More than many other television serials, The Wire watches like great literature and rewards rewatching, in large part because characters develop from smaller parts to larger ones over the course of the series. As our window into the world of Baltimore, the series sprawls over the years and it's all connected.

SPOILER NOTICE: This podcast discusses events from the first five episodes of season one.

Links:
Watch The Wire Season 1 on HBO GO or on Netflix (DVD only) or buy the set on Amazon.com.

Alan Sepinwall's Discussions of Season 1 episodes for Wire Newbies

• The Wire, season 1, episode 1: "The Target" (Newbies edition)


• The Wire, Season 1, Episode 2, "The Detail" (Newbies edition)


• The Wire, Season 1, Episode 3, "The Buys" (Newbies edition)


• The Wire, Season 1, Episode 4, "Old Cases" (Newbies edition)


• The Wire, Season 1, Episode 5, "The Pager" (Newbies edition)

Wire Watching Project at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago:

• Episode 1: Got To. This is America, Man


• Episode 2: No, Officer Pryzbylewski, he did not "piss you off." he made you fear for your safety and that of your fellow officers:


• Episode 3: Y'all Can't Be Playing No Checkers On No Chessboard


• Episode 4: Thirteen Years and Four Months


• Episode 5: How Complex Can A Code Be If These Knuckleheads Are Usin' It?

Also from ALOTT5MA: On Watching and Rewatching The Wire and It's All in the Game, Yo.

Other links:
Washington Post: After 'The Wire' ended, actress Sonja Sohn couldn't leave Baltimore's troubled streets behind

Alyssa Rosenberg, After 'The Wire,' Black Actors Trapped In Baltimore

Gawker: People Say Really Stupid Things About The Wireon OKCupid

Stuff White People Like: #85 The Wire

Download Podcast MP3.

Subscribe to the BRR podcast feed. (Coming soon to an iTunes podcast directory near you.)

The Walk Ons
We Did This On Purpose (Drug Front Records, 2010)
The Walk Ons on Facebook
@TheWalkOns

You can find her websites at:
The Lady Gaga Experience Starring Renee Cole.
Renee Cole
@ReneeCole_

MP3 file download

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama

Should win: Jon Hamm (Mad Men)

You know that Jon Hamm doesn't have an Emmy for Mad Men, right? (He's lost 3 years consecutively to Bryan Cranston for Breaking Bad.) He should. And in this season of Mad Men, Hamm got to play Don Draper as he's struggling through a difficult period after his divorce. The Suitcase is perhaps the best highlight reel of an episode possible for the show's lead actors.

The world has forgotten about Terriers, so Donal Logue was not nominated for an Emmy for Terriers, but his was one of the standout performances on TV of the year. Kyle Chandler as Coach Taylor is one of the iconic performances of the last decade, but Don Draper is the iconic performance. Buscemi plays intimidating and powerful control without having the physical presence of the real-life Nucky Johnson.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama

Should win: Connie Britton

This is a toss-up between Britton's cumulative excellence and Moss's emergence as lead with a brilliant period of self-discovery for her character culminating in a confrontation with her mentor. The Suitcase was Moss's best moment so far on the show, and not yet having finished season 5 of Friday Night Lights, I don't know if this season provided Britton with anything comparable, like the first four seasons.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy

Should win: Steve Carrell

Steve Carrell has never won an Emmy for his work on The Office. Let me repeat: Steve Carrell has never won an Emmy for The Office. He brings a mix of egocentrism, weirdness and humanity to the character. He's not nearly as mean as Ricky Gervais's David Brent, but manages to create awkwardness through generosity and self-delusion.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy

Should win: Amy Poehler Poehler plays the right mix of grounded and crazy, optimism and cynicism as Leslie Knope on Parks & Rec. She is the catalyst for the action, gets some of the biggest laughs, but also gives the supporting cast the ability to out-weird and out-funny her. As a result, Parks has not only one of the strongest ensembles in comedy, but a true female lead in a comedy (rather than a half-hour dramedy.)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama

Should win: Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones)

In the thousands of pages of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, Tyrion Lannister stands out as the most interesting character. He is smart, underestimated, ostracized, drunk, cynical and horny. Dinklage captures all of those elements and manages to let the character be as interesting as possible. His portrayal of the character is as fun, layered and complex as the character himself. Walton Goggins is electrifying and captivating in every moment on screen. He makes Justified more engaging and dynamic whenever he's on screen and elevates the show as a supporting character. This is one of the most competitive categories, with many good options.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama

Should win: Margo Martindale (Justified). As the tragic villian of Justified, Martindale's Mags Bennett got to play maternal, mean, sweet, controlling and lost all within the span of a season. A brilliant performance of a unique character.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Should win: Ty Burrell (Modern Family). My choice to run away with the category would be Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson. He makes this ridiculous libertarian character working in local government human and completely insane at the same time. But then this category could justifiably be made up of the entire supporting cast of Modern Family. Replacing Colfer and Cryer with Nolan Gould and Rico Rodriguez would make it a stronger category. Even though I think that Offerman, Day and Pudi are the class of this field, the Modern Family ensemble works so perfectly and Burrell's character was dialed in to the right balance of buffoonery and believability. But the Academy can't go wrong with any of the Modern Family cast.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Should win: Sofia Vergara (Modern Family). Sure, she's beautiful and has an exaggerated accent. But Vergara's timing is perfect. She takes what could be a terrible hackneyed character and manages to be consistently hilarious.

Outstanding Comedy Series

Should win: Parks and Recreation

It isn't as inventive as Community, as relatable as Modern Family, as introspective as Louie, or as fully committed as Always Sunny, but Parks and Recreation put together a tremendous string of funny episodes that have biting criticism of society and still managed to be warm and engaging. A brilliant series of episodes and performances, including Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Chris Pratt, Rob Lowe, Aziz Ansari, Adam Scott and Li'l Sebastian.

Outstanding Drama Series

Nominees	Ideal nominations
Boardwalk Empire Dexter Friday Night Lights Game of Thrones The Good Wife Mad Men	Boardwalk Empire Friday Night Lights Game of Thrones Justified Mad Men Terriers

Who should win? Mad Men

There are some very solid choices for best drama this year, even while television's current best drama, Breaking Bad, fell through the cracks to not air any episodes during the eligibility year. Friday Night Lights is a unique, special show in its last season. Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire came out of the gates with solid seasons -- the last stretch of Game of Thrones was epic. But Mad Men had one of its best seasons to date, with Don Draper experiencing a trying time and falling to a personal low. Looking back just at the episode titles and summaries, more of the Mad Men episodes worked well and distinctly compared with the two HBO shows.

In and of itself, that's not particularly newsworthy, but why he did is symptomatic of a problem that is undermining American society and threatening our democracy.

Seriously.

Sutter is the executive producer and showrunner of Sons of Anarchy on FX. He's also someone who says exactly what's on his mind, without much thinking. He is admittedly very self-reflective and publicly self-critical. Like most writers, mixing extreme ego with extreme neuroses. And he applies his analytical eye not just to his own work, but to the industry as a whole. These are all factors that make Sutter seem like someone who would be great fun to talk with at a party and also a consistently entertaining Twitterer.

But although thousands of fans of Sons of Anarchy follow Sutter for bits of information on the show's production and news about the upcoming season and cast, posting on Twitter can have a much broader reach than hanging out with fans at Comic-Con or a Harley Davidson enthusiast rally. (Which I'm sure has a non-square term that motorcycle clubs actually use.)

Through a proliferation of entertainment news media and the internet, there's both much more entertainment news coverage (from the vapid television of Access Hollywood and E! to the more detailed gossip at Deadline Hollywood and Gawker. The upside to this trend is the detailed analysis of critics at sites like Hitfix and NPR and a deeper focus on entertainment news from traditional sources like New York Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter.

And television series showrunners are not just writers and producers, but also the public voice for a show. And television shows are big business not just for the cast and crew, but the networks, advertisers and more. So the showrunner is effectively the CEO of each production. So the words of a television series showrunner are going to be read by people in the industry.

So when Sutter makes a controversial statement, such as alleging that the deal that AMC made with Lionsgate and Matthew Weiner for future seasons of Mad Men were forcing AMC to cut the budgets of its two other big shows, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. Writer and Director Frank Darabont had recently left The Walking Dead surprisingly quickly and AMC was reported to be in talks with Sony for a smaller, less expensive final season of Breaking Bad which may have resulted in the studio shopping the best show on television around to other networks.

That's an opportunity to do some solid journalism, talk to sources at AMC and around the industry and work off of it to do some serious reporting.

And while not every outlet who picked up the "Sutter tweets wacky stuff" story did actual reporting on the underlying story, at least the Hollywood Reporter did. OK, they sensationalized the Twitter drama, but at least they reported on the actual news.

That alone may prove that the entertainment media is more diligent and less frivolous than the national 24 hour cable news networks.

As the most astute media critics working who share a network with stoner films and foulmouthed puppets, the Daily Show saw the trend:

Instead of researching facts and analyzing policies to help citizens with independent analysis and judgment, the news media is happy to simply report what one side says and then report what the other side says. There's little attempt at analysis and little depth to the overall amount of reporting.

From economic issues like raising the debt ceiling and repealing the Bush tax cuts, to scientific issues like global climate change, the mainstream media seems to have little interest in pursuing truth, but rather simply reporting the existence of conflict.

This would be OK in the entertainment news, but it seems more prevalent in the reporting of national politics and policy than anywhere else, which can not serve the public interest.

See also: Myles McNutt, Antenna, The Rise and Fall of @Sutterink: Showrunners [Off] Twitter III

At least, that is the case for me. More than any other artist currently working, Movits makes the kind of music that I want to make. It's got a unique voice, it's fun, it's happy, it's danceable and it features saxophone. Upright bass is an extra plus. Of course, I probably wouldn't go with lyrics in Swedish. Aside from some brands (Ikea, Volvo) and proper names (hockey player names and characters from Steig Larsson's novels), I don't know a word of Swedish. Yet I couldn't stop smiling throughout the show. Perhaps that's a result of a lack of comprehension and perhaps the words are very serious and somber in contrast to the fun and danceable music.

But whatever the lyrical content may be, Movits did get a New York crowd dancing by the end of the show, which is no small feat in and of itself. They play an interesting mix of live and sampled, with most percussion coming via DJ (although a few numbers did feature acoustic guitar or live drum), but with live upright bass and saxophone.

I wasn't in the best mood by the time the show started, because of the long wait between me getting to Bowery and the show starting. The show was billed as Movits playing at 9 with doors opening at 8. Even though Bowery Ballroom set times are often scheduled for 30 minutes later than advertised (but not always), no one hit the stage until 9:45. And then it was unannounced bonus extra opener Zacke, a Swedish rapper (a frequent collaborator with Movits!)

But once Movits took the stage, it was all energy, fun and joy, a wonderful contrast to how Americans often think of Sweden.

It was one of the most captivating, interesting and entertaining live music performances on TV. And now Movits are back with a new album, set to drop in the US on April 5 and frenetically awesome new video for the album's lead single, Sammy Davis Jr:

Movits! - "Sammy Davis Jr." from The Syndicate on Vimeo.

So I was excited that my application to come to the museum's first tweetup event to promote the new exhibit on the brain, Brain: The Inside Story The exhibit is very well-done and offers an accessible and comprehensive introduction to neuroscience. It is more interactive than typical for the Natural History museum, which is fortunate that they will be doing the limited timed admission. Make sure to leave enough time (or get tickets online in advance) to be able to schedule an appointment to see the exhibit.

It is certainly a worthwhile exhibit to use as a reason to get back to the Museum of Natural History.

The tweetup event allowed a fairly small group of Twitterers to see the exhibit and chat with the curators and scientists who directed the exhibit. Even more exciting, they brought us on a tour of some areas of the museum that are closed to the public.

Besides being one of the best museums in New York, the American Museum of Natural History is also a serious, major scientific institution, employing more than 200 scientists and housing an enormous collection of specimens. The displays in the museum only hold a small percentage of the collection.

Photos from the fifth floor tour follow after the break.

Top Gear has a huge following worldwide because it completely reinvented the way of making a show about cars. Instead of simply reviewing cars, like PBS's Motorweek, the BBC's Top Gear aims to make an entertaining show that involves cars and occasionally actually reviews cars.

The strong personality of lead presenter Jeremy Clarkson dominates Top Gear. He's big, loud, brash and has his own iconoclastic point of view. Any adapatation of Top Gear is going to come up short in finding a host as fitting for the role as Clarkson and also in replicating the chemistry between Clarkson and his co-presenters. The curmudgeonly and vaguely artsy James May represents the opposite brained approach to Clarkson's while Richard Hammond is the affable everyman, usually standing in as the voice of reason.

Because Top Gear is on public broadcaster, it is not beholden to advertisers and the show isn't afraid to review cars poorly. In fact, the show relishes in trashing cars (both critically and literally.) Top Gear is so far off-brand (and expensive) for American PBS, it might have to be watered down for broadcast or basic cable to appease advertisers.

But as great and as British Top Gear is, an American Top Gear could be even better. Clarkson, Hammond, May and The Stig revel in speed, power and destruction -- all things that we do better in America. America has a rich car culture to draw on. While Britain's nanny state mentality towards auto regulation and congestion pricing provide targets for Clarkson to demonize and rail against, there's enough of that in America to use as a scapegoat, but there's also a freer spirit of American motoring.

From the sizzle reel showed at the top of the show, it looks like the History Channel's Top Gear is going to be borrowing liberally from the BBC's archive of challenges. The big film of the first episode pitted a Dodge Viper against a Cobra attack helicopter, in a film inspired by Clarkson's review of the Lotus Exige pitted against a Apache helicopter gunship. Top Gear USA will subject some of Detroit's finest creations to the British Leyland water challenge. And that could be a good thing, because the American iteration of the challenges may well be bigger than the British originals. But although this one was nicely filmed, it didn't really bring anything new to the table. And while the British version highlighted how nimble the Exige is, the US take showed that the Dodge Viper is powerful and clumsy. It might be that the US version may be trying to force square pegs into round holes in order to fit into the Top Gear template rather than create films and challenges that are truly American.

But that's the nature of the adaptation process. The pilot episode of the US Office was a near line for line rehash of the UK Office's pilot. And the reason that the US version is a success is because of how quickly it stepped away from that. Steve Carrell plays with Michael Scott a naivete that runs counter to David Brent's malicious streak. Top Gear US will have to find its own identity. It will retain the lavish cinematography that makes it identifiably Top Gear, but hopefully find a viewpoint that reflects its place in American car culture.

A big part of that is developing the hosts' on-screen personas. It took some time for Top Gear to develop the chemistry between its three presenters; James May didn't even come in to the show until the second season. Fortunately, the US hosts aren't simply aping the personalities of the British hosts. In fact, they're going for a completely different paradigm, which gives me hope that Top Gear USA can find its way.

But what does Top Gear have to do with history? Given that one of the other History Channel shows advertised during Top Gear was Ice Road Truckers, does the History Channel show any programming that's related to history in any way whatsoever? If Top Gear is a breakout success, how long will it be before the History Channel goes through some kind of SyFy-like rebranding?

To adapt a beloved, original show is always a challenge between maintaining the elements that work and not simply copying for the sake of copying. There has to be a reason for making the adaptation. The US version can in fact have a reason for existing and after the first episode is not a complete embarassment. Which is probably a passing grade.

Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter, Top Gear -- TV Review "The two most important things to know about History Channel's American import of the British sensation 'Top Gear': First, no, it's not as good as the original. Second, the new version does not -- in the parlance of those worried souls who keep asking -- suck."

Jalopnik, First Drive: Top Gear USA "It's stretching the capabilities of understatement to say that the domestic edition of Top Gear has a great deal of work cut out for it. The original BBC production is a bona-fide sensation, a hit with people who don't even like cars. At its best, it's pitch-perfect, with the casual banter between the hosts, the high production values, and the obvious love of everything automotive combining into something really magic. It's lightning in a bottle, and there's really nothing else like it. Except now, of course, the History Channel is trying to make something just like it. And judging from the three episodes we saw, they certainly have their work cut out for them."

How major is this undertaking? Pretty much the only show I've kept up on is The Daily Show and Colbert Report. A quick look through what's sitting unwatched on my TiVo:

30 Rock
30 for 30 (x3)
Boardwalk Empire (x7)
Bored to Death
Burn Notice (x2)
Chuck
Community
How I Met Your Mother (x2)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Modern Family
Sherlock (x3)
Rubicon (x9)
Sons of Anarchy (x23 yes, 23: some of those aren't on the TiVo itself, but I just finished season 1 and started season 2 on Blu-Ray and recorded so far all of this season)
South Park (x3)
Terriers (x2)
The Amazing Race
The Office (x3)
The Walking Dead (x3)

Community - "Conspiracy Theories and Soft Defenses"
Community continues its run as one of the strongest comedies of the year. And while not quite as epic as Epidemiology 206 or Modern Warfare, it was as effective of a parody of the conspiracy thriller genre while also managing to focus on the characters and be hilariously funny. By making some things small scale, such as with the miniature car bomb, setting the big chase scene in a blanket fortress, and making the conspiracy about a single credit, Community manages to poke fun at the tropes of the conspiracy genre without losing focus on the characters and, in this episode, the relationship between Jeff and Annie and how they relate to rules. In the absence of Parks and Recreation, Community has effectively become the overall best comedy on television right now.

30 Rock - "College"
In part, having the hilarious Community as a lead-in really does help putting 30 Rock in a more positive light, just like a stand-up comic is always funnier after a great warm-up act. But this season has been a return to form. This season has focused more on Liz and Jack and used Jenna and Kenneth sparingly.

Terriers - "Asunder"
Wow, this show is simply great. Hank and Britt are two very human characters, well acted by Donal Logue and Michael Raymond James. Theirs is the epic bromance of this TV season. But the show is also wonderfully Lebowski-esque, with Hank and Britt out of their depth in noir-ish plots. But what makes the show effective is that Hank is not The Dude. He's actually competent at being a detective. He wants to be a better person, despite realize the shortcomings that led him to where he is. Having Britt and Katie's most important conversation happen off camera was an especially effective way to making the moment more powerful than even the best dialogue and acting could have been. This is not only the best new show of the season, but may be the top show of the season to date.

Bored to Death - "Super Ray is Mortal"
Does enjoyment of Bored to Death decrease the further you are from Grand Army Plaza? There's no show that's more Brooklyn than Bored to Death. The trio of Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifinakis are perfect as the leads and John Hodgman is always enjoyable as Jonathan's nemesis. It's a shame that the season is so short.

Modern Family - "Manny Get Your Gun"
This is the first Modern Family episode of the season that really clicked for me, probably because it centered around Manny acting like a ten year old going into a midlife crisis.

South Park - "Creme Fraiche"
South Park taking on America's obsession with food television and the shake weight may not have been their most effective episode ever, but it was decently funny.

How I Met Your Mother - "Natural History"
Bob Odenkirk is always enjoyable whenever he shows up on TV. And while Marshall's boss at GNB isn't quite as complete of a character as Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman, his HIMYM character is fine in small doses. More effective was the Barney story and revelation. It nicely subverted the expectation that the whale story was something that Barney simply made up and paid the guard to find in the files, but completely subverted the levity of that storyline. While the show is obviously best when it is succeeds at being funny, like The Office, I'm fine with an episode of HIMYM that advances the story and connects emotionally with the characters without being all that funny.

And that's it for the night. Wow, was that a big concentrated dose of television, without even delving too deeply into the heavier material in Boardwalk Empire or Sons of Anarchy. Or even accounting for the second half of Justified's first season that's been sitting around for months. To be continued....

In years past, we've spent more time plotting out a schedule with a detailed timeline to hit as many showcases as possible. Unlike the last couple of years, when we analyzed trends in band names, we barely glanced through the roster this year (see Music Snobbery's review of some of the weird, strange and usual of this year.) But the CMJ experience this year involved much more random sampling of bands playing in venues we like at convenient times, especially scheduled to fit around other non-CMJ social plans. But we still had the opportunity to catch some highlights.

The single best act I saw during the festival was Australia's Philadelphia Grand Jury. They played a LOT during the week, but I caught them at the I Rock I Roll day party at The Delancey on Saturday afternoon. If Flight of the Conchords self-aware, funny and humble pop music represents New Zealand, Philadelphia Grand Jury (or the Philly J's) are the embodiment of Flight of the Conchords' TV show take on Australians: raucous, loud and brash-- unchecked id. Unlike many of the bands to play NYC in general and CMJ specifically, Philadelphia Grand Jury wasn't afraid to have fun. They announced every song as "[their] favorite song and the best song." The band members all jumped out on stage, into the crowd and had fun, despite some issues with the mic stands unable to stand up to the frenzy. They're a do-not-miss act the next time they're back in NYC.

Earlier that afternoon, Ted Leo played a solo set at Public Assembly. He's one of the few artists who can play a solo set that's sufficiently rocking to be fun and engaging. The Brutalist Bricks has grown tremendously on me to become not only one of my favorite Ted Leo albums, but one of my favorites of the year. Catchy, diverse, incisive and rocking.

Earlier in the week, just down the block from Public Assembly on North 6th Street in Williamsburg, Screaming Females put on an impressive set at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Although the band's name is both descriptive and misleading: there's only a single screaming female in Screaming Females, they're still great. A classic power trio with dynamic and virtuostic guitar playing. Punk rock and lyrical, epic guitar soloing usually exist in opposite corners of the rock and roll universe, but Marissa Paternoster brings it together in a fresh and exciting way.

And before we get into the details, I'll reiterate that Lost remains one of my favorite shows of all time. So here are a few thoughts about the overall structure of the sixth season and questions the series left unanswered, slapped together after the jump...

The Good

Inconsistent storytelling and the attempt to try so many different angles than end up being dead ends are not just a weakness to the show, but also a strength. After all, Lost introduced time travel into the equation in order to show most of our main characters hanging around in Dharma Initiative jumpsuits.

Season 6 was undoubtedly successful in redeeming Jack as a character and making him interesting again. Matthew Fox gave depth to a character who had become little more than someone always making bad choices. Terry O'Quinn gave tremendous performances as both Locke and Smokey. Sawyer grieved over Juliet (even though she died far too many times.) As always, Hawaii provided spectacular locations and Michael Giacchino's score drove right up to the edge of schmaltziness but continued to be dramatic, effective and epic. The sideways stories of Dr. Linus and the buddy-cop team of Ford and Straume needed to be told. Faraday had a glimmer of realization about the original timeline while Eloise was still working to redeem herself.

Most importantly, perhaps, for the show's overall mythology, the season pulled back the curtain to see that Jacob, the main puppetmaster of the story to date, was also himself a puppet of the Island's will.

The Final Layer

Lost avoided answering mysteries by simply adding a new level with some more compelling questions and mysteries. Ultimately, the question of "why is the Island special?" comes down to "It has a cave with something in it that makes glowy yellow light that's good or can be a menacing red glow if someone pulls out a stopper. That's bad. (But it comes with a free frogurt! That's good. The frogurt contains potassium benzoate. Can I go now?) And speaking of Frogurt, we got a lot of Sideways Arzt, but not nearly enough Sideways Frogurt.

Here's the case of both trying to explain too much and too little. I don't think we ever really needed to know that there literally is a glowing cave of light at the heart of the Island that keeps good and evil in the world in balance. But we did need to know that yes, the Island really is a special place. The Island does matter. And it is a place where miracles happen. Whether this manifests itself in unique electromagnetic properties or a cave of glowing light, all we as the audience really needed to know is that John Locke was right. The Island deserved his faith. And the MIB really was monstrous because he exploited Locke's faith. (All that said about the pointlessness of the cave of glowy lights, the scene in the finale with Jack and Smokey the Locke looking down the cave was excellent.)

And while some fans may be unhappy with the recursive idea that Island is a special place because it's a special place, I'm not sure that we need any more explanation than that. The Island is a special place where weird things happen which many people are interested in and which set a story in motion.

Fix #1: Across the Sea should not have been the fifteenth episode of the season. Lindelof and Cuse apparently believed that they didn't need to humanize the MIB until after he was thoroughly established as a monster by killing Jin and Sun. Or they didn't want to reveal that the MIB was actually dead and the smoke monster is a manifestation of his spirit. But telling the story of Jacob, his brother and Allison Janney might have had more heft earlier in the season. Or better yet, split into two episodes. The first, coming early in the season, a flashback of those events from Jacob's perspective (leaving out the part about him pushing his brother into the cave of glowy light and making him into a smoke monster.) The second, coming around episode 13 or 14 from the MIB's perspective. Narratively, this parallels elements of the first season-- the Sun and Jin flashbacks, where we saw events from Sun's perspective (which made Jin out to be a bad guy) and then later from Jin's (which largely redeemed him.) It also continues to keep Smokey from establishing much humanity.

This would have the benefit of fleshing out characters who lost much of their humanity over their centuries. It also would have more explicitly expanded the scope of the story by an order of magnitude. Even though Jacob and the MIB were at their game for a very long time, they were also mere pawns to the Island. This serves to expand the Island's mystery and power.

Fix #2: Establish why letting the MIB off the Island would be disastrous. Ilana blew herself up real good to prevent this and Richard was pretty adamant about not letting the MIB get to the plane. Perhaps this was established in Ab Aeterno with Jacob's analogy about the stopper in the bottle of wine. That wasn't very convincing. If the big deal was that Smokey wanted to leave the Island, why did he need to kill Jacob to do so? Why was Jacob tasked with keeping Smokey confined to the Island? What's the big deal if he does leave? Establishing some details of this in the early-season Jacob flashback (that Allison Janney selected Jacob to be the Island's protector, the MIB tinkered with technology and the Others and that the MIB needed to be kept on the Island) and then revealing that Smokey is really dead and the smoke monster is some kind of floating malevolence manifested in electromagnetism and smoke might have paced this storyline better as an important part of Lost's overall story arc.

Fix #3: Use more flashbacks. Season 6 largely limited flashbacks to a couple of episodes that were told mostly or entirely as flashbacks. But even when season 4 introduced the flashforward as a narrative device, the show mixed those in with flashbacks. The freighter crew all had some minimal backstory told via flashback. "Ji Yeon" mixed a Sun flashforward with a Jin flashback in the same episode.

Jacob, MIB, Richard and Dogen could all have had flashback episodes or flashbacks in episodes. The Jacob and Dogen flashbacks could have been merged into the same episode alongside an info dump about the theology of the Temple Others. Or the Dogen/Lennon flashbacks could have been used as misdirection between flashbacks from the main timeline versus flashes sideways to the alternate reality.

Fix #4: Make the time in the Temple matter. Tying in with my last point, why didn't Lennon and/or Dogen have a larger role in the season as a whole? Even if we learn more information about the Temple and its importance to the Others, it still would have been somewhat mysterious, since, after all, it's supposed to have some kind of on-Island religious-type of significance.

And after channeling the Island's special properties through the filters of science with Faraday and the Dharma Initiative, perhaps seeing them through an institutional paradigm of faith would have given more balance to the science/faith debate that prior seasons set up. Some people react to the Island's unique properties by wanting to study them or exploit them, others through faith and prayer. Dogen and Lennon could have given a more thorough introduction to the Other's theology. Dogen's story told through a flashback might have had more power than simply him sharing it with Jack.

And if not using the Temple Others to provide some background on the Others' relationship with Jacob and the Island, why not keep Lennon around to guide the Candidates to the next place they needed to be, instead of killing everyone off in the same episode?

On another note, if the Temple Others were pretty established in the Temple in season 6, where were they back in season 5's Dead is Dead when Smokey took Ben to meet the Smoke Monster at the Temple? Not much time was supposed to have passed between then, right? Aside from Claire adopting Squirrel Baby, did anything interesting happen with the Others on the Island between 2004 and 2007?

Fix #5: Pacing Characters disappeared from the narrative for weeks at a time. This might play better on DVD than on broadcast, but it would have been nice to see more of the core characters from week to week. Since the sixth season should play more as one really big story than the character at a time short story structure of the first season, it would have been nice to edit the episodes together so that core characters didn't go weeks without any important on-screen actions. Ben, Sawyer and Desmond, in particular, were sorely missed at times throughout the season.

The Flashes Sideways

Ultimately, the sideways universe seems like more of a way of misdirecting the audience and bringing back fan favorite characters from the dead than a fundamental piece of the narrative. From the persepective of making the show, wasn't it nice to have a way to bring back some favorite characters who died, like Charlie, Boone, Shannon, Ana Lucia?

And I don't think that the idea of an imagined reality was a bad choice -- coming after the time travel season, it does make sense to think about what would have happened if Oceanic Flight 815 landed in Los Angeles, rather than having crashed on the Island. But ultimately, it didn't successfully tie into the main story. The stories in the Sideways universe, even the engaging and poignant ones (like Ben's), didn't have any consequences for the main storyline. So even though it was an opportunity for some characters to attempt to work out issues that they didn't resolve on the Island, it didn't make for great storytelling. The flashbacks in prior seasons showed how the characters became who they were and how they related to their actions on the Island. Did the flashes sideways inform action on the Island?

This may be the case that watching season 6 again, after knowing what everything means, might prove more emotionally satisfying. But did any of the sideways stories ultimately matter? Could they have tied in to the Island stories better?

If MIB somehow affected each Lostaway's life in alternative LA to cause similar emotional issues as the characters dealt with on the Island, would that have been more powerful? If the sideways stories had more to do than just using near-death experiences to wake up characters to their Island life so that they could let go, they would have been more effective. And that doesn't mean that the end result doesn't have to be the same. If the characters come together to serve the same general purpose in the sideways world as on the Island and all come together at the Faraday/Driveshaft concert and/or Christian's funeral and realized that the alternate world was a figment of their collective imaginations, might that have worked better?

But coming to the same conclusion, drawing the characters there in a higher-stakes manner, more related to the Island storyline -- perhaps much more Smokey-related, with Titus Welliver as MIB in the alternative LA, might have made the Sideways world feel more directly connected to the original timeline and also given the season a more compelling sense of forward momentum. If both timelines were moving towards a similar big event, that might have made both feel more important and more connected. Giving the characters more active aim than simply having some realization that this was not reality would have given the sideways stories more relevance to the original timeline and connected with the audience more. And even if the Sideways world ultimately is still the waiting room at the end of life, what it's revealed to be isn't all that important if the world was used to tell great stories.

How cool of a scene would it have been if halfway through these stories of characters intersecting, alternate reality Arzt was killed by the smoke monster in Los Angeles? That would be one heck of an act out.

But in the end, it may be that there was no better possible way to resolve these characters' stories. How else could you have had that last scene between Ben and Locke if they weren't both aware of their last interaction in the real world timeline? If that's the payoff of the entire Sideways universe, maybe that's enough? While there were a number of good elements in the sideways storylines, I'm not convinced that this last season wouldn't have been better focused as the Zombie season entirely on the Island.

Theories on topics that I wish were addressed more directly in season 6

1. Why did the members of the Oceanic Six time jump back to 1977 when the Ajira flight came to the Island, except for Sun?

I suppose that Eloise's warning about it having to be "all" of them provides enough of an answer. It could have something to do with the way that the Island skips through spacetime and how you leave the Island. Aaron didn't return to the Island with the rest of the Oceanic Six. Again, it goes back to the problem with over-explaining the nature of the Island. It has mysterious powers and it has its own sort of will.

Unlike the rest of the Oceanic Six, keeping Sun in the present day keeps the two characters apart who we, the audience, want to see get together. Sun in the present day, Jin in 1977 creates drama and it makes for good television. As far as story rationalizations, she had a constant anchoring her in the timestream when she passed through the Island's magnetosphere. She knew that Jin was alive on the Island (having received his ring from Ben, via Locke.) And she was going to find him. But her assuming that it was in the present day kept her from skipping bodily through time. The other Lostaways didn't have similar constants.

The Others all have Jacob or something relating to the Island as a Constant to keep them fixed in case the Island starts skipping through time. The Lostaways weren't similarly prepared. (And Juliet wasn't similarly indoctrinated as an Other. She got the Latin lessons, but may not have passed Othering 101.)

2. On Jughead, the Incident and Time Travel

Having Jughead's fission core at the Incident boosted the electromagnetic flux of the pocket of energy underneath the Swan station to fix the timeskips to get our Lostaways back to the original timeline. Insert Faraday providing some technobabble about the Island's energy being unbalanced when Ben turned the Donkey Wheel -- that the absence of some Lostaways knocked it out of balance and when they didn't all return together. The bomb re-fixed the Lostaways properly in time.

3. On Widmore, Desmond and the Island

While he was the leader of the Others, Widmore travelled to the outside world and engaged in it in various ways (including fathering Penny.) As a new Other, Ben became distressed that their leader wasn't really in tune with the vibe of the Island. Charles didn't respect the Island properly. Ben convinced enough of the Others of this and they all agreed to oust Widmore from his leadership and so he left the Island. Using information from Faraday's journal, Widmore became a rich and successful captain of industry who was ever vigilant in his quest to return to the Island and oust the unrightful usurper from power. I suppose by the terms of his agreement with Ben (which included some agreement that their children were not pawns in their game), he was unable to do so directly. So, when his daughter was dating this deadbeat, Desmond, Widmore figured he could send Des to see if he could find the Island.

In fact, Desmond did find the Island, Kelvin found him, and because Desmond spent years in the Swan hatch, he developed some amount of resistance to iocane powder and the Island's unique pockets of electromagnetic energy. Widmore learned about the crash of Oceanic 815 and made sure to create a cover-up in order to make sure that there weren't other official efforts to find the wreckage and keep the Island a secret. Once Widmore found more information about the Island's location, he sent mercenaries to the Island to capture and depose Ben (who had become a hypocrite in his own travels off the Island to recruit Others, arrange for Dharma resupply drops, so that Desmond would continue to manage the Swan station, which keeps the electromagnetism at bay.)

4. The Dharma Supply Drops

Who was supplying the Swan station with Dharma Initiative supplies in 2004? Was there a stock of labels left over from the heyday of the Dharma Initiative that the Others used to supply Desmond with food to push the button? Was the Hanso Foundation and Dharma Initiative still paying for the supply drops after the purge?

Perhaps, even after the purge, everyone who knows about the Island knows that Swan station system is necessary to contain the electromagnetic energy and that using the failsafe would have dire consequences. (It knocked out the Others' communications with the outside world.)

5. The Numbers

The numbers stem from the Valenzetti equation.

When the candidates assigned to those numbers were the only ones that Jacob had yet to eliminate, those candiates were the human factors that fit the variables in the Valenzetti equation to save the world. The reveal that The Numbers were tied to the remaining Candidates was enough of an explanation for me as to why the Dharma Initiative would have found those numbers to be the solutions to an equation where placing those values for the variables would save the world.

What could have made this revelation more compelling to the story would have been to explain what would be so bad if Smokey would have escaped from the Island.

6. The Outrigger Shoot-Out. Who was shooting at our time-skipping Lostaways?

Spin-Offs!

I don't know about you, but I'd watch the adventures of Hurley and Ben guarding the Island. Or the ongoing adventures of Ford & Straume. Or Mr. Locke & Dr. Linus: Schoolteachers by day, crime-fighters at night.

Linkage

Geekscape: Top Ten Questions Lost Never Answered

Emily Nussbaum, New York Magazine A Disappointed Fan Is Still a Fan "I’m a serious Lost fan—I watched every episode, I recapped the show online for years, I’m one of the fools who combed Egyptology sites to determine whether that damned statue was Tawaret or Subek—and yet I’m also someone who now thinks of the show as a failure. That fact doesn’t erase the pleasure I got from Locke’s orange-peel grin, but it does change the context."

Alan Sepinwall, Hitfix, Lost: The End: A Re-Review "Well, yesterday was a relatively slow day, and it occurred to me that a little over a month had passed, and I still had "The End" on my DVR. So I watched it, again. And I have a bunch of thoughts - some new, some not - about the finale coming up just as soon as I'm shot by a fat man..."

Besides a deep love of soul music and impeccable influences, The Heavy makes its mark largely on the charisma of frontman Kelvin Swaby, who controls the stage with presence. Even though the group had a lot of energy, I'm not sure that the band grooved less than they might have because of the drum loops and samples that anchored a number of the songs.

After a brisk two song encore (closing with the high energy "Oh No, Not You Again"), the band left the stage again with the lights low and the audience applauding for an encore. But after a couple of minutes anticipation the house lights and music came up, indicating that the show was in fact over.

Of all the shows that I've seen over the last decade or so at Bowery Ballroom, this was one of the only ones where the sound was less then impeccable. The room sounded boomier and less crisp than usual. Openers The Black Hollies played with a mix that emphasized the guitar and minimized the vocals and bass. This was all very out of character for Bowery, which is typically the best sounding room in the city.

The Heavy will be back at Bowery on Wednesday, although it is already sold out. More photos follow after the break.

Previously: Heavy Indicia.

The House That Dirt Built: Vinyl CD MP3