Saturday, May 8, 2010

May Sweeps Reset

Maybe the best way to catch up on TV is to go show to show for various observations. Spoilers in each, of course.

The Amazing Race:
  • Not much to say. The cowboys have been the most fun team and have to be the favorite to win. It's been a very weak season, all told.
24:
  • Last week was a major copout for the writers. They had this great set-up of Jack vs. Chloe and then they gave Chloe an easy out to work with Jack again. I could see it happening by the end of the season, but they could have waited longer than like 40 minutes to give in. I'm digging the end of the season, though. I'm probably enjoying it more than if I didn't know it was the last few hours. I have no hopes for whatever Bourne-rip-off movie franchise they come up with, so I'm happy to see this great series go out in a blaze of relative glory.
American Idol:
  • I looked up the current odds on sportsbook.com and, in order from worst to best, it's Big Mike (16-1), Casey (14-1), Lee (1-1), Crystal (2-3). We can all agree that Mike and Casey have no real shot to win. I'm all over Lee. He and Mike were the best this past week and Lee is just the type of Kris Allen-ish unoffensive soft rocker to get the votes in the end. Crystal is still my favorite. But that's all relative, they're all still not that great. At least we got a great Harry Connick week before the show blessedly goes bye-bye at the end of this season.
  • I can't be the only person who thinks that the most recent eliminated contestant, Aaron Kelly, looks eerily like Rachel Maddow.
Survivor:
  • This whole season has been fun, but this past week's episode was especially so. There were two eliminations and the first was very ho-hum as Candice signed her own death warrant when she inexplicably flipped to boot Amanda. The second tribal council was fantastic and it was all because of the great Russell. He thrives on chaos and, when the right vote was obviously Rupert, Russell decided to shake things up for the hell of it. He invented a lie about Danielle, confronted her about it in front of everybody, and then just stuck with it. He is so block-headed and aggressive that it didn't matter that she fought him with the truth, he just kept lying until she freaked out, cried, and let out more info than she meant to in order to prove her point. In doing so, she got herself kicked out and she lost Parvati (and you could see that Parvati knew it by her body language) the million-dollar prize. I have no idea who the favorite is now. I don't think Russell can win the jury vote unless he goes up against only Jerri. Can Colby get in there and win it? I've been sick of Rupert since the end of his original run on Pearl Islands, but his fake immunity idol move to save himself in favor of Candice was just brilliant.
Lost:
  • So... Almost all is revealed. I spent the entire season going back and forth over whether or not Locke was truly evil or whether he and Jacob were two sides of the same coin. I eventually landed on the latter. Wrong. So I was surprised when we discovered (maybe a second before Jack did) that Locke was trying to kill everyone, but I wasn't that surprised in the grand scheme. Locke said he needed everybody with him in order to get off the island. I had assumed that that meant that each of the candidates had to deny Jacob and join up with Locke. It was really a long con by Locke, leading to his need for every candidate to be dead in order for him to win. Those scenarios are not so different as far as the mythology is concerned. And as far as the mythology, it looks like all will be revealed next week with what is rumored to be an Oceanic 815 castaway-free episode that focuses only on the history between Jacob and the Man in Black. Three episodes left.
  • By the way, when I say that I was wrong and that Locke is truly evil, I'm not just jumping to that conclusion. Cuse and Lindelof said exactly that in this interview with ew.com after last week's episode.
  • So what questions are left? Let's see...
  • Did Widmore wire the plane to explode and, if so, is he really working with Locke and why?
  • Did Desmond reveal the flash-sideways world to Sayid, leading to Sayid sacrificing himself?
  • Will Jacob's replacement (presumably Jack) be the last-remaining candidate because everyone else dies? Or will the rest leave the island (doubtful)?
  • Will each character have to die in one of the two timelines in order for the both to merge?
  • What is the endgame with the flash-sideways?
  • What else?

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