Television: Lost and Bones Finales

Let me preface this by saying that I started getting sick on Wednesday afternoon, and the way I was feeling may have colored my opinions. On the flip side, since I wasn't attending any big Lost party as so many others did, I'm also inclined to believe that mob mentality may have caused a concentrated amount of enthusiasm to build in Lost fans in general.

I was underwhelmed by the Lost finale. While I did find the Jacob aspect interesting, as far as the castaways went, I was unimpressed. At the beginning of the two-hour block, Jack Shepherd was planning to detonate a hydrogen bomb. At the end of the two-hour block, the bomb went off. Some other stuff happened in between, but as far as that story line went, it was a Point A to Point B situation. Sure, Jack and Sawyer had a big fight. And Sawyer suffered Juliet's . . . whatever it was. (As an aside, let me just say that I like Sawyer + Juliet WAY more than I like Sawyer + Kate.)

The character who interests me is Richard. I'm mostly enjoying the pseudo-mythological plot involving him and Jacob and the Locke-alike. Given the Egyptianish motif of the temples and statues and such, the finale made me wonder whether this was an Osiris/Set sort of thing (making Smokey a sort of Sobek). But my guess is that this is really some amalgam of several mythic ideas. Cain and Abel, Zoroastrianism, etc. Given that I have a minor in classics, with a focus on mythology, and that I teach mythology from time to time, it's little wonder that I like this part of the show the most.

But overall, eh. Many people are going on about what a big cliffhanger it was and how they'll have to wait, but I simply have no such anticipation built in me about it. Again, this may have been because I was literally sick and tired. My husband felt similarly about the whole thing, and he's suggested we try watching it all again after a week or so to see if we're somehow just missing the boat (or submarine) here.

Then again, I may just be becoming hard to please, because I wasn't wowed by the Bones finale, either. And Bones is my favorite show at the moment. It's generally very well written, and the actors have fabulous chemistry. However, last night's attempt at doing something different fell flat for me. Once Jack started narrating, I was pretty sure he was either (a) trying to write a hard-boiled detective novel, or (b) reading aloud to a comatose Booth as the latter recovered from surgery. As it turned out, it was Brennan who was writing--but apparently hearing Jack's voice as her internal narrator?

I suppose I could cast it as "sweet" and even an interesting character anomaly to look at it this way: Brennan was, in effect, fantasizing about being married to Booth and having his child (or expecting to, anyway). She was creating another life for them, in effect--and including all their friends, too. But as a story, even of the alternate-reality variety, it was a bit weak. No wonder she deleted it in the end. (Though, honestly, just hitting "Delete"? Puh-leeze. We all know she'd either need to close and choose "Don't Save" from the prompt or Select All and then delete. Just hitting "Delete" without having anything selected doesn't do anything. Okay, I'm done here.)

Well, I'll look forward to a new season of Bones come the fall, and Lost in the, er, winter? Early 2010 anyway. Hopefully they will spark something in me then.