Wednesday Night Drama Queen: Idol, Lost, and Alias

Thanks to my new dual-signal DVR, for the first time all season I was able to record ‘Lost’ and ‘American Idol’ at the same time. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for this recent purchase because tonight’s episodes of ‘Lost’ and ‘American Idol’ were both full of must-see-moments! ‘Alias’ also turned out to be less predictable than I’d anticipated. If you happened to catch any of the three you’re probably going to know what I’m talking about. If you DVRed any of these shows and have yet to watch them, read no further.

Ok, don’t say I didn’t warn you! Wednesday night’s episodes of ‘Lost’, ‘Alias’ and ‘American Idol’ each ended short one person. ‘Lost’ bid farewell to Libby (not a huge shock – we did see her get shot twice in the stomach at the end of last week’s episode). Anna Espinoza (a.k.a. Evil-Sydney) was killed off in ‘Alias’ and ‘American Idol’ shocked viewers when rocker, Chris Daughtry was sent home.

Here’s my list of Wednesday night’s best dramatic moments:

American Idol – Ryan Seacrest - It doesn’t take much for him to get on my nerves. When he just does his job and hosts the show, I’m ok with him. Go ahead and make a crack at Simon’s too-tight shirts if you want, Seacrest. The banter between host and judge is always a good time-filler but the stuff he pulled Wednesday night with the elimination announcement just irritated me. We’re down to final four contestants on the show. Three of them will go on to the next round and one’s going home. Its safe to say these four people are completely on edge. Their futures as musicians are on the line.

Seacrest delivers the first shock by announcing that Elliot and Taylor are in the top two and that Katherine and Chris are in the bottom two. After the commercial break, Seacrest begins the usual “are you surprised to be here - people thought you would be the top two, etc etc” and then almost without warning he sort of casually mentions “Chris, you’re going home tonight”. No “America Voted and…” lead up. The guy was completely stunned, and so was Katherine. Usually there’s at least a little bit of build up to the official moment of elimination where the bottom two contestants take a breath and prepare themselves for the worst but apparently there was no time for that tonight. Chris just stood there with a half-shocked/half-disappointed look on his face while they rolled his Journey-to-AI montage. I don’t know if the producers urge Seacrest to mess with the contestant’s heads for shock value or if he just does it for kicks but either way, its pretty obnoxious. Then again, it did give me some A.I. material to talk about so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. Reality TV probably wouldn’t be worth watching if we didn’t get to see people get their emotions toyed with on live television.

Alias – Bring in the clone-evil-Sydney then take her out two episodes later - Just when I thought evil-Sydney would make it to the finale for a big Sydney-on-Sydney showdown (a cage-match would have been cool), Good-Sydney puts a bullet through her head! I can’t say I’m disappointed though. The evil-clone thing is totally season 2. In fact, did anyone else think Vaughn’s “Sydney and I were never in Cartagena” remark was a bit reminiscent of Sydney’s pre-faceoff conversation with evil-Francie in the season finale of season 2? I sort of wish Vaughn had said “Sydney doesn’t like coffee ice-cream”. Then again maybe I’ve just watched way too much Alias. Either way, Anna Espinoza is dead. Another story-line completed. We can cross Anna off the list of unresolved plots that fizzled out in previous seasons (she’s right there under Nadia and Rene.) From the previews it looks like Sark might be next.

Lost – “I’m sorry I forgot the blankets” – who didn’t tear up when Hurley said his good-bye to his almost-girlfriend as she took her final breaths. My heart broke a little for the guy. Oh yeah, and I have three words for Michael. WTF! Seriously… he seems hell-bent on whatever it is he thinks he’s doing. I think most of us are assuming that he’s made some sort of deal with the Others to get Walt back but I don’t think there’s any coming back for him after this. I suspect he’s going to see this thing through to the end even if it means getting himself killed (which I think is where his mission is going to end up). Though I do have to say, it was pretty priceless seeing the look on his face when he learned that Libby didn’t die right away.

Oh yeah, and Ana Lucia died. I think that’s worth a mention though it wasn’t all that dramatic as it was pretty much assumed that she was a goner.

Though there weren’t happy endings all around, I do think the level of drama was about perfect for this phase in the series. Each show is about to wrap up so I think we can expect a few more twists and turns before the finales.

---

What did you think of Wednesday Night's TV offering? Let me know in the comments section below!