TVSquad

As the title suggests, THIS IS A POSSIBLE SPOILER. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED, PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND RUN FROM THE ROOM WITH YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS.

We've heard about the possible deaths coming up on Lost at the end of the season. A couple of characters (called major or major-ish by various media outlets) will be gone at the end of the season, and the deaths of at least one of them and maybe both are going to cause some fans to be bummed out for the entire summer until next season. So how about some different news?

A few weeks ago, I shared with you my six reasons the Oscars will probably stink this year. Now I have another reason to add to the list. Peter Gabriel has dropped out of the broadcast in protest. Gabriel, who collaborated with Thomas Newman on the song "Down To Earth" from WALL-E, had been slated to perform the song during the February 22 airing on ABC. However, when the producers told Gabriel that his performance had be compressed to 65 seconds and fit into a medley of all the best song nominations, Peter opted out.

(S05E04) "I have to make them come back... even if it kills me." - Locke

And so begins the quest of Jeremy Bentham. That's been one of the real treats this season - seeing the Oceanic Six in the present while having their plot juxtaposed against the real-time (well... as "real-time" as real-time can get when you're time traveling) plight of those still on the island three years ago. The fact that we only saw Locke lay the foundation for his plan involving the Orchid to get everyone back was still mesmerizing. I love knowing what happens to him but not knowing the circumstances of his "suicide" and how he ended up in that coffin at Hoffs Drawler. Despite the lack of any more development on Locke's plan beyond what we got, this episode was still phenomenal - mainly because two people we've all been missing finally showed up again.

(S05E03) "Because... he's one of my people." - Locke

I really need to get in the habit of taping my mouth shut while watching Lost because my jaw is always on the floor by the end of every episode. Time-traveling has added an entirely new dimension (literally) to the story-telling techniques of this show and the first three hours of this season have been some of Lost's best. The flash-backs always lacked a certain amount of tension because they already happened. On the flip side of the same coin, the same can be said about the flash-forwards because you know they're going to happen. But time-traveling has created this new ripple where nothing has permanence anymore, whether it happened, is happening, or will happen. This is mesmerizing stuff to watch unfold because everything becomes new the second Faraday, Locke, and Co. make a new jump. They may not be altering the ultimate outcome, but they are altering the moment.

(S05E02) "There's no calling my father off." - Penny

Everybody lies. Some people enjoy the thrill of getting away with it ... and then there's Hurley. While this wasn't a traditional flash-back/flash-forward episode with one character as the focus (hard to say if those will ever be feasible again), this was pretty much a Hurley-centric hour anyway.

As the plot progresses this season, it's going to be interesting to see who becomes important (and who becomes irrelevant) to the ultimate endgame. That being said, we learned one pretty important fact in this episode:

Without Hugo in the mix, "then God help us all."

(S05E01) "You're gonna have to die, John." - Richard Alpert

Time travel! The future is now! later! here! gone! beginning! ending! OK, I give up. Lost is back and the future is... well, we don't know what the future is. Or the past. Or the present. All we know is what they were, because now they're just one big time travelin' mess.

As with seasons past of Lost, the fifth chapter of TV's favorite mindf*ck opens by presenting an entirely new storytelling technique - one that demands equal parts patience, attention, and imagination. More than anything, it's a test for true fans because the casual Lost viewer (do they exist?) probably had a hard time moving from A to Z (worst metaphor ever - I know) in tonight's season premiere. That being said, this whole hour gave me my own bloody nose.

As amazing as Lost is, I still hate it for one tiny reason - every time a new season begins, I get terrified that I won't "get it." If that happened, it would completely deflate my enjoyment of the show. While Lost has had its fair share of WTF episodes, most of them are decipherable after repeat viewings; season five's first two installments definitely fall into that category. It's like playing the sequel of your favorite video game - for the most part, the controls and game-play are the same, but there are enough changes that it still takes you a few hours to get a handle on it.

In just a little over a month (Wednesday, January 21st can't come soon enough), season five of Lost begins on ABC. After a shortened fourth season (because of the writer's strike), fans have been salivating for answers after the absolutely insane three-hour finale.

Where did the island go? How did Locke die? And why the heck do the Oceanic Six need to go back?

Well... keep holding your breath for those answers. Fortunately, the Lost season four DVD will provide some respite in the meantime. While it won't be released until next Tuesday, 12/9, many of the DVD featurette extras have been made available online and we got our hands on a couple.

So if you feel like knowing what happens behind the scenes down in Hawaii, then you're going to want to see these clips. Plus, if you feel like being spoiled a tiny bit, I've also included a sneak peek from the upcoming season five premiere, "Because You Left."

(S04E15)

Even if this was the first episode of Hell's Kitchen that a viewer had seen this season, they would have understood what the players were like and what the game was about just by watching this season finale. Jen was bitchy and unreasonable, Matt was bat-shit crazy, Louross was hyperactive, Ramsay swore a lot, food got sent back, some food went out raw. It was like a wrap-up of the season while still being a new episode.

But who won in the end, Petrozza or Christina? The answer after the jump.

(S04E14) "My goal tonight is to make Chef Ramsay second guess the fact that he got rid of me." - Jen

Oh Jen, just when we had started to forget you, you come back with the nasty attitude and the chip on your shoulder. Like Mary Tyler Moore, you can turn the world on with your smile.

This is part one of the finale, where final contestants Petrozza and Christina design their restaurants and have to complete a service with some of the eliminated contestants. The returning players are Jen, Louross, Bobby, Corey, Matt, and Ben. Not sure why these contestants are the ones who return, other than they're the most controversial. They're not all the most recent rejects, because Roseann would be in the mix if that was the case and not Ben.

I have mixed feelings about these contestants coming back, which I'll explain after the jump.

If you don't know who H. Jon Benjamin is, let me inform you: he's a writer and comedian most of us probably first saw when he played "Ben" on Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist. He was also a writer on that show and would later show up on Home Movies (one of my top five favorite series of all time), and the recent short-lived animated series Freak Show for Comedy Central.

In an interview with Gothamist, Benjamin revealed he was working on a new Web series for Super Deluxe called "Thunderpoint." What the series is exactly remains to be seen, but if Benjamin is behind it, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll be damn funny.

(S03E06) Wow... where to begin. That was certainly an episode worthy of being called a mid-season finale. Good doesn't even begin to describe it. Definitely gives us plenty to talk about while we wait for the show to return in February for it's uninterrupted run though.

This episode focused on Kate's flashbacks and those have always been sort of 50-50 for me, but this one was great I thought. Even better than when she blew up her father. Of course I'm slightly biased because these flashbacks featured Nathan Fillion and the idea of having Mal Reynolds on Lost... it's making my head hurt. Fillion played Kate's husband (she was married!) Kevin. So I suppose rather than "what Kate did" you could call these flashbacks "who Kate did."

When you heard about the earthquake yesterday, did you immediately think of the cast and crew of Lost and wonder if they're OK? Yeah, me either. I thought about the people, the tourist attractions, the beautiful coastline, and the bars I've hung out in and around Waikiki.

Boston.com assures us that everyone on the set is fine, and none of the sets were damaged.

How do we know this was a natural earthquake, or even an earthquake at all? Maybe someone in one of the hatches forget to type in all the numbers in time and one of those electro-magnetic mishaps occurred?

(Note: this might be one of the very few times that the post here is much longer than the actual article we're linking to, heh.)