Lost, Alias, and how ABC toys with my affections

Ah, yes...that time had come. It was Wednesday night, and I was all prepared to say goodbye to my little friends on the island and in the CIA. Mainly, because ABC had been running commericals all week proclaiming "The season finales of Lost and Alias- this Wednesday", and stupidly, I believed them.

I should know better than to do this. ABC has always had it in for me, starting with canceling Boston Legal for the rest of the season in favor of Grey's Anatomy which, while being a somewhat interesting show, has got to realize that we don't want to see our surgical interns acting like twelve-year-olds. I love my little brother dearly, but I don't want his peers operating on me!!! Anyhoo, they took that knife and twisted it last week when they announce that 8 Simple Rules was canceled. Now, I know it was hardly intelligent comedy, but really, what else did they have to put on on Friday nights?? Less than Perfect got to come back, and that didn't??? Even David Spade alone is funnier than half the cast of Less than Perfect. Grr. Let's just say the alphabet network and I have very rarely gotten along.

So I settle down to watch Lost. And it seems to be moving quite slowly. Frenchie comes back and goes all crazy and starts loading guns. Oh, and we learn who Alex is. Apparently, Frenchie was seven months pregnant when she crashed on the island (why do all these women travel so late in pregnancy?? Don't they know that's not great???), and gave birth to a little girl, Alex. But then a week later, Frenchie claims that "the black smoke came", which prompted my sister and I to remark "So there's no Pope?", and then the Others came and took Alex away from Frenchie.

Of course, this could have been the island chaptero f social services, because Frenchie is quite crazy (as evidenced by the machine gun she's holidng in her hands...freaky). Most of the smart castaways pretty much just roll their eyes and go "Okay, sure hon," but then the black smoke comes. Seriously, there's a big pillar of smoke coming from the center of the island. So they (???) follow it and discover that the black rock that we've been hearing about all season is actually a ship. What? Raise your hand if you saw that one coming.

Yeah, um, other than that, nothing much happens. Shannon looks moody, but perfectly coiffed. I want to see these perfectly put together girls start getting desperate and try to fashion tampons out of bamboo leaves. That w0uld be reality. Oh, and the group leaves on the raft. Big whup.

So I'm sitting there thinking, "Well, this really didn't clear anything up, except now I'm wondering about the black smoke. This kind of sucks as a finale," when (what do you know?) there's a commericial for next week's season finale of Lost. WHAT???? I just got worked up over nothing??? Grrr.

On to the next viewing choice of the evening, Alias. This one I was pretty convinced actually was the finale, because it was two hours, and again, ABC had been touting it as such for the past week. But no. This wasn't the real one either!!! I have to wait until next week (when they only give me an hour) to figure out what happens with the Rambaldi device and whether or not the world will end!!!! ARGH!!!

Just a couple of little details- Irina's alive, they found her cowering in a hold somewhere in Russia. Jack is still glowing, but now he's researching the Chernobyl incident and trying to figure out how to stop glowing. Irina hits Jack for trying to kill her, even though she's quite clearly alive. And she meets Nadia for the first time since giving birth. Awww...how sweet. I still can't figure that out, because she and Sydney look like they're exactly the same age. Oh, and Irina's sister Elena (Irina and Elena---haven't these people ever heard of normal names that don't sound exactly alike? What about Rachel? That's good, and doesn't sound like the rest of them!!) let loose the Rambaldi device and now the world is speeding towards armeggedon. But Vaughn proposed, which was so cute and so sweet and would have been perfect if it hadn't been on an army fighter jet.

So what did we learn this week? Don't trust ABC, it's come back to haunt you.