And skidooing is an important plot point to the show, because while on their skidoo adventures the characters have learn things and get to play and also may find a Blue’s Clue, whichis  great and all, but you wanna know who else could really use skidooing, especially in these trying economic times?

The military. Could totally help them out.

One top of all of the budget cutting that could be done, getting rid of transport planes/ships that are no longer required, there’s the instantaneous benefits of such a power. Does the president need to insert a highly skilled team of Navy SEALs into Tehran RIGHT NOW to take out Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before he does something else crazy? Done! Does South Korea want to finally finish the Korean War once and for all and skidoo into Pyongyang and take on the entire populace of North Korea before they can completely mobilize? It’s doable. Anything could be doable, as long as we have a picture of where we need to put our military and our boys could remember those easy to recite words — “Blue skidoo, we can to.” Maybe end it with a “Sir, yes sir,” too.

If Robert Oppenheimer had been working on a secret skidoo project instead of the Manhattan Project our boys could have ended WWII early and gotten to Berlin even before the Russian army was thinking about moving westward from Stalingrad and we never would have had to invade North Africa or Italy or obliterate the Atlantic Wall. And LBJ could have won the Vietnam War, probably, if we’d been able to skidoo into Hanoi and convince Ho Chi Minh that we really did want him to be in favor of democracy. He might even have decided to run for reelection and change the course of history.

The major drawback is that our people need a picture on the other end of the skidoo to return the same way. If they lose that picture…well, Mr. Secretary of Defense, order a new transport, since we got rid of them after the budget cuts allowed through skidooing. Enjoy hitchhiking home, soldiers!

But we could get rid of Air Force One, also, just keep that little blue dog with the President whenever he goes on the road.

I think Blue would have to remain non-partisan though. Can’t be favoring one political party over another. He’d also have to have a code name.

Anyway, just an idea. A completely cool idea, but just an idea.

I think Noah likes the show because it reminds him of himself. George is curious, fairly bright, and always getting into situations that he’d be better off not getting into. He’s smart and funny and cute, just like George, and he probably smells better than George, even though TMWTYH bathes George regularly.

But the show does one thing that, the first time I heard it, I knew immediately what it meant when I heard it.

In between the two CG segments of the show they will cut to kids taking some lesson that George learned and put it to practical real-world use. Kids will make telescopes out of paper towel tubes or trace their shadows and watch the sun move and stuff like that, but they always say the same thing after each cartoon segment: “George is a monkey, and he can do things that you can’t do.”

Really? It’s really come to that? Telling kids that a monkey might be able to climb up telephone poles and swing from power lines without being fried to a crisp? Or that he can knock down an entire dinosaur exhibit and put it back together before some scientists return? What is the meaning of this?

If you’re like me you already know what this is — the legal disclaimer. Yes, George is a monkey, and he can do things that you can’t do, like get kidnapped from his homeland in Africa and be brought to New York City (wait — some people a long time ago did do that), or go up in a rocket and repair a satellite (that’s been done too), or go skiing and rescue a pig (I’m sure someone has done those exact same things on a ski trip before).

Get real, PBS. Kids are just as smart and brave and crafty and mischievous as Curious George, and while the disclaimer could read “George is a monkey, and he can do things that you shouldn’t do without asking your parents first,” all of the things he does are in fact doable, but some little kid might get hurt or die doing what George does on your show.

When I was a kid there was a park near my house and it had great things to play with there. My favorite thing to do there was swing as high as I could on the swings and then jump off the swing at its highest point, flying probably ten feet or so from a height of about nine to ten feet in the air. It was pretty thrilling to do, and I never broke my arm or ankle, and I could have, but it was fun. And Curious George has fun too, but PBS, don’t tell kids they shouldn’t be adventurous. That sometimes takes all the fun out of being a kid, and if that’s the case you might as well just call him Dullard George.

What will it answer and how will it answer it is the big question though. Will we ever be told why no children could be born on the island? Will we ever know who built the statue that Jacob lived inside of? Will we be told who eventually finished the donkey wheel project started so long ago by Jacob’s brother, the Man in Black? Will it be explained what was wrong with Sayid before he committed hari kari with the bomb in the submarine? And where is Daniel Faraday? I want him back one more time.

There’s a lot to answer, and judging from last week’s episode focusing on the relationship of Jacob and his brother, the showrunners are in no hurry to get to the finish line that they set out for themselves two seasons ago. Yeah, we got the answer from season two on who the bodies were in the cave, but that deserved a whole hour dedicated to one simple question?

I don’t think that the people who make the show are going to end it as some hallucination in Hurley’s crazy head or a dream that Aaron started having before he was born or fast forwarding five to 10, or more, years into the future and seeing whomever took over for Jacob downing another airliner or crashing a cruise ship or something. I just want a satisfying ending, not everything has to be explained and I know that everything won’t be explained (like how that plane was able to drop a food shipment on the island if normal people aren’t really able to travel to the island) but I want certain people to live (mainly Hurley) and for their stories to end with satisfying endings. Not much to ask.

Also, I’m going to see the Times Talks Live:Lost on May 20 where New York Times entertainment editor Lorne Manly is going to be talking live with producers Carlton Cuse and Lindelof. I’m sure they won’t give anything away (the finale is only 3 days later) but I bet they’ll hint at something. Maybe I’ll tweet it — that would be fun.

And what show will I watch after this is all over with? Maybe The Walking Dead.

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

I’ll say it in front of Kim 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?

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.

Our ragtag band of survivors killed off (or had their enemies kill themselves) their enemies, specifically Dean Stockwell’s wily Brother Cavil, who opted, instead of resurrection, to end it all with a bullet in the head. With his death I’m assuming that the Cylon threat is gone, but aren’t there more Cylons out there? And come on, that was a cheap way out. Cavil had a sweeping master plan to bring the Cylons back on top and take resurrection back to his people and he ended his life with a bullet? In the mouth? Sure, I know that Tyrol had just killed Torie and that the secret of resurrection would never be his after that, but suicide? He had the human race where he wanted it and it’s not like the guy can naturally die. Suicide seems like a lame way out for him.

But there were other things. The Opera House vision was all about the Galactica CIC? Really? What writer thought that up and how rushed to deadline were they before they thought that lame idea up? If Baltar and Six were supposed to take Hera why would Roslin and Sharon be so scared?

A huge problem with the episode? A lot of the loose ends seemed to get tied up rather loosely.

We never find out why Kara came back or or why or what she was. And you kind of knew she was going to be it but Roslin was the dying leader? Did she really lead them to Earth or did she just lead them in space? What happened to the relationship between Tigh and Six? He’d gotten her pregnant. And Head Six and Head Baltar? What was that? Are they angels? Cylons? No explanation given. Or not worth giving.

Another problem is that Ron Moore gives explanation of many of these hints on his show commentary podcasts, which is also how you would have found out that everyone who took part in Zarak and Gaeta’s failed coup d’état was put on board the prison ship. You never would have heard a single character just mention in passing, “Everyone who took part in Zarak and Gaeta’s failed coup d’état was put on board the prison ship.” I guess those 3 seconds of airtime would have eaten up too much story time.

Probably my biggest problem with the show was that way too much time was given to the battle at the Cylon colony and not enough given to the time on Earth. Several parts of the final battle seemed to drag as Colonials would walk through the Cylon hallways, guns drawn, staring straight ahead like they were…waiting for something to appear…like Bad Sharon. Or Simon. Or that PR guy. Or a battle between CG Cylons.

And too much time spent on the characters’ pasts on Caprica. Time was wasted so we could see that Roslin slept with a former student, Bill had a job interview, Anders talk about “perfection”, Tigh and Ellen drink and Lee almost sleeps with his brother’s fiance Kara. Probably collectively 45 minutes was wasted on flashbacks. Sure, it showed why some of these people survived the war, but still needless and pointless.

And because of the time crunch Earth seemed to be hurried through. We had a lot of territory to cover there and a lot of stories to wrap up, we couldn’t take a few minutes out of the pointless Lee/Kara flashback and show more of what happened to Lee on Earth?

There he was, talking to Kara, then she just upped and “disappeared” and he was alone. And that was that.

Nothing else about Lee? He’s just left alone in Africa? Alone? Without Kara? What a waste of time that was.

I think of all of the Earthbound storylines that was served the best was the Baltar/Six one. You learned that Baltar grew up on a farm and knew how to cultivate crops, so now that he has no more science equipment he’s at least going to survive. And after all they’ve been through, tall Six is going to be with short Baltar. But I don’t get Head Baltar and Head Six. I’m guessing they’re angels? I don’t know. If they’re Cylons those clothes they’ve been wearing for 150,000 years still look good.

And a logical fallacy — If the notes of “All Along the Watchtower” are given numerical values, and those numerical values, when punched into an FTL computer, take that ship to Earth, wouldn’t Jimi Hendrix’s version of the song at the end of the show technically lead whoever figured out the numerical code right back to a bombed out nuclear Earth in the future? As I’m assuming by the end of the show that the writers are hinting that our current Earth is heading down the same path as our “forefathers” did on Kobol. Maybe the next coordinates could have been put to “Dancing Queen” or “How Much is that Doggy in the Window” or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

My last problem with the show was that the series was so great and well written that it felt like most of the mysteries from early on were just given short shrift because some sort of answer had to be given as an explanation for them. The final five plotline was alright but ultimately silly in the end. Kara returning from the dead was never adequately explained, the conceiving of Hera, and lots more. It was great TV but I think that the show creators owed it to their fan base to elaborate better and figure out better answers to the mysteries, even if they were convenient plotlines from seasons ago that helped propel the story along. A good example that they could have looked to was “Lost” which just seems to get better the longer it goes. The creators of it may not know where it’s going to go from season to season, but they think up new and interesting situations for the Losties to get involved in, and it’s not like the two shows have little in common. The Losties are stuck on the island (sort of) and the Colonials are stuck on the Galactica. Both sets are trying to get home and only one so far has succeeded. Let’s hope that “Lost”, with all of the expectations it has built up for itself, can pull of an ending better than “Galactica” did.

Not that she’s not a great character, we just haven’t had a chance to get to know and like her like we have her husband, Saul. While Saul’s personal standing had continued to rise as the years went on and the fleet continued their quest through uncharted space, Ellen died in the early parts of Season 3 after passing information over to Brother Cavill in order to get Saul out of prison. She was manipulative, cruel, evil and lascivious. She drank heavily and plotted against everyone so that her husband (and her) could benefit from others failings. She is not an easy person to like.

But Saul loved her (until he had to kill her) and still loves her, and now that he’s had his vision as he prepared to kill himself in some icy radioactive ocean on Earth he’s convinced that she’s the final Cylon.

But I wasn’t convinced about that. How to explain Starbuck and her resurrection from the dead? What about that Viper she and Leobon saw with her charred body in the cockpit? If anyone had a legitimate claim to the Final throne I thought it would be her. Maybe as the final Cylon she is the most powerful and can resurrect without the Resurrection Ship? Maybe.

But Ron Moore, creator of the re-imagined series, said -

“[Ellen and Saul Tigh have)) always been Cylons, and there’s something profound about that. They’re a married couple who just have to go at it periodically and just have major issues and major problems. But the bond between the two of them was something that literally could not be broken. And I thought that was a really interesting and ultimately very positive thing to say.”

So I’m apt to believe it. And I thought it would be interesting if someone that had been killed off of the show was the final on, but not her. Maybe Billy or Dee or that little girl that died on the cruise ship during the pilot. Ellen just seems like such a…blah choice.

If and when Ellen returns (and they’ve set it up where she just has to return) how will she? Can she create herself? Will a Higher Cylon Power create her? Will she be all knowing? I doubt it. The other four don’t know anything even though they’ve been asked. Do they know the way to Earth? Nope. Do any of the Final Five have the answers to the big questions? Probably not. If they do it’s been dribbled out of their programming, like that song they all sang together, which was cute, but they don’t seem to share a hive mind of higher powers or advanced knowledge.

Will Ellen be the Know It All? Probably not.

I’d hoped (hoped hoped) it would be Tom Zarek because that way when it was (hoped it would be) revealed in the last episode that he was the final evil Cylon then Adama could nuke him and his evil compatriots. Of course, the way the storyline is progressing right now along the lines of treason and revolution Adama may have his chance to do just that. But now we know it isn’t going to be Zarek.

Oh well. Had to be somebody.

We last saw our band of pilgrims as they arrived at Earth, but not the Earth that we currently know. It’s a bombed-out radioactive-looking wasteland that doesn’t look very welcoming to the voyagers from the twelve colonies. I would guess we’ll get our questions answered this season, at least I hope we do. Battlin’ Bill Adama has brought these people this far, I doubt that he’ll leave them hanging, but what about hope at this point? Most of what was keeping everyone going onboard those flying tin cans was the hope that Earth would be out there, somewhere, and that it would be habitable. It’s like getting half of a prayer answered. Sure, you made it to Earth, but are you going to like it once you get there? Good luck. Brother Cavil is still out there with his compatriots, and when they find Earth…eek.

We’ll also finally get to see the last secret Cylon. I guess after Baltar’s aborted Cylon Detector didn’t figure out that four of the Final Five weren’t human that someone we know and love will be the last one. I’m hoping that it’s not one of the top two (Adama or President Roslin), and I don’t think that the creators of the show would take so obvious a tack. My gut tells me that it could be Tom Zarek, but who knows. It would also be a complete mind f*ck if it was Billy Keikeya, who died in a barroom shootout, or Ellen Tigh, who was killed by her husband back on New Caprica.

And is Lee Adama still the president now that Roslin is back? Does she even want to be president anymore? If Lee is still president, will Zarek keep trying to influence him(another reason that I think he is a top contender for The Last One)?

My only complaint? That the Sci-Fi network survives off of people watching this one show, and because of that they aired the first ten episodes of season four and then had the audacity to hold onto the final 10 until 7 MONTHS LATER. Shame on you, Sci-Fi Channel. At least you’re finally going to air them.

And I’ve waited so long for this show to come back on. Please lord let it be good. No, be better than good, please be great and remind me why I love this show so much. Please.

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He and I read Curious George books probably twice a week thanks to the library. Curious George Goes to a Restaurant. Curious George Plays Baseball. Curious George Flies a Kite. Curious George is Bored. Things like that. You know the drill.

And no one in this country or world would know about Curious George if it wasn’t for his ubiquitous friend, the Man With the Yellow Hat (MYWH for those in the know). He has no name, no history, he just exists as the Man With the Yellow Hat. We do know a few things about him though. He is an explorer, as we know from the first Curious George book. He also appears to be wealthy, having an apartment in “the city” and a house in “the country” and because if this he is a man of leisure. There are no real world locations in Curious George, but one can assume that given the history of his creators, the husband and wife team of H.A. and Margret Rey, who fled Nazi Germany to eventually live in New York City, that New York is “the city”, but I’m completely and totally getting off topic.

The Man With the Yellow Hat is ALWAYS wearing yellow. He never wears blue. He never wears red. He never wears black. Only yellow. And it can only be yellow or else part of his persona and psyche is gone, like a war veteran who lost a limb that can still feel it itching when he gets back to “the world”. This weird character trait would make it difficult for a normal person to shop for clothes, but he does live in “the city”, so he probably gets his clothes tailor-made at some haberdasher, being a wealthy gentlemen and all.

And for the love of all that is holy, don’t lose his hat. Few things are worse than this scenario. As he said in one of the episodes of the Curious George show, which I watch with my oldest, “Without my hat, I’m just not…me.” No kidding, Man With the Yellow Hat. Then you’re just “The Man”. A generic plot point in a children’s book. He. Is. Nothing.

The Man With the Yellow Hat also seems strange just for the fact that he’s a strapping young guy in a city full of available ogling females who lives with a monkey. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! And he’s always leaving George by himself, saying things like, “Now I’ve got to conveniently go over here. Don’t get into trouble!” What does this moron think is going to happen, George is going to just sit there? Everybody in the books calls the monkey CURIOUS George. There is no “Mild-Mannered George” or “Dullard George”.

But all in all the Man With the Yellow Hat seems to live a pretty cool life. He’s an explorer, he drives a convertible, he flies a plane, he has a pet monkey. My oldest would kill for that life.

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After that first Cylon war years ago you were drifting, floundering here and there, drinking, getting into fights, until that one bar where you met Bill Adama and the two of you pledged to each other that no matter what happened the two of you were going to get back into the fleet. And you did. That took guts and guts you have, my brother.

You were crafted by war, Saul, and war needed you. When the Galactica had been hit by nuclear missiles during the initial volleys of the Cylon War II, you had the hulls sealed off and then the airlocks opened to put out a fire that was threatening to take out the entire ship. In the process you shot many living people into space, but you saved the ship. You killed your crewmen but you did it for the greater good and it was a shining moment in your dented and scarred career. Who else would have had the stones to do that? Few men, I tell you.

And when the war came again you found your place. You hated Cylons with a white-hot Tilium-burning passion and that hate has gotten you this far, but now you’ve come to a HUGE crossroad, my friend — you’ve discovered, along with three other people on board the Galactica, that you’re Cylons. You’re part of the fabled Final Five which makes you special, very special. Suddenly your life has tremendous meaning — you’re now more than just a man, you’re a symbol to some, a god to others. You’ve been killing Cylons for fifty years, from the first rebellion to the holocaust of the human race to New Caprica, and now you find out you’re a Cylon? You yourself are one of the enemy? Well, that’s almost too much for an ordinary man to bear.

But damnit Saul, you’re no ordinary man! You’re Saul Tigh, the most rip-snortin’, butt-kickin’ Colonel, XO and one-time dictator in the entire human race! Man up, son! Get yourself together!

Oh sure, it was soul cleansing when you told Adama that you were a Cylon. But what did you think he was going to do, kill you? Would that have made everything better? That would be too good, too easy for you. He handed you over to his son who almost killed you, but Bill never could kill his best friend. You think The Old Man could really have done that to someone he loves almost as much as his own son? Never. I even had in my mind the way I thought you would go on the show but as the midpoint of season four showed us it won’t happen. Here it is though for you -

Adama knows you’re a Cylon. He’s in a rage, holding you up against the bulkhead and has a gun to your chest.

ADAMA : You want absolution, Saul?! What the frak did you think I was going to do? Kill you so you wouldn’t have to?

TIGH : No Bill. I couldn’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right.

And then you shoot yourself in the head and as your body falls to the floor of the airlock Bill bursts into tears as his best friend dies in his arms and he weeps over you because he knows that part of his soul is now gone and can never come back no matter how many model ships or mirrors he destroys.

It would have been an amazing way for you to go and it would have sucker punched me in the stomach to watch you die. But you’re not dead yet, Saul. You have to keep going. The race isn’t over yet, brother. You said it yourself : you’re Saul Tigh, XO of the Battlestar Galactica, and whatever you were then, that’s the way you’re going to be until the day you die. That’s quite a mantra to live by Saul, given what’s happened to you.

Toughen up, Saul. The worst may be yet to come. Good luck and gods’ speed, friend.

The evil on the show is Gabriel Gray, a nerdy watch repairman who took the lame moniker of Sylar from one of the brands of watches he fixed. He is able to acquire other powers by (he thinks, but I’m not so sure) eating other hero-type people’s brains. Lovely.

The first season was fun and I stuck around to see if New York would indeed be destroyed by the man who can’t control his powers, Peter Petrelli. Peter had acquired nuclear capabilities from Ted Sprague. Peter, unlike Sylar, gets powers by being around people who already have the power he will develop. I think Sylar operates the same way but he just doesn’t know it.

Half the joy of season one was watching Hiro, the time-traveling Japanese office worker, discover his ability and then realize that it can be fun as well as powerful. His journey, of all of them, has been the most enjoyable to watch as he grows.

Anyway, there was this “mastermind” named Daniel Linderman (he has powers too — regeneration) who was going to bring about a new age by having Peter Petrelli destroy New York with his nuclear capabilities and then get Peter’s brother Nathan elected president. Nathan helped Peter get out of the city by flying up into the stratosphere before exploding. In the “destroy NY” show Linderman is shot to death, right through the head, and can’t regenerate. He’s dead. Really dead.

Which brings me around to now. Ain’t It Cool News is linking to a story where someone from the BBC is giving away what’s in a season 3 ‘Heroes’ promo. I’m talking spoilers, so if you care and watch the show, skip the next paragraph.

LINDERMAN IS BACK?

What?! Why can’t they kill anyone on this show and not have them stay dead?! Why can’t someone just die and be really dead?! The freaking guy was SHOT IN THE HEAD. Kill him! Kill him! Have him be dead, really dead! Bad guys, even SUPER BAD GUYS, die! Come on, man, just kill someone off of this show and have him be gone! He wasn’t that cool or anything. Even his name is lame. He was even lamer than the guy that could paint the future.((Don’t even get me started on how cool it would have been to have Hiro fighting a Tyrannosaurus. That would have rökked.)) Jeez.

And man, I’ve hung on even through the lame new characters they tried to introduce last season where all I wanted was for the girl who’s eyes turn black to die. The sweet release of her death would have been a high point of last season, but no, they had to have her “fall in love” with Sylar. She’s as lame as Nikki and Paulo on “Lost” were and the creators of “Lost” were smart enough to kill them off! Kill Black Eyed Girl! Kill her as soon as possible!

The list of people on the show with powers just keeps growing. Nikki, who supposedly died in an explosion, I’m sure will turn up alive. Nathan, who was shot at the end of last season right before he “came out” about his flying power, I’m sure will be back too. Claire’s dad, who’s death was very powerful on the show, was resurrected. Sylar himself probably was dead but they’ve brought him back to annoy us with his “my-head-is-down-but-I’m-looking-at-you” eyes and stupid way of talking again. And Hiro can’t even kill a bad guy; he has to bury him in a coffin alive. The guy he buried is immortal so I’m sure he’ll turn up again, as usual.

The only one that I really am glad is back is Hiro’s friend Ando. Ando is one of the few people on the roster without powers which is probably why I like him so much. Can’t we have fewer people with powers? To see their perspective on those with powers? And can’t this freaking show thin the ranks a little bit before the whole planet is on the show because, you know, they ALL have powers?

Joe, to the untrained eye, appears to be Joe-like, but he acts far more juvenile than Steve Burns ever did. Watching him you get the feeling, and it’s probably not Donovan Patton’s fault. Steve, towards the end of his tenure on the show, seemed to be getting more and more cerebral. He would lift an eyebrow for effect here, a slight double-take there. He even used the word ‘jejune’ on the show.

Then Steve’s brother Joe showed up right as Steve was going away to college.

The producers probably wanted to go back to the more kid-friendly format of the early years of the show but after watching Burns Patton’s delivery seemed so pre-preschoolish.

When singing the signature song he looks longingly at the screen like he honestly doesn’t remember from program to program that he needs to use his notebook or find a clue. For god’s sake, in one episode he didn’t know where his nose was. Or his ear. Who in their right mind doesn’t know where his nose is? If you’re Joe, then you don’t, obviously.

The whole “Steve goes to college” angle was alright, since Burns wanted to leave the show, and, from his own website “we have male pattern baldness.” Steve was looking a little long in the tooth. But how could “Steve” get into college? He couldn’t find clues (as far as I know he only found one and that was in the “Blue’s Big Musical” episode) so how did he get into college? And what college is it? Stupid U?

But at least Steve got into college. Joe, the stupid brother, has been stuck at home for years now, living out his pre-preschoolish existence with a talking mailbox, some talking salt and pepper shakers, and a bar of soap that wants to be a ship captain. Maybe Joe is crazy and the “Blue’s Clues” show is all in his head, or maybe Steve was crazy and, living in the Bluesiverse, made up a brother out of thin air so he could escape his own insanity. Think about it. I could happen. Sorta Being John Malkovich–esque. Or like the ending of “Saint Elsewhere”. Maybe Joe is dreaming up the whole thing. Wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

Steven Burns, who played, inexplicably, “Steve”, was on the show from 1996 to 2002. When Burns decided to move on (one reason given — male pattern baldness), “Steve” went off to college and his younger brother Joe (played by Donovan Patton) moved in to take care of Blue. Joe was introduced over several episodes where he learned the ropes of playing the signature game, “Blue’s Clues”. The human sidekick would ask Blue a question and rather than answer, Blue would demand that his token human must find 3 clues that would lead to what Blue would have said.

Just once I wanted the human, upon learning that Blue wanted to play the game, to say, “No. I don’t want to play Blue’s Clues today.” Would have been a short show.

So which was a better human henchman, Steve or Joe? Both are likable enough, and my son is glued to either of them when they’re on the screen, but each has a different style, which, after repeated viewing (as I’ve done) becomes apparent.

Patton’s acting is more sitcom-y, I think. He’s a ham when he’s onscreen, kind of like a silent screen actor. He has terrible hair, but that’s only partially his fault, since he was born that way. The other half of it is his fault, because he should get a cooler haircut.

Hard to believe, but Donovan Patton is a cousin of General George S. Patton. I think Patton’s acting is goofy and his character of Joe acts more stupid and clueless than Steve did.

Steve just seemed to be played by a better actor. I actually laugh at him, which isn’t saying much, but he had facial quirks, eyebrow movements, comic timing. Joe seems like his mother drank while she was pregnant with him.

So I award Steve the Ultimate Blue’s Clues Human Sidekick award. Congratulations Mr. Burns. You earned it.

As best as I can gather, the Losties have been on The Island for roughly around 70 days, just south of 2 months. In that time they’ve had 9 of their own die (Scott, Boone, Shannon, Arzt, Libby, Ana Lucia, Mr. Eko, Nikki, Paulo) and one more if you count the Oceanic Air pilot killed in the first episode, and some of those people, if the show’s time line is to be believed, died literally only weeks ago. Our castaways don’t seem very visibly upset by a lot of the death going on around them.

I attribute this to the “The ‘Lost’ Short Term Memory Syndrome”. It’s a condition commonly found in television characters who crashed on an island 3 years ago and are still living in that time, yet they’re being watched 3 years in the future on television. How else can you explain the lack of feelings, the forgotten things that happen from one week (or day, or whatever their passage of time consists of) to the next?

We’ll be talking in “Lost” time, not real world time, FYI.

On the second day our Losties are on the island some of them hike to higher ground to see if they can use a radio to contact the outside world, but they pick up signals in French from a radio tower. Shannon is able to decipher them, but many more people were there besides her. Do they not remember this unseen tower? Why aren’t they looking for it?

Sawyer was tortured by Sayid roughly a week and a half after they crashed for hoarding, yet in last night’s episode, Sawyer and Sayid are paling around and trying to get Juliet to talk. Would you be friends with someone who had tortured you not 2 months before? Why isn’t Sawyer trying to get even with Sayid for doing this?

Three weeks ago Jinn, Sawyer, Michael and Walt set sail on their boat, which was blown up by the Other known as Tom later that day. That was 3 weeks ago? Feels like forever ago.

Sayid loved Shannon, and she died about on day 48 of their time on the island. If we’re at about day 65+, shouldn’t Sayid still be a little torn up over her? The guy sure did mourn a long time for his girl, didn’t he?

On day 59, Locke was trapped beneath the blast door in the Hatch. It pierced his thighs, but a week later he’s fine? What gives? I know it’s the “healing powers of the island”, but come on, don’t give me that.

Eight-ish days ago, Michael killed Ana Lucia and Libby. Eight days ago. Three days after that Michael and Walt are given a boat and coordinates by Ben Linus. They leave the island.

On the same day the Hatch explodes. If the Hatch exploded on day 65, and we’re right around day 70 or so, it’s been less than a week since that occurrence. None of the Losties seem to remember the Hatch, but the Others talk about the Purple Light that screwed up their navigation systems.

I guess they forgot about the Numbers too. And they were such a big deal, weren’t they?

I’ll give them a point of consistency though — Sawyer has not reverted to calling people nicknames yet. I expect that to change as he conveniently forgets his deal with Hurley.

Tigh has been my favorite character on BSG since the excellent miniseries launched the show, and it’s funny, since if the guy were real and we were to meet in real life I’d probably hate him, mainly from his demeanor. Upon first meeting he’d probably give one raised nostril in a sneer and snarl something degrading, But Michael Hogan makes him so real and flawed that his humanity (or lack of humanity, now that the season 3 finally has come and gone) pours out of him.

Now that supposedly Tigh is a Cylon, I have no idea how they will rectify his back story with what we now know he is. According to the excellent Battlestarwiki.org, Tigh served aboard a warship called the Brenik during the first Cylon war when he was just a teenager. He was released from service after the war, served aboard civilian ships and met Bill Adama during a bar fight. The two men grew old together while they served the colonies together. How they’re going to make him a Cylon that grew old is beyond me. I don’t know.

I guess what I like about him is his irascible character, his take-no-garbage attitude and his willingness to do anything that is necessary to survive. He only seems to have given up that fight twice in his life, once when he’d divorced Ellen and was drifting aimlessly, and then after he’d had to kill Ellen and return to the Galactica. Executing Cylon collaborators seemed to have helped quench some of his fury, but as a man he was drifting.

Now that he believes that he is a Cylon he has turned back to the one constant in his life; serving under Bill Adama as XO. He defiantly declared upon realization that he isn’t human, “My name is Saul Tigh. I’m an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that’s the man I want to be. And if I die today, that’s the man I’ll be.”

God, I love this man. Godspeed, Tigh! May you make it to “Earth” so we may all know you in all your ornery glory!

Make me care again.

You bastards!

The people behind “Lost” must have noticed that our household was getting tired of their little televised social experiment, because out of the blue they’ve started putting on far better shows than we were used to seeing on ABC on Wednesday nights. Except for a few glitches this season (like the horr-i-ble Jack-centric “Stranger in a Strange Land”) the second half of season 3 hasn’t been too shabby, with episodes like the Desmond-centric episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes” being the stand out for me this season, followed by “The Man from Tallahassee” and last week’s fun (for me, at least) “Expose” where they killed off the latest clumsily introduced members of the Losties.

The producers definitely were yanking our chains when the season started, what with the downbeat episodes of Jack, Sawyer and Kate’s captivity and Jack’s growing relationships with Ben and Juliet. I love Ben now, he’s just so creepy/weird and you really (up until “Expose”) didn’t know where he was coming from, but he’s either manipulating people to do what they wouldn’t normally do and he’s a mastermind of sorts, or he’s delusional and thinks he’s some amazing puppet master. And Juliet has evil written all over her. Just a feeling I get.

John Locke has been infuriating this season though. You can’t stop playing with computers, can you John? First Mikhail escapes because you want to play chess on the Fire Station’s computer, then you blow up the Fire Station out of stupidity, and then you kill Mikhail because he knows you were a paraplegic, and to top it all off you go and take that C4 that you found and blow up the one reliable mode of transportation off of the island? What’s your angle, John? You better pray that Penny Widmore rescues your ass, or at least your compatriots, since you’ll never want to leave the island now that you can walk.

Charlie can die anytime he wants now. After the drug storyline was done with he started feeling extraneous, like Shannon. Hey Desmond, don’t tell Charlie when he’s going to die so he won’t know you didn’t save him, okay?

Where did Rose and Bernhard go? I liked both of them and they’ve just disappeared, but of course, in “Lost” time, they’ve been gone for probably 5 days.

I keep hoping we’ll see Michael and Walt again someday. I like to think that the coordinates that Ben gave Michael when he left at the end of last season took him straight to the second island and that they’re both there. They’re probably locked up somewhere, but I wish they’d explained Walt’s weird gift with animals and drawing them to him. Guess that’ll go straight into the toilet, won’t it? Along with so many other mysteries.

And I don’t miss Eko. He had the ability to become cool, like Locke, but he used all of his street cred up with me. RIP, Eko.

This is more just rambling, isn’t it?

The infected basestar episodes (“Torn”, “A Measure of Salvation”)were excellent in execution but made me furious when a potentially huge new plot line was discarded just because Helo had a conscience. Adama should have shot him himself. Or else Tigh could have eaten him, which I think he would have gladly done.

Tigh continues to be my favorite character of the series, and when he isn’t on screen for long periods of time I miss him. He’s a complete jerk and a drunk, but it’s priceless lines like “It’s in the frakkin’ ship!” and that little laugh he gave Helo in “The Woman King” that make me wish someone would recognize how great an actor Michael Hogan really is. But he’s Canadian and a recluse, from what it sounds like, so he may never get the recognition that I think he deserves.

Next favorite is Chief, Galen Tyrol. Everytime they want to have a heavy mythos-centric episode they seem to allow him to shine. Whether he’s coming to grips with the idea that he may be a Cylon, or trying to decipher the Eye of Jupiter, or even in Crossroads, where he and others, for some reason, keep hearing “All Along the Watchtower”, Aaron Douglas as Tyrol is great, and he plays the tortured part well.

Is it okay to think that Grace Park (Sharon/Boomer/Athena) isn’t that great an actress? Yes, it is okay. Because she’s not.

And I miss Brother Cavill (Dean Stockwell). We need more of him next season. He’s just so slimy.

I thought it was a great concept — 40ish people crash land on a deserted island and have to survive. Meanwhile strange things start happening. What’s causing it? Well, tune in next week and learn some more. In the mean time you’ll learn about the people that you’re following through flashbacks to their lives off of the island. Not a bad idea for a show.

And I stayed around for months, years now. Two and a half years as it is, and I tune in dutifully week after week, like all of the other people who have been there from the beginning or got hooked on the show at some point during its run. Every Wednesday at 8 pm was Lost, and you watched it for clues and then you talked about it the next day at work, and you pondered the meaning of little things and hoped and prayed that your theory(s) would be addressed at some point.

What is the monster? What was Walt’s power? How did he draw animals to him? How did he manifest himself when he was somewhere else? Who was the guy that Jack thought was his father? Who’s the guy that Eko thought was his brother? Was it the smoke monster? How did Locke lose the ability to walk? Was Charlie ever doing more heroin on the island that he found in the plane that Eko’s brother showed up in? Why did Boone have to die? What happened to Desmond’s boat? What was the deal with that shark that had a Dharma logo on it? Where did Rose’s cancer go? What’s with the magnetism on the island? And what do the Numbers matter for?

All are some of the questions I’ve got about this show, and I know from the episode where Jack watches the Boston Red Sox win the World Series that they’re only 70 days into their stay on the island. At this rate Sun will finally have her baby along about season 12 or so. Time moves slower here, things happen more rapidly on the island than in our world, since we wait an entire week to watch one or two days on the island.

And it’s getting tedious. There are better, far better, shows out there (Battlestar Galatica) and shows that are more interesting (Heroes), so why stick around for Lost anymore? The ratings for the season 3 opener of Lost were down 1 million viewers from the season 2 finale. One million viewers is a lot of ad dollars to ABC. Are they going to start prodding the show’s creators to start giving more information to get people back?

If they would just cough up some big plot points (Why the crashed, who the Others are, where the island is, what the monster is) they could always create new plot points, like they did in the season 2 finale with the huge stone foot Sayid saw on the beach. But instead they drip out minutia week after freaking week with no secrets revealed.

Why should I stick around for a show that I feel takes me for granted? Why should I watch a show where I know almost no more about the Lostie’s situation now than I did when it began? Will ABC force changes to the show in order to get people back? And since it’s not even my favorite show on TV anymore, why should I care about Lost now?

I watched “Battlestar Galactica” when it was on in 1978. I was high on Star Wars and this was the next best thing to Star Wars that we had on TV, which made sense, since many of the ILM designers who worked on Star Wars worked on BsG also. I even watched the crappy “Galactica 1980” when I was nine or ten years old. I’d also heard for years that Richard Hatch, he of Apollo fame, was attempting to resurrect the series and have it continue from the stopping point of the first series. I thought it sounded lame and like something that a washed up actor would try to do, kind of like how Tom Arnold keeps saying that there’s going to be a True Lies 2. Then I started reading about Ron Moore’s adaptation and how it recast many of the original roles and that they’d sexified the whole thing and it sounded pathetic and lame.

But then I (belatedly) saw the miniseries on DVD. And I was hooked.

Gone was the loopiness of the first series. No more casino planets. No more Ovians. No more Dagget or lumbering Cylons with their hokey swords. The Cylons were bad muthas. The apocalypse of the 12 colonies of Kobol felt real (naturally in a post 9/11 world) and immediate. There were moments where people had to make decisions that would get the entire fleet killed or just half of the fleet. It was gut wrenching to watch as the president decides to abandon half of the fleet to die so that the rest of the fleet can live on to run from the bad guys another day.

And then the SciFi Channel greenlit a first season. And it was great. And then based on the ratings of that they greenlit a second season, something that the first series could never do. And it’s still great.

My favorite characters from the new series are Col. Tigh and Gaius Baltar, two people that I never cared about from the first series. Tigh always was the nice genteel second in command (I remember very little about him) to Adama, and I remember nothing of Baltar, except that I think he was already a turncoat to the Cylons when the series began. Michael Hogan and James Callis, who play Tigh and Baltar, respectively, are great, with Hogan being my favorite of the two. His Tigh is a lowlife drunk scumbag who Adama sees some sort of value in. He’s crass, gets in fights, and is almost universally hated by the crew, especially Starbuck. Callis, who I remembered as the gay guy from Bridget Jones’s Diary is hillarious here as the egomaniacal genius who keeps having visions of his Cylon girlfriend/handler in his head. That the man who unwittingly helped bring the apocalypse on is able to be elevated to the post of vice president of the former 12 colonies makes for great television.

I love the show. I wait weekly now to see what will happen next. I try not to read on the net what will happen the next episode. I don’t do such a good job of that sometimes. The sign of great television is that you will clamor for more and more like this show does. I want to know who else is a Cylon. I want to know what the colonists will find on Kobol. I want to know how Helo and Starbuck are going to get back to the fleet and what will happen to them on the way. I want to know when Baltar will finally turn to the Cylon side and either be forced to flee or will stay and be a Fifth Columnist for the Cylons. I want to know what is going to happen to Boomer now that she shot Adama. Will President Roslin die? Will Baltar become president at that time or will he have to campaign against Tom Zarek? When is Tigh going to attempt to clean up and get rid of his crazy wife Ellen, who consequently lusts for Tigh to have power? What will happen to Chief when he gets back and his suspicions about Boomer being a Cylon are realized?

Damn! I love this show!