I'm a sucker for time travel shows. I loved it when Star Trek did it (all of the Star Trek shows did it, several times) and Back to the Future is one of my favorite films. So I'm really enjoying Lost this season, with it's time-tripping and skipping. But I have some problems with it, and so does Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings.

Jennings mentions on his blog that he thinks the writers have actually answered too many questions, which isn't a complaint that you hear from Lost fans too often. He thinks if they had left more plot questions, some of the things that happened in previous seasons "could now be explained as the actions of Future Juliet or Future Sawyer or somebody."

Jennings thinks it's smart that the show has the rule that you can't change what happened, because if something happens a certain way it will always happen that way. But I think the show is breaking that rule here and there.

(S01E03) The field of bands narrowed by two tonight on The Next Great American Band. So, we're down to ten bands who specialize in various genres. I'm not sure how much I enjoyed the way they did the reveal of the two bands going home. It seemed a bit needlessly cruel, kind of like cruel and unusual punishment.

Each band sang prepared and rehearsed one of their original songs and then a song from the vast array of Elton John and Bernie Taupin numbers. The bands were called out one by one to perform. If they performed, they had made the cut for the week. The two bands who didn't make it had to go through all the rehearsals and sit foolishly and uncomfortably waiting, the camera panning them throughout the show, until the very end. When it was down to three bands, poof.

(S01E02) So there I was last night ... stuck in the crowds heading to see Bon Jovi in Newark and I said to myself, "No! I cannot succumb! I promised JJ Hawkins I'd sit in this week to review The Next Great American Band while he's on vacation!" No Bon Jovi live for me -- give me the Light of Doom! Unfortunately, a lot of the Bon Jovi fans heading to the concert looked like the Light of Doom boys albeit with shirts on. Odd.

This is going to be an interesting show to watch throughout the season. With such diversity and so many bands who excel in their own genre, I'll have to stick around to who wins in the end.

Okay, maybe not with kung-fu grip. "Faces in perpetual states of shock, horror, and/or 'WTF'-ness" are more likely. Anyway, McFarlane Toys are coming out with a new line of Lost action figures of season one's "fan-favorites", Jack, Kate, Locke, Hurley, Charlie, and Shannon. They've just released a picture of the Charlie figure. He's sitting down, writing on his fingers. Hmm... Doesn't look very action-y. McFarlane Toys is also releasing boxsets, little dioramas that recreate key moments of the show. So, if you don't like the season finale, you can always film your own.

Maybe it's just me, but the choice of Shannon to be a part of the first set of "fan-favorite" toys comes as a bit of a surprise. If I had to go for one of the deadsies for this first set, I would have picked a Boone figure over a Shannon one. The fact that I found Boone attractive has nothing little to do with it. The toys are expected Fall of this year.

A sick Jon Stewart (aww... please get well before the Oscars) opened the show by bringing up a pretty nifty story. Eight workers from a ham processing plant won a huge $365 million Powerball jackpot the other day (dude, that's, like, a million dollars every day for a year). Jon reports that many of the workers planned to go to work again the next day... not because they still wanted their jobs, but either because they wanted one last chance at the employee ham discount or wanted to put a "little something extra" in the ham. "Hmm... This ham tastes like... like a Powerball winner..."

I don't know, but it looks like Sayid has a couple of ideas in mind, and none of them look too nice. Make sure you check back here at TV Squad at 8:00pm EST tonight, and that's when we will unveil the hidden location for the chat. Sayid is working it over at the moment, trying to find out where it is, but it just won't crack. In the meantime, make sure that you have AIM or a compatible instant messenging system (GAIM, Trillian, etc) installed. I'll be in the room under the id TVSRyan and a couple other of the TV Squadders will probably stop by, so look for us. Will this week's episode be as "dividing" as last week's? I don't know, but come join us tonight and we'll find out together.

UPDATE:
Come one, come all; here is the secret location for our Lost Chat! See you inside.

Disclaimer: All or parts of the discussion in this chatroom may be posted in a later column on this site.

This is the first new Lost of the sweeps, and they've been pimping it on ABC for the past couple of weeks, so it should be a good one. Make sure you check back here at TV Squad at 8:00pm EST tonight, and that's when we will unveil the hidden location for the chat. Eko is guarding over it with his "Bible Stick" at the moment. In the meantime, make sure that you have AIM or a compatible instant messenging system (GAIM, Trillian, etc) installed. I'll be in the room under the id TVSRyan and a couple other of the TV Squadders will probably stop by, so look for us. We've met the Others, we've seen the monsters. What's left on this crazy island? Who kidnaps Sun? We'll find out tonight!

And you guys thought us working for "the man" wasn't going to have it's benefits.... Over on AOL's page devoted to Lost, they've got four clips of tomorrow night's episode available for viewing. The first two up revolve around Charlie, Eko and Charlie's statue of the Virgin Mary, and actually seem to confirm a pretty big secret, but I'll let you guys watch it. The third one has Kate cutting Sawyer's hair as he gets some unexpected visitors. The final one follows up on November's cliffhanger with Michael at the keyboard inside the hatch. The longest clip is only a little over a minute and a half, but all are really juicy, and well worth your valuable time. Man, I can not wait until tomorrow night!