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You win some; you lose some.
Lost’s recipe for success includes ever-changing allegiances, malleable definitions of “good” and “evil” and a never-quite-resolved list of mysteries.  And like the scales of the astrological sign Libra, the confusion and resolution sides always seem to balance each other out. What we gain in clarity we often lose in understanding.

True to this formula, last night’s episode — the seventh of the season — served up a lot of resolution, but it also delivered a quid pro quo of new unresolved perplexities.

Namely:

Why did Ben assassinate his lord and savior, John Locke?
Could Charles Widmore actually be the good guy in all of this?
Just who is this Eloise Hawking, and why does she seem to move Ben to murder?
Did the Island’s magical powers reincarnate John Locke?
Who is this “new guy” that joined our old favorites on the flight to Guam?
Egads, could there really be more Other Others on the Island?
What’s so wonderful about Tunisia?

We can’t answer all of the above, but let’s start with the  end of John Locke, to whom this episode was dedicated (it was titled “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”). Just as we’d come to accept the fact that Locke had committed suicide, we learn that he was actually murdered. By Ben.

WTF?

In the lead-up to Locke’s death, we’re subjected to what felt like an eternity of John standing on a desk, an orange, industrial-grade electrical cord wrapped around his neck, arguing with Ben, who pleads with John not go through with it.

What makes this development most perplexing is that we’d come to believe in John Locke as the Christ-hero of the show; a man willing to martyr himself in order to save others (and The Others, too). And it’s by way of Ben’s calm, cool insistence that we — and he, and pretty much everyone else (save the jealous, cranky Jack) — believe that John is The One. Even Jack eventually comes around. Why? It can all be traced back to Ben.

Along comes Eloise Hawking, whose existence is apparently enough to move Ben to kill his own, personal Jesus.

It’s at Locke’s mere mention of Eloise that Ben grabs the aforementioned orange cord, wraps it around John’s neck, and coolly waits for him to breathe his last gasp.

There is much speculation as to who this Eloise character is. Remember that hot, Rambo-outfitted blonde chick who threatens to kill Daniel Faraday back in episode three? Well, it seems her name is Elly (which could be short for Eloise, right?). Also, she seems to be allied with Charles Widmore.

Ah, Widmore. Clearly J.J. Abrams and the Gang want us to like him a little. He, too, makes a convincing case of why Locke is the redeemer of the Island. And, in what is almost always a surefire trick of TV to get the audience on the good side of a character, Widmore makes us laugh — if only briefly.

We learn it’s Widmore who’s responsible for the Jeremy Bentham alias. As he provides a new identity and passport to a confused Locke, explaining that this new name is a reference to an old English philosopher, he says: “Your parents had a sense of humor when they named you. Why can’t I?”

Oh, and Widmore’s the guy who sets John globetrotting around to convince the Oceanic Six to go back. Need a vacation? Don’t worry, Lost can take you around the world in under 18 minutes. We visit Sayid in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. We are whisked up to New York City to watch John have a brief conversation with Walt that essentially amounts to:

Locke: “Hey dude, what’s up?”
Walt: “Chillin’. How’s my dad?
Locke: (Pause) “I think he’s relaxing on a big boat somewhere.”
Walt: “Oh, cool.”
Locke: “Peace.”
Walt: “Peace.”

Um, OK. Then it’s off to LA, where a truly Lost-ian coincidence brings an almost-shot-and-car-accident-killed John to Jack’s hospital. Jack’s welcome was not a warm one. Ditto Kate, who disses John with a “gee, you’ve really evolved, huh?” comment. Asylum-dwelling, sphinx-doodling Hurley’s a no-go, too, first dismissing Locke as a hallucination, but then just plain dismissing him.

Locke, dejected and feeling like a failure, resigns himself to suicide. He pens that heart-wrenchingly concise suicide note addressed to Jack, grabs his self-immolating equipment and…we’re back where this recap began.

Of all the episodes this season, this one was the most satisfying from a storyline perspective. The pace was quick, it didn’t get too caught up in dropping arcane, red-herring numbers and figures, and it brought us a staggering climax to the Locke story that’s been slow-brewing all season. His death — and subsequent rebirth — brought a whole new batch of painfully unresolved questions. And it hurts so good.

It’s not often that David Letterman lets his viewers behind his wise-ass veil to see the salt-of-the-earth Midwestern guy he really is. His first post-9/11 monologue was one example. More recently, his peacemaking with Mary Hicks—mother of the late, great comic Bill Hicks—showed Letterman to be a real mensch, contrite for a wrong committed more than 15 years before.

The controversy between Letterman and Hicks is the stuff of comedy legend. Hicks had appeared on Letterman’s show many times, always funny, sharp, and sometimes a little edgy. But on October 1, 1993, what would have been Hicks’ last appearance was thought to be too edgy, and got cut—reportedly the only performance ever removed from Letterman’s show.

On January 30, 2009, that performance finally aired.

Hicks died of pancreatic cancer not long after that unfortunate episode, on February 26, 1994, exactly 15 years ago. He called himself “Chomsky with dick jokes,” and spoke of spirituality and embracing humanity like a New Age guru (an option kyboshed by his legendary love of cigarettes and booze). But he showed no patience for obnoxious, dim-bulb audiences. Fans love that about him.

It is a great testament to Bill Hicks that he is still respected by his fellow comics and revered by discerning comedy fans. His CDs and DVDs still fly off the shelves. Several biographies and compilations of his material have been published, he’s been the subject of academic research, tributes are held in his honor, and Hicks goods are a cottage industry.

The question is, why? Why is Bill Hicks so popular today when he never got the recognition his talent demanded during his lifetime? Sure, he was and remains something of a demigod in the U.K., but American audiences never gave him his due, while lesser comics found unmitigated success. (As biographer Cynthia True noted in American Scream, a week after Hicks died, Carrot Top received an American Comedy Award.)

Maybe his timing was off. Not his comedic timng—that was always impeccable. But being a political comic with a sharp leftist bent was not safe or convenient in the Reagan/Bush years when Hicks’ star was on the ascent.

His appreciation for drug use—encouraging those willing to open their minds and just say yes—was off kilter with a nation pledged to “just say no.” He asked why TV news never covers “positive drug stories”:

“Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration and that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and you are the imagination of yourself. Here’s Tom with the weather!”

When Gordon Gekko was telling America that greed is good, and Americans were believing it—continuing unto our current nightmare—Hicks was reminding his audience that the ability to buy and sell things is no measure of success.

And long before President Obama made America post-racial (*wink*), maybe Hicks’ take on race relations, vis-à-vis the Rodney King riots, was too discomforting to mainstream audiences.

San Francisco-based comic and playwright Kurt Weitzmann says Hicks’ comedy was an act of courage in the Reagan years.

“Hicks was fearless in stating his point of view. When you’re telling jokes to a room full of strangers in a comedy club, trying to make them laugh with a definite political slant that usually goes against the belief structure of a good half of the room, your logic must be rock solid and your jokes must be brilliant. His act was both rock solid and brilliant,” Weitzmann says.

Yet despite the difficulty in getting his message into the mainstream, Hicks maintains and even expands his fan base. And his effect on other comics continues. Kevin Kataoka, a very clever and highly successful comic in his own right, says his early contacts with Hicks provided a foundation for his career that followed. “He praised my ‘bad ventriloquist’ joke that I treasure for that reason,” Kataoka says. “He made me realize that he didn’t want my act to mimic his—something comics don’t get—but to be honest to what makes you truly unique and funny.”

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of Hicks’ brilliance is the staying power of much of his material. “My political jokes are old in two weeks. Hicks’ stand up after 15 years,” says Tina Dupuy, a Los Angeles-based comic and writer. “He hasn’t told a joke since the Lorena Bobbit case, and still no one can follow him.”

Dupuy’s position finds ample proof all over the internet. Gays in the military still an issue? Rush Limbaugh said some stupid and inflammatory jackass thing for no good goddamn reason? New Kids on the Block are selling gutless, soulless pop to adoring fans (again!) while music that matters is pushed to the margins? The U.S. military is plodded down in the desert somewhere, making war on people we claim to be helping? Hicks’ material is still relevant, still on target, and still hard-hitting. And funny.

But Hicks’ brilliance goes beyond taking the day’s news and spinning it into comedy gold. Like Kataoka says, it has to do with being honest with yourself and with your audience, being true to your reality and letting the humor come from that naked place. Hicks did that. And beyond honesty, he committed to it with love.

Bill Hicks was 32 when he died. That just feels wrong.

And so it begins. Again.

Episode six not only felt like starting over, it also felt like the season finally, and in some ways literally, got off the ground. Yes, it opens with the now-iconic scene of Jack’s eye opening, and we pan out to see he’s lying in a jungly pile of green.

Yeah, we’re back.

After much impatience on our end, not to mention that of Ben and (in spirit) Locke, our favorite, core characters officially get back to where they once belonged.

In episode six, there was so much to sink one’s teeth into, it’s almost miraculous they were able to pack it all in. Where do we begin? Well, at the beginning of the end of the Oceanic Six’s off-island getaway (minus Aaron; we’ll get to that in a second).

The show had something for everyone: hot romance (how about that Kate and Jack kiss? Dayam!), reveals about Locke’s death, meaningful numbers, geography, mad scientist equations, WTF moments, unanswered questions, tears (OMG, that suicide note from Locke to Jack was a rough one), and even some laughter.  But one overarching theme was present throughout: are they effing nuts to want to go back? And it was a theme the Lost powers-that-be addressed with effective grace.

In a not-so-subtle reference to these characters’ willingness to blithely ignore life-threating warning signs, the clan follows church lady Eloise through a door marked “Caution, Do Not Enter, High Voltage.”  They arrive at a subterranean, vast room dominated by a giant pendulum swinging over a map of the world. It is surrounded by chalkboards covered in a scrawled snarl of calculus, geometry, algebra and scientific jibber jabber. And it’s here that we get one of the episode’s two true laughs:

JACK (to Ben): Did you know about this place?
BEN: No, I did not.
JACK (to Eloise): Is he lying?
ELOISE: Probably.

Thus begins Eloise’s rapid-fire enumeration of explications, numbers, charts and graphs. The whole thing strained my pause-button finger almost to paralysis. The Lost creators seem to cater to the obsessives; they know we’re going to rewind, pause, watch and rewind again. They know we avid watchers are looking for hidden clues and Easter eggs, and they love toying with us. Cut it out!

The sum of Eloise’s convoluted monologue that we learn how the troupe is going to return: yep, it’s another plane. Flight 316 from Los Angeles to Guam.

Now. I know Lost has never been predicated on believability. It’s science fiction of the highest order. But, miraculously, the show always manages to address our reluctance to suspend disbelief on an almost-psychic level.

Example: just as we’re all like “No way would crash survivors ever get on an airplane that’s bound to go down before reaching its destination,” the show speaks to us. Eloise says to Jack (and, by proxy, us): “Stop thinking about how ridiculous it is and start asking yourself whether or not you believe it’s going to work. That’s why it’s called a leap of faith, Jack.”

And if Eloise weren’t persuasive enough, it’s Ben who manages to win over Jack with a story of Thomas the Apostle. It boils essentially down to: seeing is believing, and soon you will see. Soon you will believe. So let’s get going already.

And wouldn’t you know it, they do. But not before tying up a few loose ends: Kate (mysteriously) rids herself of Aaron, Jack and Kate have that much-anticipated deep-throat kiss, Jack makes his peace with Locke (kind of), Hurley is sprung from lockup and Sayid (now a convicted criminal) is police-escorted onto the plane, Kate-style.

Another loose end is tied up once they’re on the plane: how in the heck are they going to end up on the Island? Enter pilot Frank J. Lapidus. Serendipity strikes again.

And almost as quickly as these are tied up, we get another “huh?” element added to the mix. Once Kate, Hurley and Jack are reunited on the Island, they are greeted by that unforgettable blue Volkswagen Bus. The driver emerges, gun pointed at them: Jin, decked out in Dharma Initiative gear.

Boom.

Up next: is John Locke really dead or what? Details at 9 PM Eastern, next Wednesday.

Another ass-kicking heroine explores what it means to be human: Dollhouse (FOX, Fri., 9/8c) joins Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX, Fri., 8/7c) and Battlestar Galactica (SCIFI, Fri., 10/9c) in a familiar quadrant of the science fiction universe. Dollhouse’s automatons are physically human, not machines, but, judged by this week’s pilot, that twist might be about all the show offers.

Created by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Joss Whedon and starring Buffy’s troubled slayer, Eliza Dushku, Dollhouse should have a built-in cult fan base. Its premise lives up to its pedigree; its execution—so far—does not. A shadowy, illegal organization maintains a stable of men and women (mostly women, all beautiful) whose minds have been made blank via fancy computer programming and who the company can “imprint” with various personae to hire out as prostitutes, killers, chefs, whatever wealthy clients require. But one doll, Echo (Dushku), isn’t entirely forgetting her memories between jobs. Cue meditations on personality, individuality and memory, and the reprise of the classic humanity vs. technology and mind vs. matter dialectics.

Flinty ex-cop Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) is trying to convince himself that the Dollhouse might sometimes help its clients, or at least not get them killed, and indignant maverick FBI agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) is investigating the organization without support from his supervisors; insert a Wire-y look at government’s failures and the inherent flaws of institutions here.

So far Dollhouse has only hinted at those sweeping themes—and so far it’s been clumsy about it. It’s a portentous slog broken up by gratuitous action scenes and layered with oblique lines that beg to be taken as weighty epigrams. Maybe that’s just first-episode awkwardness and the show will live up to its lead-in, the underrated Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Now resuming its second season, Sarah Connor forsakes the movie franchise’s Arnoldian bulk and bumble to pick up where Blade Runner left off: the machines are nearly human. Of course, here the machines have grown into rebel robots who rule an apocalyptic future and visit our era to track and kill mankind’s savior, high school student John Connor (Thomas Dekker). But as that plays out, we get to watch a guardian girl-robot (Summer Glau) seem to develop emotions and a conscience and early robo-prototypes ascend the binary ladder to sentience. The martially maternal title character (Lena Headey, reprising Linda Hamilton’s role) keeps chaos at bay, or did until this week’s mid-season restart.

Throughout the series, Sarah Connor has rose ably to the role of the promised child’s mother and protector; now, she’s reduced to needing the encouragement of imaginary conversations with her son’s dead father-from-the-future—a crutch made all the more pathetic by the woeful casting of pretty but unimposing Jonathan Jackson. Hopefully the rest of the season will return Connor to her old toughness, and iron its convoluted who-built-the-robots and who-can-we-trust plotlines into something that will garner enough viewers to keep the show on the air.

If not, there’s still the critically-acclaimed Battlestar Galactica, which resumed its writers’ strike-interrupted fourth season last month. Sentient robo-slaves called Cylons revolted against their human masters, in, yes, an apocalyptic war. The handful of humans who remain find their mythic Earth —and deal with Cylons who masquerade as human, Cylons who don’t know they’re Cylons, and Cylon-human hybrids. With an assortment of strong female leads—the 1978 series’ Boomer and Starbuck have been recast as women—the show has touched on genocide, religious fanaticism, terrorism, and unjust war. Pity it keeps forgetting what it means that a slave revolt started it all.

“Well, let’s get started.” And so it was a beginning that comprised the end of last night’s episode of Lost. As the show so adeptly does, episode five left us with one hell of a cliffhanger:  Ben, Sun and Jack — and Desmond, who came on his own mission — convened in a candle-lit church, hosted by none other than the mysterious “Eloise” we’ve heard so much about. It seems Daniel Faraday’s mother has something spiritual and mysterious in store for them (Locke’s funeral, perhaps?).

It was an episode of many reunions, both happy and not-so. The smoke monster, Lost’s B-moviest of “characters” — made his triumphant return to the island, claiming the life of two Frenchmen. A not-dead Jin reunited with the increasingly emotional Sawyer and his island friends, and Locke took a painful fall down a well and ran into Jack’s dad (also Claire’s, lest you forget!).

It was in some ways the most linear of episodes (there were no actual story-line flashbacks) and least (what’s with all the languages — French, English and Korean?). It was one of ever-changing loyalties. Ben convinces his would-be murderer, Sun, to come along to the Island; Kate decides Jack really isn’t on her side; Charlotte, the unofficial star of the episode, tells us her beloved Daniel had many years ago warned her to never come back to the island. And then she died.

Few reveals were made, but the new details we did get were juicy ones. Jack’s dad has been on the island this whole time, seemingly waiting to lead Locke to his imminent martyrdom. Eloise Hawking is in cahoots with Ben (again, who doesn’t this guy have power over). Charlotte spent childhood years on the island, which her mother told her never actually existed, thus inspiring Charlotte’s life’s work of proving her wrong.

The moments leading up to Charlotte’s death were some of the most sweetly sad Lost has yet seen. The flashes had clearly taken their toll on her brain, and so she began mumbling incoherent thoughts. Among them: “You know what mom would say about you marrying an American;” “Turn it up, I love Geronimo Jackson;” and her dying words: “I’m not allowed to have chocolate before dinner.”

We, as Lost viewers, are used to getting our treats in a mixed-up chronological order. It’s what entices us to sit through the equivalent of plot-line vegetables — seriously, network TV should not require so much on-screen translation — and so greatly rejoice in those sweet reveals.

So, let’s get started getting back to the island shall we? See you at Episode Six.

After The Wire perfected a new urban social realism, and CSI (and its offshoots) took Law and Order’s procedural drama to absurd technical heights, the cop show had to get a new angle. The answer: Police the realm of the spirit and cast a non-American English-speaking actor as a brainy detective with a life-changing problem and no easy love interest, and watch him struggle to make sense of life and of time. This is the strategy taken by both Life and Life on Mars.

The past week saw two metaphysical detective dramas return. After a seven-week break in its second season, Life’s Zen detective Charlie Crews resumed unraveling why he’d been framed for a triple murder (NBC, Wed., 8/9c). After an out-of-order episode aired last week, Life on Mars (ABC, Wed., 10/9c) finally delivered the belated conclusion to its mid-November mid-season cliffhanger and brought its contemporary cop, Sam Tyler, a step closer to figuring out the nature of reality-and why he’s stuck in 1973.

Life is the more straightforward of the two. Los Angeles detective Charlie Crews (played cucumber-cool by London’s Damian Lewis) spent twelve years in prison for allegedly killing his business partner and his wife and son. By the time DNA evidence exonerated him, his friends and family had turned against him, and he’d been brutalized by inmates with grudges against the police, fallen hopelessly behind on technological matters, and found comfort in Zen Buddhism. Crews is slowly piecing together why he was set up as a killer, sporadically pining for his since-remarried ex-wife, and gingerly dealing with his partner-in-policework Dani Reese (The L Word’s Sarah Shahi), whose no-longer secret boyfriend is their captain and whose father is connected to the set-up. Zen gives Crews a wealth of  koans to use as ambiguous comebacks—and a sense of peace and interconnectedness that keeps Crews calm as he faces the fact that he’s been screwed out of life (which his $50 million settlement doesn’t nearly make up for.)

Based on a British series of the same Bowie-inspired name, the David E. Kelley-initiated Life on Mars (currently helmed by Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg, the trio behind the short-lived but watchable writer-can’t-go-home-again drama October Road) has a lot to live up to. Dubliner Jason O’Mara—he’ll pass for The Wire’s Sheffield-Irish Dominic West if you squint—plays Sam Tyler. A detective with New York’s fictitious 125th Precinct, Tyler was hit by a car when rushing to investigate a case. When he gets up, he’s still Sam Tyler of the 125th, but it’s 1973. Is he in a coma in 2008 dreaming that it’s 1973, or does his head injury just make him think so? Is something even stranger going on, or is this just how strange life is anyway?

The coma explanation initially seems most likely; that turned out to be the truth in the BBC version, from which the ABC show is already diverging. Within that framework, Tyler goes about his police duties as he tries to get back to 2008 by learning whatever life lessons or enacting any time-traveling plot-changes the universe is demanding of him. He dreams of his 2008 love and fellow detective, Maya (Lisa Bonet)—we assume the allusion to the Hindu concept of maya as a veiling, illusory reality is intentional—while maintaining a careful distance with his 1973 animas, a pioneering lady cop who serves as his confidant (Gretchen Mol) and a sagely hippie neighbor who opens his mind (Tanya Fischer). He encounters his parents, his young self, future mentors and criminals, real or products of his mind.

1973’s primitive technology is a continual source of amusement for Tyler; 1973’s police force, less so. Michael Imperioli plays a detective who thinks Tyler stole a promotion that should have been his. Harvey Keitel, in the casting coup of the century, nearly reprises his Bad Lieutenant role by playing the hard-drinking, suspect-beating station captain. If the show is largely missing the opportunity to revisit the crime-infested, recessionary New York that may be the future, it balances an infatuation of the style of 1973 (in terms of both visible fashion and a late-hippie aura of freedom) with a rear-view moral righteousness that rarely exceeds its place. Sam Tyler is the voice of progress and tolerance, yet he’s painfully aware that 2008 is little better than 1973. When he dusts himself off after being hit by that car, he barely registers that the housing projects that had surrounded him have been replaced by rubble and by billboards announcing that new apartments will be available on the site in 1974; it’s only when he sees the World Trade Center in the distance that he begins to understand the full magnitude of what’s happened. He rails against his colleagues’ treatment of women, gays, minorities and anti-war protesters; but when he speaks against the war in Vietnam, he also means the war in Iraq, and he has to hint to 1973 of horrors yet to come.

Life is, unsurprisingly, a bit more detached: the closest we get to a sociopolitical history is watching Crews’s former cellmate, pension-raiding ex-CEO Ted Early (Adam Arkin) humbly teaching business school and managing Crews’s money during a recession.

Next week, both shows deal with crimes against musicians and try to figure out what the Russians have to do with their heroes’mysteries. We’ll be hoping that Life on Mars, with all its shadow-dwelling robots and shadowy conspiracies, isn’t going to start emulating Lost and its nonsensical twists, but will continue probing inner and outer realities; and that Life will more fully communicate its Zen mindfulness as its arrow approaches its bullseye. A good detective or two of the human experience might be just what we need.

The little preacher who poked around with Sideshow Bob back in the day says he no longer has those pesky, God-forsaken homoerotic urges that led to his demise in November of 2006—he’s worked through them.

Ted Haggard recently told Larry King that he considers himself to be “heterosexual with issues.” How. Convenient. Forget the gay sex. Forget Mike Jones, the male prostitute who first went public with Haggard’s hypocrisy. Forget Grant Hass, the 20-year-old male who now says that Haggard masturbated in front of him two years ago. Forget the fact that Haggard confirms all of these allegations. Forget it all.

Haggard is back to announce that he’s fundamentally heterosexual, y’all—just the way God likes us: normal, with a few “issues” to boot. Amen.

Actually, Haggard is hitting up the media circuit to promote “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” a documentary by Alexandra Pelosi (daughter of Nancy Pelosi) that debuted on HBO late last month. If you missed it, no worries. HBO will give it plenty of face time throughout the month of February. See the trailer below:

The film follows the months when Haggard, his wife, and children were banished from the state of Colorado and sent into “exile” in Arizona, where they either bummed a place to live from “nice strangers” or holed up in a cheapy motel.

We see Haggard repeatedly try to find a new job—to no avail, as his tainted reputation always gets the final say. So the man who once headed up a church of 14,000 congregants ends up working as a door-to-door health insurance salesman. And he’s not exactly making any money while he’s at it.

“I’m a loser, a first-class loser,” Haggard admits.

He’s been aware of his homosexual urges since high school, he says. When asked why he kept it a secret for so long, he says, “I feared my friends would reject me, abandon me, kick me out, and that the church would exile and excommunicate me—and that’s exactly what happened.”

At one point, Haggard talks to the camera while driving and sucking on—of all things—a long, flavored Popsicle. And out of the other side of his mouth he later claims that he’s no longer at risk for gay play. (Who’s he fooling?)

Haggard participated in a portion of the “restoration” process arranged for him by the New Life Church after the Mike Jones scandal broke and has continued therapy. He claims that the therapy has helped him work past the compulsions that made him dial up male escorts for sex. He admits, however, that he’s not fully restored—hence, those “issues”—but he’s fully happy with the relationship he shares with Gayle, his wife of 30 years.

When asked what he would be, if he had to choose between being gay and being evangelical—Lord knows you can’t be both!—Haggard answers, “Well, I am what I am. I am an Evangelical.” Of course.

Peek-a-boo! We see you, Ted Haggard.

But Haggard won’t come out—not without his bible at his side. His Bible is his weapon and he knows he can’t win any holy war without it. Problem is: The Bible condemns gay sex. So the only way to escape being the “loser” he is today is to cling to God’s truth, and deny, deny, deny his own.

Haggard may regain some popularity with his fellow churchgoers this way, but his strategy is ultimately flawed. Falling in line with unjust church propaganda is no different from falling to one’s knees in defeat. And a denial of one’s sexuality results in a loss of self, so—Mr. Hetero has weaseled himself into a lose-lose situation.

“I’m a loser, a first-class loser,” he says.

Well, at this rate, Haggard may be onto something.

“The Trials of Ted Haggard” shows repeatedly throughout February.

No Love Lost Here.

Now, that’s more like it.

You know how when you’re about to break up with someone, and though you haven’t yet said anything somehow they sense it and suddenly become everything you want them to be?  Or instead they pull away a bit, just to see if you’ll stick around to see what’s next? Lost has been testing our love so far this season, but it clearly wants us back.

After a pretty “meh” Episode Three, wherein the two Big Events of the show were finding out that (shock!) Charles Widmore had been on the Island as a young man (was this really all that surprising?) and that the redhead chick got another nose bleed, this week’s Lost roared out out of the doghouse with a thoroughly compelling — and thoroughly confusing — Episode Four.

The show sent many plotline valentines to its more romantic viewers. Kate told Jack “I have always been with you;” Jin (the love of Sun’s life) proved to be alive; Jack rescued a near-hysterical Kate from having to give up Aaron, and a teary-eyed Sawyer exhibited feelings of true love upon witnessing an island-rewind of Claire’s childbirth with Kate as de facto midwife.

It was jam-packed with bits of nearly every major Lost story: the combustible Kate-Jack-Sawyer love triangle; the clandestine Kate masquerading as mother to Claire’s son;  the vengeful “Kill Ben” version of Sun; Team Jack; Team Locke; Team Ben; Team Faraday and the time-warping Islanders; Others, French others and other Others. The one big missing piece was the Desmond-Widmore chronicles — and thank God for this small mercy. We got more than enough of that in Episode Three.

Each story in Episode Four had at least one reveal: Ben is trying to take Aaron away from Kate! Hurley really is in jail (orange jumpsuit and all)! Jin is Alive! Rousseau is back (and young)! Locke may turn out to be a martyr after all! The redhead isn’t the only one on the Island getting nosebleeds! The French settlers arrived via raft! Jack continues to fall for Ben’s ruse! And so on. (An aside: what is it about Ben that makes everyone fall prey to his charms? It certainly isn’t his deathly pallor or his creepy, Hannibal Lecteresque manner of speaking.)

And just when you thought you’d gotten as much new information as you could handle, yet more Other Others show up. And they speak French without subtitles. And they find a barely conscious Jin floating in the ocean, Titanic-survivor style. And it’s, like, 30 years ago. Even poor, shipwrecked Jin seems completely (and I guess appropriately) lost when he learns that one of his rescuers is a Frenchwoman named Rousseau.

It was almost too much to take. Even the most devoted of fans seemed paralytically perplexed: the internet chatter was eerily quiet following last night’s airing. Perhaps everyone needed a little time to process the massive slab of new information (this writer included) before making any comments. No wonder ABC kept flashing the “Lost Untangled” teasers in the bottom-right corner of the screen throughout.

An in-case-you-missed it tidbit for the DVR crowd: if you skipped over the ads you missed a promo for a new ABC show called The Unusuals. And guess who’s in it? Harold Perrineau, Jr, the guy who plays Michael in Lost. True, actors have been known to have more than one job at once, but this could be seen as a clue into the whereabouts of “Michael” .

Of course, it wouldn’t be an episode of Lost without some aggravatingly answered questions. The Oceanic Six is trying our patience: either get off your collective ass and decide to go back to the island, or don’t. We’re sick of waiting around. You have one week.

The week in TV offered a roundup of American masculinity as Bruce Springsteen slid his crotch into the faces of Super Bowl viewers around the world, and The Office’s Michael learned how to take it like a man.

The Super Bowl lineup was fitting for a deepening recession and a new Democratic administration. The Arizona Cardinals aren’t just from John McCain’s state, they play in the sort of faceless suburb that’s been largely responsible for Republican victories in our recent past. And they have plenty of geriatric appeal. The Cardinals’ Glendale home fancies itself an antiques capital; founded in Chicago in 1898, they’re the longest-running team in football.

They’re not the Chicago Bears, but the Pittsburgh Steelers evoke the Democratic party’s old base. Family-owned, they call a gritty—but still-thriving—old manufacturing town home. Their logo, borrowed from US Steel and the American Iron and Steel Institute, calls to mind an era when America and its men made things, when the world economy was fueled not by unsound mortgages and Ponzi schemes but by mining and manufacturing. It’s fitting that the Steelers recovered from the Cardinals’ October surprise to win the game, and even more fitting that blue-collar bard Bruce Springsteen, fresh off playing the inauguration and winning a Golden Globe, played halftime.

Should we be relieved or disappointed that Springsteen’s short set didn’t include “Born in the USA”? The song is from that period when the Boss got his teeth capped and danced with Courtney Cox, and it feels almost like a cliché now—but its tale of a jobless vet is sadly timely. What we got instead was the hopeful side of Springsteen: the kid-with-a-dream-starting-a-band in “Tenth Avenue Freaze Out,” the adolescent desperation of “Born to Run,” the tenacious “Working On a Dream”—and “Glory Days,” sort of a “Born in the USA”-lite, minus the politics. But why play working class hero when you can pander to the audience by changing your lyrics to fit the sporting event, as Springsteen did by changing the baseball references in “Glory Days” to more football-appropriate (if nonsensical) chatter? And why ignite political controversy when there’s the important Super Bowl tradition of sexual quasi-controversy to maintain? Following the fine work Janet Jackson did with that wardrobe malfunction and Prince’s expert fondling of his phallic guitar, the prince of Asbury Park slammed crotch-first into a camera man. It was amusing, baffling, and unlikely to convince any of Springsteen’s skeptical fans that this wasn’t a sell-out

The hour-long Office special that followed the game celebrated the inauguration in its own way. Ever-diligent Dwight’s surprise fire drill—complete with real fire—went, unsurprisingly, horribly wrong, resulting in an office-wide panic that (coincidentally?) injured a few more cameramen, and in a heart attack for Stanley. Michael’s bumbling way to revive Stanley: “Barack is President! You are black!” Michael’s equally bumbling way to welcome him back as he recuperates: refuse to give him chocolate ice cream, explaining, “Racism is dead, you can have any kind of ice cream you want.”

To his credit, sort of, Michael realizes he’s a major source of stress contributing to his colleague’s cardiac problem, and tries to make up for it by holding a roast in his own honor so his employees can freely make fun of him. The idea backfires: their jokes crush him (and, most importantly, aren’t that funny). But Michael eventually pulls himself up by his bootstraps and once again takes responsibility, smoothing things over with his colleagues by roasting them. That, we learn on Super Bowl Sunday, is the American way: the self-made man dusts himself off, gets things done, and then pulls a questionable stunt for comedic effect.

Meanwhile, the Dunder Mifflin gang watches a bootleg video that provides a way for NBC to stuff an assortment of guest stars into this very special episode, thanks to an odd make-out scene between Jack Black and Cloris Leachman, proving that there are second acts in American lives.

Even though I’m not a big football fan, the Super Bowl last night was a lot of fun. In addition to the suspenseful, action-packed game, I watched all the great and not-so-great advertisements. Even in these tough economic times, there are companies shelling out the three million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad slot. (I’m not mad at them. Maybe these companies can teach the others some fiscal lessons?) And the ad themes have changed from luxury and free spending to budget cuts and few perks at the office. Even the car ads have seen a big shift, namely American cars are out (no bailout money spent on ads) and Japanese and German cars are in.

Speaking of German cars, Audi had a great ad, “The Chase,” using the Back to the Future movie theme. (The A6 is such a gorgeous car!)

And the Doritos “Crystal Ball” ad plays into the hard economic times and the lure of getting free chips! Don’t we all wish we had a crystal ball to predict the future.

And if you missed the Super Bowl ads, you can visit Super Bowl FanHouse, Super-Bowl Ads.com and even TIME magazine’s piece to see the crazy ads that provided just as much entertainment for some of us as the game.

Who is this Hot Blonde Rambo Lady, and Why is She So Angry?

So much for humor, semi-linear storylines and familiar faces. Episode three of Lost Season Five boldly went where it has always gone (albeit convolutedly) before.

Many of Lost’s detractors blame these confusing plotlines, unclear timelines, and too darn many characters for their lack of interest in the show. Clearly J.J. Abrams, et al, aren’t concerned about losing any viewers or gaining any new ones: all three of these elements were back with a vengeance this week.

The perplexing elements of this episode included, but were not limited to:

—A new hot blonde Rambo chick.

—A vegetative-state blonde chick in a coma somewhere near Oxford, England.

—A young, bellicose Charles Widmore.

—An old, evil Charles Widmore (seated next to a “Namaste” painting in his office, just to confuse the love-loving yogis in the fanbase).

—Latin-speaking Others.

—50-year flashbacks.

—50-year flashforwards.

—A newborn baby for Penny and Desmond (named Charlie! After late great boyfriend of Claire or Penny’s dad?).

—A toddler-age baby for Penny and Desmond (named Charlie! After late great boyfriend of Claire or Penny’s dad?).

Like any longterm relationship worth its salt, Lost asks a lot of its fans, and usually gives a lot in return. Our commitment to the series is bolstered by its complexity: we feel rewarded by our dedication to figuring out the enticingly complex stories and players. But this was just a little too much—especially without the comforting comic relief of Hurley and Sawyer (Hurley didn’t make an appearance in this episode at all, neither did Kate, Jack, Sun, or any of the Oceanic Six). The one, teensy tiny light moment came in the form of Sawyer’s recycled nickname for last week’s character-casualty: “Frogurt”. Otherwise, the story was all serious serious faces, frowns, and furrowed brows. No fun. The signature whooshing and climaxing Lost sound-effects didn’t even come with the payoff they usually bring.

A confession that will appall many a Lost fanatic: I even started to drift off to sleep halfway into the episode as Desmond made his way to Oxford. Yawn. I love the nerdy, academic stuff ‘n all, but all they gave us at the academic pillar was a dusty, abandoned, blocked off research room. Borrrring!

I will grant the episode this: Daniel Farraday, a character about whom I’d been on the fence, became a lot more interesting this week. Previously on Lost (heh heh), he’d been a one-dimensional, close-talking, bumbling science geek. I sensed there was something more to him, but what? Aha! He “did” something terrible to “that girl” (the aforementioned bed-ridden blonde woman).

The meager episode-ending kicker: a bloody nose of Daniel Farraday’s redheaded girlfriend. That’s what you give us as reason to tune in next week? Well, lucky for Lost, most of us probably will be tuning in again. But if they keep this up? Who knows. I can only hope that the writers were saving all their good jokes and plot twists for an amazing episode four.

Will Jack Go Back?

Even if the most popular TV show about a plane crash didn’t have its season premiere last night, plane crashes (or almost-crashes) would still be at the front of the collective conscious right now, thanks to last week’s miraculous crash landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. The American public is always drawn to the complex stories borne of a bumpy landing—real or imagined.

Millions of viewers tuned in last night to see the fate of the Oceanic Six, those left behind on the island, and those new kids who arrived via helicopter last season. The Season Five premiere wasted no time doling out a treat for the numbers-freaks in the Lost fanbase: an alarm clock goes off at 8:15—the same number of the flight that went down, Oceanic flight number 815. (And, according to the “Lostpedia,” 8:15 is also the time that Sayid kills someone in the Season Four finale.) Aha.

The hand that slaps the alarm clock’s off button belongs to Dr. Marvin Chang —the stoic, knowing host of those fuzzy, black-and-white, supposedly helpful Dharma Initiative instruction videos. Oh, and who is that among the Dharma station-construction-site hard-hat-wearing crew? It’s Daniel Faraday, the awkward Oxford physicist who seems to have the answer to all the crazy stuff happening with the time-shifts on the island “right now.”

As for more familiar faces, Jack, who once was the Captain Sully of Lost characters (the show’s hero, savior, picture of calm in a swirl of confusion) has long since had his denouement. And, paradoxically, it’s this downfall that has made him more of a hero in fans’ minds: something about his excessive, unflagging virtuosity made him less a fan favorite than, say, Locke  (whose morals sometimes were controversial) and Sawyer  (whose morals are only sometimes not controversial). But if this first episode is any indication, we’re rooting for Jack again, if only because in Season Four, we finally began to believe that Jack is human: even Jack can fall prey to the frailty of addiction, even Jack can make an embarrassment of himself in front of the woman he loves, even Jack can betray the better interests of those he cares about. Now that we’ve truly seen Jack’s lesser self, we are rooting for him to return to his better self.

When we first see Jack on the Season Five premiere, he’s the same bearded, beat-up, drugged-up wreck that he was in the Season Four finale. But it’s not long before he’s shaving the beard, becoming lucid, and seemingly heading in the direction of “doing the right thing”—albeit with his former nemesis, Benjamin Linus.

And, as has been happening with increasing frequency on Lost, the show is again veering into soap-operatic territory: John Locke (a.k.a. Jeremy Bentham) is dead—or is he? Ben Linus is the evil anti-hero—or is he? There are even hints that Jin might have survived the explosion on the freighter.

While Ben, Jack and Locke unsmilingly navigate these twists and turns, it sure is nice to get a reality check and some comic relief in the form of our favorite wisecracker, Sawyer, and the not-actually-a-stoner-but-sure-seems-like-one, Hurley—whose mere presence on the screen seems to summon laughter. Hats off to J.J. Abrams and crew for conjuring laughs in the moments that lead up to, include, and follow a pretty gross dishwasher-murder scene.

And no episode of Lost would be complete without the requisite science-geek, space-time-continuum metaphysical plot points that would have lost millions of Lost viewers long ago if it weren’t for some Lost characters themselves laughing at their utter implausibility. We can always count on Sawyer to be the voice of “you gotta be kidding me” reason on points such as the movement of the island and its “record-skipping” time disturbances. Without Sawyer to call B.S. on—and subsequently become convinced of —these seemingly preposterous notions, viewers like you and me would’ve changed the channel well before the finale of Season One.

If I was a betting woman (and believe me I am), I would bet a large sum that we’ll soon be seeing a reunion—if not an entirely happy one‚on the island. It’s simple math, really: at least half of the characters show signs of heading that way—Kate, Hurley, Ben, Jack—and over half of the episode’s screen time was devoted the island itself.

You wanna go double or nothing? I’ll see you next week.

"We Gotta Go Back, Kate!"

The time has come. January 2009 has loomed large for months; people all across the land have been looking forward to this moment with anticipation and hope for a new direction. Americans of varied races, creeds, ages, and beliefs are glued to their TV sets, rushing to Twitter, Tumblr and blog sites to spew their speculations, questions, and reactions.

Yes, my friends, the time has come: Lost is back.

Probably more than any other television show, Lost attracts a uniquely curious, insatiably voracious, unwaveringly devoted, and most of all, spoiler-wary viewer. (To wit, even Pop + Politics’ Managing editor, Tricia Romano, an avowed Lost devotee herself, wouldn’t allow me to send her this text till the very last minute.)

With that in mind, here’s a no-spoiler alert: you may safely read on. We’re merely here to apprise you of information that’s already out there — plus a little tease of what’s to come — without ruining all the fun.

As with all Lost content, many video clips have already gone viral: there are the two Season Five ”sneak peeks” as well as the trailer with the now-ubiquitous song by The Fray. And, there’s also something to be learned from the text at the Lost page at ABC.com.  So. Here’s what we (and by “we” I mean anyone with internet access) know:

• “They” are onto Kate and Aaron’s mother-son ruse. Some shadowy lawyers showed up at Kate’s door, demanding a blood test. She refused and abruptly took Aaron “on vacation.”
• The unlikely pairing of Jack Shephard and Benjamin Linus are desperate to recruit members of “the Oceanic 6″ to head back to “the island” with them.
• The “remaining survivors” are feeling the effects of the island’s space-time-continuum upheaval.

Without revealing too much more, I can confirm that the following elements are all present in the premiere:

• Plenty of bare-chested Sawyer sequences.
• Calm-voiced reasoning from Juliet.
  
• Numbers and figures that will have you rewinding your DVRs repeatedly.
• Flash-forwards.
• Flashbacks.
• Answered questions.
• Unanswered questions.
• A few new nicknames from Sawyer.
• At least one holy-sh**-no-way-that-can’t-be-possible revelation.
• Science-wonky explication that inspires much head-scratching.

As for whether Kate will respond to Jack’s now-famous plea: “We have to go back, Kate! We have to go back!” Well, that’s for me to know, and for you to find out.  Feel free to speculate in the comments section below. See you again the morning after the premiere.

The show that everybody loves to hate to vote but WAIT! — Did Crazy Paula clone herself on a whim, or is that a newbie at the judging table? — premiered last night.

America: Meet Kara DioGuardi, the new addition to the “American Idol” peanut gallery. She’s a one-gal songwriting machine who’s worked with the likes of Pink, The Pussycat Dolls, Xtina, and (oh boy!) Celine Di-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on . . .

The question is: Can she handle the Asian tap dancer with the impossible afro, or the bizarro freak with the emo bangs whose voice sounds more like a post-surgical moan, or Sideshow Frog, or the overzealous chick with the pink cowboy hat and, oh Lord, her damn scrapbook?

DioGuardi seemed to hold up well during last night’s recap of AI’s Phoenix auditions — that is, until a certain Seacrest-smitten bathing suit beauty bounced before her eyes. Then the claws came out.

Now, I can understand the logic behind Katrina Darrell’s bathing suit get-up. This ain’t an opera house. It’s “American Idol,” which generally churns out pop stars, with a little Gaiken on the side. And in the world of pop music, a whole lotta bod can sing! sing! sing! if you know what I mean. The vocals kinda-sorta-actually get in the way of the abs, and come-hither eyes, and legs, and chest, and public displays of undiagnosed personality disorders . . . so if girlfriend got the bod, why not flaunt it?

Simon didn’t seem to mind. Neither did Randy. Paula gave Darrell the OK to go onto Hollywood as well, but DioGuardi took offense. After busting out in song and attempting to upstage the so-called “Bikini Girl,” our new judge proved . . . absolutely nothing. Whose audition was this anyway?

Does the newbie judge not understand that “American Idol” is NOT a friggin’ talent show? Two words: Hello, Sanjaya. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously here.

This is a popularity contest.

And the best damn way to win a popularity contest is to be open. Honest. Approachable. Prove that you got nothing to hide — not even your backside.

So DioGuardi better check herself. If “Bikini Girl” is willing to show a little skin to win, then she ain’t going anywhere for a while.

Tune in tonight for two more hours of “American Ogle.” Roll your eyes. But you know you want to. (Hey, maybe we’ll see Seacrest try to high-five another blind guy this evening. Now that’s what I call television!)