Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Week 10: Veronica Mars 6; Lost 4.

I thought both Veronica Mars and Lost brought their A-game tonight, and the contest was very close to call.

As my friend pointed out, Lost is perhaps on the verge of being frustrating, as the major plot threads hanging out there feel like they have been in a sort of state of suspension for a while now. But fortunately, they've been using their time well in juggling the character relationships around in very interesting ways. We'd become very used to the parirings we'd seen through season one. But now Locke and Claire? Hurley and Sayid?

Charlie and Sawyer?

Sawyer had definitely been "teddy beared up" too much in the course of the season, and it was time to put him squarely back in villain territory. And now we find things in a much more interesting place. And I'm already on my way to forgiving the weirdness of the Charlie episode, because it has led to this interesting state of things.

As for Michael... two episodes and most of a third without him around, and I'm pretty much already hopeful that he just never comes back.

Meanwhile, Veronica Mars served up a fun, self-contained mystery loaded with fabulously snarky dialogue, a neat twist ending, and an "uber-plot" advancing runner involving Keith Mars. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I give the edge to Lost, because ultimately this episode of Veronica Mars was really just putting characters through their paces. It was fun to see "what Logan was up to," fun to see Dick get what he deserved, fun to watch Veronica break people... but that's pretty normal fare for Veronica Mars. Well done tonight, as always, but ultimately not quite as satisfying as the more character-changing action on the castaway's island tonight.

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