Tagged: Lost

Entertainment gifts

As the months of November and December draw close, many folks’ thoughts turn to Christmas décor and ornaments. As I celebrate the biblical feasts and festivals of the Jewish calendar, I don’t think about ‘em much for myself and my immediate family, but I still have relatives and friends for whom this time of year is vital.

When thinking about all the entertainment options out there, here are what I think would make a good holiday gifts that are entertainment-centered.

5. LOST The Complete Series. Sure, it weighs in at just under $200, but it’s still some classic television.

4. Under the Dome by Stephen King. It’s a hefty price for the hardcover, but you can get the over 1,200 pages or so of content – which some folks claim is King’s best work since The Stand, at a slim $9.99 on Kindle.

3. Apple iPod Touch. For anything from music to TV and movies on the go, the Touch is still king of portable visual and audio entertainment. Sorry, iPad…

2. Sony PS3. I’ll always be ticked that they eliminated backward compatibility, but at least mine is one of the units that still has that feature. And my wife and I upgraded our hard drive from 60GB to 320GB over the summer, so we’re set. But it’s a must for anyone who has one.

1. Amazon Kindle 3 Wi-Fi. The best eBook reader on the market just got better… and more affordable! A great gift ANY time of year.

V renewed!

After back-to-back weeks of improving ratings, ABC has granted sci-fi thriller V a second-season renewal. That means more lizardy goodness in store for fans next fall, and a guaranteed post-LOST life for series star Elizabeth Mitchell.

In the meantime, the alphabet network isn’t sending out any high-hopes vitamins to the show they bet on to replace LOST, FlashForward. Ratings have been dismal and sinking, rather than rising, but ABC remains firm in their stance that they’ve not decided on the show’s cancellation just left.

Another presumed-dead series, Scrubs, apparently still has the slimmest of slim chances at renewal, though Twitter posts by former series star Zach Braff have indicated the prospects are less than zero for renewal. Still, with most of the expensive stars now gone, Scrubs was a half-decent performer in the ratings and less expensive than it had been to produce.

Better Off Ted, unfortunately, is dead.

One former LOSTie moves to House

One-time LOST star Cynthia Watros is setting up House as her post-Lost career. The actress has been cast as the first of Wilson’s three ex-wives, and word has it that when Watros joins the show in April, she’ll be on board for several episodes as… his new girlfriend.

Watros becomes the first Wilson romantic interest since the death of Amber a couple years ago, a season finale that sent both House and Wilson spinning all through last season and much of this season.

So get out your plasma mounts and DVRs… House is worth getting Lost in!

Fox may be lost to TV after Lost

Matthew Fox, who plays Dr. Jack Shepherd on ABC’s Lost, believes the show, when it concludes in spring 2010, will be the last “TV thing” he ever does. The actor, whose previous TV work was on Fox’s Party of Five, hopes to move into movies full-time, rather than acquiring a job installing, say, gas tankless water heaters.

Of course, many a star before Fox have uttered the same words and nearly all of them come back to TV eventually. Perhaps the movie career doesn’t take off and they need the work. Perhaps ten years goes by and they change their minds.

Or perhaps, Matthew, some drug-addicted, frazzled-looking doctor will turn up on your door one night screaming, “We made a mistake, Matt. We… we have to go back. We have to go back to prime time television!”

X-Life after Lost for Monaghan

Charlie may be drowned and dead on Lost, but actor Dominic Monaghan is anything but; the actor is landing feet-first with a plum role in 2009′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, which will focus in on the solo adventures of Hugh Jackman’s character.

Although his longevity may not be the stuff of low term life insurance quotes, Monaghan’s character in the mutant action film will be a character called Blackwing, whose powers are similar to Angel’s, the bird-like flying character in 2006′s X-Men 3: The Last Stand.

Like many former Lost-ies, Monaghan’s run on the ABC drama has earned him a rep as a hot property in Hollywood and adding this talented actor to the cast seems certain to further cement interest in the next X-flick.

Forthcoming writers strike unwise

It hasn’t even happened yet and already HollyLibs are preparing for it like the second coming … of Ishtar. That’s right, the Hollywood screenwriters are about to go on strike … again.

Now, at issue are legitimate concerns. Studios are making tons off new revenue streams like DVD sales, cellphone deliveries, iPod sales and so forth; and the writers responsible for all that downloadable IP aren’t exactly getting their cut. That’s wrong.

But beware! Does anyone remember the consequences the last time HollyWriters went on strike? Hollywood proved it could adapt by developing an all-new, writer-less form of TV: reality program.

Some of the shows launched back then still survive to this day, including the one that nearly started it all, at least on network television: Survivor. Also still around are summer fare like Big Brother. And their progeny have littered network schedules ever since, to the chagrin of the creators of scripted dramas and comedies.

In fact, only in the last couple years have scripted shows really started to overcome the reality show challenge. Shows like Heroes and Lost and 24 and Prison Break have won back all the momentum lost during the last big writers strike.

I’m not saying the battle’s not worth fighting; it is. But beware of taking it all the way to a strike; beware of the very real risks of stretching out such a strike for too long.

Studios, too, need to beware of becoming too unreasonable in withholdiing the writers’ fair share of new revenue streams. Face is, studio bosses, without writers, you’re screwed into the corner of airing lots of sports, reality shows and other such fare. While much of it may indeed draw ratings, what must be kept in mind is even reality TV has a saturation point, and while a brief revival may help, it’s not a long-term solution.

Ratings of network TV has declined steadily since the last time the writers went on an extended strike. Deal fairly with them and either prevent the strike or keep it brief by dealing fairly.

Otherwise, folks just may stay tuned to their iPods, PS3s, Web browsers and endless supply of DVD libraries far longer than you think. The audience may indeed be hard to win back, once they realize home much other entertainment is out there to be had, and how little they actually need to find out whether the cheerleader will continue to be saved on Heroes, or whether House will ever settle on a new team of doc interns, or whether Losties will ever truly be… Found.