The Penultimate J.J. Entertainment Block

Because Lost and Alias are being surgically separated next season, this week is the second-to-last time I'll be able to refer to the back-to-back Abrams-aganza.

Lost was the better of the two, I thought -- as per usual. It was fun to get little snippets of multiple characters in flashback. It was also neat to get so many different threads pulled together in one episode. The return of Delenn -- er, Danielle. Sawyer finally revealing he'd met Jack's father. The launch of the raft. The return of the vaguely Jurassic Park-esque monster. I have a feeling there's quite a lot of cliffhangeriness in store for us at the conclusion of next week's season finale.

Then there was Alias, with the return of Lena Olin as Irina Derevko. As has been the case with so many other "such-and-such actor returns to so-and-so show" headlines this season, I'd had this spoiled for me many months ago. Still, it was fun to have her back either way.

My favorite moment in either show, though, had to be Vaughn going to ask Jack's permission to marry Sydney. It was a nice echo of the pilot, when Syd's first fiance tried to do the same thing -- and got roughly similar results.

Beyond that, though, I don't think there's much I can say about this week's Abrams block. Both the Lost and Alias episodes seemed pretty thoroughly connected into next week's forthcoming installments. We'll see if both shows can go out for the summer on a high note.