TV Spectrum

Lost just went through its first "dream episode." In general, these can be fun episodes because you can do all sorts of crazy things, including killing off major characters. In this one we were treated to the very uncomfortable revelation that Boone and Shannon are step-brother and sister and that neither are very nice people. Boone wants to get busy with Shannon and she uses people to get things that we want, yet plays the nice girl exterior. I can't say how happy I was when I thought she was dead and then unhappy when I realized that it had been a halucination. In hindsight, you look back and say to yourself that Locke would never have been able to abduct Shannon and tie her up like that without someone else noticing. But when you get caught up in the moment, you forget things like that.

Locke is revealing a dark side to his character as well. I don't know why he wants to be so secretive about the hatch, but I suspect that he knows something that he's not telling. I think there is also something relating to the compass that will come back. It seems too dismissive to say that the compass is broken and not deal with it anymore. Mrs. X thinks that Locke is going to be more relevant in the forming of some sort of government with the survivors (like his namesake), but I'm not sold on that yet. Too many paths are open to really get any proper guesswork down. Next week should bring us Michael and Walt's backstory and a little bit of further insight into their characters.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have The West Wing which was starting to recover a bit from last season and then took a bad nose dive. Last night's plot was one of the worst for the season as it focused entirely on Josh and Santos, giving us no aspects of funny or interest. Josh is best when he's a foil and not necessarily the best for crafting a huge story around. I'm also afraid that with all of this attention focused around Santos that we're going to get a carbon copy of Bartlett with less interesting characters. You have a strong character in Alan Alda's senator who will run against the dark horse who got in only to raise issues. The race will be close but Santos will prevail in a narrow election and Josh will stay on the show with him taking over Leo's job. Then there's also the pulling out of every ER trick to try and drive storyline. West Wing is going back onto death watch.