Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost: Season 2

 


+++Warning, this contains some spoilers from season one, but no major season two giveaways+++

The 24-episode second season of Lost aired during the 2005/2006 TV season. There was some cast turnover as a result of events that occurred during season 1, but most of the main cast returned. Several additions to the cast, both in main and recurring roles, were made. Some of the new cast members included Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Watros, Michael Emmerson, Sam Anderson, Henry Ian Cusick, M.C. Gainey, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Katey Segal.

As fans of the show know, the first season ended on a few different cliffhangers that set up the storylines of season two. The big one is what is in the hatch (which opened in the season finale). What is in the hatch is revealed and explained (at least partly) in the first few episodes. The second one is the attack on the raft and the kidnapping of Walt, which sets up the story arc of "The Others," who are a group of inhabitants of the islands who attack the crash survivors. We also learn that another group of crash survivors from the plane's tail are on the island, and we see that their experience was much different from the "main" characters of season one. The show continues to reveal portions of the story (sometimes at a snail's pace) through flashbacks, showing who the characters were before crashing on the island and revealing secrets of the island itself. The season again ends on a major cliffhanger, leaving the fates of many characters in limbo.

The Blu-Ray set is a seven-disc set. As with the season 1 release, the A/V quality is great, and the Blu-Rays have a ton of extras. Those include commentary tracks on five episodes, a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage, about twenty minutes of deleted scenes, a gag reel, and a "Lost Connections" chart, which shows how all of the characters on the island are interconnected with each other (which sometimes stretches all logic in order to be clever).

Overall, the series continues to be very strong. It is well-written and very well-acted. The show has to balance a ton of characters (although the amount of characters is definitely in flux) and juggle a lot of storylines. New additions to the cast include Michelle Rodriguez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cynthia Watros, Michael Emerson, Henry Ian Cusick, and M. C. Gainey. Yunjin Kim and Danel Dae Kim are given a lot to work with this season with the development of their characters and really knock it out of the park. The show definitely leaves more questions open than it answers, which definitely irked many fans when it was on the air. But, I definitely think the pacing of the story was very well done and enough was revealed to keep viewers hooked and kept mysterious to keep people coming back.

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