The I-Land: "Lost" Written by a Writing-School Dropout

10 people on a desert island, with no memory of who they are or how they got there.  Sounds interesting, sort of Lost light.

We discover almost immediately that this is a computer simulation (the title I-Land is one clue.)  But that's ok, maybe a combination of Lost and The Prisoner.   Does someone want in-for-mation?

Except: the people are complete jerks.  They immediately start bickering, hooking up, and trying to rape each other instead of looking for food, water, and shelter.

For plot complications, there is a cannibal among them, and two bounty hunters named Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde played by KeiLyn Durrel Jones, left).

We learn all the details in Episodes 3 and 7 (the finale),  which are all long plot exposition discussions.  Hey, did anyone take Creative Writing 101?  Show, don't tell?

Due to global warming, Texas is now mostly underwater, so the crime rate has increased, and the prisons are full:   "So many more people are criminals, now that the water has reclaimed the land, that we have to find a way to redeem them."

Um...we've had rehabilitation programs for over 180 years.  Job training, GED classes, life skills classes, drug treatment, counseling....

 So they are trying out a program to give parole to murderers if they can prove that they have been reformed.

Um...what about the non-violent inmates?  Maybe parole them first?

So the murderers are memory-wiped, put into young, hot bodies, and dumped on a hologram-island to see what happens.  This group consists of:

1. Chase, who killed her husband and children
2. KC
3. Cooper
4. Moses (Kyle Schmid, left)
5. Blair

6. Mason, a mass murderer
7. Donova
8. Taylor
9. Hayden
10. Brody (Alex Pettyfer, left)

It would be very interesting to see the back stories of all of these people, to learn how and why they became murderers, but nope, the writer never took Creative Writing 101.  We learn nothing about the lives of most of them.

Therefore I have no idea if any of them are gay.  Some shy away from hetero-hookups, but that's as far as it gets.

I sort of liked the scenes set back in real life, with Bruce McGill as the Warden channeling the Rich Texan from The Simpsons.  He is so incredibly over the top that I thought he must be a parody.  After all, Bruce McGill has been in a lot of movies.  He must have taken acting lessons, right?

Now, if we can just get the writers into Creative Writing 101....

"The A-List": Bingeworthy "Lost" Meets "Riverdale"

I sat down to watch The A-List at 12:30, planning on watching one episode before going to work.  Two hours later, I said "Well, maybe one more episode."  And another.  And another.

It begins as Riverdale on an island.  Some British teens show up on Peregrine Island for a summer holiday:

1. Rich bitch Mia (Lisa Ambalavanar)

2. It-boy Dev (Jacob Dudman, whom no one can look at without imagining taking him to senior prom)

3. Heterosexual life partners Brendan and Zac (Micheal Ward, Jack Kane), who can bench press 100 kg (220 pounds).  Big deal; I do 300, and I'm twice their age.

4. Genderqueer but female-presenting Alex (Rosie Dwyer)

5. Clutzy Harry (Benjamin Nugent)

And the rest, all led by over-chirpy counselors,Dave (Cian Barry) and Mags (Nneka Okoye).

Mia is quickly overshadowed by a new It-Girl, Amber (Ellie Duckles), who gathers a coterie of followers with her mind-control powers.

And the weird things keep happening:
1. A mysterious bunker in the woods, like the one on Lost.
2. A growling beast like the Smoke Monster on Lost.
3. A mysterious stalker.
4. A sobbing sound coming from nowhere.
5. Human teeth on a tree.
6. Memories of things that haven't happened.
7. An older photograph of the campers.  This has all happened before!

The mysterious stalker turns out to be Luka (Max Lohan) who has been living in the woods on his own since the camp closed down!

I didn't want to give away that spoiler, but I had to get in a picture of Max Lohan.  It's impossible to look at him without wanting to kiss him.

This actually isn't Lost.  The mysteries within mysteries are eventually resolved.  Well, maybe not the final WTF cliffhanger.

Nor is it Riverdale.  Not a lot of nudity: a shirt off here and there.  No one goes swimming (Peregrine Island is in the Scottish Highlands, where it's cold).

 But, on the bright side, no sex: the most these  teenagers do is kiss. 

No gay male characters, that I can tell; the Brendan-Zac pair is subverted by their hetero-horny exploits, and they don't even hug.

But the genderqueer Alex points out the heteronormative bias in selecting a Midsummer King and Queen, and gets a girlfriend, after struggling to come out. (A genderqueer person has a problem with being attracted to girls?).

The A-List certainly has got its share of "WTF!!!!" cliffhangers.  Don't start watching unless you have a free afternoon.

See also: The 9 Worst Finales in Tv History

"Another Life": 3 Shirtless Men and 3,300 Women in Bikinis

I've completely run out of tv programs to watch on Netflix, when I get an email: "We added a program you might like, Another Life."  

So I start watching.   Juliet from Lost, or someone who looks like her -- a middle-aged woman with scraggly blond hair -- is standing on the bridge of a spaceship, wearing black bikini underwear, talking to a fully-clothed man.

Definite sign of trouble.

Juliet (Kalee Sackhoff, who is only 39 but looks over 60) wears that bikini underwear a lot during the first episode; plus, we see Alyssa Milano, or someone who looks like her, reading a magazine with her breasts showing, talking to a fully-clothed guy who looks like Hurley from Lost.

Trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with B, which stands for Boobs.

I'm not going to watch this hetero male gaze monstrosity, but I'll fast forward in case a guy takes his shirt off, or -- dare I hope?  -- a gay character shows up.

Episode #1: Across the Universe.  Nope.  An alien artifact lands on Earth, and renowned elderly astronomer Juliet is assigned to go find its homeworld and make first contact.  She leaves her young trophy husband, Erik (Justin Chatwin, top photo) at home to research the artifact further.

By the way, the fully-clothed guy is actually a hologram, William (Samuel Anderson, left), who is in love with her, naturally.

Her crew consists of three or four black bikini underwear clad women, including Alyssa  and a butch blonde with a man's haircut.  Maybe a lesbian?

Hurley is actually Bernie (A. J. Rivera), the ship's chef and morale officer-type.

There are a couple of other guys in the background.

Episode #2: Through the Valley of Shadows.  Nope.  They wear space suits and walk around in tunnels on an alien planet that's not the right one.

Episode #3:  Nervous Breakdown.  Nope.  The ship is damaged, so they bicker, the  men fully clothed, the ladies in boobalicious black tank tops performing random calisthenics.

To alleviate the boredom, here's a photo of Alex Ozeroff, who plays crewman Oliver.  He has also appeared in the Canadian sci-fi series Freakish, about high school students dealing with radioactive mutants.  Not zombies?

Ok, back to the boobs.

Episode #4: Guilt Trip.   Finally!  One of the guys appears shirtless amid the ladies in black bikini underwear when they're roused in the middle of the night by Juliet's bad dreams.

I think he's Jake Abel, playing Sasha, the diplomatic liaison on the ship, whatever that is.

Episode #5: A Mind of Its Own.  Nope. They find a second artifact, with all the men in orange spacesuits and the women in boobalicious tank tops.  The men stay fully clothed even when having sex with boobalicious ladies.

Episode #6: I Think We're Alone Now.  Nope.  The ship is in trouble again, and there are women displaying their breasts.  I wonder why director Mairzee Almas thought it was a good idea to zoom in for closeups of breasts during moments of crisis.

By the way, Greg Hovanissian plays Beauchamp McCarry, Juliet's second-in-command who doesn't appear in many scenes, and never takes his shirt off. But he seems to have nice abs. You can see more of them in Cupid, a short about Cupid in a sleeveless vest and wings shooting love-arrows at people.

Episode #7: Living the Dream.  A shocking development! A guy has his shirt off (actually, he's completely naked) in a room full of space suits.  I think he's Erik, Juliet's husband who stayed back on Earth.

Episode #8: How the Light Gets Lost.

There's a disco party on the ship, with a lot more crew members than have ever appeared before dancing and hooking up.  Young, innocent, virginal Charlie Brown (I can't figure out which character he actually is) takes off his shirt while bumping foreheads with Alyssa.

Later, he stumbles on Alyssa and another guy drinking peach vodka (I can' figure out who he is, either, but he's sort of shirtless, bearded, with a hairy chest).  They have  a three way!  With same-sex kissing and everything! So there's at least a few bisexuals aboard.

But that's all you get.

Episode #9: Heart and Soul.  The battle for control of the ship comes to a head.  No nudity, boy or girl.

Episode #10: Hello.  They reach their destination and are "staggered" by what they see on the planet: a cave and a green limber-limbed alien.  They realize that the alien artifact is not a gesture of friendship, but a precursor to invasion and Season 2.  There's some kissing and death.  And boobs.

Aren't you glad I went through on fast-forward, so you won't have to?

See also: Lost

The Hollywood Legacy of Zane Danton

In "The End," the first episode of American Horror Story: Apocalypse, high schooler Timothy Campbell finds out that he has received a prestigious college scholarship.  A moment later, the sirens go off.  The bombs are going to start falling.  Representatives of the mysterious Collective arrive, tell him that he has been chosen to survive due to his superior DNA, and whisk him away.  The rest of the family vanishes from the story..for now.  Maybe they'll return in flashbacks.


Timothy's dad is played by Travis Schuldt, born in 1974 in Topeka, Kansas, best known as Ben in Always Sunny in Philadelphia  and Keith on Scrubs.

Timothy's brother Edward is played by Zane Danton in his first acting role.  His appearance on screen was short but memorable -- I especially liked the full-body hug, as Edward realizes that his brother is going away forever (and that he's going to be dead in an hour).

Zane certainly has what it takes to become a teen idol.

He's a National Honors Student in math.

He does modeling, represented by the Young Artist's Studio.

He won the long jump competition at an event sponsored by the Pacific Palisades YMCA.

No social media presence; I couldn't find a facebook, instagram, or twitter account; this is someone with the same name.

But Zane has the most important criterion for becoming a teen idol: connections.  A Hollywood legacy extending back three generations.

Zane's father is Steve Danton.  He appeared in a few 1980s movies, such as Fever Pitch and Trouble in Mind, but his main career has been in directing.  A lot of rom-coms and female buddy movies: Thelma and Louise, When a Man Loves a Woman, How Stella Got Her Groove Back.   Also Seventh Son, The Fantastic Four, and The Originals.

His mother, Darragh Danton (born Croyle), was a production assistant on Boys on the Side, The Edge, and some other movies.

At the beginning of The Edge (1997), Anthony Hopkins is seen reading a book about wilderness survival by D. Croyle, an in-joke by the prop department.

Zane also has an uncle in show biz. Mitchell Danton has appeared on screen a few times, but he is primarily known as an Emmy-winning film editor, with credits including Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, Survivor, and The Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce.  He...um...edited a book on the topic, Cutting it in Hollywood.

Steve and Mitchell's father, Zane's grandfather, was Ray Danton (1931-1992), suave leading man of the 1950s; a biography is entitled The Epitome of Cool.   He appeared in many Westerns and cop shows through the 1970s, and directed episodes of Quincy, Fame, Cagney and Lacey, and Dynasty.  

He also produced, wrote, and directed the two-fisted New Mike Hammer (1984-89), starring Stacey Keach, a muscle hunk of the day.

I haven't heard any gay rumors about Ray Danton, but most of the beefcake stars of the 1950s were at least open to the idea of gay-for-pay.

Ray's ex-wife, Zane's grandmother, is Julie Adams (1928-), not to be confused with Julie Andrews.  She was terrorized in a swimsuit in Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), and had a long career in dramas, Westerns, and the occasional comedy.   You may recognize her as Amelia, a member of the wacky book club run by the Others on Lost (2008), hinted to be the long-lost Amelia Earhart.

With such an illustrious Hollywood heritage, how can you refuse to become a star?

See also: The Hunk from the Black Lagoon.

Wrecked is a Wreck

Lost (2004-2010), about plane crash survivors facing paranormal peril on a desert island, was great.  Well, it started out great, and went downhill with the secrets-with-a-secret, most of which would be easily answered in the course of ordinary conversation.

"I thought there were five other survivors in your group."
"There were."
"....well, so tell me what happened to them?"

Instead of saying "Locke has risen from the dead," they make some cryptic reference to shadows.

My favorite is are the twin demigods or whatever, Jacob and ___. Everyone takes great pains to not say ___'s name, even though it's obviously Esau.

And the writers wrote themselves into so many inescapable corners that they had to fall back on a cop-out "They were all in Purgatory" ending.  I think...

Sorry, lost my train of thought.

Anyway, it's been 8 years, so a Lost parody hardly seems relevant.  I went in to Wrecked with low expectations, thinking maybe I would get a little beefcake and maybe some bonding.  I didn't.  Not much, anyway.

A disparate group of people are stranded on a desert island in a plane crash.  Danny (Brian Sacca, left), the slacker son of a rich businessman, and shy flight attendant Owen (Zach Kregger, top photo), see their chance to shine, and take charge.

They also develop a lovey-dovey gay-subtext bromance, in spite of their pursuit of ladies.

There are many other gay subtexts on the island.

Florence and Emma have a gal-pal romance.

Everyone, male and female, is in love with the British special agent who is squashed by the airplane fuselage during the first episode.

Todd (Will Greenberg, left) is mourning the loss of his golf clubs, but fey New Zealander Steve (Rhys Darby) thinks he's lost a child.  He tries to be supportive, offering hands-on-shoulders and gifts, which Todd interprets as sexual come-ons.

Sports agent Pack (Asif Ali) doesn't display any heterosexual interest or pursue any heterosexual relationships.

Unfortunately, no actual, honest-to-goodness, canonical gay characters, just subtexts.

There is some beefcake, but not as much as on Lost, where every male castaway was a fitness model.

Is there any other reason to watch Wrecked?

There is no paranormal peril on the island; minor mysteries turn out to be just that: minor.  Most plots involve struggling to survive: food shortages, tainted water, medical emergencies.  A very gross episode about not being able to poop in the jungle.  Some people die.  That just isn't funny.

Other than a few brief call-outs, like the episode title "All is Not Lost," Wrecked  doesn't try to parody Lost.  And it's not funny enough to make it alone.

I suggest holding out for a program with real gay characters.  Or fitness models.

The 9 Worst TV Series Finales in History

If you watch every episode of a 100-episode sitcom, you've spend 2300 minutes, not including reruns.  That's the equivalent of 19 feature-length movies or 11 novels (at the average adult reading speed).

If it was a 60-minute dramatic series, make that 38 feature length movies and 22 novels.

Then comes the series finale.  There will be no more episodes.

You know the characters better than many of your real-life friends.  Saying goodbye is going to be painful.

For years you've set aside a special part of your week for the program.  You rarely missed it, and when you did, you taped it to watch later.  You watched all of the summer reruns.There will be a hole in your life for quite some time.

So you sit down for the series finale, hoping for a warm, funny, memorable sendoff.  But instead, you get garbage.  Mind-destroying, depressing, confusing, WTF garbage.

May 10, 1983: Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983).  A sitcom about two bromantic "girlfriends" sharing an apartment in 1950s Milwaukee, right?  Except by 1983, there was just Laverne, it was Los Angeles, and the heart of the 1960s (Laverne's boyfriend is a Star Trek fan).  Way to destroy your premise.

But the series finale isn't even about that; it's about Laverne's singer/dancer/male prostitute friend Carmine going to New York to audition for Hair.  

We don't find out if he got the role or not. And we don't see his nude scene.

May 21, 1990: Newhart (1982-1990): For eight years, Bob Newhart played the owner of a bed and breakfast in a small New England town full of quirky residents, whom you grew fond of over the years.  Who can forget "I'm Larry, and this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl?"

But on May 21st, 1990, Bob wakes up in bed as Dr. Bob Hartley, the psychologist in his old series, and tells his old wife, Emily, "What a dream I had!"  Way to destroy beloved characters, Bob!

July 20, 1994: Dinosaurs (1991-1994).  A nuclear family spoof starring cute, cuddly dinosaurs in ABC's kid-friendly Friday night lineup.  Remember "I'm the baby, gotta love me"?

How best to end the hearwarming series:  how about with a eco-catastrophe that kills every dinosaur on the planet?  Including the entire Sinclair family?  Including the baby?

May 20, 1997: Roseanne (1988-1997).  The queen of lower-middle class urban blight and her ragtag family spent eight seasons being the anti-Cosbys, not affluent, or educated, or elegant.  It featured Johnny Galecki as a teenager with a terrible hairdo.  Then Roseanne wins the lottery, and spends the last season hob-nobbing with the rich and famous.

That's not the worst of it, though -- in the last episode, we are told that this has all been a story that Roseanne has written.  The real people are all different.  Dan is dead.  Jackie is a lesbian, so her husband and child don't exist.  But Mom isn't a lesbian.  The daughters switch husbands.  Everything we thought we knew about the show is wrong.

May 14, 1998: Seinfeld (1989-1998). In this execrable finale for what critics termed the best series in the history of television, the Fab Four are facing jail time for violating a "good Samaritan" law that, if it existed, would get them a fine, at most.

And everyone they've interacted with comes rushing to town to complain.  Their honest attempts to help are recast as diabolical plots.  Mistakes and accidents are recast as deliberate malice.  Everything we thought we knew about the show is wrong. Oh, and they go to prison.

August 9, 1999: Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1985-1999).  For 12 years, Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank tortured the hapless heroes on the Satellite of Love, Joel/Mike and the bots, with "cheesy movies, the worst that we can find."  The only way they could keep their sanity was to riff on the cheesy plots.  In the series finale, Mike and the bots finally escape.

Do they change the world? Reveal the diabolical plot in a tell-all book?  At least find a life far removed from their 12-year imprisonment?  No -- they are shown living in a small apartment, eating pizza and riffing on bad movies.

At least they don't meet girls.

September 8, 2004: The Drew Carey Show (1995-2004).  This program was all about setting: the sprawling Winfred-Lauder Department Store in downtown Cleveland, where Drew worked as a middle-management drudge, Mr. Wick as head of personnel, and Mimi as his secretary.

So how to handle the last season: end the department store, drop some of the characters, and give the others nonsensical new jobs at a new store. Oh, and have Drew and Mimi live together, raising a 10-year old boy who was a baby last season.

May 18, 2006: Will and Grace (1998-2006).  After endless seasons of proclaiming that gay men are really women, that gay men all have sex with women,  that gay people simply do not exist, Will and Grace went out with a bang: Will and his cop beau adopt a daughter, Grace and her husband gave birth to a son, and twenty years later, the son and daughter marry.

Whatever momentary glitch being gay caused in the cosmic order, it has been resolved with a man and a woman gazing into each other's eyes forever.

May 20, 2010: Lost (2004-2010).  For five seasons, we were told that the crash survivors facing paranormal peril on a crazy island weren't in Purgatory.  Well, guess what -- they are.  Well, actually, in an alternate world where they forget that they were ever on the island, until they are reminded.  Then they get back together and go into the light.

And Vincent the Dog dies.