I have been mulling this shit over ever since it aired. Thank God I’m not a TV critic. I’ve been writing things about it but not posting them, because my opinions of the episode have been a moving target: first I loved it, then a few days later I hated it, and now a couple weeks later I’m somewhere in between.

Lost has always been a show that crossed several genre barriers. I thought the finale resolved Lost the character drama in an excellent fashion. It tied a neat little bow on Lost the thriller. But Lost the mystery – well, the charitable thing to say would be that Lost remains mysterious.

The mystery was there from the beginning, so you have to view the finale as somewhat of a failure. Mysteries are fabulous – they are questions, openings, possibilities, sheer potential. But you have to answer them, and answers are hard. Answers aren’t necessarily great television, as I’m sure the writers discovered. But if you don’t answer them, you’re sailing along with David Lynch and Luis Bunuel n’ tha gang, and take it from a huge fan of both of the above who has a lifetime of arguing the merits of surrealism under his belt: that shit ain’t mainstream entertainment. 9 out of 10 TV fans are NOT going to endorse your product.

Like a wild, drug-addled, ADD lover, Lost made up its own rules and then broke them. You have to respect it for that.

But it also kinda broke your heart a little.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Here are some pics of the products.

Here’s the theory of what the hell is going on on Lost that I personally subscribe to.

(This will make reference to episodes that have already aired. If you consider that a spoiler, fine; stop reading now. Also, I’m not saying I’m the fella who invented this theory.)

More...

Here’s a set of photos from our Star Wars promo shoot I mentioned last week. Big christmas card potential here, I’m thinking.

You can watch our 12 Days of SPACE-mas spot featuring Star Wars characters here. It got mentioned on starwars.com, which is dopeness! I have a ton of great pictures from the set – I’ll try and post them soon.

Because I have to get back in the blog posting habit.

First, about 10.6.2 breaking Atom-based Hackintoshes – lots of FUD like this article. Really, everyone? “Puts an end to the hackintosh”? Was 10.6.1 that bad? In my experience, your apps aren’t going to go incompatible with a x.x.x release. Nevermind that the mydellmini.com champs are surely on this shit right now and it will be sorted within weeks.

Second, because of this, and ‘cause ranking shit is fun:

1. The Wire
2. The Sopranos
3. Deadwood
4. Lost
5. Breaking Bad
6. Mad Men
7. Arrested Development
8. Tim & Eric
9. Battlestar Galactica
10. Firefly

With props to Dollhouse (sorry to hear you’re cancelled). It had massive problems, but on the strength of “Epitaph One” alone, deserves to enter the TV pantheon.

Hm. The media diary is getting pretty dull here. Perhaps a daily frequency is overkill. What do I have for ya today? More Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. So I’ve already mentioned that. One thing I like: there’s a title screen for each episode, and on that screen, the episode is labeled either ‘stand alone episode’ or ‘complex episode’, the latter being what we might call a mythology episode. It’s very user-friendly; I’d love it if Fringe had this. There’s always a tension between these two types of episodes, with the standalones favoured by the networks and first-time viewers, and the mythology episodes – the ones that serve the show’s overall story – the choice of faithful viewers and in most cases, the writers. I vastly prefer mythology episodes and don’t much like shows like CSI that are mostly standalones. However, the Ghost in the Shell stand alone episodes are really quite good. They really don’t fuck around with exposition, instead sometimes a character basically ‘briefs’ the audience as to what case they’re following. Then the rest of the ep follows a thriller structure, with a chase or infiltration, and the reveal at the end having to do with a technological possibility you hadn’t imagined before, like the tank whose creator downloaded his brain into it; or the Che Guevara-alike surviving assassination attempts with multiple clones.

I played no games. I read a bit of my book, which is Matter by Iain M. Banks. It’s killing it. His scifi books are swashbuckling space operas; their only ‘flaw’ in the past were that they could take hundreds of pages to get going. This one starts with a couple of battles and keeps the pace up. So far, anyway.

Klingon Night School

Do yourself a favour and check out my friend Gord’s masterful Klingon Night School spot. And give him a vote in the showdown – I hope you’ll agree he deserves it.

Full disclosure: I may or may not be a klingon in the above video.

And he can ROAR.

There’s a bit of press for Whedon’s latest venture. Here’s an article in Variety, tying Dr. Horrible in with other creator-originated web pushes. It mentions that the budget was “low six figures” and financed by Joss’ own cash. There’s also an interview in Wired, but it’s mostly fluff. The show is no longer free, but you can get it in iTunes, where I noticed it sitting atop the list of “top TV shows,” which I think means it may well make its money back. It will see eventual DVD release, but that deal is still being worked out. Me, I just hope they keep making more. There are a lot of villains on the Evil Council of Evil that I’d like to see more of, and will we see Captain Hammer’s Hamjet?

I linked to it earlier in the week but man, thanks to doombot for reminding me to actually watch Dr. Horrible. It’s Joss Whedon, and it’s beyond awesome. Enjoy it soon as it vanishes on sunday.

Perhaps the association superhero=jock, supervillain=nerd was always obvious to everyone, but it only breaks through my thick skull with the help of Captain Hammer’s… er, hammer. Whedon really loads up every superhero cliche with meaning. The freeze ray is what will let the awkward Horrible pause time to think up something witty to say to his crush, for example. And hey, you get lots of jokes, songs and Nathan Filion.

Whedon is such a great writer that even this master plan is a joy to read.

Here’s a veeeery interesting post from Matthew Baldwin that draws a parallel between the mounting mysteries in Lost and leveling in role playing games.

During each show you gain a little experience in the form of new information: about the island, the characters, or both; every four episodes or so you level up, as some (allegedly) major piece of the overall puzzle falls into place. After leveling up in a CRPG, you typically head to Ye Olde Flail ‘N’ Scented Candle Emporium, sell all your current equipment, and buy the improved weapons that your enhanced abilities now allow you to wield; likewise, after a revelatory LOST episode, fans chuck all their old theories into the dustbin and cook up new ones consistent with the revised facts. Then, having done so, each—the player of a CRPG, or the viewer of LOST—is handed a brand new quest, or puzzle, or plot plot. The ephemeral thrill of leveling vanishes, replaced by a longing to hit the next milestone. You never disembark from the treadmill, it just goes faster.

I think he’s right on with the precedents he sites: Twin Peaks and The X-Files. I guess it’s no surprise that these are two of my favourite shows, and that I seem to like the video games a little bit. Also, check out the post about the surprising amount of swears in Lost scripts. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

My new fave blog has a good writeup of last week’s GDC announcement from Microsoft, the xna Developer’s Club, which Redmond was positioning as ‘YouTube for games’. (Sure, if YouTube cost $100 and a computer science degree to join.) A little update on WiiWare, too. Neither is exactly revolutionary, but it’s a step in the right direction – opening the consoles up to indie developers just a little bit more.

Hipster, Please’s latest podcast has a terminator-transformer-themed track from alter ego Snake Eyes. Plus a lot of other awesome nerd music tracks.

Third, kind of on the topic, what do you guys think of the Terminator series? It’s on my mind as I watched a couple episodes today. I don’t think it’s Lost caliber let alone The Wire caliber, but I’m enjoying what they’re doing nonetheless. Hell, they namechecked the singularity! (also I just found that there was? is? an ARG going on based on it)

Fourth: there is a gaping hole in my giant robot knowledge base and its name is: Gundam. Let’s say I want to experience some of the magic. Where would I start?

Check this shit out (video, or there’s an article here).

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the wheelchair that walks up stairs, has been developing a prosthetic arm and the results so far are spectacular (or as Ramanan puts it, this is some crazy terminator shit). The arm is called “the Luke arm” and is inspired by Luke Skywalker’s bionic arm, which proves that truism about scifi, that it predicts the future not because it has magical powers, but because it inspires nerds who go on to invent crazy things that they saw in scifi.

After a long wait, through months of delays, Bioware’s RPG epic Mass Effect is finally here. I’ve gotten about 12 hours in, although I’ve been playing for 14 hours. More on that in a moment.

Mass Effect is many things, and your enjoyment of it will likely reflect what you expect it to be. If you’re looking for a rich scifi storyline set in a detailed world, you will love it. If you like RPG shooters – an odd category to be sure, but one shared with Bioshock at the very least – you’ll enjoy this, after a steep learning curve. If you’re looking for a step forward in interactive entertainment, or (even less modestly) the pinnacle of modern gaming experiences, you’ll be somewhat disappointed.

More...

I’m superthrilled to introduce a new weekly comic, The Adventures of Eyeless Max, by Toku. Welcome to the Robot, eyeless one and Unnamed Flying Thing!