Friday, April 14, 2006

The Rusty Trombone

And no, I'm not just using that subject line to drive up traffic. Not at all. Never. Never. That's really the title of last night's finale of "The Loop." You can look here if you don't believe me.

Not much to say about the finale, in which Sam tried to balance going to a Dandy Warhols concert and crunching the numbers for a merger with a Dutch airline except to kneel at the altar of Philip Baker Hall and his ability to slay me with his delivery of lines like "It's time to sneak one past the Dutchies on the left-hand side" and "The Dutch may have their fingers in their dikes, but they're sure to find out if our airplanes have gone queer."

Bye, "Loop." I'll miss you, brave little show.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, shucks...I just happened upon this show last night, enjoyed it and set the DVR to record the series, only to find...alas...this it is kaput? Darn.

Alan Sepinwall said...

There's still a (very) slim chance it could wind up getting renewed, but at this point, your best bet is to wait for the DVD. Everything gets a DVD these days.

Anonymous said...

OC was very good last night. Since they came back from hiatus they seem to be trying. Next week's looks crazy. No offense, Alan, but you may not want to attach a photo of yourself next to your posts... So long LOOP. Not very good, successfully destroyed the OC at 9 pm.

Alan Sepinwall said...

You're much too kind, anonymous. Much too kind.

Anonymous said...

Alan - forget what the other anonymous says. i anonymously say you're handsome. though i do agree the oc was good. but my question to you handsome alan: how can lost be this bad? and how can people watch anymore? its so bad.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Looking forward to watching "O.C." at some point this weekend.

As for "Lost," whenever you have a show that turns its own "mythology" into the main hook (see also "X-Files," especially after they decided to do the movie), everything
else takes a backseat to this ongoing three-card monte game with the viewers. If the show focused a little more on the characters and the reality of island living and less on smoke monsters and black-light diagrams, it might not be as popular as it is right now, but it also might not be as annoying.

Anonymous said...

But they are focusing on their characters. They just think these characters are the most fascinating people we've ever come across -- an entire episode devoted to Rose and her husband? While Jack and Kate get caught in a Return of the Jedi net and give off no sexual chemistry with traction to having a relationship? and there's no accounting for what any of these people do all day. At this point I wish they would focus on the smoke monster and crap because maybe they would have some forward momentum.

What does this show look like in Season 3? And what about Prison Break next year?

Anonymous said...

"They just think these characters are the most fascinating people we've ever come across -- an entire episode devoted to Rose and her husband?"

I thought they were great. Sam "Hey, It's That Guy" Anderson finally got a chance to shine.

"and there's no accounting for what any of these people do all day."

What are they supposed to do, punch a clock? Er, besides the... you know... clock.

velvetcannibal said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
velvetcannibal said...

I only caught bits and pieces of The Loop. It conflicted with other Must See shows for me, and I lack a VCR or a TiVo. I did like what I saw, and it sucks to see something with this much potential get tossed. Do you think it was given an adequate chance to find an audience

Alan Sepinwall said...

Not really, velvetcannibal. Yeah, Fox auditioned it after Idol, where I think it did roughly the same as Free Ride and Unan1mous in the same slot, but then they dumped it in the Thursday 8:30 slot, while Unan1mous got to stay after Idol and Free Ride (which I don't like nearly as much) got paired with Family Guy and will probably be back next year.

~CW~ said...

We loved The Loop, and after the finale, a bunch of our friends watched it for the first time on Tivo and loved it as well. It could be a huge hit on college campuses, but FOX, as usual, didn't really promote it that well. Here's hoping it gets a second run.