Television

I've been watching Lost on DVD. I like this TV on DVD thing; I haven't had a real working TV for like 4 years, so watching TV is quite the novelty. DVDs have allowed me to get hooked on TV series like normal people do. Well. Not quite like normal people. First it was Upstairs, Downstairs. That was a gateway drug. I moved on into harder stuff: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. I loved them. I watched both series, all the way through, and now they're done and I'm sad. So I started watching Lost. It's pretty good. I guess. But.

It's just not as realistic as Buffy and Angel. I have no trouble believing that hell is open in California and an entire underworld of demons lives beneath Los Angeles; I always suspected as much anyway. But I can't quite bring myself to believe in a plane full of buff, attractive young people with one token fat person, one token kid, and we won't even go into racial representation here. I've been on planes. Usually I'm the token buff young person, and I'm not that buff, not that young, and not, frankly, that personable. I also can't believe that the plane wouldn't be found, and I don't believe that many Americans are flying back and forth from Australia on various misguided personal quests, and I'm even having trouble believing in the Australian accents during the flashback bits. Also, while there is no shortage of eye candy on Lost, I'm still in love with Spike.

But the thing I really can't believe, the thing that tears Lost for me, is the absence of Gilligan jokes. There is no way, no way on earth, that if I was marooned on that very attractive island (where the cel phone towers and wealthy homes can be spotted, yes, the minute they pull back for a long sunset shot) with those fun loving young people, that I would not be cracking Gilligan jokes from morning until night, and everyone at that party would be right along with me. I know this like I know how to cock my foot exactly right to hold the refrigerator door open when I'm trying to pour some club soda real quick and then put the bottle back: without looking or thinking about it. I just know. And if you think about it, so do you. There is no way, no way in hell, unless these people have been Lost a whole hell of a lot longer than they say (since like 1960) that when Claire lost her memory it wouldn't have occurred to them to bop her on the head with another coconut. It always worked on Gilligan's Island, after all. And they could damn well have written a theme song by now, too.