Lost Wednesdays

It’s Wednesday so you know what time it is…its time for the weekly installment of The Blot Says…’ Lost Wednesdays. I’ve got a couple of links for you guys to check out, but first some shocking news from the folks at Nielsen. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that while “critics and fans are praising this season of ABC’s Lost…ratings continue to erode.” (link) Shockingly last week’s episode "The Constant" hit a season low 12.9 million viewers which comes to a 5.4 rating. What’s even crazier is that ABC came in third place for the night being slightly edged out of second place by CBS with Survivor: Micronesia pulling in 14.6 million viewers for a 4.2 market share. The lower share with higher viewers is because it was going against the ratings juggernaut of the American Idol results show which pulled in 25.9 million viewers for a 9.1 rating. This is pretty disappointing since Lost has been on a creative high all season and I thought the show was really gaining momentum among viewers. Hopefully the show’s new timeslot behind Grey’s Anatomy will help to correct this downturn in viewership.

If you want some spoilers and hints of what’s to come then keep on reading. If not I’d skip the rest of this post.


According to TV Squad, we will be finding out very soon whether or not Juliet is one of the famed Oceanic Six. Also be on the look out for one of The Blot’s favorite member of The Others as Richard Alpert (actor Nestor Carbonell) is set to return to the island once Lost returns with new episodes at the end of April due to Carbonell’s availability now that CBS’ Caine has ended production. (link) The last bit of really interesting information coming out of TV Squad’s Official Lost Podcast report is concerning the playing card memory game Daniel and Charlotte were playing at the beginning of “Eggtown” two weeks ago. According to Carlton Cuse they were “testing to see if the island affects memory.” (link) Cuse conjectured that since the Losties do not appear to be having memory issues “that its possible that Daniel sustained a head injury on the way to the island, and its even more likely that he had a pre-existing condition before coming there.” (link)

And finally, TV Guide has a really cool article by Shawna Malcom in which Lost cast members were given the opportunity to ask publicly co-Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse questions about what’s in store for the rest of this season and to clear up some things we’ve seen in previous Flash Forwards. It’s a unique way to get some clarity on Lost and sheds a ton of light on what’s coming up in the lives of our favorite Losties. But if you don’t like knowing spoilers I’d stay far away from Malcom’s Lost: The Cast’s Burning Questions Answered!

The Texas Two-Step Of Voting Then Caucusing Is A Joke

For the first time in my life The Blot caucused last night. It turns out Texas has one of the weirdest presidential primaries in the country. You see of the states 193 delegates, only 2/3 of those delegates are distributed by the popular vote (126 to be exact). The remaining 67 delegates are distributed by a three tiered caucus process. And you know what, it was probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever been a part of. As my friend Mark liked to say last night as he watched CNN’s coverage of the election results, “Texas should be ashamed of itself.” And the state really should. I’m guessing this has never been an issue before because of Texas’ late primary date, and as far as I could tell from my experience last night no one in the state had ever caucused before. That was definitely the impression I got as I watched people scrambling around trying to figure out how to organize the caucus and get things started.


I have a problem with it on two folds. The biggest gripe I have is that most people just didn’t know about the caucus and even when they did it’s near impossible to get people to turn out to a polling location twice in the same day. It almost seems anti-democratic to allow people to vote and then almost in an almost clandestine way have a caucus where a fraction of the people who voted previously get to decide on a third of the delegates. Wasn’t this country based on 1 person, 1 vote? And yet here we are giving some people 2 votes in the same primary. I think it’s unfair to the working men and women who left home early or took time off of work to vote in the first place and then expect them to be able to leave their families and return at 7 pm that night to caucus. Texas needs to pick one style of primary and stick with it, either a popular vote or a caucus but not both.

What really ticked me off is how unofficial the caucus was compared to the popular vote. The biggest issues I have with elections, especially since the hanging chad incident in Florida, is that all votes cast need to be accounted for in a fair and orderly fashion. When I voted a week ago during Texas’ early voting period I was very impressed. The polling location had computers with all registers voters names in it. A registered voter could bring in their voter registration card or a state issued photo identification card and have their id and voter status verified immediately. Then voters were directed to a private voting booth where they could vote electronically for the candidate of their choice. Everything seemed very legitimate and official, which I found very comforting since we were voting for a candidate to be the next President of the United States.

When it came time to caucus though, I had the complete opposite feeling. I know the informal nature of the experience is what caucusing is all about, but something just felt fishy about it. Especially when, because of the format, it could have been extremely easy for someone to artificially increase a precinct’s turn out. In fact, the people signing constituents in had absolutely no idea what they were doing or how to do their job. It really discouraged me when I went to sign in and ended up knowing more about what was going and what I needed to do than the gentlemen stationed at the sign in table. Also, there is was no way to check a voter’s information in a timely fashion since everyone filled in their personal information by hand, including voter id number, on page after page of generic caucus forms. To me this seems like a very unnecessary and drawn out process that could take days to be verified and become official.

I for one think both candidates would be better served if all delegates were assigned based on the popular vote, especially when tens of thousands of more Texans turned out for the popular vote than the relatively small amount who participated in the caucus last night. It is times like these, when an election is so close and every delegate matters, that I realize the problems that still exist in our country’s voting process. You’d have thought that after all of these elections, especially after the Presidential election of 2000, that things would have been straightened out by now. Yet here we are again…it just goes to show that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

Thanks Favre The Memories

The great Brett Favre retired yesterday and it’s a sad day for the NFL. Yes the league will be fine and will probably still grow in popularity for years to come, but the NFL’s elder statesman and the face of not only the Green Bay franchise but the entire league has left the field for good. If Favre has in fact played his final game at Lambeau Field it’s a real shame. After the year Favre and the Green Bay Packers had this season I had no doubt Favre would return for his 16th season in the league. Alas it was not meant to be and Brett Favre retires with 1 Super Bowl victory, 3 NFL MVP awards (an NFL record) and a slew of records including Most Career Passing Yards, Most Career Passing Touchdowns, Most Wins by a Starting Quarterback and Most Consecutive Starts by a Quarterback.

I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed watching Favre play and will miss seeing him lead the Packers on the field. I just hope the seesaw of will he or won’t he retire is finally over and Brett will be able to ride off into the sunset for good. That way we can celebrate his achievement on the field and debate his place in history as we wait the requisite five years until this surefire first ballot Hall of Famer is enshrined in Canton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.