"Life" and "Lost"

It has come time on the new blog to rant. I'm sorry, but I must!

The wasteland that we call Broadcast Television usually doesn't let me down, only because my expectations are so low. I know that there will be weeks of re-runs, other weeks of pilots that may have seemed like good ideas at the time they were proffered, and yet other weeks of inane reality shows. Same ole, same ole.

But, every once in a while, there is a show actually worth watching! A few years ago, an NPR* commentator predicted that the shows of the upcoming year would be Lost and Desperate Housewives. Well, being a loyal NPR follower, I tuned in to see what they were like and got hooked on both of them. Unlike my hero, David Letterman, I do know, "what the f$%k is going on in Lost" since I have watched it religiously from the beginning. And the Desperate Housewives never fail to satisfy.

Then, just last year, against all odds, along came another new show that had some promise...Life. It is one of those "critically acclaimed" but, I'm guessing, hardly watched shows. It centers on a detective who is given a second chance. Golden Globe nominee Damian Lewis ("Band of Brothers") plays complex, offbeat Detective Charlie Crews, who returns to the force after serving time in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Crews' new lease on life has provided him with a Zen-like outlook, peace of mind and no need for vengeance, an attitude which can be challenging to maintain when someone he cares about is threatened -- or when he is investigating the mystery surrounding the murder he was falsely accused of.

There are three plot lines going all at the same time -- Charlie does his day job of being a detective and solving crimes, he maintains a hidden room where he charts the ongoing progress of the conspiracy against him, and he works on finding the guy who did the deed that Charlie was accused of and served time for. Interesting, deep, and circuitous, no?

One other little note...I have been waiting for many weeks for the return of Life. New episodes were scheduled to start up again last night, February 4th, 2009, which they did. One small problem...the new episode was directly opposite the latest new episode of Lost! And no where around either one of them was a show anywhere near worth watching!!! Why, oh why??!! Why couldn't they have put them in different time slots for us geeks to be able to enjoy both, live? (Yes, I know one can watch online after the fact, but it just isn't the same now, is it?) Well, I was forced to choose. I chose Lost (for technical re-play reasons) and watched Life this morning on my PC...not nearly as satisfying. But what is an intelligent, demanding, television viewer to do?

Thanks for listening.

*National Public Radio - The voice of some intelligence in these matters.