When the show started, they had a pretty simple formula: tell a little mystery tale and use it to explore the emotional lives of the folks on the island.  Starting with season 2 they strayed further and further away as they tried to keep the hardcore fans happy with answers that asked more questions and new, increasingly bizarre questions.  They lost sight of what was powerful about the show- examining how people live in this circumstance and the emotions that brought them there.

I’ll admit that I will watch this season through to the end, but I’m not going to pretend I’m watching because it’s a good show.

OMG WHAT’S IN THE HATCH!?

Note: The things that happened to Lost also happened to Buffy, Angel and Alias to name a few shows and they tend to happen to most serialized shows after a while.  The universe of the program consumes everything else over time.

The show is staying right there in my podcast list, waiting for whatever comes next. Truth be told we may well have seen the last of it. Ze is so far ahead of the game when it comes to understanding this medium that even when he resorted to cheap jokes and potty humor it was still a joy to watch. I have no problem proclaiming myself a Sportsracer. Hell, I’ve even joined the ORG.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t a lot of press regarding the end of the Show, but this LA Times Article notes that Ze “made enough to pay the rent and then some”. Now granting that his rent is in Brooklyn, which ain’t exactly cheap, this is fine and its how new medians should approach making money on the web. Part of the problem of hiring Hollywood representation and working within that system is that its built on the mass market- salaries and revenues depend on consumption by millions of people. Alternately, you can build a community, share in that community and prove to them that what you do is worth their money. Cut out the money machine because it isn’t built for narrow media.

Update: All invites are gone.  Sorry to those who didn’t get them.  Enjoy!

Yellow blow = human + seat ejecting from exploding viper. Believe it or not.

One of the chief arguments aggregators and commentators have made regarding the current video revolution is that there is simply so much of it, we must have some kind of mediator who is capable of sorting out “the good stuff”. So we have places like Network2, who accept video feeds based on the notion of “shows” and some relatively vague criteria of “quality.” What these folks fail to realize is that the mediator is dead. Channels are dead. They are hanging on to old paradigms without even realizing it. Update: Coincidentally, this is what is killing Joost, which I’ll get around to reviewing at some point- I’ve been beta testing it for about a month.

The social networks of today- and by social networks I mean social websites, the blogosphere and ad hoc networks of friends and neighbors who create communities on the net- provide mediation through hyperlinking, message boards, email threads and the like. Viral distribution is all that is needed to get a video into the hands of those who want it, and aggregation through a few mediators at the top of a site is completely unnecessary. Will some things be overlooked? Absolutely. I would love to see 54 Hours be more popular than it is. But then that raises the question of whether or not we are truly participating in a way that we could actually see our videos find increased mindshare. By not jumping into YouTube more fully and relying on the podcasting/vlogging methods, are we avoiding opportunities?

Pardon the digression. My point here is that the assumption that filters need to be provided is as dead as the television broadcasting paradigm. With limited bandwidth (both broadcast and temporal), television could only afford what it deemed most acceptable to the most number of people. Contrast that to today’s world of near limitless bandwidth and the ability to time-shift programming to suit your schedule. Why revisit that world by placing boundaries to content that people should be free to discover for themselves? We will create the filters we need through our networks of connected people. By participating in different networks we will witness and redistribute other content. Any new boundary based on these new freedoms is- whether intentionally or not- aimed at limiting access.

I’m so tired of people doing whatever it takes to prove they’re better than most people. We’re all people and we’re all in it together, flaws and all. What good does it do to simply step aside and say your better than the rest. If that’s the case then get the fuck out my brothers and sisters! People aren’t SHEEP and they aren’t CATTLE, they are social beings who do in fact look to each other for guidance and understanding, but they are also INDIVIDUALS! Imagine that!

So lets all get together and do what we can for this place instead of critiquing from afar. Its a lot more fun I tell you. How else are we going to talk about the new season of Veronica Mars?