The new David Simon (The Corner, The Wire) series on HBO is getting ready to kick off on Sunday night, April 11th. They’ve just released the extended trailer and I could not (pardon the expression) be more jazzed about it.
Check-i-check-it out:
Jin and Sun were two names connected to one spot on the wall as potential candidates. Although it wasn't completely clear, I believe it's safe to assume Jin is the candidate.
And so we return to the stories that advance the plot. Even @DamonLindelof seemed to admit via Twitter that the LOSTies weren’t likely to love this episode, hinting that “in one week, the conversation is going to change.” Well, this episode certainly didn’t shift the conversation, but rather it pulled things back in to a plot-centric course… taking a right turn from the mythological slant of the last episode. Given that I heard half the audience groan over the lack of plot advancement last week, I think we can expect an exact switcharoo with the complainer last week lauding this episode and the lovers of the Jacob-MIB tales lambasting Darleton.
There was some thought amongst me and my fellow LOSTie friends that Jin and Sun could have been candidates for cancellation in prior season finales. They always survived the cut despite the fact that, in many ways, their characters had ended their usefulness as primary storyline members and other characters who cross that Rubicon (like Boone, Shannon, and, at least temporarily, Claire) all met their end. Darleton did a good job of reviving them, to a degree, but this episode showed that even the gimmick of the separated lovers couldn’t really carry an episode.
The one area that the episode did work for me was the sideways universe. Sun and Jin in a separate existence worked quite well and more interestingly than many of the other storylines. We’d been teased with Jin’s being found by Sayid at Keamy’s restaurant, so we already wanted to know how he got there.
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SEC Basketball has come to an end for 2010. With Tennessee’s elimination at the hands of Michigan State in the Midwest Region Final, there are no more SEC games to be played, so I figured it was time to release the When[It]StrikeMe All-SEC teams for 2009-2010. I’ve loaded up your standard fare of All-Conference Performers, as well as All-Villain Team, All-Glue, All-Name, All-Smooth, All-Freak-Athlete and All-Wait-Till-Next-Year teams. Let’s start with the individual awards.
Coach of the Year. At the end of Conference Play, I was ready to follow the Coaches and give this one to Kevin Stallings of Vanderbilt. Not only was that the homer pick, but it was also the wrong one. There are some arguments against Bruce Pearl, but he is the Coach of the Year. Pearl’s Vols have overcome tremendous shortcomings on their roster to end up as the last SEC team standing, earning the Vols program’s first Elite Eight. It is true that Pearl brought the troublemakers that caused those roster problems into the program; however, at the very least one has to appreciate that he actually disciplined his offenders (unlike a certain reptilian coach to the north). For that, I grant thee Pearl the Coach of the Year. Runners Up (Tie) – Stallings and John Calipari (Kentucky).
Yes, this man-child... Demarcus Cousins... dominated the SEC this year.
Player of the Year & Freshman of the Year. Some people seem dead set on giving John Wall the annointed status as best SEC player. I’m sorry, he’s not even the best player on his own team. Granted, on a team that starts four potential lottery picks for this year’s draft, not being the best doesn’t mean a whole lot; nevertheless, the guy I’m watching and who I believe was the most singularly dominating SEC performer in several years was Demarcus Cousins. In a year in which he wasn’t even expected to be a candidate for Player of the Year or Freshman of the Year… hidden by characters such as Wall, USC’s Devan Downey, UT’s Tyler Smith, MSU’s Jarvis Varnardo and Vanderbilt’s AJ Ogilvy, Cousins snuck up on people. Or at least he snuck up on folks as much as a phenomenal, freak-beast at 6’10″ 260lbs can. He’s arguably the most athletic big man in amateur basketball and turned into a double double machine while dominating the best post players in the SEC. The only real downturn for Demarcus is that the most physically mature player in the league was also the most immature. He loved flashing his elbows and lost his cool on numerous occasions. Regardless of his personality disorders, Cousins was the best player and the best newcomer in the league. Runner Up (Both Awards) – Wall.
Sixth Man of the Year. This was really somewhat of a thin award pool. No sixth man really dominated in any tangible measure, so it ended up falling by default to Vanderbilt’s shooting wunderkind, John Jenkins. The SEC leader in three-point shooting at 48.3% actually shot 50.7% from downtown if you remove the 0-7 performance against Georgia. In the Georgia game, Jenkins played through a flu that hospitalized him for two days the next night. Anyway, Jenkins eventually ended up starting seven games as his unreal stroke could not be left on the bench. It goes without saying that he will not be eligible for an SEC sixth man award again. Runners Up (Tie) - Chandler Parsons (Florida) and Zach Graham (Ole Miss).
Click through for the All-SEC Teams Read more…
Seeing the ice geysers of Enceladus are one of those moments where you look around and realize this program has you smiling and wanting more.
For shame… for shame HBO and THC and Discovery. BBC2 is currently airing a brilliant series of hour-long documentaries starring Brian Cox called Wonders of the Solar System. Although produced jointly by the BBC and Discovery Communications’ Science Channel, it is currently airing only in Britain… presumably to air later on Science.
Fortunately, there’s this little thing called the interwebs which makes surreptitious viewing of cross continental programming possible. I’m not going to tell you where you can obtain parts one, two and three… but hyperlinking isn’t necessarily telling, now is it?
I complain, because this really is, at times, magical science. Brian Cox — who’s known as the Rock Star Physicist both for his past history as a rocker and his playful magnetism and genuine wonder when presented with that which is cool — sums it up best when describing how amazing it is that he’d been able to calculate the wattage output of the Sun using household items:
[The sun is radiating out] 400 million million million million watts. That is a million times the power consumption of the United States every year radiated in one second. And we worked that out by using some water, thermometer, tin and umbrella. And that’s why I love physics.
Wonders of the Solar System, “Empire of the Sun.” It’s really just brilliant and inspiring stuff and filmed and scored with a real passion for the joys of scientific discovery.
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The Onion has been king of satire for a very, very long time now. Even in the age of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the Onion launched the superior OnionNewsNetwork.
One staple they’ve continued to run out is their mocking of The USA Today and its infographics. After the jump, I’ve got two of their infographics from the Onion Sports Network, addressing those bastion of collegiate athletics: John Wall of Kentackalacky and The Lamb of God of Florida.
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What possible person could combine the following traits: i) local Nashville celebrity, ii) radio personality, iii) born-again Christian, iv) pimp and v) looks like the Black Adder? Give up? There’s only one and he’s SportsXtra host and friend of this blog, Henry Nichols.
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The almighty Steampunk Emperor, LSU linebacker Barkevious Mingo defeated Michigan student Iris Macadangdang for the 2009 NOTY crown. Who will succeed our faithful overlord?
It’s that time of year again? Earlier today, the good folks at Name of the Year put up the new ballot for this year’s true March Madness: the nameoftheyear.blogspot.com bracket challenge.
Over the course of the next several weeks, all 64 contestants will be whittled down to a Final Four and then a national champion worthy to carry on the title. For those that don’t know, all names must be real and verifiable as not invented. Only two of this year’s entrants were familiar to me, thanks to my affection for NCAA athletics: Myron Rolle (former FSU cornerback, current Rhodes Scholar, future NFL player and my current athletics hero — Sonny Gray and Steve Tchiengang have to accept a tie for second place) and Just-in-Love Smith (from Siennnnnnnnnna basketball).
Some of this year’s entrants are real winners and the seeding seems to have a few interesting matchups, though the Sithole Region seems particularly weak. I’ve got my eyes on a few real favorites (like Bulltron 1 seed Nohjay Nimpson and Sithole 1 seed God’s Power Offor) and some possible dark horses (such as DragonWagon 10 seed Can Du and Chrotchtangle 4 seed Spartacus Bernstein). And, for the first time ever, I’m calling a 16 seed upset by Shy Ely of Dragonwagon 1 seed Spontaneous Gordon. Bank it.
To view a printable version of the bracket, click here (PDF format).
The episode focused on the Island and the relationship between Jacob and the MIB... and their pawn, Ricardus.
Although formally a Richard Alpert episode, last night was an Island-centric hour, perhaps more so than any prior episode in the series run. For that, and for the excellent manner in which it was executed, Darleton and co. deserve major, major props.
A return to mythology is where the LOST audience sometimes gets split. The fanatics, of which I count myself a member, love and revel in mythology, symbolism and literary or religious reference and allegory. The more casual fan who yearns for the serial sometimes gets confused and bored — thereby giving the ratings a major hit. I would imagine that last night represents a major coup for all true LOSTies and a major “over-the-head” moment for all people who tuned in and were unawares of the back stories of the characters and the inner backgrounds of the Island’s bicameral structure.
I reference bicameral largely because we’re 48 hours removed from a polarized health care reform vote which somewhat reminds me of this past episode. Our Congress, torn on two sides by competing interests represented by the DNC and GOP — or good and evil, or vice versa when viewed by a partisan on either side. Nevertheless, each good and evil are tied together. One party cannot exist without the other and good cannot be judged or identified in the absence of evil. Moreover, beyond the two parties, we are drawn within the bicameral structure of a world of two houses, each unable to function in the absence of the other.
I’m reminded of a story told by Leo McGary in the second season of the West Wing. It was a recounting of a seasoned Democrat Representative welcoming a new Congressman to DC:
“There was a freshman democrat who came to Congress 50 years ago. He turned to a senior Democrat and said, ‘Where are the Republicans? I want to meet the enemy.’ The senior Democrat said, ‘The Republicans aren’t the enemy. They’re the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.’”
Senator Dick Durbin recycled this story with respect to the health care reform vote not two weeks ago, and it still holds resonance, because in a bicameral structure both chambers are separate, sentient actors who must reconcile their inner balance and being (their fight between good and evil) as well as act in concert, or at least coexist, in order to accomplish anything. With health care reform, there is the distinct need for reconciliation in order to get the adopted forms of the bills passed. With respect to the Island… well, let’s just say things are different but no less complex.
And that brings me back to Jacob and the MIB. In this episode than any before, we were presented with that which has been readily before us all along: the question that Ricardus (and I do prefer that version of the name) himself has asked. What if Jacob is not what he proclaims to be? We were presented with the #TeamJacob perspective first and with concomitant sympathy; however, “Ab Aeterno” granted us, for the first time, the perspective of a neophyte in Richard who is first presented with the story of the MIB and then turned by Jacob.
You have more faith than I if you did not, for at least one moment, come to think that we might, just maybe, be operating on faulty or even a reverse polarity spectrum of what is good and what is evil. Perhaps it is the MIB and blackness itself that is good. Or, more complex is the concept that the Island is a bicameral world in which each house (that of Jacob and that of the MIB) are internally divided between good and evil and, while they must reconcile themselves, must act with and face as an enemy the other chamber.
A bit more on this and other thoughts in my Quick Hits, after the jump: Read more…
Flickr user awesometown somehow got both the name this blog wanted and also this amazing sunrise photo named Forgive.
Perhaps the most welcome return in the episode was that of the awesome tree from Season 1. You'll recall that Kate hid from the smoke monster in the tree in the Pilot episode. Her confrontation with zombie Sayid, FLocke/Not-John and crazy Claire all took place at it's base.
I’m entirely uncertain on what I thought about this episode. I’m totally wiped out from a long day and not enough sleep and watched it after 90 minutes of good hooping it up. So I’m a little weary typing away in bed with the beginning of the episode playing through again for a second time. As I type, FLocke/Not-John is addressing #TeamSmokeMonster, saying (paraphrased) “you’ve been through a long night and I know you have a lot of questions. I’ll get to those, but first we’ve got to get moving.” This was one of those episodes where “Darleton”, like FLocke/Not-John, said that very thing and, like the character, failed to answer pretty much anything.
I fully understand that sometimes you need an episode that serves a purpose of simply advancing the story. That’s all well and nice, but the end is nigh and we still have a long ways to go to get to where this show ought to end and this episode did little to tie up loose ends or move the plot along besides getting us to where Team Widmore is back on Hydra Island. The title of the episode, “Recon,” should have given us enough pause to realize that this wasn’t going to be the most action packed of adventures, but rather would establish the necessary basis for episodes to come. As a result, it’s not surprising that I fell asleep before getting this written and am now typing away in the morning.
After the jump, I’ve got my quick hits: Read more…
