I really can’t believe it’s over. We live in a post-Lost world, people. What am I going to theorize about, debate, puzzle over, or frantically obsessively watch? Well, Lost, to be honest. Because, like the best works of fiction, it doesn’t hand you answers to all your questions upon turning to the last page or watching the last scene. I’ll watch it again and again over the years, because it’s that good. It’s an achievement unmatched in the history of the medium. A six year, pre-plotted (to a large extent) telenovel. The finale on Tuesday wasn’t the highest-rated send-off for a show. Lost has never hit the viewing public with a Friends-like cultural atomic impact. It was immediately popular, but more in the way a bestseller is. Word of mouth spread it, people who watched it banded together, converted more who watched it on DVD, and before you know it everyone was hooked. So how can you possibly address all the questions you’ve raised in six seasons of intricate plotting? How can you possibly make everyone happy? You don’t. Lost has never really cared much what the network or anyone else had to say about the chapter of the story they were telling. Tuesday’s finale was the last chapter, and if I constantly refer to this in literary terms, it’s because-to me at least-that’s how it’s always been, and the finale was even appropriately called “The End”.

This is going to be a bit of a no-frills review because, honestly I don’t want to spoil it for those who are going to watch it on DVD. I don’t want to take away the experience I got to have. There’s been so much mainstream press over it though, that we can hit the basics. Season six has followed two parallel realities. In one Oceanic 815 never crashed and landed in Los Angeles, sending the cast off on the paths they were walking before the plane hit the island. In the other, we pick up after the cataclysmic end of Season 5, the curtain is drawn back on the major players on the island and sides are chosen as those players come to the end of a very long game.

I didn’t believe they could cover as much ground as they have this year. Each episode one or several major revelations were dropped on us as we hurtled towards the events of Tuesday’s installment. Every book has its slow parts and even I’ll admit some seasons of Lost seem to meander (though I wonder if they will in retrospect), but this season seemed over in a blink. The two storylines are merged and an end is reached. In the 2.5 hours the finale lasted, almost every major character in the show’s history was seamlessly woven into the ending. I care about these characters. Flaws and all (and all Lost characters are flawed) they’re almost real people to me, and to get to have this beautiful goodbye to them on top of a brilliant and subtle end to the epic was a true gift. I love the ending. I think it’s magnificent; every bit as powerful in its profound quiet as the first season opener was with its explosion of sensory fire as you experienced the crash. It brought everything full circle. It’s the best finale I’ve ever seen to the best TV series I’ve ever watched. And I can’t wait to watch it again.
10/10 finale
10/10 series

FX has been the home of one of my favorite dramas (Damages) for the last three seasons, but there’s a new reason to tune in: Justified. The series is essentially a modern day western. Created from a short story by Elmore Leonard, Justified follows US Marshal Raylan Givens as he returns to his small town roots in rural Kentucky (yes that’s an oxymoron). Givens, played brilliantly by Timothy Olyphant, is a lawman with a record of justified shootings, the latest of which is public enough to have him demoted from his beat in Miami back to his home in Kentucky. The pilot follows Givens as he squares off against a former friend who’s turned into a white supremacist with a tendency towards explosives. I downloaded the pilot off of iTunes because it was free and was riveted from the opening scene. Olyphant does a fantastic job of portraying a deeply complex and angry man. This is the kind of character that only comes to TV once in a long while, and we’re only three episodes in, but Justified shows the promise of being TV’s “next great drama”. Hop on board at the beginning.

PUSHING DAISIES: SEASON ONE
I held out as long as I could. I saw previews for Pushing Daisies, knew the concept, and had even been forced against my will to watch the pilot at a family gathering. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, but wouldn’t watch another episode. I couldn’t do it to myself again, but then I went and caved. I fell in love with another show doomed to early cancellation. You want the list? Boomtown, Sports Night, Murder One, Studio 60, and that’s just the ones that I haven’t repressed. Pushing Daisies can go right to the top of the list. The show lasted two seasons, 22 episodes in all (I have the second season but have yet to delve), but don’t make the mistake I made and hold out. The show is brilliant, funny, touching, and completely unique. You’ve never seen a TV show like it and likely never will again.

The concept is a Tim Burton/Roald Dahl adult fairy tale. Young Ned, our protagonist, discovered as a young boy that he has the power to touch the dead and bring them back to life for 60 seconds. One touch brings them back, another and they’re dead forever. If he fails to touch them for a second time in the minute allowed, the most serious of consequences ensues. I won’t spoil how he discovers this, because it’s so wonderfully done and explained in the pilot that you have to see it for yourself. As we join Ned in adulthood, he’s joined with Private Investigator Emerson Codd (beautifully played by Chi McBride and my favorite character on the show) solving murder cases by simply waking the victim and asking them who killed them. Ned uses this income to maintain a pie shop and life is rolling right along until one of Ned’s clients is his childhood sweetheart (Anna Friel). Ned breaks the rules and brings her back from the dead. The pilot sets all of this up and ensuing episodes explore Ned’s gift in action through a series of highly memorable cases, the relationship between Ned and his newly undeadified girlfriend whom he can never touch again, and showcase the colorful and unforgettable world created for the show.

It’s only nine episodes, but they’re nine of the best episodes of TV you’re likely to find. The only thing that could have made it better was the time ABC wouldn’t give it to develop things more fully. So put it in your Netflix queue and thank me later.

9.5/10