IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD, GOOFIER THAN TV, WORLD

“IT’S ALIVE!”
Do you remember Gene Wilder in “Young Frankenstein”— he was the mad scientist who shouted, “It’s alive!!!” when his cobbled together “monster” rose up and walked?



Gene Wilder’s crazy facial expression came to my mind as I read a recent headline which announced that a group of scientists had “created life.” […Well, … sort of … in a manner of speaking … (just don’t look too closely at the experiment!) … at least they didn’t kill it ....]

Actually, the truth is they merely tinkered with the DNA of a simple bacterium. They took out a chunk of DNA and then substituted some “synthesized” DNA. The synthesized DNA was made of "biological components" which the cell recognized as equivalent to its original DNA, so the bacterium continued to self-replicate.

Other scientists have pointed out that, while this experiment is interesting, it doesn’t even come close to “creating life.” Scientists haven’t a clue about how to make a living cell.
Just thought you’d like to know.
“Part A and Part B”
The Federal Government thinks I’m going to turn 65 this year so they sent me a Medicare Card showing my coverage, “Part A and Part B.”
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They also sent a tiny booklet to explain what I should understand by “Part A and Part B,” and at the same time they warned me that a much larger and more confusing book with endless “small print” will arrive before my fateful 65th. Nice.
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They also sent me a notice telling me that my future Medicare coverage has been cut. Drastically. And if I want to know what that means exactly, I should mail them a postcard requesting the list of cuts.
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Once again it appears that needing a doctor, either now or in the future, is not in my own best interests….

LOST Again
In today’s Deseret News, columnist Scott Pierce (TV critic), shared his reaction to the last LOST episode. His headline read: Last ‘LOST’ turned out to be lazy writing. He went on to say:

The producers of "Lost" kept telling us that their main goal was to make viewers feel like they hadn't wasted the time they invested watching the show over the past six years.
There are some viewers who feel like their investment paid off. And others who, to one degree or another, feel ripped off. Count yours truly among the latter group….


Don't get me wrong. The end itself — in which we saw all of the main characters happily dead and headed toward something great (heaven?) — was fine, in a weepy sort of way.
But when the good feelings started to wear off, we were faced with the reality that we had been snookered….

Within the "Lost" universe, there was no attempt to make any of it make sense. A lot of it came down to — well, … magic.

That's simply not good storytelling.

And the feel-good moments at the end don't make up for six seasons of stringing viewers along without ever providing any real answers or any real closure.
At best, it was an attempt to give viewers a nice ending despite the fact that there was never any real plan.

At worst, it was a cynical attempt to hide that lack of a plan — and camouflage all the bad writing — with a warm and fuzzy glow.


I know some of you loved it. And I, too, enjoyed watching the warm and fuzzy ending. But I am still glad I didn’t waste six seasons of my time on it (as I said in my last posting).

Time Not LOST

I confess to sometimes reading the end of a suspenseful novel when I’m only part-way through it. That way, I know where the novel is ultimately headed, and I can stop guessing as the plot twists this way and that, and I can enjoy how the author constructed the novel with subtle clues hidden amongst the ambiguous details. I really hate surprise endings anyway. They usually make me feel irritated with the author— as though I have been tricked, and that the author is mocking me.

Sometimes a quick peek at the last chapter also lets me know that I don’t need to waste one more minute reading that particular book: Hooray! I can spend my precious time elsewhere! Some books, of course, are such that by the second chapter, I know that I need not read any further and I don’t care a fig about how the book ends!

I often use the same approach with a TV series. I was an avid fan of ER during its first couple of seasons. But when ER stopped being a medical show and became a soap opera about the sordid love affairs of the doctors and nurses, I stopped watching. However, I did come back to watch the episode about the death of Dr. Green. By that time, the cast had almost completely changed except for Dr. Green. I did not return to watch the final episode of the series.

I’m sure you have guessed where this is heading:

LOST.

I saw only the first few episodes or so of the first season of LOST. It looked promising. But then things transpired on the island that were, well, preposterous. Actually, that there were any survivors at all after the crash was preposterous. I wanted to suspend my disbelief, but I was not entirely successful. From the premise being preposterous, things went rapidly down hill from there. I don’t even remember what it was that turned me away and I quit watching. Knowing my intolerance for outlandish impossibilities, it could have been any number of things.

However, when I heard that the final episode of LOST was going to be broadcast, I thought I might watch just to see how the story ends. The fate of the crash victims needed some closure in my mind. And I was sure that there would be discussions amongst friends and family about it. I didn’t want to be entirely out of the loop.

So, I watched the retrospective and the final episode. The retrospective, while not quite a summary, did let me know that I had made a very wise choice when I stopped watching early on. I would have had no patience with most of it. I can groan “give me a break” only so many times …. That the script writers themselves were LOST is most obvious.

So. The end of it…. I suppose it meant that they had really died as they should have from the crash. What followed, on the island, was some kind of limbo or purgatory experience, until they were “ready” to move on to the afterlife. Supposedly, they redeemed themselves through their various choices and actions while on the island.

Good enough. I am glad that I skipped to the last chapter. The middle chapters would have made me cranky. I am glad of the time not LOST in watching it in its entirety.