Every week on the uplifting program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Ty Pennington and his rotating crew of altruistic humanitarians find a family in need and then build them a new house. The new home is tailored to the peoples’ needs, whether they be with terminal ailments or something else horrible. The people are always appreciative of the efforts and there is usually a lot of crying.

One of the nice things that the team will do is create rooms for the various kids centered around interests of their’s. Jungle rooms, princess rooms, music rooms, Lego rooms, they’ve done it all…except one type of room.

Here is the hypothetical show:

Ty (entering room of 14 year old): Hey there, Hunter. How ya doing?
Hunter: Good. Good.
Ty: Well Hunter, what do you like? What are you in to?
(awkward silence)
Ty: …Is something wrong?
Hunter: Wha? Oh no…no, not at all. (shakes his head fervently. Possibly…too fervently)
Ty: Hunter, you can talk to me. Is something wrong?
Hunter: But we’re on TV….
Ty: It’s okay. No one is going to judge you.
Hunter: Really?
Ty: Really.
Hunter: Okay, well…I like girls.
Ty: Well, man, so do I. So do I.
Hunter: No, I really like girls. You know, really like them.
Ty: Well, I do too.
Hunter: But it’s not what you think.
Ty: Wha? What’re you talking about? I guess I don’t understand.
Hunter: You’ll laugh.
Ty: Dude, I promise I won’t laugh.
Hunter: Okay…boobs and butts.
Ty: (He laughs out loud, then calms himself) Boobs and butts, huh?
Hunter: …Yeah. Boobs and butts. I said it. Boobs and butts.
Ty: Man, Hunter, there is nothing to be embarrassed about liking boobs and butts! (Putting his arm around Hunter) And buddy, I swear to you, you’re going to have the world’s best boobs and butts room, or my name isn’t Gary Tygert Pennington!
Hunter: Awesome!

Later….

Hunter walks into his new room. Covering the walls are what he loves. Boobs and butts.

Hunter: YES! YES! YES! This is awesome!
Ty: You like it?
Hunter: I LOVE IT!
Ty: Man, this is the single greatest boobs and butts room in the world. And see that over there?
Hunter: HOLY CRAP! Oh my god, a Real Doll! You got me a Real Doll!
Ty: That’s right man, the world’s greatest love doll on the market!
Hunter: Ty, you rock!
Ty: No man, YOU ROCK!
Hunter: (Silence, then quietly…) I think I’d like to be alone for awhile.
Ty: Dude, you go enjoy your new room.
Hunter: Oh, I will. (And holding his Real Doll, he closes his door)

Would that ever happen? Never.

Well, if the show was on Showtime, it might.

When the new Battlestar Galactica came on the air several years ago one of the fun fanboy things to say was “frak“, which was the Colonial’s way of saying The F Word. You could say it and it was like an in-joke and also it didn’t really mean anything, so you could say it in front of your kids (like I did) or other in-the-know nerds.

And now that show is over. Completely over. And I can’t stop saying “frak”.

I’ll say it in the car when the kids are around. ¹And she rolls her eyes everytime and then chastises me.] my parents, people I don’t even know, and I can’t stop saying it. I am a junkie for “frak”.

Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer, and, for frak’s sake, help me stop saying “frak”. Pretty please?

I love ‘Lost’. This current season is so great I would marry it if I wasn’t already married.

But I’ve noticed that ‘Lost’, which is probably one of the best shows currently on television, keeps doing this stupid stupid dialogue convention over and over and over until you could make a drinking game out of it. Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but that’s my job, to notice the mundane and pointless.

It goes like this – two people are going somewhere on the island, doesn’t matter where, but they are alone, walking, or eating something, or listening to a record, and one of them will suddenly say a seeming non sequitor, the other will be confused, reply, “What?” or something like that, and the other person will explain. In an episode a couple of weeks ago they did it not once but three times in one episode. Like I said, you could have a drinking game.

So this is the way I would write it if I were writing the show -

Locke and Sawyer are trudging through the jungle, not a care in the world about Others or Smokey or Christian popping out or anything, just trudging through the jungle. They haven’t spoken in some time.

LOCKE – “Five.”
SAWYER – Looks around confused, focusing on LOCKE. “What’d you say?”
LOCKE – “Five. I said five, James.”
SAWYER – Still confused. “…Five what?”
LOCKE – Now confused too. “…Uh…you know, about what you said earlier. There are five. Five.”
SAWYER – Now looking peeved. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
LOCKE – Spreading his hands, ever the teacher. “About…2 hours ago we were talking about…you know, that thing we were talking…about.”
SAWYER – “John, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what “five” means.”
LOCKE – Now very confused. “You don’t?”
SAWYER – “…No.”
There is a long silence as Locke looks at Sawyer. He is very confused now, to say the least, and trying to figure out what “five” refers to.
LOCKE – “Hmm…I don’t know what “five” means either.”
Sawyer smirks. “Nice one.” He begins trudging again.
Locke stands in the jungle, then follows Sawyer. “I’ll think of what it means in a minute!”
SAWYER – “Sure you will, Sherlock.”

He heads off into the jungle. Locke quizzically follows.

It would be funny. And then maybe the ‘Lost’ writers wouldn’t do it anymore.