Pop Culture Roundup

What a week for television, huh? Yes, I was a Lost watcher and yes, the finale was incredible. Beyond that, much more intelligent people than I are breaking it down in much better ways, so let's just leave it at that, shall we? Just. Freaking. Incredible. 'Nuff said.

I've also been following V and Fringe. The thought occurred to me this morning, after finally catching the Fringe season finale, that they exist along an interesting continuum. Toward one extreme, there's Lost, where nothing is ever explained and much remains mystery, so much so that it alienated a lot of early fans. Toward the other, you have V, which I'm sorry to say will likely not be back in the rotation in the fall because every single crisis is telegraphed so completely my three-year-old could easily follow the show. (Not to mention the glaring problem of a super-evolved species that can track anything that moves on the planet below, embed cameras in their own uniforms to monitor the human population, and discover a secret meeting of rebels with some dart-throwing remote robot, but remains mystified by the common cell phone and a group of rebels on their own ships who have conversations with human resistance groups IN PUBLICLY TRAVELED HALLWAYS) Then, in the middle, you have Fringe, which is rapidly rising to X-Files level satisfaction (the Mulder years, that is). I am really interested to see where Fringe goes next, as the first season has been tremendously satisfying.

Beloved and I caught two movies last week: I Love You, Man and Sherlock Holmes. We enjoyed both quite a bit. I'm not sure why everyone got so bent out of shape by Sherlock Holmes: it seemed faithful to the Holmes I remember from the stories, and if Robert Downey, Jr. isn't Basil Rathbone, well, what of it? We enjoyed the film very much. I Love You, Man was a very, very big surprise. I expected just a few laughs, with a completely predictable ending, but got more than a few laughs and an ending that shakes up the pretenses just a bit. A good movie for a date night with the spouse if you don't mind more than a few obscene jokes about sex.

I'm listening to Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz right now, and liking what I'm hearing. To my recollection this is the first book by Koontz for me, but at the very least I'll be listening to the rest, as they are all on our library's free audiobook download program. Your library might have something similar - you should check it out.

That's pretty much the pop culture roundup here. I've been taking a break from blogging as we are approaching the end of the U.B., and my attention needs to be focused elsewhere. Thankfully that particular charlie foxtrot will soon be navigated and behind us, and we can turn our attention to better things. Your prayers for the next few days, however, would be appreciated.

Grace & peace,

Scott