Previously, on LOST: WTF?

Can anyone clue me in as to what the hell happened on "Lost" this past week? It's not that I missed the episode. I watched it. I even understood most of it, though doing so required the use of my exceptional deductive skills. But I have no idea what any of the Korean characters said. The reason I have no idea what they said is because the people at ABC are a bunch of inept douchebags.

The episode focused on the two Korean characters -- a husband and wife, plus a few other Korean characters that were involved in explaining their back story. How they ended up married, on that particular plane, etc. As you would expect, they speak Korean. As you would also expect, the producers of the show thoughtfully provided English subtitles for those of us who like the show, but as typical Americans, don't speak Korean. These thoughtfully provided subtitles allow us to understand what the hell is going on.

ABC, in their single-minded dedication to providing the latest in Accu-weather forecasts, provided a scrolling update that was so detailed in its coverage of the current weather situation I fully expected to see a rolling counter that was keeping a running tab as to how many snowflakes had fallen to the ground so far.

In an effort to make sure that they had our full attention, they made the scrolling letters 2 inches high, all upper case, and white. You can see what's coming, right? They also took extreme care to place them directly over the Korean subtitles, which, unfortunately, were only about 3/4 of an inch high and the same exact shade of white.

So instead of a gripping dialogue between a corrupt father-in-law telling his new son-in-law to kill the foreman of one of his factories, I got:



Evil Father-in-law: THERE IS A WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM WEDNESDAY EVENING TO THURSDAY EVENING UNTIL 6:00AM EST

Son-in-law: SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP WEDNESDAY NIGHT-WITH PERIODS OF SNOW EXPECTED TO PERSIST THROUGH THURSDAY. THE SNOW MAY BE HEAVY AT TIMES.

Needless to say, it sucked the drama out of the scene.

This continued, non-stop, throughout the entire episode. It wasn't so bad as long as there was no Korean chit chat, but when there was, it was completely maddening. I realize that it's a weather advisory, and some people might actually care, but you'd think that by now they'd have the technology to realize I'm 200 miles from where this particular weather is, and right at that moment, I didn't give a shit about anything other than what these two guys on my TV were talking about.

Now for a little rant.

I don't know who the marketing fuckstick was who came up with the brilliant idea of putting pop-up advertisements for other shows on during the show you're watching, but he should be strung up by his testicles and flayed with a rusty cheese grater. They are the most annoying things ever created. (With the possible exception of the woman in the next row who clips her finger nails for 30 minutes every morning. Honestly, I think she has to be clipping into bone at this point.)

The WB has adopted these damn things wholeheartedly. Some of them literally take up half the screen. I realize the reason they are there is because too many of us are completely skipping the commercials with our DVRs, but these pop-ups are annoying enough to make me seriously consider not watching television again, ever.

The worst, most ridiculous offenders are the ones that pop up to tell you what you're watching right then. You could be watching The Simpsons, and suddenly a tiny Bart runs across the bottom of your screen being chased by tiny Homer, followed by the text You're currently watching The Simpsons on Fox. No kidding, assknob. If your typical viewer is so stupid that he or she doesn't know the name of the show they're currently watching, then we've reached a new low in the devolution of the television-viewing public. Given the sheer number of reality shows on the air right now, I think this is entirely possible.

Case in point: That GEICO commercial with the newlyweds in the house that's too small -- how many of you got sucked in by that?

I'll admit it. I thought it was real the first time I saw it. I was thinking, You've GOT to be kidding me! I thought they had finally bottomed out. But the point is, I believed it. The fact that I could believe such a show could actually get on the air means that something is seriously, frighteningly wrong -- either with television, or us.

I think I may just stop watching television completely. I realized the other day that most of my favorite shows are animated. The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy, Futurama, Venture Brothers, The Tick -- they're all cartoons. I'm not sure what that says about me. Giving up TV would give me more time to write, but in a way, I'm guessing it would just be trading one glass teat for another.