For this week’s podcast, click here. 

For archived podcasts, click here.

This week, Vince and I discuss Superman’s relevance to modern culture and compare him to Batman’s current popularity. Can an invincible character who never makes mistakes still say anything for today’s society? Enjoy, and comments are always welcome.

 LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

*Spoiler Warning*

 Though it picked up essentially the way I expected it to, this season’s premiere of Lost didn’t disappoint. A lot of very interesting plot and ideas were set up that should pave the way for a solid and pretty different season.

 Although we’ve finally caught up to the flash-forwards from last season and are now watching that future as though it were the present, this season already has a different and somewhat darker feel to me. Last year, we watched our heroes as they desperately tried to get off the island, and although we knew pretty quickly that they were never supposed to get back, the off-island scenes were often shot with vibrant colors and bright lighting, the idea being, I think, that Jack, Hurley, Kate and the others should be happy, but the terrible things happening to them offset that. Now that we know they have to go back, the future is looking bleaker– physically. The off-island scenes are now grayer and darker, and I don’t think that’s on accident.

In some ways, the set-up for this season is quite a bit better than last year. The writers kept making up reasons to delay the Oceanic Six’s getting off the island, and they kept splitting people up and putting them in weird situations all over the island so we’d keep guessing who all of the Six would be. As much as I loved the mystery, this was sometimes contrived. The conflict this season is well-established and quite straight forward– Jack and Ben have to get the other members of the Oceanic Six back to the island (or something terrible will happen, obviously something having to do with the island’s instability after it moved and its skipping through time), but they’re going to have a hard time because Hurley got himself arrested, Sun wants to kill Ben, and Kate just joined Sun. Not hard to imagine that it’ll take an entire season to get everyone together.

The whole show feels more straight forward now. The teaser of “Because You Left” gave us a flashback of the Dharma Initiative and immediately let us know that the contraption Ben used to move the island had been there before Dharma– they don’t seem to have built it. That’s one of the big things I’ve been wondering, and they’ve already told us! Though we don’t know who put it there or why, but I’m confident that’s coming. The show is more linear now, following two different time periods (those left behind on the island and those off it, three years later) instead of flashing forward and backward all over time. Last season kept us guessing as to when all the future events happen in relation to each other, but both time periods we’re watching this year move forward, and only forward. I enjoyed the flashing motif, but after four seasons, it reached it’s limit of validity. I’m glad to see it finally retired.

The big questions I’m asking after the preimiere are those I’d imagine everyone’s asking.

1. Why are John Locke and the other main characters on the island not time-shift with the island like the Others seem to? They all keep their memories and know time is moving around, but the Others seem to be reverting to their past or future selves depending on what time the island shifts to.

2. What exactly did John do to get himself killed? It’s now been revealed that he’s probably going to know whatever it is will get himself killed when he does it, and whatever that is he did to ensure the Six would get back to the island. That blows my original theory from last year.  I really thought that John, leading the Others, would have some big problem he thought he could only solve by moving the island a second time. But it looks like he’s going to be more noble than that, and that makes me happy. John’s been making some major mistakes the last couple seasons, and a self-sacrifice to save his friends (or the islsand, or the world, or whatever) would be great for his character. Especially if he comes back to life later…

3. How long is the island going to time-skip, and how the heck do you stop that? I can’t imagine our characters on the island will have to deal with that for 16 whole episodes. And just how far back in time did they go last time? Those guys who attacked them were Dharma, weren’t they?

4. Who was that lady with Ben at the end of “The Lie?” Did I miss something? The writers treated it like a big reveal when we saw her face, but I don’t think she’s anyone we’ve seen before. She obviously knows as much, if not more, about the island physics than Daniel does. She said they only had three days to get everyone back. Wow… are they really going to do 72 hours in 16 episodes??

5. What’s Ben’s real plan? I never trust this guy. Is this all really just about getting the Six back to the island to stop some horrible destruction (or whatever)? Seems like something else must be going on, mostly because there’s always something else up Ben’s sleeve. The island exhiled him, right? I thought he couldn’t go back. So what’s he going to do when he gets everyone else there?

And, of course, there’s the constant questions about the “ghosts” and the smoke monster. Hope more of that gets cleared up this season. So far, looks like the season’s off to a good start.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan