Im Lost on an island with Veronica Mars, what delight!
Sunday, October 09, 2005

I'm quite enjoying just sitting at my computer listening to music, so rather than do nothing productive I have decided to make another blog entry. I have no idea why at the start of each diary-esque entry I must justify myself. Maybe I should take an introspective look at the real me instead; give the ol' cogs a tweak and come out better on the other side.

Lost

Season one of Lost premiered on channel 4 over the summer. My hectic schedule and profound wisdom led me to miss the first four terrestrially aired episodes. I saw clips and heard quotes involving beasts, an island and a guy named Jack; I wrote it off as a Lord of the Flies mimic. When I found all my housemates gathered on the sofas in the dark, faces like those of mannequins as they sat wide eyed in front of our old 14" watching episode six I realised that this was not necessarily the tame US import we so often receive. Through the wonders of the internet I acquired the older episodes and played catch up.  This new show was actually interesting, original and entertaining, not to mention an adeptly named character based upon the great "Tabula Rasa" philosopher John Locke. Flashing credits also revealed to me some member of the old Buffy team working on the project which essentially rooted some sort of faith in this show.

In my house of 7 we all have highly varied and diverse tastes, we like different music, films and styles and it is very rare to find something we all equally enjoy (aside from fajitas); Lost is one of those rare things. Each of us seems to draw different inspirations and pleasure from the ongoing instalments and our opinions differ dramatically as to our favourite incidents and whether or not an episode constitutes as good. The absurdity of having a similar television line-up for six months and having to watch a show consistently for half of a year has escaped the American audiences. The mere thought of waiting a massive twenty weeks until the season finale filled our house with terror—our attention spans would drift, we would stray away and good heaven's, we may (all) have to pay for a TV license. Thus we came to a collective decision: I must download all the episodes immediately and watch them as soon as we can. Once again the internet has come through for us, yet organising 7 people to all be in the same place at once when term has started and we all have significant responsibilities and other plans proves extremely difficult. Alas we have only traversed up to "In Translation", episode 17. But we'll get there, oh yes we will and then we can move onto season 2 and start the process all over.

Veronica Mars

Ah yes, the other great American television show I have grown addicted to. This time it is without the support of my housemates or terrestrial television. This show was forcibly inserted into my face via the V-mars goons at Something Awful who felt it their need to advertise through avatars and banners. The intrigue finally got to me at the end of August and I asked the internet ever so nicely to kindly place a copy of UPN's pilot episode into My Documents; and that it did. Thanks Internet. Veronica Mars is one of those shows you can casually watch 10 episodes of without having to stop for water, and after a week I had practically finished. Who killed Lilly Kane? Who attacked Veronica at that party? Why is Logan such an asshole and how does he still manage to be so awesome? All of these could be essay titles for media studies students who have chosen to do something highly practical and academic with their time.  They also pertain to the most brilliant and evolving storyline of this great genre breaking teen adventure. The blurb for Veronica Mars makes it sound so incongruous that when described to people it actively turns them away: "A teen girl investigates school mysteries and deals with being a high school outcast while looking for clues as to the murderer of her former best friend in a stereotypical Californian poor vs. rich sunshine city." Yet the characters you would ordinarily expect to be wooden cut-outs: the bully, the drop out, the boyfriend, the father and the bitches all break the boundaries of traditional teen sitcoms, they have issues and they have background stories that aren't stolen from a soap opera brainstorming session.

Herein lies my true Buffy replacement: it makes my laugh, it makes me cry and it is original. I can only hope that season 2 lives up to the ever growing internet fandom that is spreading consistently through word of mouth. UPN does not advertise this show, it had a poor slot in last years schedule and in the UK it is only just starting to air on cable only Living TV yet somehow the season 2 premiere which was pitched in direct competition with season 2 of Lost still managed to draw in over 3.3 million viewers: UPN's highest ever (apparently).

So that's that, after going for a year without television two new fantastic shows have just dropped into my lap.

Labels: TV

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