Tigers who finished 43-119.

Net observers are noticing that the losses have been a lot closer over the last 10 or so games, and the way they have been playing lately it makes it possible that getting the record will be tough to achieve. In the meantime, now that they have 5 wins, the next goal is reaching not the mathematically impossible .500.. but actually the .100 mark which would mark the 1st time this season they have achieved that status. But if they have to pay .125 ball to avoid immortality it seems very possible that they will resume their losing ways and get to their next milestone - a 5-59 record which has never ever been done. Can they lose next 9 games to reach that record?? Its too early to tell, but at least it gives us something to look forward to!


Now time for Lost. I have tossed off so many theories about that wacky show over the years that I have run out of ideas. But as the show heads to its final episode this May, one can only wonder how this crazy show will wrap up. So instead of yet another crazy theory, I am going to speculate on what the finale will look like.

The cool aspect about this show is that we can write about what has been going on… but in reality we really don’t know what’s flying. Last season they cooked up this crazy idea that if they went back in time they could change the circumstances that led to their Episode 1 plane crash. Well faster than Cher can slap on a thong, they discovered that they could turn back time. Our Lost crew knew their plane crashed because of some kind of magnetic mashugas that was emanating from the island due to a hydrogen bomb. Last season’s madcap goal was to detonate the bomb. Then the Lost crew would die in the explosion, but their plane would never have crashed and they would end up living “happily ever after”. Sort of like the logic used in “The Prestige” – kill 1 but keep the clone.

The season ended with a flash of light as a badly injured Juliet smashed the bomb which didn’t quite go off as planned. Then we waited through 7 long months for the show to start up again! Now that its back, we see that the plane did NOT crash and everybody goes on their merry way with some interesting storylines… Locke is still paralyzed… Rose has cancer… Charlie almost overdoses…Kate is on the run from the law… and Claire’s adoptive parents foshnizzled on their offer to take her unborn baby. Doesn’t look like everybody is quite so happy off the island.

But wait a moment.. the show is not just about life off the island after the plane did not crash. We found out in the first episode of the season that the plane crash crew did NOT die when the bomb went off… Somehow the bomb went off and blew them into the future.. but since they had been in the past, they actually ended up in the present…Only Lost can produce such a sentence that actually makes sense!

I’m not quite sure what year they ended up in… but I think they are now in “present time” since Sawyer has shared scenes with both Jin and Fake Locke. And with Fake Locke being in the same timeline as Sun… that means that lovely reunion appears to be imminent! Which means that not only are they time travelers, but somehow they have changed the timeline and the “Crashers” and the “non Crashers” are co existing with themselves at the same time but in 2 different places! Kind of like when Stuie Griffin found his future self living in San Fransisco.

So while viewers await the Sun and Jin reunion – I am more interested in seeing the “Crashers” meet the “Non-crashers”

The non crashers have the common bond of being on the same flight…. which involved the escape of a criminal (Kate). Since there is a list of all of the flight’s passengers, maybe the cops will call everybody over to the local Bennigan’s for a little Q and A. Also, Hurley seems to be interacting with some of the non crashers…Rose and Locke were on that flight, and both of them were his employees… and the 2 people who were magically healed on the island too! Then we round up the “Crashers”… and rescue them from the island for a 2nd time… The first rescue was pretty exciting… but imagine how neat it would be the 2nd time around since “they” already are living in the real world.

I can just imagine that Oprah episode! Hopefully she wont mistake one of Ben’s scars for lipstick like she did with Drew Brees! People who were on an airplane find out that “they” have been rescued after being stranded on an island. Letterman could get 5 of them to do a Top 10 List. Maybe they could rent out a hotel ballroom for that reunion of the Crashers and the Non Crashers. Serve up some cocktails maybe? See if Sawyer has nicknames for the other Sawyer. And would he seek out Juliet to see if he can hook up with her? Would a respected doctor hook up with a self proclaimed con man? Would Hurley give the other Hurley a job? Would Sayid resort to torture if the other Sayid doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear about the island?

But I guess poor Locke would feel left out at the reunion… His alter ego is dead….He’ll just sit on the sidelines having coffee talk with his history teacher friend Ben Linus as ABC drools over the prospects of a spinoff featuring the 2 of them that would probably fizzle quicker than After MASH and Beverly Hills Buntz.

I think of all the crazy concepts on Lost, the idea of people finding out that they co-exist somewhere else is more mind boggling than anything else the show has come up with! I couldn’t even begin to imagine if there was another Nate floating around out there…although it would be pretty cool if there was a 2nd Trophy Wife! But then again you always hear that somewhere out there, your exact double is floating around… and I understand Facebook used Doppelganger Week to find people’s exact lookalikes due to their Google-esque algorithm research based on people who chose the same celebrity.

Only 2010 can produce such a sentence that actually makes sense!


CLIP OF THE WEEK

I caught this recently… Newsweek got a bunch of its staffers who have never seen Lost to watch the Season Premiere… and then try to explain what is going on!




SECOND CLIP OF THE WEEK

See the first 1:15 of this clip from Real Time with Bill Maher and you will see that Elliot Spitzer’s comeback trail probably should not include panels with Seth MacFarlane. Nonetheless, a very very funny clip!