Television: The Meaning of Spring

For all of us living here on this planet, usually Spring is the time for new beginnings... green things start growing, new babies and animals are born, we clean out the stagnation of winter in our homes and begin letting air and sunshine in again.  So it seems odd that while new life is springing up all around us, in television it's a season of loss and endings.

Several shows have wrapped up their current seasons over the past two weeks.  Supernatural, Fringe, and V are some of the compelling season cliff-hangers I count among those.  This Sunday also marks the end of the era for LOST.  Some fans are excited, some are cautious, knowing either all things will either finally be explained or amount to a tremendous disappointment, depending on whether you trust the writers or not.  This very day I have seen people discussing things that confused them about Tuesday's episode, but claim that *something* will happen on Sunday that will tie it all together, and make it click for them.  I don't have their faith.  I think the writers *think* they've explained things satisfactorily, but honestly there are layers and details that they've either just plain forgot about, or don't care about.  And I don't think they're going to wrap them up.

I'm firmly in the "Science" camp.  I know the frailty of humans, and when it comes right down to it, even famous bigshot writers are human.  They'll forget things.  They'll explain something in a way they think is crystal clear, but is inscrutable to some or all of us.  They perceive their characters one way, while we perceive them another, and then they build on their own perceptions while leaving the rest of us confused when what they do doesn't mesh with our expectations.

The explanation of Adam and Eve?  I believe I've mentioned what a big disappointment that was to me... not in terms of plot, but in that it was supposed to be this big, huge proof of "a plan".  Dude, Adam and Eve could have turned out to be time-travelling Rose and Bernard, and you still could have intercut scenes from season one and it would have had the same amount of relevance.  That's not proof of a plan... that's proof that you own season 1 DVDs.

I've been burned by Bad Robot before.  The whole run of Alias after season two was a tremendous disappointment.  I just have zero faith that this ending on Sunday is going to be anything more than a big "Huh?" at the end of the day.  Maybe Jimmy Kimmel will wrap things up for them.