Right up my finale

The television season draws to a close this week, and for a couch potato, man am I exhausted. Never have a handful of shows drawn me in so thoroughly and put me through the emotional wringer. I'm talkin' about 24, House, LOST, and Alias here, people. Call me a worthless boob tube junkie, but this is storytelling at its finest--fascinating, empathetic characters in high-stakes conflict whose stories unfold with all the tensile elegance of an acrobatic act. I will forever be amazed by the minds that craft these tales, fashioning worlds from the fabric of imagination, and since I can only imagine possessing such creative "skills", permit me a few awestruck observations.

~ Alias still rules. No other show so perfectly strikes the chord between real-world drama and out-of-this-world Drama. You care deeply for the characters and feel certain they must live next door or go to your gym, but they save the world in pink wigs and stilettos. They have family issues, they have baggage from the past, they have pain and loss and heartache. and they jump from jets to James Bond theme music. sure it stretches the bounds of believability at times, but who doesn't want to see that envelope pushed? If I want to see real life I'll watch the news... wait, that's even more sensationalized. don't get me started on local station "news" teasers.
oh, and one more thing: no other show rocks the CLIFFHANGER so hard it's petrifying. another perfect example of how the real drama is in the everyday: this season's finale had Sydney and co. facing down the Apocalypse... yet the scariest moment was the one most people have felt first-hand: the split second before a car crash.

~ LOST is the new contender. This show gets the award for most effective finale from start to finish. The series' narrative mode of flashbacks intertwined with scenes from the present was woven more and more tightly as the two-hour episode progressed. By the end, we finally saw all the back-stories converge, as the passengers boarded the fateful flight and casually acknowleged those who would become their closest bonds. I couldn't help thinking of September 11, how those people must have behaved the same way, bringing all their luggage - literal and figurative - into the crowded aircraft that would carry them to their defining moment.
chills. goosebumps. that hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach. any show that can effect all that deserves the praise it's received. can't wait to see where it goes next season.

~ Greg House is the man. not only because his name is Greg, and the love of his life is named Stacey... (insert Wayne and Garth twilight zone sound effects here), but because he solves medical mysteries and personal problems with equal verve and panache. if only he could get his own life figured out the way he has everyone else's. The finale was maybe the funniest episode yet, so tautly written you could tune a piano to it. Here's my favorite line from the last episode of this season's most quotable show: when another doctor refers to House's old flame as "the woman you used to live with", he replies, "That's her indian name; on her driver's license it's Stacey."

~ 24. Who didn't feel for the man with no feelings (at least when it's all on the line) as he considered his reward for saving the world 4 times over - imprisonment, torture, infamy, a slow and lonely death - with the same steely resolve and uncompromised sense of duty that he shows all day, every really-bad-day? and even though it was painfully obvious, who didn't hold their breath for a moment when our hero lay fallen, faking his death to exonerate his country? and who, who among you, didn't want to hear President Palmer say that obnoxious Bronx accents have been declared an act of treason?
well maybe not that last part, but I tell you what I didn't want to hear: President Palmer almost blowing the whole plot to save Jack by having a casual conversation on a cell phone with the presumed-dead Bauer, during which he says--in a crowded hallway full of politicians--"You realize that after you hang up the phone, for all intents and purposes, Jack Bauer is dead?"
Why not call a freakin' press conference, David?? this was one time you needed Sherry, Mr. President. that's all states' stand.