Over the break, Dan and I made the fatal mistake, along with the rest of my family, of getting sucked into the first season of Lost on DVD, which my sister Audrey got for a Christmas present. On the last day we were in town, we all watched on obscene number of episodes of that show, but Dan and I had to leave the next day and missed the last disc. So we rented it via Netflix, and watched the rest last night. Big mistake. The thing that has always irritated Dan about Lost and that now bothers me immensely is that the show is so good at building up all this suspense about why the surviviors of a plane crash are not being rescued from the desert island they've landed on and whether or not there are other people on the island with them. And the suspense is all just fantastic, except that they never really give you any ANSWERS. I suppose that is how the creators of this show are able to sustain an audience for a plot line that in a rational world would end after about 4 episodes, but it's still annoying. So last night, we got down to the last episode, the season one finale, and whoever is in charge of this awful show leads you to believe that you're finally going to find out who else is on the island and why.
Once you've been watching Lost for a little while, you become intensely aware of how long an episode is, and without fail, as the final moments of the show are ticking away, you realize in despair that you are once again going to be left hanging. So as the season finale wore on into its second half, I was realizing that there couldn't be much time left, and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO IS ON THE *#&$@ ISLAND!
At that exact moment, the writers chose to use precious time that they COULD have spent telling me something useful to include a deep conversation between a man, Michael, and his son, who is his child from a previous relationship, and whom he hadn't really known until his former wife died and left him the child. It's a very heart-wrenching side plot, and were it not the season finale, I would be all in favor of this moment of character development. But as it was, I was totally irrational, which lead to the following piece of dialogue between me and my TV set. Talking to your TV is not exactly a sign of great mental stability, so this was the exact moment when I realized that this show is invading my mind to an unhealthy degree.

Little boy character on the show: "So Dad, why didn't you and my mom stay together?"

Me, bolting up from the couch and yelling: "No one cares, kid! It's the season finale and I just want to know who is on the island! You could have discussed this at any other point in the last 24 episodes! Aaaah!"

Dan, looking over at me in that way that only your spouse can look at you: "You have got to get a grip."

And it's true. I need to get a grip. But still. I just want some ANSWERS!