LOST: Thoughts on The End

As Jacob once famously said “It only ends once, everything else is just progress.” On Sunday night, after six eventful years LOST came to it’s final moments, and overall I found it to a very satisfying send-off to my favorite show. The biggest message of the episode was about remembering and letting go which I think not only applies to the characters but to us as viewers. I’ve had few days of remembering to process everything that happened and before I completely let go, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the finale and what what I think it all means (starting with the events on the island).

The Ultimate LOST Mix, brutha

LOST: The Final Season is finally here and to pay tribute to my all-time favorite show I’ve made what I consider to be the definitive mix of music featured on LOST. You can download the entire mix in a zip here, and read how each song is used in the show (plus which episode it appeared first) below. Feel free to use this to soundtrack your LOST premiere party tonight. I’ll most likely be posting some thoughts on here as the season progresses. Enjoy!

Download LOST Mix (78.83 MB / 1.1 hours)

MP3 Driveshaft – You All Everybody (1×01, “Pilot”)

Driveshaft‘s one-hit wonder was sung by the band’s bassist, Charlie Pace in the “Pilot” and later shown in it’s full glory in “The Moth”.

MP3 Joe Purdy – Wash Away (Reprise) (1×03, “Tabula Rasa”)

Remember back in season 1 when LOST when Hurley had a working CD player and there was poignant music montages for every other episode? This is the song that started all that.

MP3 Charles Trenet – La Mer (1×12, “Whatever The Case May Be”)

Sayid asks Shannon to translate notes made by Danielle Rousseau on her map, which turn out to be the lyrics to this song. Shannon recognizes it from the French version of Finding Nemo.

MP3 Damien Rice – Delicate (1×17, “… In Translation”)

The song Hurley is playing on his CD player right before it breaks. “Son of a bitch”

MP3 Bob Marley – Redemption Song (1×23, “Exodus”)

Michael and Sawyer briefly bond after Sawyer starts singing this song on the raft, but then quickly go back to hating each other.

MP3 Mama Cass – Make Your Own Kind of Music (2×01 “Man of Science, Man of Faith”)

Probably my favorite musical cue in the show, this song is first played by Desmond as he gets ready for his day in the opening scene of season 2 before he is interrupted when Locke blasts The Hatch door open.

MP3 The Hold Steady – The Swish (Live) (2×04, “Everybody Hates Hugo”)

Hurley asks his crush, Starla if she’d like to see The Hold Steady live at the Troubador with him. This particular song isn’t technically featured on the show, but I’ll use any excuse I can to put a Hold Steady song on here.

MP3 Patsy Cline – Walkin’ After Midnight (2×09, “What Kate Did” )

Patsy Cline songs always seem to show up when there’s a Kate flashback. This track is heard first in the diner scene of “What Kate Did” and then later in “Left Behind” on a tow truck radio. Christian Shepherd seems to like Patsy as well, he’s listening to this track on the radio in “Two For The Road”.

MP3 Glen Miller – Moonlight Serenade (2×13, “The Long Con”)

Sayid and Hurley heard this song on the radio picked up from the Arrow station. Sayid says the signal could be coming from anywhere and Hurley responds “or any time… just kidding, dude”. Time travel foreshadowing?

MP3 Petula Clark – Downtown (3×01 “A Tale of Two Cities”)

Juliet plays this song on her CD player in the season 3 opening scene while she’s preparing for her bookclub (which then gets interrupted by a certain plane tearing apart in the sky).

MP3 Oasis – Wonderwall (3×08, (“Flashes Before Your Eyes”)

Sung by Charlie on the street outside Widmore Corporations as Desmond’s walking out. Features some more classic LOST foreshadowing with the line, “Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me”.

MP3 Three Dog Night – Shamabala (3×10, “Tricia Tanaka is Dead”)

This song starts playing when Hurley starts up the DHARMA van they found in the jungle. We hear it again in the same DHARMA van when Ben kills his father.

MP3 Nirvana – Scentless Aprentice (3×22, “Through The Looking Glass”)

Played by crazy drug-addicted, bearded Jack on his car ride to Jeremy Bentham’s memorial. The beginning of the “Who’s in the coffin?” craze.

MP3 Beach Boys – Good Vibrations (3×22, “Through The Looking Glass”)

Charlie discovers that playing “Good Vibrations” on the keypad inside The Looking Glass station is the code to stop transmissions being jammed, and leads to his phone chat with Penny.

MP3 Buddy Holly – Everyday (4×11, “Cabin Fever”)

This song is playing on a pregnant Emily Locke’s record player as she’s preparing for a date, before she gets hit by a car and prematurely has her baby (spoiler alert: she names him John).

MP3 The Pixies – Gouge Away (4×13, “Theres No Place Like Home”)

Jack apparently loves to listen to early 90’s alternative rock bands when drunk driving to the Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Parlor. This Pixies song is playing in the car in the scene that finally answers who’s in the coffin.

MP3 Willie Nelson – Shotgun Willie (5×01, “Before You Left”)

Continuing the “playing a song while someone is going about their morning routine” mantra, this song opens season 5 before the record begins skipping. Hey, kind of like the skipping record metaphor that Faraday uses later in the episode.

MP3 Cheap Trick – Dream Police (5×02, “The Lie”)

This song is playing in the convenience store where Hurley goes in to buy the “I heart Shih-tzus” shirt.

MP3 Geromino Jackson – Dharma Lady (5×06, “316”)

Geromino Jackson is a fictional band that’s referenced many times throughout LOST, and who is finally heard in season 5 on a DHARMA van radio and later at the DHARMA processing station.

MP3 Dawn (with Tony Orlando) – Candida (5×08, “LaFleur”)

The song that DHARMA kids Jerry and Rosie are dancing to in the security station. Phil breaks it up and complains about them having a hootenanny.

MP3 Patsy Cline – Three Cigarettes (In an Ashtray) (5×16 “The Incident”)

This song is heard in Kate’s flashback in the Season 5 finale, where Kate tries to steal a New Kids On The Block lunchbox before Jacob sort-of creepily intervenes.

Thanks to Lostpedia for the info. See you in another life, brutha.

Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening

Ever since I saw Aziz Ansari introduce Tapes n’ Tapes at the 2006 Pitchfork Festival (a clip that was which was later used into the hilarious web video, Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru), I’ve been a huge fan of the comedian. Lately he’s been killing it on a weekly basis as Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation and has done small (but hilarious) parts in movies like Funny People, Observe and Report, and I Love You, Man. He also had an amazing sketch show on MTV called Human Giant which I wrote about in detail here. Aziz’s true calling though is stand-up comedy and it’s sort-of hard to believe he’s gone this long without every having a tv special or album release. Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, which was released on CD and DVD last week, is Aziz at the top of his stand-up game, compiling most of the best jokes that he’s been fine-tuning over the years.

Aziz’s comedy is a mix of observational humor with the surreal, off-the-wall type comedy that made Human Giant so hilarious. His ability to set up an audience’s expectations with a story and completely take the joke to another place is fantastic and it speaks to his creativity and intelligence as a joke-writer. He loves making obscure pop culture references (how many comics do you know use a character from Mighty Ducks 2 as a punchline) and making jokes about the internet / technology. His bit about how he’s probably going to die in a car crash while looking at IMDb on his phone to see if Val Kilmer was in Willow is a perfect example.

Some of his funniest material though is about his bizarre family members like chubby cousin Harris who loves shows like Burn Notice and Las Vegas (“his senior quote is going to be ‘TNT knows drama'”) and constantly eats Cinnabon. His ties to indie rock and hip hop are also often mined for comedy whether it’s bits about Bonnaroo or stories about his encounters with M.I.A., Kanye West, and R. Kelly (“a brilliant R&B singer-slash-crazy person”). Aziz’s punchy delivery is what really sells the jokes, his enthusiasm for the material is completely infectious and his fast-paced timing keeps you laughing consistently for the full hour. He does his encore as his alter-ego, RAAAAAAANDY an uproarious parody of obnoxious Dane Cook style shock comedy. Even if you did see the special on TV, there’s a bunch of extra jokes thrown in on the DVD as well as a half-hour of jokes that didn’t make the special that Aziz performed at the UCB. Here’s a couple audio samples below.

MP3 Aziz Ansari – My Cousin Harris
MP3 Aziz Ansari  – MTV’s Next

Purchase Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening on DVD / CD.

LOST: Season Six Promo featuring Radiohead. Holy crap, this is awesome!

Perhaps the two greatest things in the world, Radiohead and LOST, have now combined in the new Spanish promo for season six (the final season) of LOST. The promo shows Losties as players in a chessboard “where men are pawns of God” and there’s “a destiny for every piece, for every player, and for God”. It’s all set against the opening track to Kid A, “Everything In It’s Right Place”. So freakin’ cool. Watch the promo above.

MP3 Radiohead – Everything In It’s Right Place

Television Rules The Nation: 30 Rock, etc

This is where I talk about one of my favorite things, television.

Some critics are saying that 30 Rock has lost it’s touch this season. Those critics are crazzzy. If anything, I think that it just took a little longer this year for the show to hit it’s stride. You may remember last season was a bit doubtful (read: too cameo-heavy) till 5 or 6 episodes in and then it never let up. Furthermore, with last night’s episode “Sun Tea”, I think everone can agree that 30 Rock is back on the very top of it’s game.

The A plot of the episode was Liz Lemon’s attempt to steal an apartment from a gay hipster cop that wears political t-shirts that say “this is what a feminist looks like” and is totally ruining her imaginary life with Astronaut Mike Dexter. She gets ideas from Jenna (be a drama queen), Tracy (have an angry black boyfriend), and finally, Frank (the “sun tea” method). In the B story, Tracy and Jack are both getting vesactamies, Jack because of Geiss family drama (how amazing is it that Kathy Geiss’ lawyer is Teddy Ruxpin?) and Tracy because The Cosby Show lied to him. Both Dr. Spaceman and Tracy Jr. are in this subplot which automatically amazing and the Cosby show hallucination scene was just brilliant. There’s also Kenneth with some green week something or other that provided one really funny meta-joke about the NBC green peacock and a fairly lame Al Gore cameo. So all in all an awesome episode.

A sampling of my favorite quotes:

“Drama is like gay man Gatorade, it replenishes their electrolytes.”

“Are they actually going to do something this week or are they just going to put that stupid green peacock in the corner?”

“The Bill Cosby show lied to me” “I don’t think there’s a box for that on the form. How about ‘Cheers lied to me’?”

“My apartment smells like Burger King all day and Cinnabon all night.”

“You look like a turtle who lost his shell.”

“Our topical opener is Omarosa borrowing Bjork’s swan dress.”

***

As for the other shows on the NBC Thursday lineup, Community continues to be consistently hilarious (the American Tail: Fievel Goes West parody from last night was fantastic); Parks and Recreation continues to be this year’s most improved show (Aziz is getting some serious competetion from Ron frickin’ Swanson lately for funniest character), and The Office, well, at least Andy and Creed are still bring the laughs pretty consistentally. Can’t say I’m a fan of the direction that show is taking lately.

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This video is the Top 100 Quotes from The Wire. It’s a very well-done, nicely-edited montage, and a must watch for Wire fans. My only complaint would be that it focuses a bit too much on major characters. It definitely needs more S2 Greeks (how can you not even include “and, of course, I’m not even Greek”?!), S4 corner boys, and S5 newsies. On the other hand, pretty much everything Omar, Bunk, and Snoop said could be printed and framed.

(via @azizansari)

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Finally, LOST: The Final Season will premiere on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Dude, that’s 73 days. I’m already stocking up on Dharma box wine and Apollo Bars.

Television Rules The Nation: Mad Men, Community, Sunny

I fully admit to being a complete TV junkie, something which at times even rivals my music junkie status (mostly while LOST is on). So I’m introducing “Television Rules The Nation” (“Kicking Television” was taken), a semi-weekly post about what I’m currently watching. Here it goes.

First and foremost, we have to talk about that Mad Men finale. I mean, holy crap that was a brilliant episode. It offered a perfect mixture of resolving big picture plot lines (Don/Betty’s marriage crisis, Sterling Cooper being sold) in a satisfactory and coherent manner, while providing some fantastic character moments (the Peggy / Don conversation tops this category for me), and a few huge crowd-pleaser moments (Pryce’s “very good. happy christmas!” phone call, the return of Joan).

Another way the finale triumphed was in building a huge amount of anticipation for next season (AMC has dibs on SterlingCooperDraperPryce.com if you were wondering). If this continues, Mad Men may actually surpass Sopranos in the drama category for me (still can’t compete with The Wire though). Here’s the highly transportive song played over the credits:

MP3 Roy Orbison – Shahdaroba

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Perhaps my favorite new show this season is Community (which actually features Mad Men’s Trudy as a key player). The best character though is the pop-culture obsessed, meta-referencing Abed. In just a few episodes, he’s already become one of the most fascinating, funniest characters on TV. This Dark Knight parody from a couple weeks back absolutely killed me:

Also, here’s Abed’s classic Breakfast Club speech from the pilot.

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I think everyone’s seen this by now but if not, here’s Charlie’s Kitten Mittons video from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia last week.  If you’ve never watched the show, A. What are you thinking?  and B. Let this be your introduction:

That’s all for tonight.  I’ll have much more TV to talk about next week.

Newsflashes (E3, Antlers, God Help The Girl, Conan, etc)

I’ve been keeping up with Joystiq’s amazing E3 coverage over the last week, mostly to keep tabs on the new and wonderful developments in the music gaming world coming up. Guitar Hero 5 released an artist list which features much more indie rock and overall song variety than ever before (Vampire Weekend, Band of Horses, White Stripes, TV on the Radio, Blur, My Morning Jacket, and even Elliott Smith are in the game). Plus, some of the new features of the game (like party play) look sick. This interview has all the info.  Rock Band: Beatles (view trailer, intro), of course, looks crazy awesome. Haven’t decided on DJ Hero yet, though my gut tells me that will be really cool as well, but my gut is also very hungry…

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A lot has happened for Brooklyn’s The Antlers since I featured them in January. They’ve exploded on the blog scene, signed to Frenchkiss Records, scored a tour with Frightened Rabbit, and started to get some major attention from Pitchfork.  Not only did they get best new music for their song “Bear” but today they were officially added to Pitchfork Festival which is totally sweet. Their album will be re-released in August, listen to two of their best tracks below:

MP3 The Antlers – Two
MP3 The Antlers – Bear

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If you’re as big of a fan of The Wire as I am, you’ll probably want to spend some time checking out this blog, dedicated to the show and other David Simon projects.  They’re systematically going through and analyzing each episode and keeping count of things like Omar stick-ups and drunken McNulty sightings.

MP3 Tom Waits – Down In The Hole

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I’m still regularly listening to Stuart Murdoch’s God Help The Girl album. Not every track works for me, but the good ones (like “come monday night”, “a dark and dusky blonde” and the title track) are really really great.  If you’re a Belle & Sebastian fan and miss Murdoch on lead vocals though, here’s a just-released b-side MP3 that’s been made available to download. Very enjoyable song.

MP3 God Help The Girl – Mary’s Market

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Check out this blog that exposes duplications and other interesting photoshop fakeries in movie posters. Totally rad!

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I’ve caught every episode of the Tonight Show with Conan, and I love what the man is doing. So far, the Tom Hanks episode has been the best, I laughed my face off at TWITTER TRACKER.  This image has been making the rounds but I feel obligated to post it, because it’s seriously cool:

If you like newsy updates and random thoughts like this, you can track me on twitter.

Lost: Can they change the future?

This is the big debate about the nature of time travel going into the LOST season 6 finale.  I’d like to know what side you are on, because if you’re like me you’ll spend most of the day anticipating / speculating on the finale. Here’s some background on both sides of the debate.

“What Happened Happened” (The Constant)

This is the prevalent time traveling theory on LOST. It’s what Daniel Faraday told us from the beginning was true and what Miles and Hurley spent a whole episode (which was called “What Happened Happened”) debating. Most of the things we’ve seen thus far (such as Ben being taken to the others after being shot) seem to favor this theory.  Time travel in this theory is paradox-free and actually makes the most scientific sense.

“We can change things” (The Variables)

This is theory that Faraday explained two episodes ago after having a revelation about time travel.  The best way of explaining it is that time is like a river.  Throwing pebbles into the water can create ripples but doesn’t essentially change things, but dropping boulders (like an H-Bomb) changes the course of the whole river. When Jack got shot, Faraday took this theory and ran with it. This theory makes sense on a human level, the idea of free will is prevelant in Back to the Future (Doc always said “The future has yet to be written”) and in the film “Minority Report” (Tom Cruise can change what happens because he’s seen his future).

The “Course Correction” factor

The first exposure to time travel on LOST was in the episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes” when Desmond met with Eloise Hawking (when she was still just the creepy ring lady) and she explained to him course correction.  She said that you can not prevent the inevitable from happening because the universe will course correct. Desmond wasn’t able to change that Charlie was going to die, but he was able to change when he died, and he was able to prolong Charlie’s life till the point where he pushed the button, which allowed the freighter came to the island. So really he did change things (unless you think that button would have been pushed no matter what, another course correction).

So maybe the real answer lies somewhere in between.  Certain things must happen and can not be changed because of the rules of course correction, but how and when those things happens maybe can be changed.  If destiny can be escaped completely has yet to be seen.

***

So what’s it going to be? Tell me your stance in the comments. Here’s some related MP3s to listen to while you’re making up your mind:

The Magic Numbers – Forever Lost
Beck – Timebomb
Wilco – In A Future Age

Also read more speculation about tonight’s episode at The Rawking Refuses to Stop, You Ain’t No Picasso, and Doc Jensen’s LOST Blog.

LOST Recap: Because You Left / The Lie

The first two episodes of LOST aired last night and, me being the LOST-obsessed guy that I am, I can’t think about much else today other than the Losties and their plight.  The story picks off with the Ben and Jack plotting to get the Oceanic Six plus dead Locke back to the island, and Sawyer, Locke, Juliet, and the Freighter Three skipping through time like a broken record. Here’s a few things observations of mine:

-To kick things off, we get a glimpse of the orientation film man with the many names (Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund, Edgar Halliwax among them).  Looks like he’s sticking with Pierre Chang for now. And he’s listening to Willie Nelson (third time by the way a LOST season has started with someone putting on a record, see Mama Cass, Petula Clark).

-Oh, and Daniel Faraday is hanging around with him at the Orchid Station.  So would that make this scene a flash-forward to a time when Daniel and co. travel back?

-Locke has now witnessed Yemi’s plane crash in his dream as well as in real life.  Could this be related somehow?  Also notice how something bad happpens everytime someone climbs up that vine wall. See also: Boone, Eko (although in his case it was only a dream). Also, loved seeing Ethan again.

-So apparentally the Islanders are moving through time but not Others. So is the possibly-not-dead Jin and Claire skipping through time also.  How bout Cindy and the kids who are still presumably hanging with the others.  They are probably crazy confused about now.

-Who were those guys at Kate’s door?  I’m thinking that they were hired by Ben to spook Kate into running and make it easier to convince her to go to the Island. So were the people Sayid killed Ben’s or Widmore’s?

-I’ve readsome other recappers point out that Ben hiding his stuff in the air vent could be seen as a possible No Country For Old Men reference.  I also noticed Sayid’s busting into a hotel and killing people was very Anton Chigurh-like, as was Richard’s homemade bullet removal.

-Talking about Richard, that conversation he had with Locke was awesome.  I wondered though, if you can’t change the past why did he tell Locke that information and give him the compass?  Wouldn’t that in fact, change the past?  Is Richard special like Desmond and can break the rules?

-I’ve heard people theorize that the Whispers are people from the time travelers trying to that can’t be seen because it would change the past.  That would be pretty cool.

-So when is that Richard & Locke conversation taking place anyway?  Locke sees Yemi’s corpse in the helicopter which would place it before season 3, episode 5, when Eko discovered the body was gone.  But then how did Richard know that the O6 got onto the island way before this happened?

-The second hour of LOST, focusing on Hurley wasn’t quite as interesting as the first, but still had some good stuff.  It did have some great lines (“Why is there a dead Pakastani on my couch”) and this moment:

Ben’s furrowed eyebrow reaction is priceless.

–Vincent is still around. Hooray!

-Nice to see Frogurt again briefly, who was first referenced in S.O.S. and then seen having a tussle with Hurley over Libby’s affections in one of the mobisodes. Glad he died when he did though, guy’s annoying as heck.  Guy can’t even remember to get milk.

-Did anyone else say “Weekend at Bernies” when Hurley put the sunglasses on Sayid.

-Finally, we have the Jedi-hooded, possibly Daniel Faraday’s mom, Ms. Hawkings who loves science equations, has a really cool swinging pendulum with chalk machine, and is determining event windows on an ancient-looking computer, telling Ben that they have about three days to pull this together (same amount of time Sun will be in LA… coincidence?) and repeating the line Dr. Chang said at the beginning “Then God help us all”.

And there you have it, LOST has officially returned and all is right with the world.

MP3 Elliott Smith – Let’s Get Lost

Let me know your thoughts/theories in the comments!

Best Television of '08

Anyone who reads here regularly knows how much I love television, and although the writer’s strike delivered us with shorter seasons, there was tons of quality TV this year (including some shows that are still on my to-watch list like Pushing Daisies and Dexter).  Here’s my 10 favorite shows of the year and why I love them.  Agree/Disagree? Sound off in the comments.

10. Saturday Night Live

The obvious highlight of this season of Saturday Night Live is the Tina Fey / Sarah Palin impression, but they also put together some pretty funny sketches along the way.  The Paul Rudd episode was probably the most consistently funny SNL I’ve seen in years.

9. Project Runway

I was very hesitant to put Project Runway on my list since I (for the most part) can’t stand reality/competition shows, but as my wife reminded me, I really get into this show when it’s on. Tim Gunn is hands-down one of the best personalities on television, and it always feels good when the one you like (Leanne) ends up winning.

8. Human Giant

I actually only watched season 2 of Human Giant completely through youtube clips (most of the sketches made their way online eventually).  Some really hilarious stuff from Aziz, Paul, and Rob.  Will Arnett’s Olsen Twins sketch, Obama Bin Diesel, Meth in Montana (aka  “Gene Wilder’s screaming ballsack”), and, of course, CORN CHOWDER!.

7. Fringe

Fringe started as a semi-interesting, forumulaic sci-fi show with a few kooky characters but in the last few episodes it’s evolved into one of the best dramas on television.  You can begin to see the the connecting strings though between the wierd science stuff, and there’s been some very LOST-like WTF? moments lately. Also, Walter Bishop is one of my favorite characters on television.

6. The Wire

I actually didn’t watch this year’s season of The Wire because I’m not quite caught up, but I’ve been so enthralled with what I’ve seen so far, that I still think the show deserves to be on the list.  The character of Omar is completely brilliant.

5. Colbert Report

Stephen Colbert is truly one of the smartest, wittiest, most hilarious persons on television.  From the three-way-brawl with John Stewart and Conan O’Brien during the writer’s strike, to mercilessly insulting the Cantons of Amercia, to the Make McCain Exciting Challenge, to sending his DNA to space, to “Operation Humble Kanye”, Colbert proves his night-after-night why he’s the greatest living american.

4. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

I think I laughed harder at Always Sunny this year then I did at any other show. For those moments of sheer hilarity (such as the Day Man / Night Man episode or the one where the gang solves the gas crisis) this show has become one of my all time favorite comedies.  Everything that comes out of Charlie’s mouth is pure gold.

3. The Office

After a sort-of weak 4rd season, The Office really picked up steam in season 5.  The Michael / Holly relationship brought some great moments and they got back to group humor in episodes like “Crime Aid” and “Business Ethics” that made the early episodes so great.  I’m really liking how they’re treating Michael better (less loud / stupid) and giving some secondary characters (like Oscar, Darryl) more spotlight recently.

2. 30 Rock

I didn’t think a show would ever pass The Office for comedy of the year, but somehow, 30 Rock did it.  This show has been at the top of it’s game and is easily the most quotable show on television.  Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin’s on-screen chemistry (I mean that in a non-romantic way) is amazing providing the most witty humor since Arrested Development went off air and Tracy Morgan and Jack McBrayer both provide huge laughs with their unique styles of humor.  With an amazing roster of secondary characters and some of the best cameos I’ve ever seen, the show really pushes small-screen comedy to a new level. It deserves every Emmy it’s won and more.

1. LOST

What else can I say about this show? It’s been well-documented on here that I’m a complete LOST addict, like seriously obsessed.  And really, how can you blame me?  It’s the best written, wonderfully acted, most beautifully shot, most mind-blowing show on TV.  The flash-forward dynamic during the season 4 was awesome and the finale was absolutely mesmerizing.  This year though, provided the best, most overwhelming episode in the entire series, “The Constant” (which TIME just named the best TV episode of 2008, by the way).  Henry Ian Cusick’s performance as Desmond has literally moved me to tears everytime I’ve watched the episode (just watch this scene). It’s those moments that make LOST the greatest show on television.