(S06E07) Benjamin Linus is one of the most fascinating characters ever put to screen, played with devilish brilliance by Michael Emerson. He positively dominates every scene he's in with those intense, thoughtful and incredibly dangerous big eyes of his. This week, we got to see quite literally two sides of Ben Linus.

Considering that virtually Ben's entire life happened on the island in the alpha-verse, I had been intrigued as to what beta-Ben would be like ever since his first appearance in 'The Substitute' three weeks ago. As I anticipated, our flash-sideways picks up events somewhat shortly after Locke's story.

It also features Locke, as well as a few other familiar faces in new and intriguing roles. At this point, I think I could watch an entire series set in the beta-verse just to see all these people's lives interconnect. It's truly fascinating stuff.

I really should pick up the DVDs for this show. I really enjoyed the first couple of seasons, though I think it sort of strayed after that. The four seasons of the show have been released on DVD, and now FOX is releasing the two TV movies they made after the show was canceled.

The first one, Pretender 2001, was a good continuation of the series. The second one, The Pretender: Island of the Haunted, if I remember correctly, was rather lame. It had Jarod and Miss Parker on an island where they somehow found out some (more) secrets about their past. It will be released as one disc, with one movie on each side. Hopefully that won't cause tech glitches as double sided discs sometimes do.

This show had a great premise and, like I said, the first two seasons are quite good. But it just kept on getting more and more ridiculous. The cast was good though, especially Michael T. Weiss, Andrea Parker, Jon Gries, and a pre-Desperate Housewives James Denton - only he was called "Jamie" back then.