I’ve posted reviews for the remainder of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5.

Go read ‘em. Then post comments to the individual reviews over on the reviews themselves.

Just to reassure you: No, this is not an April Fools Day prank.

No joke. I’m actually doing this.

This is me finally making good on a promise I made — oh, I don’t know — about 15 times over the past 36 months.

Three years. Yes, it’s been three years since I posted my last reviews for season four of Star Trek: The Next Generation Inertia can be a real bitch, let me tell you. Granted, I partially put this stuff on hold because I was reviewing BSG and later Caprica, but my attempts to get back to this failed time and time again, and before I knew it, one, two, three entire years had gone by.

Is there still anyone out here? Anyone who believed that I would finally actually do this instead of offering up my promise of “I’ll get back to it eventually”? (Read more…)

Warning: Major spoilers follow for various swaths of “Lost” in general, and the series finale in particular. I urge you NOT to read this review if you have (1) not watched “Lost,” (2) remained spoiler-free on “Lost” and (3) ever intend to watch it (which I highly recommend).

Jack gets beaten and battered in the final episode of Lost.

As I’ve said before, the true genius of Lost was that it could be so many things to so many people. Because of its vast array of diverse characters and settings (in its various flashbacks, flash-forwards, and this season’s “flash-sideways”), it could do so many things as a narrative universe — episodic, serialized, weaving in and out and connecting characters in Short Cuts-like ways.

And because all of these characters were stranded together on a mysterious island with bizarre electromagnetic properties, a mysterious smoke monster, and apparently no hope of rescue, there were so many stories to be told, and plenty of conflicts to be had along the way. Also, lots of teamwork and camaraderie. It was a community of necessity. Sometimes dysfunctional. Sometimes working well together. Often pitted against outside forces (like the button, or the Others, or a band of Widmore’s mercenaries). And sometimes pitted against one another. (Read more…)

Note: Spoilers for 24′s final episode (and previous episodes) are contained herein.

Jack Bauer kills Chloe O’Brian — revealed to be a mole — in the series finale of 24. Just kidding.

For eight seasons, Jack Bauer and a frequently-rotating supporting cast (many of which were killed off unceremoniously by the writers for short-term shock value) have supplied us with some of the best action-adventure-intrigue on TV. And, of course, plots like Dana Walsh’s.

I know that I’ve been down on 24 this season, and through much of the past three seasons. Pop quiz: Which was worse — season eight or season six? I’m gonna have go with season six, because it was just so ham-fisted and shark-jumpy, even though it was probably more exciting than season eight on the whole. But please discuss.(*) (Read more…)

Spoilers follow for Lost’s “What They Died For.”

Benjamin Linus: liar, manipulator, killer … and one of the possible heroes of the island? We will see.

We are in the final leg of the final chapter, folks. “What They Died For” nicely sets up the series finale of Lost in pure Lostian fashion. Which is to say: It answers a number of questions, but maintains a level of mystery and suspense by not giving away the game and setting up one last mystery. It unleashes a final cut-to-black revelation that will have you pondering its exact meaning. Smokey wants to destroy the island, and use Desmond to do it? Whoa. How? Why?

But until the finale (tomorrow, as I hastily prepare this surface-scratching review), we have a few conclusions supplied here. (Read more…)

I used to be a huge Law & Order fan. Years ago, I used to watch every episode of all the L&O incarnations. Gradually, though, I had to give them all up. There’s just no point in me watching episodic police procedurals in this day and age when said procedurals have no interest whatsoever in character development or story arcs. They are disposable, and meant to be disposable, so why waste my time?

So, it’s a genre I’ve abandoned. Still, I always liked L&O, especially the mothership, and I took note that the mothership was canceled last week just one year shy of breaking the all-time prime-time drama record for consecutive years on the air, having tied at 20 with Gunsmoke. (Read more…)

Note: Spoilers ahead for Lost’s “Across the Sea.”

Jacob: The good to the Man in Black’s evil? Or is it more complicated than that?

One of the greatest things about Lost — and what allowed it to be so many things to so many people — was that the vastness of its cast and the structure of its flashbacks meant it could operate on so many different levels and genres from episode to episode.

It could be a sci-fi show, a period piece, a story about different characters from specific parts of the world, a time-travel adventure, or an exercise in Short Cuts-like narrative collisions. The longer the show went on, the more crevices of the series the show could explore. When it was through exploring them, it simply created new crevices and devices, like the flash-forward or the flash-sideways. (Read more…)

Spoilers for Tuesday’s eventful episode of Lost are contained in this post after the fifth paragraph. Do not read beyond the fifth paragraph (not counting this one) if you do not want to be spoiled on major events of Lost. You have been warned.

There’s an old saying: Never trust a man who smiles while holding eight bricks of C4. (ABC)

I had hoped last week to write a non-spoiler missive on my adoration for Lost, a series I came to late (having watched all the DVDs last year, and only now watching the show unfold week to week) after having studiously avoided spoilers for five seasons. But that missive hasn’t happened yet, and I’ve been involved in a yard landscaping project that has pretty much monopolized my time for the past week.

If you, like me, somehow remained spoiler-free on Lost all these years and are not currently watching, I highly recommend you stay that way, avoid all news items about Lost, then get all the DVDs (or preferably Blu-ray discs, if you have the money to spare; the series looks fantastic on Blu-ray, but still very good on DVD), start at the beginning, and watch the entire series. It’s a big time commitment with a massive number of episodes, and it requires patience at times, but it’s well worth it if you like well-made, character-driven, serial television. (Read more…)

I’m not sure how many Jammer’s Realm viewers of V are out there, but I thought I would chime in with an installment of Other Things Jammer Watches.

The aliens arrive in the pilot of V. It’s downhill from there, as plenty of boring unoriginal stuff happens.

Today’s installment: V, or “ABC’s V,” as the network likes to say. (What is it about ABC that has to advertise that its shows are its shows? And why is the V logo on ABC’s ads slapped on top of a backdrop of a Chicago skyline when the show takes place in New York?)

I’ve been watching V since the pilot, which I thought was pretty engaging (if unoriginal, even setting aside the fact that the show is a remake) as pilots go. It established the premise with a compelling Independence Day-like arrival of the aliens, and then thrust itself into a workable, albeit hardly riveting, mix of action and intrigue. The production values were above average. The characters were a workable motley crew. The themes of paranoia and notions of sleeper agents and double agents and hybrid children reminded me of some of Battlestar Galactica‘s strengths. (Read more…)