Software Developer, Media Nut, and Proud Father of Two

The May sweeps have come to a close. The season finale of some shows have a wide range of results: terrible, bad, average, great, mind-blowing and you can't be serious. I'll address minor finales first and go more in depth with other shows that have a lot more meat to their finales. Let the critiques begin.

Monk's season finale, which usually isn't anything special, was like any other episode. Enjoyable, full of laughs and even a few tender moments, so it was enjoyable, but nothing to write home about. I'm looking forward to its next and finale season, but we'll finally see Monk solve his only unsolved case. The Office had a decent enough episode. Three separate episodes focused on the office being divided by something, and they were average. A few episodes definitely had what has made this show great, but the 5th season was arguably its worst. The finale had a few good moments, especially a comedy skit revealing that one of the company's branches were closing without the branch even knowing, and Pam finding out she's pregnant. It didn't feel like a finale, but life goes on. I didn't catch the finale of CSI. After the season opener with another originally cast member going, and knowing that Gil was going to leave after the 10th episode, I started losing interest. I'll catch up when I get more down time.

On to Chuck, a show that has gotten better as each week passes. The finale was great stuff and the twist at the very end was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately House was moved to Monday nights and very likely had a big impact on the ratings of Chuck, so it's future was in question. Word came a few weeks ago that the show will definitely be back, but only for 13 episodes and not until next year. Because of the cuts, it may not make it past the third season, but if I would be quite happy with it staying around even with 13 episodes with each season. It's a great show, it has great chemistry and I'd love to see it keep going.

Prison Break's long overdue series finale was quite a mess. Characters who should have been long dead or nowhere near the conspiracy were brought back specifically for the finale, my guess so as to bring nostalgic feelings by having some of the original cast. The reunions were bad writing and didn't make sense. One character, who worked for the Company, was supposedly killed in the second season while being transported to prison. His death was left open because of the specific angle of how he was "shot" (you didn't see him actually get shot). Masked gunman forced the van carrying him to stop and then they shot twice into the van, presumably once at the character, and again at the police officer who was seated with him. It ended up being played out that the United Nations wanted to end the Company like everyone else, and kept this character around to help them since he worked for the Company. But then, we're to believe that the UN is the good guys and that the people who picked up the character killed an innocent police officer? Yeah... In the end, four years after these events, Michael, the show's main character, the person the entire show hinged on, died from a hereditary disease after supposedly being cured of it. The death was unexpected, and totally unnecessary, but I guess they needed to throw in a tender moment. I'm glad the shenanigans are done. Ever since it's first season finale, the show went downhill and simply got worse. It had its moments, and I think William Fitchner did a great job as Alex Mahone, but it dragged on far longer than it should have.

Battlestar Galactica's much hyped series finale was decent, but the final conclusion wasn't that great. The first season of BSG was good stuff, but then the show really lost its touch from there. Insert many episodes that did nothing for the overall plot and now you have Moore who utterly failed at telling a story. Instead of doing the logical thing, Moore guided the BSG viewers into a mess of mostly teenage drama plots, wasting valuable air time to advance, well, nothing, except constant insubordination, sleeping around and more useless drama. This wasn't always the case and it definitely had its fair share of good and great episodes, but for the most part, it felt like a let down. Starbuck's situation, which couldn't be explained in the show, nor in a post-finale interview by Ron Moore, was a complete screw up. The shocking conclusion left just about every main character alive. Galactica falling apart every which way it can, yet surviving the suicide mission run, was weak. Making the half-Cylon, half-Human child key to humanity's survival was a crock (30 some odd thousand humans made it to Earth; remove the half breed and the humans still live). There was one scene, however, that did hit me, which was when Starbuck disappeared. Knowing Lee's affection for her, I felt a bit gripped by that moment because the woman he loved was gone forever. Everything else during the ending was long, drawn out whiny mush, as if the show itself believed it were the greatest thing on television (a notion I laugh and scoff at). In the end, I don't see what's so great, smart, gripping, exciting, etc. about this show. So it's a Science Fiction show set in space, a commodity that is rare among TV shows, but people treat it like it's the best thing on, and I beg to differ. I recall two specific episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that had more of a gut wrenching impact than this entire series that actually made me fight back tears. It's not that it wasn't good, but it's that it wasn't phenomenal. We'll probably see another remake of this show in 15-20 years... that is unless Ron Moore convinces another network to carry it so he can tell it again, because he forgot to include another storyline...

24 has certainly lost its touch. This season had some great moments, even make Jack Bauer show his tender side several times, but overall this season was subpar. I still think the first four episodes of season 6 were its best episodes. The end of episode 4, where Jack shot Curtis Manning and collapsed after doing so, only to witness a nuclear explosion minutes later was quite a lot to swallow, but that season went on to be considered one of the worst, if not the worst. I can't say that this season was really any better. We're being led to believe that Jack will die, and literally in the final seconds of the show, 24's more annoying character, Kim Bauer, decides, for once, to do what she should be doing. Kim always has a way of doing or saying something she shouldn't do or say, and not doing or saying something that she should do or say. Kim's short appearances on the show affirmed this when she identified a man who was protecting her, which she didn't know, to a couple that just so happened to be befriending her to use her as leverage against Jack. At the end, I thought Jack was going to convert to Islam for a second when he prayed with the man who visited him, but I said it all along, Jack Bauer will not die. He will live to see another day, and the open ending, and the fact that there will be an 8th season, confirms this. Renee has now become Jack's female counterpart, so it'll be interesting to see what happens to her character, but I'm ready for 24 to be done. The show has lost its touch and there really isn't that much more the writers can do to keep the show fresh. Seasons 6 and 7 used plot lines that we've seen in this show or in other shows, so it's probable that season 8 will be the last season of 24, followed by a movie, where Jack will die in a blaze of glory. I don't believe the writers will have Jack dying, or living, in peace. It just can't happen.

Newcomer to my all time favorite TV shows is Fringe, a show with an emphasis on pseudo, or fringe, science. The show's creator, JJ Abrams, spoke about the advancements of technology and science, about pushing the human body to new limits, and that's where Fringe comes in to explore those possibilities, with a smart storyline to go along with it. It doesn't attempt to portray itself as a factual fringe science show, but instead it toys with the possibilities and delivers some mind twisting elements. The show started a bit rough: mysterious event occurs, Walter investigates, Peter mocks his crazy father with heavy sarcasm and Walter suddenly remembers a similar experiment and solves said mystery. Rinse and repeat, until the fourth episode, which got me hooked. We were introduced to the Observer, who, from that point on, was seen in almost every, if not all, episodes as a background figure (sometimes digitally inserted). The show focus' on a pattern of mysterious events, which mostly, in some way, tie back to Massive Dynamic, a company on the cutting edge of scientific breakthroughs. A fringe division was created to investigate these incidents to uncover who was behind the pattern and stop them. The show hinted at alternate dimensions mid-way through the season and in the finale, teased us with this until the final seconds of the show. Dunham's character experiences flashes of some sort, where she's seeing bits of the alternate dimension, but is jarred to reality and sees what is really in her dimension. Walter Bishop (John Noble) told his son Peter (Joshua Jackson) that he lost something dear to him and wished he could cross over to take what he lost. We later learn that Peter died when he was 6 or 7 and that Walter did exactly what he wished he could do. He suffers from severe memory loss, but he is aware of this dimension's Peter being dead because he visited the tombstone. As the finale was coming to a close, the show's main character, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), was "teleported" to this other dimension and finally met William Bell (Leonard Nimoy), founder of Massive Dynamic, who has apparently been hiding from the ones responsible for the pattern. Turns out the pattern was used to isolate pockets of energy that could be used to cross over. Now that reason for the pattern has been found and the ones behind it are dead, where does the show go from here? I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Last, but certainly not least, is my favorite show, Lost. There are a lot of words that can describe season 5. Wow, amazing, incredible, unbelievable, and mind blowing are just a few. Only one episode this past season sucked, and it was for my least favorite character, Kate. Other than that, this past season was phenomenal. So much was revealed, so many questions still burn. Unfortunately, not every single mystery will be answered, but the finale gave us insight into who Jacob is and what is going on on the island. Who was the man that wanted to kill Jacob? What was the loophole he needed in order for Jacob to finally be killed? Who was Jacob referring to when he said, "They're coming"? Did the hydrogen bomb really go off, and if so, are all of the survivors in 1977 dead (of course not)? Is the smoke monster the guy that wanted to kill Jacob? How did Jacob make Richard not age? And why are the islands longest standing residents completely baffled by all the mysterious activities that occur (time traveling, teleporting, dead coming to life)? What happens after the Incident? Was what we saw always what happened when the Incident occurred? One thing's for sure, the writers have something special up their sleeve. There have always been good and evil, black and white references or allusions. Jacob wore white while his friend, who many are calling Esau (and FakeLocke) wore gray/black (leading some to believe he's the smoke monster or is working with the smoke monster. Locke held two pieces of a backgammon board, one black, the other white, and the show, which has always ended with a black background and white text was inverted when the finale ended, as were each set of words used in the promo of the sixth and final season. I was sad to see Juliet and Sawyer get separated like they were. They made such a good couple and I like Juliet's character. She'll be back, in one form or another, but she won't be a regular. One thing's for sure, I can't wait to see how this show ends. This is a show that knows how to tell a story with a high degree of mystery. I love it, I'm hooked, and probably a bit too much.