Dollhouse Season 2 Checklist

First off, again, this will be spoilery. Consider this your warning. If you have not yet seen the entire first season of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse starring Eliza Dushku, Miracle Laurie, Dichen Lachman, Fran Kranz, Tahmoh Penikett and oh the list goes on.. stop reading this, go do that, and come back. I'm also speculating about season two here so if you don't like that, go away.

Are they gone? Good. It's just you and me now. Hi! Have a cookie.

Although we're supposed to wait until Monday morning for the formal announcement to come from the Fox Network, we have it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Joss Whedon has confirmed there will be a sophomore season for Dollhouse. The Twitterverse is all a flutter over this news. I must admit I'm a fluttering too.

Still, what does this mean? Now that we're going to see beyond Omega, what are we to expect come this fall? Admittedly, its way too soon for speculation or spoilage, but that's never stopped me before. There are many questions left unanswered and what follows is a humble and meager attempt at listing all the reasons I will be tuning in for the season premiere of Dollhouse on Fox television this fall. Enquiring minds want to know.

1. First and foremost in my mind, has Miracle Laurie been written out of the series entirely, or will we see Madelaine Costley return? Although Eliza Dushku represents trendy Hollywood beauty, and Dichen Lachman represents a mix of Girl Next Door and Exotic Alien From I'm Not Sure Where, the real beauty on the series for me has been Mellie. Her dazzling blue eyes and creamy mocha latte skin dialate my pupils and cause my heart rate to increase. About halfway through the first season it became evident that Agent Ballard's next door neighbor was really an Active named November. I had already suspected that but that's cuz I'm a spoiler whore. With the season finale we learn that November's birth name is Madelaine Costley and as an agreement between Ballard & DeWitt, Costley was released from her contract and allowed to return to her normal life. That would normally write her out of the series. Or does Whedon have something in store for us that will bring Laurie back into the series as a regular? Because I'll be mildly upset if we never see her again. She's hot. And talented of course and funny and delightful and intelligent but y'know.. hot!
2. Will we get to see Epitaph One? This is a curious story. I'll try to summarize but it's not easy. Whedon & Dushku were contracted with the FOX studios to make Dollhouse. Fox Studios was contracted with the Fox Network to present them with thirteen episodes of said Dollhouse. The first episode, titled "Echo," was never released in its entirety to the public. After showing it to the execs at the Fox Network, Whedon decided to retool it. Parts of the footage were recycled into later episodes but instead of starting with that one, Whedon decided the first public pilot to be released would be "Ghost." Why? It's not quite clear. There's speculation but Whedon insists this was his decision and not a fight with the network. Whether that's true, or Whedon just doesn't want the fanbase to set Fox Network Offices on fire is anyone's guess. The point is, by the time we get to the end of the season, Whedon thought he still had to make one extra episode because the first pilot was scrapped. Fox Studios agreed with this because for international sales and DVD distribution they needed a full complement of thirteen episodes. However, Fox Network saw things differently: even if they weren't broadcasting the first pilot, they had their full 13, and saw no reason to broadcast a 14th episode, probably cuz as they saw it they'd be required to pay extra for an extra episode. Whedon made this 14th episode anyway, on a shoestring budget and with less time than originally planned. The result is Epitaph One. It exists. There's stills of it. So far I've yet to find a bootlegged copy. Rumor has it the episode will be presented at ComicCon, but since I never go to comic conventions that's not going to do me any good. So come next fall, will the Fox Network broadcast Epitaph One as the season premiere of Dollhouse Season 2, or will it be scrapped? At the very least, it'll probably become available on the DVD set to be released later this year.
3. Will Alan Tudyk return as Alpha? Why Alan Tudyk doesn't have his own comedy variety song and dance sensation tv show where the world can't get enough of this guy is completely beyond me. Tudyk literally explodes with comedic talent, and as I'm often fond of quoting from Joss Whedon on this: "comedy is the hard one." Tudyk can do no wrong in my eyes. I mean lookit: he convincingly played the part of a man with over forty personalities dancing around in his head simultaneously. He did it with conviction and humor and pathos and charm and savagery and grace and cringeworthyness and a thousand other things. This guy's amazing. There's rumors he's already been tapped to be featured on the new V Series which is currently in development. Unfortunately I don't know if I'll be able to follow him there. I HATED the original V series and don't really want to see them revisit the concept. However, it's Alan Tudyk. If he were one of the Fruit of the Loom guys in an apple suit, I'd probably watch. He's also a fellow Texan, so how can I not support him in whatever he does? Still, if for some reason he's too busy, it is easy for the Dollhouse writers to simply say Alpha moved his consciousness into another body, and hire another actor to portray Alpha. Tudyk doesn't have to come back. I hope he does, but I also hope he gets that awesome comedy variety show where he plays a dozen different roles every week and sets the world on fire. Although that's not popular nowadays, I'd watch. Tudyk's talent in both comedy and drama reminds me of Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman. If anyone on this planet could bring back the variety genre to television, it's Tudyk. Though I'd like to see that, hopefully it won't happen, cuz he cuts a mean awesome Alpha.
   
4. In Omega we got only a taste of this, but will Ballard & Topher have more theological discussions? The chemistry between these two characters is potentially explosive. They don't like each other and have little if nothing in common. I loved the bit in the season finale where Topher practically laughed in Ballard's face about Ballard's unquestioning faith in the assumption that there is such a thing as a soul. Topher's job is to treat human beings like they were hard drives. He sees no evidence that there's a soul inside anybody. Yet Ballard takes as a given that there is such a thing. I can see where Joss Whedon, a proud and stalwart atheist, might be going with this conflict, and I for one want to see him pull no punches. I also want to see Topher second guessing himself on his own beliefs in this area. The mine is rich between these two guys and the topic as a whole. However, I am well aware that if Whedon ventures too far in this mine, he may find it a mine field. Some fans won't want to follow him down that road. Many are easily offended when their core beliefs are challenged, but that's precisely what I want Whedon to show with Ballard; because he will be offended too, when Topher tells Ballard point blank how there is no god. And Topher doesn't know how to kickbox. One way or the other, sparks will fly.
   
5. What the hell is up with Boyd? We were only given hints of this throughout the first season, but while it's obvious something is going on with Boyd Langton, the storyline Whedon was on for season one completely skirts past dwelling on him. Why is he there? We almost haven't a clue. We have enough of a clue to know he's there for more than a paycheck. He seems to have altruistic and noble motivations, but beyond that the water is murky. He's purposefully being written in this series as a deep dark secret. What we see on the surface is majestic like a glacier, and those things go down into the water pretty far, and they just get bigger and colder and more mysterious the farther down you go. We have been led to believe that prior to his affiliation with The Dollhouse, Boyd was a cop. Like Ballard, he could simply have been following leads on a crime and accidentally fell down the rabbit hole into Adele DeWitt's domain. Like Ballard, he may now simply have no choice but to play along, because the alternative is "The Attic." Boyd and Ballard have a great rapport as is evident in the last half of Omega when they just fall in line together and behave as if they've been partners for years, and only hours before they had come to blows. Admittedly, that altercation cemented a sort of mutual respect. It should also be pointed out that the actor Harry Lennix has a keen and rare ability among screen actors of being able to make anyone around him look good. He's not so much interested in hogging the limelight as he is in manipulating it to reflect on others. Very rare and precious talent that I've only seen in a handful over the years. Dan Ackroyd could do it. Pat Morita could do this on occasion. In the tv series Lost it's really fun for me watching Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson on screen together because they do this to each other in a 'oneupmanship' way you'd only see among two seasoned veterans of stage and screen. They try to outdo making the other one look good which is why they both look awesome together. Compare this to how Hoffman & Williams fail to lend focus to one another in the movie Hook and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Nicholas Brendan and Ron Glass both have this unique quality of making people around them look good. It's one thing to stand on stage and say without saying it "Look at me!" It's quite another to be able to lend focus in a way that most don't notice and say "Look at her! Look at him!" From an ex-wannabe actor's standpoint, it's a joy to watch Lennix at work, is what I'm saying. Hopefully in season two, time will be set aside to shine light on Boyd more directly, cuz there's a lot going on there. Whedon's barely scratched that surface, and I'm left itching for more in that department.
   
6. I'm not sure if I get it. How does the Dollhouse work, exactly? What is the hierarchy? Sometimes it appears that DeWitt is the goto person for making the Dollhouse work, but it's also plainly clear she is but a small cog in a bigger wheel. Every now and then she gets a mysterious call from someone for whom she must be held accountable. And yet a lot of crap has happened in The Dollhouse and she didn't get called in to a red carpet over it. There should be scenes where DeWitt goes up to some head person in a lofty office with a big desk who tells her how stupid she is that she let Lawrence do what he did, and how close she has come to letting the whole world know The Dollhouse exists and oh by the way we know about what you were doing with Victor and we have pictures and if you ever do anything we don't tell you to do we'll cut out all your internal organs and sell them on the black market. That never happens, which leads one to wonder if DeWitt really has anyone above her or if she just pretends there's people she reports to for some reason. Or maybe the people she reports to are expecting all this crazy shit to happen and don't care, because the Dollhouse is so big it doesn't care if the government or the media or the man on the street finds out it exists. I wanna see the Dollhouses in other parts of the world. Do they all operate the way the one in California does, or are some of them more clandestine and underhanded? Are some of them more altruistic and above-board? Is DeWitt's operation about average, or is her approach causing her superiors to get a little uncomfortable and queasy? I'd like to see the fire that DeWitt's feet are obviously standing in. Perhaps then a lot of what's going on would make a little more sense.
   
7. I may have mentioned this before, but what's the big deal about face scarring? Okay so Alpha's a little slicey-happy. They're in California. You can't throw a rock in California without hitting a plastic surgeon. Why can't Whiskey and Victor just get fixed? Do an episode where DeWitt makes a deal with a plastic surgeon, gives him the time of his life, and in return he promises to fix our scarred Actives pro bono. Problem solved. This is so not outside the realm of possibility, that frankly it's a little hard to believe it hasn't already happened.
8. Who is Topher's friend? In the episode "Haunted" we learn that once a year during his birthday, Topher quietly injects a wedge into one of the Actives and has a platonic social escapade with it. Who the person is, is never made clear. Obviously said personality has many similar interests to Topher himself. They have an immediate rapport, and the personality doesn't seem to have to be told of his/her situation. In fact it referred to the other Actives as "sleepies" and tried to talk Topher into pulling playful pranks with them. I have found myself since that episode trying to figure out who this person might be. Perhaps a friend Topher lost long ago, or a sibling? Perhaps a manufactured identity that Topher invented just for purposes of not feeling so isolated and lonely. Recently I reviewed information about an ARG called "Dollplay" that ran back in February. Although not canonical, it does apocryphally indicate that Topher Brink was instrumental in the design of the technology used to make Dollhouse possible. He assisted the doctor who invented the hardware, and his own mind was used often to create wedges for purposes of experimentation. As I wrote this very paragraph, I feel I may have answered my own question on this one: Topher's friend in "Haunted" is an old version of himself. Hopefully in season two I'll get confirmation on that score.
   
9. Is DeWitt just gonna get away with this? Adele Dewitt had a handler murdered by November for raping an Active named Sierra when she was in her docile state. The following episode we learned that DeWitt had, for some time, been posing secretly as "Miss Lonelyhearts" and sequestered herself with Victor, having her sexual way with him many times. This caused Victor to become 'awakened' shall we say in his docile state, and he started showing signs of sexual interest in Sierra, who had around that time been getting raped by her handler. Victor is now 'marked' by Alpha and has scars all over his face. Before that, Adele had promised herself she would stop using Victor for fear of getting caught, so it's probable that now she's not overtly torn over the fact Victor has stopped being 'his best' but I'm surprised we've seen absolutely no response from her on this issue. So far as we know, no one knows this transpired. Adele DeWitt hasn't confided in anyone, and the only person who would know this is mindwiped after it happened. Furthermore, it would have been impossible for her to pull this off without Topher's assistance, because someone had to program Victor to know about the rendevous. She couldn't have done this without someone knowing about it. When one looks at all the evidence from an audience's standpoint, it appears that without realizing it, Adele may have had some small hand in Victor's 'awakening' in his docile state, and therefore indirectly she put many events into motion. Dr. Saunders (whom we now know to be Whiskey) cautions that an Active should not be used repeatedly for the same kind of personality. Repeated doses of the same personality, especially under stressful conditions, might reinforce that personality to a degree where it will linger in future incarnations, and a sense of 'closure' is required in order for that personality to rest. This is of course not something that Topher remotely believes is possible, but the evidence is there, most notably during the episode "Needs." One could also surmise, if Victor's recent troubles lead him to some kind of pychotic break, that Alpha may have similar ..experiences with Adele DeWitt, and that might explain his own variant "awakening" in his docile state. Without realizing it, DeWitt might have made Alpha. That all depends on just how many times she's been "Miss Lonelyhearts" in the past, and whether or not she's still doing that. Admittedly what she was doing was not quite like the rape from Sierra's handler. However, there's still a very murky immoral taint to it, and I believe this issue needs to be addressed in some form in a later episode of the series. It's a big open-ended gaping hole of a loose end that needs tying up.
   
10. That so wasn't the last we hear of Susan is it? In "Briar Rose" we learn about a young girl who's been traumatized, and Echo promised to return to her and help her further. This episode was written superbly by Jane Espenson, as a lead in to the season finale. I felt the bit about Susan and the girl was purposefully left open-ended. There simply wasn't enough time to invest in it because the story moved elsewhere, but I'm hoping that this is revisited because the foundation laid there was moving and thought-provoking. The idea of taking a wedge of a young person, reprogramming it so that its mature and well-adjusted, then having that same mind visit the child to help guide her to that state of well-adjusted maturity, well it's a noble thought that has a thousand ways it could excitingly go wrong and fail miserably, which is ideal cannonfodder for good television.
11. Is that all you got? So far we've seen Echo as a prostitute, a dominatrix, a safecracker, a hostage negotiator, a midwife, a blind spy of cultists, a streetfighter, a detective, a dead woman investigating her own murder, and a grown up little kid. However, she has not yet been a ninja, a pirate, or a ninja pirate, or a pirate ninja. She has also not yet been an astronaut, or a sanitation worker, or a race car driver, or a mythbuster, or a lolcat, or a superhero, or a drug pusher, or a knife thrower, or a lumberjack, or a telephone operator, or a folk song singer/songwriter, or a lesbian truck driver, or a cafeteria lady with her hair in a net, or a motivational speaker, or a bartender, or comic book artist, or a standup comedienne, or a cowboy, or a grocery store clerk, or a pyromaniac, or a newspaper editor, or a librarian, or a brain surgeon, or a vietnam veteran, or a dragon hunter, or a leprechan, or someone who actually does windows, or a tightrope walker or a door to door dildo salesperson or a migrant farm worker or a politician with questionable moral integrity or a bellhop at a strange hotel... I could keep going. You want me to keep going? Needless to say there's a little more meat on this bone. I doubt they're ever going to run out of things Echo can actually become. That's just one small part of the fun of this show.
    

It's good that we're getting a season two, cuz even though less than three million people watched most of the series, those of us among that three million people? We're fucking confused as shit right now. Between now and this fall, those of us who are enamored by this series, and happy to see it's inevitable return, we need to somehow infect the rest of the world with our contagion. We need to somehow become Active, and we need to rinse and spit. A lot of people who have watched it say that the show wasn't good at first but got better about halfway through. I don't buy that. The only episode of the series I really didn't like was Stage Fright. I mean really. Why did they need backup singers? The song they used didn't have any. It was fake pop music. Anyway. Aside from that a great series from start to finish. They stumbled a bit here and there but the show never fell, and we need to convince the rest of the world to give the show a try this fall, because I want them to literally run out of new roles for Echo to play. I want this show to last forever. I want Joss Whedon to wake up many many many years from now as a very old man, look himself in the mirror and go, "damn. I can't think of anything new to make Echo be. They have wrung out every last ounce of creativity from my withered frame. I just wanna die now." When that day has come, we the fans of Joss Whedon will have finally defeated him! And we will on that day rejoice, and drink the blood of Nathan Fillion! Mua-hahahahaha!

PenuLOSTimate

The Last Lost One Before The Very Last Lost One

Before we go further, I'm a spoiler whore. If you haven't seen Lost's finale yet (or the House finale, or are in general not caught up on your tv viewing) please stop reading, go do that, and come back. Consider this your spoilage warning blurb thingy. I'd also like to remind those who have been here before, and caution newcomers, I tend to use profanity on occasion. I do not believe I do so to extremes, but those easily offended should be forewarned. I don't see a reason for the Seven Words You Can't Say On The Radio to go unused. They exist for a reason and deserve their day in the sun. 'Nuff said.

I spent last night Tweeting while watching the Lost season five finale and wow was that fun! Why? Because hundreds if not thousands of others were doing the same thing. It was like hearing people all over the country screaming at their TVs simultaneously. I was going to put a link here to capture for all posterity what was essentially about the closest to IRC chat that Twitter can get but I haven't figured out how to link to a search for a particular time (i.e., last night) so you'll just have to take my word for it - it was a virtual party. Now occasionally, there'd be some wet blanket on the west coast complaining that we were spoiling it for them, but most people realized if you don't wanna be spoiled, then don't go to Twitter and run a search for tweets with the "#Lost" tag in it before you see the darn thing. Or better yet, don't tweet at all until you have seen it. It's not gonna kill ya. Being a spoiler whore myself I really don't care if I'm spoiled or not. Knowing the last five minutes of a show doesn't usually bother me. In fact, I usually prefer it.

What concerns me now is the fact that we have to wait another eight or nine months before the questions raised in this season's finale are answered. With only one season left to go in what many critics are saying (with few dissenting opinions at least publically) is among the best television programs ever in the history of television, we should be getting more answers at this point than questions. However, that's not quite how things wrapped up last night.

How DID they wrap up? Not very clean, as you might imagine. I'd equate it more to how a patient must feel after a Doctor Jack strung out on hydrocodone and vicadin sews the patient back up leaving his wristwatch inside accidentally. In the first of the three hour Lost Extravaganza we were treated to an hour long "Previously On Lost" rehash of the past season, hosted by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse, the two guys who (sink or swim) take the lion's share of blame and responsibility for where the show has been going and where it'll end up. These two guys have been entertaining the more diehard of Lostie fans via audio and video podcasts available over at the official Lost website. In the past, the hour long clip shows have been skippable, unless you were too busy or lazy to watch the series up to that point in the first place. Those shows are largely intended by network executives to encourage newcomers to hop on board the Lost Train. Admittedly, joining the series halfway through is daunting and a lot of people who haven't started watching it by now will just decide to wait until DVD or skip it entirely, which is a shame for them, but if you don't know what you're missing then it won't hurt you. This time around, even though the clip show didn't reveal much that we didn't already know, it did try to describe things in a slightly more linear fashion, so diehard fans could watch the latest clip show, be entertained by Damon & Carlton (tho they weren't being as lighthearted and funloving as they often are on the audio podcast) and smile and nod to themselves that they've been right about X & Y all along, whatever X & Y is for whoever's watching.

Rather than go into detail about the actual episode in question: The Incident Parts 1 & 2, I'm going to assume you already saw it and will instead focus on where it left us. To wit: What The Fuck??! Damon & Carlton are in what they call "radio silence." They will not be addressing questions and concerns about the season finale, and will probably not even bother writing about season six until some time after Comic Con - at least not officially. The last season will not broadcast until late winter of 2010; roughly eight or nine months from now. This means they may not actually begin production until mid fall of this year, and so writing will start in earnest in late summer. Damon & Carlton theoretically know where they are going with the show, but how they're going to get to the final title card is anyone's guess.

Whatever Happened Happened

Jack bought into Daniel Faraday's supposition that it is possible to change the future. This is, by the way, something Daniel had not been saying until his return to the Island on the sub from his three year sabbatical to Ann Arbor Michigan. We don't know what happened to Daniel to make him change his mind, but needless to say he was wrong, and at the end of the episode called "The Variable" his own mother shot him dead, underlining just how wrong he was. Later we find out she was actually pregnant at the time with who we are to assume is the very person she just killed. Isn't time travel fun? Of course, Jack's not quite as smart as Faraday. Jack's a brain surgeon, but as we've come to understand by now, he's not a very smart brain surgeon. Let's just say I wouldn't lay any money on him if he were making an appearance on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? But I digress.

Jack is smart enough to aquiesce; Faraday's a particle physicist and if he says destiny is mutable, then who is a brain surgeon to question that logic? So Jack and Sayid go with Eloise & Richard to get an H-bomb they just happen to have lying around (long story) and Jack intends to use it on The Hatch. Why? Cuz it hasn't been invented yet, but if they can blow it up before "The Incident" occurs, Faraday believes that will dramatically affect the timeline so much, it'll jostle everybody out of the temporal loop they were in, and give them all a second chance. In other words, whatever happened these past five seasons? None of it will have happened. That's the theory. Of course, setting off a plutonium bomb in the middle of the Island has the unsatisfactory drawback of destroying the Island, or at least a chunk of it would become inhospitable for about twenty years or more, but if the Hatch is never built, then Desmond would never be sitting there pushing a button and then go off to accidently kill Kelvin which mean he was inadvertently neglecting to push a button when the Oceanic Six plane happened by, causing it to crash on the Island instead of landing in the Los Angeles Airport (LAX).

Did that happen? Well, yes and no, and I don't know. Jack drops the bomb into the hole as The Incident was already happening anyway. The damage had already been done. Razinsky had insisted on drilling too close to the electromagnetic anomaly that Chang already knew was there. So far as we know, that was going to happen whether our Losties were there or not. The Incident is essentially opening a hole in that anomaly, which causes anything metallic to rush towards the center of the anomaly. This would no doubt piss off anyone who had taken the trouble to build a metallic structure over the electromagnetic anomaly. Whoops.

Faraday, and by proxy Jack's, plan was this: take the nuke and set it off on top of the electromagnetic anomaly. This was supposed to reset time, because surely something as big as that would get God's attention so he would glance over, stroke his beard, poke at a few dimensions with a stick, and everything would be right as rain. This is not unlike studying the gestation period of African honeybees by walking up to the hive and swinging a baseball bat. This is not unlike studying history by setting a library on fire. This is not unlike a first date where you immediately take your face and stick it between her breasts at your first opportunity. Either the ending will be catastrophic, or irrelevant, or both, or neither. Don't you love that?

So Jack throws the 'device' into the hole. This 'device' by the way is a hastily constructed bomb, made by a less than stable urban assasin and ex-Communications officer in the Iraqi Republican Guard using parts from a thirty year old American military H-bomb that had been languishing in the catacombs of an underground temple leaking off radioactivity. This hastily constructed device was then carried on Sayid's back until he was shot in the gut by Roger Linus, at which point Sayid fell back on top of the bomb without accidently setting it off. Jack then began carrying it with him, during a bumpy ride in a van with Hurley driving, while Jack hurriedly and vainly tried to put Sayid's blood & guts back inside his skin.

Then he takes the bomb, straps it to his back, and gets into a gunfight with members of the Dharma Initiative, while his Lostie friends intervene and fight alongside him. All this is very exciting by the way. I know my description of it doesn't do it all justice but my point is this: a modern day Ipod wouldn't easily survive being treated that malevolently, and the bomb Sayid made for Jack looked more delicate than your average common run of the mill modern day Ipod. The fact it didn't go off on impact as Sayid had claimed it would, is not surprising. Add to that the fact that Sayid was never really on board this whole idea of blowing up the Island anyway. He may have just made a convincing dud, because it was easier to make a fake bomb than try to convince Jack not to do it. Like I said, Jack's not the brightest of brain surgeons, and he had no way of knowing if the bomb was real or not.

This would also explain to me why Richard & Eloise were being so uncharacteristically helpful. We're led to believe Eloise is on board because she figured out she inadvertently killed her own son. However, Richard Alpert has no such motivation. He just seems to be going along out of peer pressure than anything else. If Sayid had somehow been able to convey to Richard & Eloise without Jack knowing, that the bomb was never going to work, then it would dismiss a major question I have about that part of the storytelling: why the hell would Richard sign off to the idea of having a nuclear bomb detonated on HIS Island?

So the bomb falls into the hole, but it doesn't go off. The Incident with metals flying towards the hole continues to happen, and Juliet gets wrapped around chains as she tries to escape and of course they're metal chains so she ends up in the hole, but not after a melodramatic moment where Sawyer tells her to hang on and Kate completely fails to save Juliet's ass. So Juliet falls into the hole, and happens to end up right next to the worthless piece of crap bomb, which looks back at her and says, "How You Doin'?" Juliet responds to the worthless piece of crap bomb by picking up a nearby rock and pounding the shit out of it. She does this several times, which reinforces my belief that it's a worthless piece of crap bomb that was never going to go off.

But then, we get what appears to be an explosion on first sight. Everything goes white with a peculiar sound effect and we have the end of the episode. For the first time the word "LOST" appears on screen in black letters with a white background. For those who don't know, it's always been the opposite for five seasons. At first I looked at that and thought nuclear explosion, but then I thought a second time and realized if that nuclear bomb was going to explode, it would have done so when Roger Linus shot Sayid in the kidney, and Sayid fell on top of the bomb. It didn't go off then, so Juliet pounding on it with a rock was not going to suddenly make it work. So the white flash wasn't a bomb. It was something else. What something else could it possibly be? Earlier in the season we saw several times when a blinding white flash would occur. It was a precursor and a harbinger of temporal instability - time hopping.

So this brings us to the dilemma of the next eight months, where Lost Fans will argue and debate this over beers in bars and food in restaurants at length. From a writing standpoint there's essentially three possibilities:

1. Juliet set us up dah bomb: Despite my detailed explanatiion to the contrary, it turns out I'm wrong and Juliet managed to set off the nuke after dropping it into the cavernous hole didn't. This means Faraday was right. Time was altered. When we return to Lost in season six, Oceanic 815 will have never crashed and will instead have landed in LAX. Locke will continue to be crippled. Jack will continue to be an ass to his mother. Kate will continue to jail without passing go or collecting $200. Hurley will continue to be fat (some things never change). None of what we've seen thus far will ever have happened. Needless to say I'm not putting my money on this particular hand.
2. Time hop to the past: Many Lost Fans think that there's one place the Losties have not traveled in time which they still need to go. That is back to the ancient past where the statue is more than just an ankle with issues, and presumably all the answers to everything is, including Jacob and Essau themselves which apparently after seeing the season finale is the lynchpin of this whole fiasco. However we actually HAVE gone back this far in time once, however briefly, and let's face it. Tho this show's a cult hit, its ratings haven't been all that spectacular. The producers couldn't afford to send the Losties that far back in time for more than thirty seconds. I think it's a union thing. Besides, this is sort of a combination of Wishful Thinking and Be Careful What You Ask For on the part of fans. I don't see how there'd be an awful lot of things to do in the distant past beyond just looking up at a computer generated image of an Egyptian statue and going ooh and ahh until a commercial break, which by the way we've already done twice this season, once when looking at the statue's butt, and once when looking at the statue's side. We've seen it. It's Sobek. Let's move on.
   
3. Time hop to the now: Lindeloff and Cuse are already on record saying that this fifth season is essentially the end of the time traveling. Though tight lipped on what to expect in season six, they have pointed out what not to expect: it won't involve a lot of hopping around in time. So the most probable of these three possibilities is that Jack, Jin, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sayid, Juliet, and Miles will find themselves on the Island in 2007 just in time to find out that Ben killed Jacob, Locke is both dead and alive, and Richard Alpert still looks like he uses eyeliner. Oh, and that Sun is a hot MILF. This will put all the major players in the same place at the same time so wrapping up the last season will be slightly less daunting.
   

Another variant possibility which doesn't deserve its own number is a combination of 2 & 3, where some of our characters go forward in time and some of them go waaay back in time. I don't like this one, because it means essentially anyone who goes back to ancient Egyptian times will probably not come back. If they did, it'd be really super corny. Although it might explain why Jacob is seen visiting many mere mortals among the cast during this episode - maybe those are the ones who visit him in the distant past.

I don't know, and we will not know until around February of 2010. Which sucks, but look on the bright side. By this time next year, we will pretty much know everything there is to know about Lost. It'll finally be over once and for all. And we'll be able to look back fondly on it as a great entertainment, much like today we look back fondly on The Fugitive, MASH, Happy Days, and the original Star Trek series. Twenty years from now, someone will come up with the idea of doing a remake motion picture of it, and hopefully Sayid will materialize out of nowhere and shoot that bastard in the head.

Oh well. At the very least, we now know who "Adam and Eve" in the cave were/are/will be: Rose & Bernard. That's so sweet I could almost cry.

Marketing the Geek

Okay this is kinda cringeworthy.

[Of course, the fact both Mr. Wheaton and myself are having difficulty conveying our respectively similar but deceptively different messages, while marketing dweebs usurp the word 'geek' for their own twisted ends, their relative ease at conveying that usurpation upon an unsuspecting public lends credence to their inevitable success and our inevitable failure at preserving the true nature of geekiness. Why? Cuz Wheaton and myself are not marketing dweebs. We're geeks! We don't know how to properly convey our message, but marketing dweebs do. Irony, thou art a cruel mistress.]

I'm not saying Wil Wheaton is cringeworthy, or his words. I mean what he's talking about. I mean they are creeping me out, because they are claiming to be geeks and they wear a geek banner like wolves in sheep's clothing, but they're partying in the henhouse and we true geeks are powerless to stop them.

I guess I've kinda noticed this happening over the years and since I don't believe in active activism personally (I'm sure it works for you whoever you are it's just not my thing) I never wanted to do anything about it, but I take umbrage at the blatant misuse of words when done with malice or greed in mind. Even and especially if people 'mean well' they almost always mean well for themselves and their 'kind' and I don't take kindly to that at all. However, again I'm not into actively trying to stop people from being stupid so I usually try to let this kinda crap slide.

It's like Bill Maher when he called his old ABC tv series "Politically Incorrect." He did that on purpose, cuz he noticed a lot of jackoffs, assholes, and scumbags using the phrase "Politically Correct" as if it gave them the right to be jackoffs, assholes, and scumbags to anyone with whom they disagreed. And it didn't. And they did it anyway. And Bill Maher didn't respond by egging their houses or setting their carports on fire. He responded by making a tv series he called "Politically Incorrect" and then voicing off about issues that mattered to him and pissed off the "Politically Correct" people. Of course, they responded by getting him fired for saying that maybe flying planes into buildings isn't an act of cowardice. Still, I digress.

People take words and try to change their meaning to suit their own needs, and then they accuse people who use those words in other ways (like the way they were originally intended) of being wrong, because they're "taking it back" which is impossible by the way cuz it was never theirs in the first place so they can't take back anything but there ya go.

In this case I'm speaking of the word "geek" or to be more specific, the current trendy intention of furthering and perpetuating Geek Advancement as if it were saving baby seals or protecting the environment from soda cans and Styrofoam cups.

It didn't use to be a badge of honor. It was a word that meant you were a social outcast. It meant you were different. Special. Touched. It usually meant you were smarter than the person calling you a geek, but rarely in a way that indicated you felt that automatically gave you power over said stupid person calling you a geek. If the word "geek" were prefaced with the phrase "pencil neck" chances are the one name calling was about to stick the one being called a pencil neck geek into a nearby gym locker. One-sided violence would ensue. Being a geek was not a good thing.

Nonetheless, as I grew up I took a personal pride in being called a geek. I didn't belong among those who called me a geek, nor did I want to be among them. They were jackoffs and assholes and scumbags. Call me what you want, just leave me alone. Or beat the crap out of me and THEN leave me alone. I wanna get back to reading Encyclopedia Brown.

And believe me, I EARNED THAT. I deserve to be called a geek. It's my personal badge of honor. You don't go through elementary school with a six foot sissy bar on the back of your bicycle, a backpack with a "kick me" sign taped to it, and regularly bruised and beaten face and chest, and NOT get to walk into adulthood with the right to consider yourself a motherfucking geek.

That was then. This is now.

There was a time when the word "geek" meant a person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy. That was it! All the rest of what it means to be a geek was gravy. Essentially you had a red A on your blouse. You were a social outcast. You didn't belong. The details were unimportant. Geeks were not all alike. That's the point. They were different from anybody else. That didn't ever make them like each other. Some geeks were considered so smart as to be able to calculate and ponder theoretical physics equations in their head. Some geeks were known for biting the heads off live chickens or swallowing flaming swords. There's a varied wide spectrum of geeks and none of them belong under some commercially manufactured banner! There's pish posh marketing types out there who are trying to "take back the geek" and use the phrase to represent something that they think will unite others to their cause. They use the word geek like it's a rallying cry. Like it's a way to band like-minded souls together towards a common goal. They want to put "geek" on T-Shirts and lunchboxes and baseball caps and convince people that not only should they strive to be a geek, if they don't buy into the manufactured pop culture surrounding said geekdom, they won't be geekworthy. Screw that!

Wil Wheaton said:

It's like a slap in the face to be associated with these people who claim to be like me, and want to be part of our culture, but couldn't tell you the difference between Slackware and Debian, a d8 and a d10, or how to use vi or emacs. In other words, they haven't earned it, but they're wrapping themselves in our flag because their PR people told them to.

In some ways I agree with Mr. Wheaton, and in some ways I don't. Even here, Wheaton is defining the word geek for himself. I don't know the difference between Slackware and Debian. I know what Slackware is. I don't know what Debian is. Automatically, in Wheaton's eyes, that means I'm not a geek. I know when he says d8 and d10 he's talking about dice - and not the d6'ers used for Yahtzee. My D8 and D4 often gathered dust because I prefer gaming systems that focus on percentile dice (2d10) because you can make one table that can work for anything, thus freeing up the rules for actual roleplay (as opposed to ruleplay which I believe D&D 2nd ed devolved into w/later revisions). I don't know how to use a vi or an emac. So as far as Wheaton is concerned, I don't qualify. I'm not a geek in his eyes, when in reality I'm just not his kind of geek. I'm my kind of geek. I'm sure I could put together my own list of geeky things that I can do that he can't.

That's silly. That's absurd. That's my point.

There's no one kind of geek - nor should there be. There's no qualifying quantifier. The day there is, the word "geek" will cease to serve its purpose, and will start to have concrete and specific meaning that delineates its kind, thus defeating the purpose of its existence as a word for those who don't fit a mold - because it will have one. Not only do I disagree with Wheaton, I'm forced to take it a step further. Nothing personal Mr. Wheaton, but we geeks have no culture. Even after the commercial marketing jackoffs and assholes and scumbags brainwash us all into thinking we do, we don't. We never did. We never will. I wasn't aware being a geek meant I had to function under your flag, or that I exist under anyone's banner beyond my own lack of one. I live as a geek of one. I have no banner. Being a geek doesn't mean I get to go to geek meetings with other geeks and we have geek hoedowns and geek pot luck dinners. I don't have a geek membership card. I don't pay dues. I paid my dues already. I got the scars to prove it.

Those people trying to usurp the word for their own selfish and greedy ends; no they haven't earned it. Neither have I earned sitting with Mr. Wheaton and breaking bread with him over being a geek. That's not what being a geek is about. Being a geek has never been about banding together and joining forces against the established 'cool people.' That only happens in movies like Revenge of the Nerds. The people they got to play the geeks in those movies? They were Hollywood celebrities. Present company accepted, Mr. Wheaton: they weren't geeks.

Being a geek is a private thing. We don't (usually) compare notes. I'm not more of a geek than you because I know more about certain scifi movies. You're not more of a geek than me cuz you can program in C++ and I cannot. Being a geek is not relative and it's not absolute, and there's not any place somewhere where you can go to find your Geek Quotient. ...Okay there's not a REAL place to go find your Geek Quotient. BUT THAT'S JUST WHAT THESE BOZOS WANT TO DO TO THE WORD! They want to quanitize it and package it and pigeon-hole it and turn it into something trendy and cool and socially acceptable.

The whole idea behind being a geek is that one is NOT socially acceptable, and that's the way I like it! No I haven't read Lord of the Rings from cover to cover. There are some who believe one cannot call oneself a geek unless they have. I happen to find Tolkien pedantic, cumbersome, flagrantly captivated by trivial minutiae when he should be focusing on storytelling, and less interesting to read than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Now, when I was a kid, I DID read entire volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I doubt many geeks today could boast that! That's entirely the point though; being a geek is not something that can be absolutely defined. Nor should it be, and anyone going around trying to do so should be shoved into a gym locker.

I don't want to hear Jeff Foxworthy going around saying, "if your license plate on your car says 13375p34 you might be a pencil-neck geek" cuz it's not like being a redneck or a greenback or a bluejay or a cheesehead or anything else. Being a member of The Geek Brigade means by definition you are among the non-joiners. IF you're trying to join something, that's being social, and essentially in that instant you stop being a geek. Instead, you become one of them. And you're welcome to it.

Throughout the history of mankind, nongeeks have been trying to prove to geeks that it's better to snicker amongst one another and point fingers at the ones not like them and laugh and say how much better they are then the nonjoiners. Guess what? You've always been wrong, and you will continue to be wrong. You may rob us of the word geek and put it on your blazers and cheerleading outfits. That won't change the fact that you're still cool, and we still suck.

You heard me!

Go on back to your carpools and your soccer practice and your three martini lunches! Some of us will play MMORPGs (and know what that means), some of us will code a program that takes data from Excel spreadsheets for conversion into Powerpoint presentations, some of us will dissect the sentence structure of Stephen Wright jokes in an endless and futile search to understand modern humor, some of us will blog, some of us will tweet, some of us will write in our online diary, some of us will surf the Web, some of us will tweet blog blip and surf all at the same time, some of us will determine the effectiveness of different store bought sweeteners and determine which is least likely to cause cancer in rats, some of us will make a scale replica of the Lincoln Memorial using popsicle sticks and crazy glue, some of us will read Ayn Rand again after having finished off some Zelazny, some of us will run off with the carnival barkers and the circus freaks, some of us will dream in binary, some of us will invent a new filing system for the last ten years of saved emails, some of us will torrent executables in violation of alleged copyright infringement because data is impervious to delineated restrictions placed upon it by lesser-evolved ape-descended lifeforms, and some of us will translate Shakespeare into its original Klingon. None of us will be like one another and none of us will be you.

FOX is DEAD to me!

Unless it renews Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. I've done this before..

SHORTFORM: Dollhouse brought me back to FOX, and I started watching OTHER SHOWS BECAUSE OF DOLLHOUSE. I will now STOP watching said shows. So if FOX thinks Dollhouse wasn't helping their ratings with other programming? They were WRONG. I doubt I'm the only one who left them back in 2003, and I won't be the only one leaving again.

LONGFORM: follows after The Bump.

...BUMP...

WTF does 'bump' mean anyway?

Okay here's the deal. I have in the past ranted and wailed against the storms of discontent about how many shows FOX has broadcast, only to cancel just as I felt they were hitting their stride. It's effing frustrating! So after they canceled Firefly and a couple other shows around that time back in 2003, I swore off FOX. I had no idea that over five years have since passed. I didn't consciously realize it until I started writing this post (which originated as a response over at Whedonesque but took on a life of its own so I moved it over here) that when Joss Whedon announced he was returning to the FOX network to help out his friend Eliza Dushku with something called Dollhouse, that I apparently unofficially lifted my boycott of FOX. I started watching FOX shows again, in some cases completely unaware I was doing so.

For example, I've really tried to hop on board the Bones train because David Boreanaz was on it, and for me it didn't go anywhere. I've seen a couple random episodes but it hasn't pulled me in. Good to see David getting work, and I've missed him since FOX THE NOW DEFUNCT WB NETWORK CANCELED ANGEL THE TV SERIES, but I'm not all that sure what Bones is about really, or why I'm supposed to care.

I'm far more intrigued by House MD starring Hugh Laurie, whose work I've enjoyed since he was in the BBC tv sitcom Black Adder. He played Prince George! Yeah I didn't connect those dots until later either! WILD huh? I've only recently (halfway thru this season) become addicted to House MD. Unfortunately, House and Bones are both on FOX. That might explain why House is in its fifth season, Bones is in its fourth, and I've only recently learned about them. In 2003 I swore off Fox, and only started watching the network again because of a little something called Dollhouse.

Why exactly did I swear off FOX? How much do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

1. Firefly
2. Angel (oh wait that was the WB nvm)
   
3. Andy Richter Controls the Universe.
4. The Ben Stiller Show
   
5. The George Carlin Show
   
6. Get A Life
   
7. Greg The Bunny
   
8. Herman's Head
9. Garry Shandling
   
10. Normal Ohio
    
11. Roc (actually to be fair FOX fought hard for that one- loved the LIVE thing)
    
12. The Tick
    
13. Tracey Ullman (should STILL be on the air dammit!)
    
14. Woops!
    
15. Drive (it was Nathan Fillion so I snuck a peek - excelllent pilot!)
    
16. Wonderfalls
    
17. Strange Luck
    
18. Freaky Links
    
19. The Lone Gunmen
20. Sliders (ok 5 yrs is a respectable run but I was still enjoying it)
21. VR-5
    
22. Brisco County Jr
    
23. Harsh Realm
    
24. Alien Nation (actually I kinda begrudingly agreed w/FOX on that one. Ow)
    
25. MANTIS
    
26. Tru Calling
    
27. John Doe
    

And that's just off the top of my head. All the above shows I was enjoying when they were running and FOX prematurely axed them. I could also make a list of reality shows and other programs that they've kept going far longer than I think they should have. In some cases though I understand why they do. I don't watch American Idol but apparently the rest of the planet does. FOX simply isn't catering to me, so since 2003 I go out of my way not to cater to them. Fair's fair.

Five years went by and I hardly missed The Simpsons. I have distantly heard about The Office but never watched it and am now not going to start. 24 sounds like a lame premise that I haven't bothered to catch up on. I don't know anything about Family Guy nor do I want to. I kinda missed King of the Hill briefly (watched from 1997-2003) but I got over it. I live in North Texas, so if I want that show I can just stand on my front lawn for ten minutes and squint.

Guess what? All the following is moot to me if Dollhouse doesn't get renewed, cuz I will return to avoiding FOX like A(H1N1). Next time Whedon says he's doing something for the FOX network and this time it's gonna be different? Boy cried wolf. I learned my lesson. Fox is DEAD to me, if they don't renew Dollhouse.

Fringe, HouseMD, and Lie To Me have recently become guilty pleasures for me, and I only tangentially connected the dots to the fact these are FOX shows, cuz nowadays I watch my television via Hulu, and rarely pay attention to the opening bit where it tells me who's proud to support what and where it comes from. For those who actually still watch television on a television (how quaint!) Fringe would make a good lead in to Dollhouse - back last February! The idea of putting Terminator with Dollhouse is about as smart as mixing gasoline on a flame with more gasoline. Might look purty, but your house is still burning down.

The FOX network has two brain cells they rub together until they chafe, and they're fresh out of talcum powder. WHY did I let Whedon talk me into giving them another shot? WHY!??

Also, anything on a Friday night that doesn't involve sports, alcohol, or loud live music is a waste of resources to broadcast. I have quite literally up to seventy years of evidence to back up my statement. Why networks don't just shut down on Friday nights is beyond me. When they slot something on a Friday, they WANT to kill it, whether they admit it or not. That's been true since before NBC put Star Trek on Friday nights in 1968!

..King of the Hill was still on the air? ...Simpsons IS STILL ON THE AIR? Like I said (until recently) I don't watch much FOX. As for FOX's new pilot possibilities, doesn't look like I'll be missing much.

I remember Rick Springfield on Human Target back almost twenty years ago. It sucked then. I don't see how they can fix it now by revisiting the concept. No one could make Bionic Woman or Knight Rider any better in the 21st century, so Human Target is being reborn under a bad sign.

"Eva Adams, about a womanizing jerk who is 'transformed' into a woman and then suffers all the jerkish behavior he once doled out" ...They're kidding right? This sounds like a very bad Rob Schnieder film. In fact I think it was!

"Masterwork.. think National Treasure" ...I'd rather not.

"The Reincarnationist.. a team of investigators who solve your current woes by figuring out what you did in a past life." ...pull the other one! That'll go over in the heartland of America like a lead Hindenburg.

"Maggie Hill, featuring Alfre Woodard, is about a brilliant female surgeon who develops schizophrenia" I adore Woodard. I have since Hill Street Blues. Been watching her star shine a long time. I sure hope FOX brings back Dollhouse cuz it's gonna be a shame to miss her finally getting her own series.

"the long-awaited remake of Absolutely Fabulous from England" because bringing Coupling across the pond went over so bloody well! Bollocks! There are some things that were so amazing the first time, Americanizing them insults the intelligence, and makes the baby Jesus cry.

"Brothers is about a retired football player who returns home to connect with his family..." I'm sorry what? I dozed off in mid-sentence on that one.

"Cop House" .. "Sons of Tuscon" .. "Two Dollar Beer" ...yeah I'm not gonna miss FOX when it's out of my life again. There's a silver lining to every dark cloud.

The link in question says they dealt with NBC in a previous article, but I find it interesting to note that with Jay Leno taking over the third prime time hour five days a week, NBC now suddenly has one third as many prime time slots to fill as they have in the past, which pretty much covers all the shows they've already announced renewing. Little to no room for new series in the fall for NBC. It also means NBC is providing about as much new material in the fall (not including Leno's contribution which let's face it will be cheap schlock at best) as CW, FOX, or MyNetworkTV. This is NBC we're talking about! The network that literally STARTED IT ALL with the red & blue networks back when television was first invented. That's pretty messed up.

Whiskey On The Rocks

"Of course it doesn't tell YOU anything! It doesn't tell ME anything! And I'm smarter than everyone in this room! ...but less scary." - Topher


The season finale for FOX's television series "Dollhouse" starring Eliza Dushku, Amy Acker, Miracle Laurie, and a bunch of other talented people (produced by Joss Whedon Somebody) has come and gone. If you haven't seen it yet, go to Hulu.com now and watch it. I may reveal spoilage down below for "Omega" and consider this your warning disclaimer thingy. I'm not the sort of person to coddle spoil-haters, being a spoilage whore my own self.

The hope for renewal to a sophomore season appears as of this writing to be slim at best. The ratings for Dollhouse have been sour. Criticism has been erratic. Marketing has been awkward. How do you sell a show that's basically an amoral romp through the Human Condition? Illegal servitude using modern technology. With recent scientific advances like cloning, remote sensing, stem cell research and unlocking the genetic code, just how speculative is this scifi? Was Dollhouse unsuccessful because the audience found it too far-fetched? Or did it cut too close to the bone to be comfortable for a Friday night's viewing? Whether you'll be able to brainwash your next door neighbor next millenium or next week, a cursory examination of the history of science indicates this is inevitable, and when it happens we may either be witnessing the end of humanity, or simply an end to assumptions currently made about humanity. However, all of that's no fun to contemplate unless you're a physics professor or a seminary student.

What I want to know is what's up with Alpha? Is he just a psychopath or what? And now that Victor looks like The Joker, does this mean he and Sierra are never gonna be an item? Or can Sierra be programmed to find scarred up men sexy? And what the hell??? Adele DeWhitt was Miss Lonely Hearts?? Whoodathunkit? I didn't see THAT one coming! Why is Boyd even in the picture? He looks like a freakin' NARC? Who would he narc to? Ballard called Boyd out on his background as an ex-cop - that's pretty much a given just by observing his demeanor and behavior patterns. However, why is he stuck working for the Dollhouse when it's obvious that like Ballard, he'd turn them in in a heartbeat if given half a chance?

And who is NOT an Active on this show? Based on the episode where a strange drug caused non-Actives to go all Woodstock Loopy, I'm under the impression that Boyd, Topher, and Adele are pretty much not gonna turn out to be ex-Actives. However, I could be wrong. I remember thinking back when that episode ran that the whole time, Dr. Saunders was curiously not anywhere to be seen.

But now we know Dr. Claire Saunders is actually Whiskey, but we don't know who Whiskey was before she became Whiskey. After Alpha treated her like a bonsai tree, Whiskey was assigned the job of replacing Dr. Saunders. However, before that, she had been the most popular Active on the floor. That mantle fell to Echo after Alpha's slicing put Whiskey out of the picture. Surely Actives aren't programmed to hold a grudge..?

Now since there may not be a second season, we may never know the truth, but I have one possible scenario regarding Whiskey's true identity that involves Topher. A few episodes ago, Topher secretly programmed Sierra to be his friend, and they spent the episode playing laser tag and video games and eating very bad junk food together. Totally platonic. I don't know about you, but if I had a chance to program Sierra to do anything? video games and laser tag wouldn't be top on the list of activities, but then I'm a dirty old man at heart. I'm thinking more strip poker with a stacked deck. ...with November! But I digress.

Speculation: Perhaps Whiskey's original personality was Topher's childhood friend, and they drifted apart with different interests. Then she fell into a difficult situation resulting in being forced to 'volunteer' for the Dollhouse. Topher had meanwhile forgotten about her, focused on his studies, and got the job at the Dollhouse just in time to witness his old childhood friend escorted into the dollhouse and put in the chair. She recognized him. They had a moment. She begged him to do something about this. To save her from five years of servitude and a fate that, while not necessarily worse than death is kinda bad just the same.

He just got this job and figured only strangers would ever show up. He didn't think he'd ever actually know anybody who he'd have to wedge. She thought he was in a position to stop the process. He could have said no, grabbed her, and the two of them would have run out of the building. That's what she wanted him to do. She thought surely their years together as children would mean he'd save her from this fate now. However, he just got this job, and knew enough to know if they tried to escape together, they'd both just be dead. The Dollhouse isn't the kinda place you just run away from and live happily ever after. Besides. SHE left HIM. She got bored with comic books and laser tag and cherry bombs in public toilets. She started liking boys. Other boys. Not him. She left him.

Why should he play prince charming now, if he wasn't her prince charming before all this? So instead of saving his childhood friend, he pushed the button to wedge her, and Whiskey was born, but Topher's childhood friend was "dead." After this, he invented that personality he pulls out every year (on the date of Whiskey's wedging) as the person he thinks Whiskey should have become. The person he would have fallen in love with, if she'd never really grown up. This may also explain why Topher can't wrap his mind around the idea of "soul" or that there's residual effects for all the Actives, because that would mean every time he's put Whiskey/Dr. Saunders in the chair, he's been hurting his best friend.

Hopefully I'll find out if I'm right, provided we get a second season (hint hint).

Even if it doesn't get picked up for another season, imagine a full length motion picture where "EchoMega" is unleashed on the world as the only one who can stop Alpha from a madman scheme to reprogram large numbers of people simultaneously - Topher programs her to have forty-two characters in her brain simultaneously (including Caroline) and she can shift them in her head like video game cartridges as she needs them, but for purposes of stability there's one personality that's dominant and the others work as support, surfacing only occasionally for effect.

Meanwhile Alpha escalates his malice and violence; "evolving" as Ballard puts it, but because his Composite Event was an accident, his psychosis is increasing, making him even more unstable and dangerous. This means we get more brilliant moments where Alan Tudyk talks to himself cuz he is MAD AWESOME at that! Meanwhile it's uncovered that when November was turned back into Madelyne, some of the deep layered programming (there are 3 flowers in a vase) is still embedded, making her a sleeper assassin that Alpha uses to great effect.

If the series is canceled, there's still fodder here for a full length motion picture. There's still meat on this bone.

I Don't Speak Destiny

a few thoughts about Determinism versus Free Will on ABC's Lost

As of this writing, next Wednesday will be the evening of the last new episode of ABC's Lost until some time next year. This will be the end of season five. The episode's name will be "The Incident." We are to assume the show will be about an incident that has been described or alluded to several times throughout the series' run, but that we've never actually had a chance to see happen, until this Wednesday. How did we get here?

For those unfamiliar with the TV series Lost, here's a vain attempt at a crash course in the plotline. Let's say for the sake of argument that in September of 2003, a commercial jet air liner was cruising from Australia to LAX and encountered a temporal anomaly in the shape of an uncharted island that just happened to be along their trajectory at just the right moment. A shaft of energy shot up out of the island from a man made installation that would later be discovered to be called "The Swan Station," built and funded by an organization called The Dharma Initiative.

This plane crashed on the island, and the survivors spent one hundred and eight days there surviving, interacting unsuccessfully with the previously ensconced inhabitants of the island, and eventually negotiating what they thought to be rescue off said island. However, due to a varied and hard to predict number of variables, only six individuals from that plane actually made it off the island. These six people attempted to return to their normal lives, but so much had upset the trajectory of their lives that it was quite literally impossible for them to return to any resemblance of normality.

None of them wanted to come back, and some were never convinced they had to return, but eventually either voluntarily or by coercion, five of the six "lost" people who thought they had been "found" were forced to admit they were still lost, and went back to the island to finish what had been started. Is this destiny? Are these people unable to stop the inevitable? Or is it their very actions and the choices they make that cause their own misery and strife? Or is there something more complex at work here than either of those possibilities?

There are multiple schools of thought in philosophy. Essentially for purposes of this rambling of mine, it boils down to two sides: Determinism & Free Will. We either get to choose what happens in our lives, or regardless of our choices, fate or God or something else decides for us what's going to happen. If the latter is true, then it's pointless to get out of bed in the morning, because our destiny will seek us out whether we actively pursue it or not. However, if we choose never to get out of bed, then if there were a destiny out there for us, our actions would prevent us from achieving them... UNLESS of course, we were destined to sit in bed and await death.

The real dilemma with this very discussion is that the entire contemplation is essentially a quagmire of thoughts previously set down by philosophers and Great Minds of humanity's history. One must define such things as "Free Will" and "Determinism" and there are many who will argue to the bitter end on semantics; so much so, that it becomes impossible to even agree between people upon what "choice" means. Or any aspect of the conundrum. Or even whether or not it's a conundrum at all! Needless to say, for all the generations of contemplation, we haven't really come up with a final answer as a species.

Of course this ain't for a lack of trying. The great minds of which I speak include but are not limited to the following names: English politician Anthony Cooper, Irish statesman Edmund Burke, Utilitarian and Legal Positivist Jeremy Bentham, Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, Law professor John Austen, Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Philosopher of Enlightenment John Locke, Scottish skeptic David Hume, Dutch novelist Hugo de Groot, Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, and author Clive Staples Lewis. Astute observers of Lost have noted that many featured characters of the series are named after these great philosophers of human history.

One can also argue that the Holy Bible deals greatly with the issues of free will versus determinism, and the names of characters Jack & Christian Shepherd alude to this. Religious minds accept as a given that their god is omniscient, and as such knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. If this is true - and accepting as a given means for those doing that it IS true so don't bother arguing about it - then their god's knowledge means that everything is already essentially set in stone. We don't know the Master Plan, but there is a sentient being out there that does. Though we can't see this set in stone, we must assume that it is. This pretty much precludes Free Will. Whatever happens happens, and there's not much to be done about changing it.

However, the reason why things happen, or don't happen, in your life (beyond events that are caused outside your purview), is because you choose or choose not to do them. You can opt to stay in bed. So you don't go driving today, so there's no chance you'll be in a car wreck, unless someone drives a car into your home. That's not completely out of the realm of possibility, but if for some reason you fear being in a car wreck today, not getting out of bed lessens the odds that such an event will happen to you. Therefore, your action, or rather inaction, has affected the probability of certain events occurring in your life at that time. So you have the freedom to do as you wish, and the will to commit to whatever action you choose to make. This means if there's destiny, you make your own.

Now here's where it gets murky. You have free will. You prove that every time you choose to do anything, even if it's just getting out of bed or having a glass of water or having a beer instead of a glass of water or a glass of water instead of a beer. You have free will. ...So does everyone else.

Your actions sometimes affect only you. Sometimes they affect you and the objects around you that you use to commit those actions. Sometimes your actions affect people in your immediate vicinity. Sometimes your actions and choices affect either directly or indirectly people not in earshot or eye shot of you. Sometimes you make choices which lead to other choices that lead to even more choices that eventually put you in a position where whatever you do this particular day will cause X number of people to be put in danger or even die, so that Y number of people may retain or maintain some level of security or freedom or pleasure or contentment. Maybe you make choices that lead you to robbing a bank. Maybe you make choices that lead you to commanding a military outfit. Maybe you make choices that lead you to becoming the assistant director in charge of media affairs to some conglomerate organization. Maybe you make choices that lead you to becoming a vagabond who is standing on a street corner and is about to walk out into the middle of the intersection because you see a frightened cat about to be run over by a bus and you have to save her.

Choices. Actions. Reactions. Consequences. You choose to make all those choices. You will yourself to commit to those acts. So do all the people around you. There's also physical laws that inanimate objects must adhere to.. usually. There's also other aspects of reality that we don't quite yet understand, but when we perceive things we don't know we (many of us) chalk such things up to miracles or magic or aliens or supernatural forces or something anything than just "I don't know."Things we take for granted now, were considered fantastical less than a century ago. We can make fire now with a cigarette lighter in the palm of our hand. Such a thing would have been considered the Devil's work back in medieval times. There are things at work in the universe today that were we to witness them we'd have no way to comprehend the how or why. It's not magical. We just don't understand how it's done yet.

Earlier today I was at a laundromat and I witnessed a little boy (apparently unsupervised by his mother) climb into a metal laundry basket that's on four wheels and is built in such a way as to topple whenever a child attempts to climb into it. I've seen other children do this and fail. I was too far away to do anything about it. I found myself just standing there witnessing this, expecting the inevitable. It was going to topple. The child was going to fall two feet to the ground and the laundry basket was going to fall on top of him. Then the child would run away screaming to his mother. I've witnessed this before. Sometimes I'm able to stop the children from harming themselves but I do not adhere to Hillary Clinton's insistance that it takes a village to raise a child. It takes parents to raise their children. If I wanted to raise children I would have had some. So nowadays I pretty much just let them be. It's just two feet. His butt will be bruised and he'll run off crying and that'll be the end of it.

However this time, against all logic and common sense I could muster in that moment, the little child climbed into the laundry basket on wheels without toppling it. Once he was inside the laundry basket on wheels he seemed very pleased with himself, but about thirty seconds later he found himself wanting to get out of the laundry basket on wheels. This proved even more difficult and time consuming but he pulled that off too.. almost.

I'm watching this, now mouth slightly agape because this child is in my layman's opinion defying all laws of physics accomplishing this feat, but here comes the inevitable and it looks like his small weight is going to cause the laundry basket on wheels to topple, and at just the last second before that happens, a larger child who may have been his big sister or may have been a complete stranger I don't know, but she saunters by and just at the right second she put her hand on the basket, keeping it from toppling, and the boy touched the floor without ...incident.

The child in question chose to climb into the laundry basket on wheels. He chose to climb down. However, he didn't choose the laws of physics that he was ignoring. They exist whether he wants them to or not. Gravity is still going to bring that laundry basket on wheels down on his head unless he manages a way to balance himself on the thing, however precariously, to keep it upright long enough for him to climb into and out of it. Where he puts his hands, how far his first leg goes before he pushes up and lets his other leg off the ground, how he shifts his weight so as to not upset the cart, all these things and more, including tiny minute decisions he makes with regards to breathing and movement and balance etc., he does have some control over what happens with regards to himself, but he has no control over his own environment. More importantly, he has no control over the other people in the room. I was certainly of no use to him because rather than walk across the room and stop him from endangering himself, I had chosen to not get involved. He had no control over that. Furthermore, he had no control over his sister stepping in at the last second and helping. Perhaps he did not want her help, because now he can't say with pride that he did it all by himself, whether he could have done so or not.

So we have free will, but our actions do not solely determine the outcome. There are forces beyond our control. Friends, family, strangers, animals from elephants to bacteria, and the world at large, all these and more are out there and will either assist our endeavors or become obstacles to our goals. It is the combination of all these factors, variables far too numerous to comprehend much less ever successfully calculate to any non relative certainty, that accumulate into what we (for the lack of a better word) perceive to be our destiny.

We have free will, but our actions and reactions are affected by the consequences of past actions made by ourselves and others. In the Lost television series we've seen this at work countless times. Kate Austen murdered her father, because she felt he had been physically and mentally abusing her mother. This action led to Kate having to run from the authorities, limiting her choices to stay in one place and have a normal life. Resisting arrest and other illegal actions she committed while on the run eventually led to her capture in Australia, which threatened to severely restrict her free will from then on.

John Locke gave his kidney to his father, because he perceived this would bring them closer together. However, his father behaved in a way counter to Locke's anticipation, and because of choices he and his father made and reactions to one another's actions, Locke eventually found himself thrown out an eight story window by his own father, which led to paraplegia for several years, until he arrived on the island. Was Locke always destined to lose control of his legs, or was it his inability to forgive and forget his father that crippled him? Or was it Anthony Cooper's fault alone, and regardless of his actions, Locke is not to blame for his own condition? Was he always meant to be in that wheelchair, so that when he went on walkabout in Australia, they'd turn him away which led to his plane trip back on Oceanic 815? Was he always meant to try the walkabout, or was it the suggestion to him by Abbadon that caused Locke to try something so improbable despite all common sense to the contrary?

If one were to meditate upon the back story of each of our principal characters, one would see that while they had free will, their actions tended to cause consequences that minimized or polarized the choices they had later on. Hugo Reyes used a curious set of numbers he'd got from a friend to play the lottery, and those numbers led to him winning the lottery, but though the millions of dollars at his disposal gave him the appearance of freedom, it also gave him responsibilities that weighed him down, and the numbers themselves led him down a dark path where he discovered others who used the numbers for personal gain later regretted the "bad luck" that it seemed to engender in themselves and people around them. His investigation led him to Australia, and later to the fated plane crash upon leaving Australia. Was all this fated, or did "Hurley" do it to himself? Or is it a combination of the two?

We are also limited by the laws that dictate how the universe behaves, only some of which we actually understand. You can choose to jump in the air, but this will only defeat the force of gravity for a fraction of a second before despite your desire to remain aloft, gravity will usurp your will in that regard. We have free will, but we are restricted by what goes on around us.

If there is a god, s/he/it may know what will happen and how and even why, but s/he/it may not have absolute control over the outcome. It is the culmination of everything in the universe that determines the outcome. The godhead is one element of that culmination. She/he/it may opt to change the outcome, or it may just observe. Quantum physics theorizes that its not possible to observe without affecting the outcome. If one molecule is moved out of place at a strategic time, that could be enough to change everything. Chaos theory speculates that a butterfly can flap its wings in Tokyo thus causing it to rain in California. This is highly improbable, but not outside the realm of possibility. Would that be destiny if it happened, or would it be because the butterfly chose to flap its wings? Simultaneously the answer is both and neither. If such a thing happened, its because the butterfly flapped its wings and it was always destined to do so in that moment, because that's what butterflies do. More specifically, it's what that butterfly would do in that moment if it had free will to do so, and its actions lead to consequences, most of which are beyond the little butterfly's control.

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle once said, "Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will." The television series Lost has dealt with the idea of 'light and dark' both symbolically and literally. However, what appears to be light is not always predictably good and what appears to be dark is not always predictably bad. In fact, trying to determine what the "sides" are has become increasingly difficult.

The final conundrum leading up to The Incident is this: Jack believes he needs to set a bomb off at the Swan station in order to destroy it, so that there will be no Swan station thirty years later. So that his plane will never be struck by an energy beam from the Swan station, and it will land in LAX like it was always (according to him) meant to land. Kate was on that plane too. While what has happened to her is as frustrating as what has happened to Jack, and they have for the most part shared this confounding journey together, had she and Jack landed on LAX without crashing on the island, they never would have met, and she would have gone straight to jail, because of choices she had made prior to getting on the plane in Australia. So to Jack, changing their destiny appears to be a good thing. However, to Kate, changing their destiny is a very bad thing indeed. The fact that Jack wants to erase the past three years, essentially means he wants to erase his entire experience with Kate. To Jack this is a small price to pay for saving the lives of all the people they have lost in the past three years. To Kate, this means he never loved her in the first place, and wants to wipe the slate clean; he'd rather save all those other people than save her.

And you know what? She's absolutely right.