Somehow, perhaps because my Netflix-enabled xBox360 is now practically a video store in my living room, I ended up watching an episode of Lost.  My previous attitude towards Lost was a mixture of contempt and outrage that people where so devoted to it.  Some people compared it to BSG.  I kept comparing it to Gilligan’s Island.

But then, because I was in max ADD mode and needed something on in the background while I got some work done, I watched the first episode of Season one.  Then I watched the second episode, and the third.  Before the day was out, I was four episodes in.  As of now, I’ve finished Season 3, and fully intend to finish Season 4 before the last and final season starts live.  I love the show the same way I love peanut M & Ms.  They aren’t really nutritious, and it’s not exactly high-quality chocolate, but the combination can be perfect in the moment.

Broadly, though, my opinion hasn’t changed that much.  I still think:

• The sci-fi in Lost sucks.  There’s no consistent underlying set of rules, just a sort of random interplay between odd tech and pure fantasy
• The constant themes of fate and religion have been done better elsewhere.  The excess string of coincidence is constantly interpreted as having “meaning”.  But the meaning is always obscure.  “We were meant to be here.”  Sure, you were meant to be standing over there, and you, yes you, were meant to be naked.  (Kate, for instance, is constantly struggling with her clothes)
• It’s no BSG.  But then, it really isn’t trying to be BSG.  One is a tightly woven story with gritty, real science fiction elements, the other is a bag of M & Ms.  Peanut.  It doesn’t make the M & Ms less tasty

What drives Lost is character.  The island is obviously the screen-writer’s vision of purgatory, whatever else they call it.  And purgatory is, by definition, filled with tortured souls who are on the edge between redemption and damnation.  Throw a bunch of these characters together, add some solid chemistry, and you get great drama.  Almost every character who gets introduced eventually becomes fascinating.  I love Bernie and Rose as much as I do Sawyer.  Of course Jack is just insufferable, but you always almost like him.

Fox ran a “movie” called Virtuality tonight.  Produced by Ronald Moore, the genius who crafted Battlestar Galactica, I thought it would be worth a look.  It skitters dangerously close to rehashing things that have been done well already, but there is a core of original thought going on here.  In fact, if things evolve in directions different than the obvious, this could turn out to be great.  With Ronald Moore behind it, you have to allow for that possibility.

It does steal from some good movies.  The opening scene is an obvious reworking of the Outlaw Jose Wales.  Several scenes evoke 2001, and Solaris is also hanging over the whole thing.  The downside is, as several internet commentors pointed out, the Star Trek holodeck.  Almost every holodeck episodes was bad.  The pure invention of the holodeck was an acknowledgement that the writers were running out of ideas.  But, if virtual reality was introduced a different way, somehow making sense in the story, it worked even in Star Trek.  One of the best episodes had Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a couple others trapped in a replay of the OK corral.  Except they were on the losing side, and they knew it.

The thing about Virtuality is that it doesn’t work as a movie.  Most of the time is spent introducing characters, then introducing a couple plot elements, and staggering around one decision, which we always knew.  But it didn’t end, not really.  The official story is that it was written as a pilot, but Fox nixed the deal and aired it as a stand-alone.  But it’s not a stand-alone, even a Fox exec knows that.  Fox may be evil, but they specialize in satisfying television audiences.  This did not.

My theory is that Fox knows people will want more.  They want to buy the show, but to make it a success, they want to be pressured into it.  Create a fan-base, a buzz, a demanding group of outsiders.  They’re willing to be the bad guys, so that we can force them to do something in a way that makes them another pile of money.  And if it doesn’t work, they aren’t out much, just a Friday night movie that did okay.

It seems like we’ve been waiting a long time for Hulu.  Or Netflix, Tivo, or YouTube.  I don’t have to watch my favorite shows when they’re on anymore.  I can watch whatever I want, when it’s convenient for me.  Yet I watch Battlestar Galactica on Friday night, at 10p.m.  I let other things pass so I can go home and watch it.  This week I even sat through Dollhouse because it was on before BSG and seemed interesting.

I love Battlestar Galactica, mostly because it’s the best television show, ever.  But would it really make a difference if I watched it the next day?  It’s not like watching football later, the show isn’t actually happening right now.  It was shot last summer and will air many times.  I partly watch it because I enjoy the ceremony of having a certain time.  Partly it’s because the show is so compelling I don’t want to wait any longer than necessary.

But there’s also a new reason for watching the show at a certain time.  Twitter and Facebook allow me to interact with other people watching the same show.  Twitter and Monitter allow me to see what other people are saying, and I can publish my own comments.  It’s like watching the show with a bunch of like-minded smart people.  This is good, because a lot of my real friends fail to understand why the show is so awesome.

Twitter also makes watching a mediocre show like Dollhouse more of an adventure.  Nobody knew what to expect, and as the show started revealing its flaws, all of us could talk about it.  By the end of the show, there were some redeeming features, and there was room to hope that Joss Whedon might make something of it.  But more importantly, watching it with everyone else was a good time.

The other reason I like watching television in real time is that it’s less of a committment.  Sometimes I like having the television on in the background, or I like to watch it for a short time.  But if I start a show on demand, or put a DVD in, then I’m prepping for full attention, and probably setting aside a full period.  So I’ll click over to bad Sci-Fi Channel movies or something else that requires little attenion.

Someone forgot to mention to me that the best show on television, halfway through its final season, is going to stop showing new episodes until January.  What’s up with that?  Why isn’t that a whole other season?  And what am I supposed to do on Friday nights in the meantime?  Get a life?