Donna Freitas: April 2008 Archives

I've watched J.J. Abrams's "Lost" from the very beginning just as faithfully as other devotees. But I have to call it like I see it: the show has deteriorated into a mess of too many plotlines, too many time zones, and too many wrong turns. It's lost its compass, so to speak.

One thing that kept me faithful this season was the show's shift to flash-forwards in lieu of the typical flashbacks—last season I started fast-forwarding through most of the character flashbacks because I was so sick of them (sacrilegious, I know). Another was last year's announcement that the creators and writers of "Lost" had determined an end to the show. A brilliant idea, I thought, because it gave fans the assurance that the writers knew where they were going, that the show would not wander around aimlessly for an indeterminate number of future seasons. Finally, there was what I call "the Desmond episode"—"The Constant"—which was so brilliant, engaging, and moving that I felt this one segment made watching the entire series worth it.

Aww, shucks! Why is it that I am such a sucker (ha!) for all things vampire, no matter how kitschy they get? CBS's "Moonlight" gets more melodramatic by the episode--as does its star vampire Mick St. Johns--but it only makes me love it more.

CBS spent a good deal of advertising dollars on promoting the return of "Moonlight" with new episodes, most especially announcing this time around, Mick would be playing the human. Turns out, humanity, and therefore mortality, was more difficult than Mick remembered. Despite all the "possibilities" being human opened up for Mick with Beth, his mortal beloved, turns out as a human, Mick can't keep her. And as quick as writers of the show restored mortality to this longtime vampire, they showed they were willing to take it away. Thirty minutes into the new episode, Mick begs Logan--oops, did I say Logan? Sorry I meant Josef, but was thinking of "Veronica Mars" and the fact that basically Logan jumped television series but not personalities when he shifted series)--to turn him back into a vampire to get Beth out of a life and death situation.

Okay, so something has to be said on Idol Chatter about the lighter side of Pope Benedict XVI's visit: his bright, ruby red(!!) shoes. Yes, he wore them everywhere throughout his entire U.S. visit, and yes, everyone in the media commented on them, from the Associated Press to the BBC. Reporters couldn't seem to get enough of them.

And no, despite popular thinking, they are not Prada!

I learned this little factoid from my favorite bit of reporting about Pope Benedict's footwear--an entire story devoted to discusssing the infamous red shoes (cue the Elvis Costello) on NPR's "All Things Considered." Among other things, I also found out that the shoes are made by an Italian shoemaker, who charges 400 Euros per pair of handmade shoes, about $600 U.S. dollars. That's a steep price for anyone to pay to follow in the Pope's footsteps so to speak, but the pontiff gets them for free!

Humans may fantasize about eternal life, rising from the dead (well, perhaps that's a particularly Christian hope), and the kind of bodily regeneration known only to superheroes and the undead, but Mick St. John, the eighty year old vampire protagonist of "Moonlight" fantasizes about becoming human again so he can age and die like the rest of us. And maybe get the girl--the very human Beth Turner, whom he's had his eye on since the series premier last fall.

Mick is that vampire who wouldn't wish immortality on anyone. To him, immortality is a curse, not a blessing.

"Constantine's Sword," the heavyweight indictment of the Catholic tradition's fraught relationship and history with Judaism by National Book Award winner, Boston Globe journalist and novelist James Carroll (published in 2001 just before 9/11), releases in documentary form tonight in select cities nationwide.

I had the fortune of seeing the documentary version at a pre-screening held at Boston University (an event co-sponsored by both Jewish and Catholic organizations) well over a month ago. The timing of this screening was rather uncanny--I was teaching "Constantine's Sword" (yes, all 700 some odd pages of it) in my Catholicism class at BU this semester--so my students and I went off to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity.

So it's very possible and even highly likely that during the Hollywood writers strike I Netflixed the first two seasons of "Ghost Whisperer." Yup. I did. I confess. It's also very possible and even highly likely that I grew to...

Given that I can't resist any television drama that features vampires, ghosts, all things-spooky and/or with vampire-like immortality, I've watched the entire first season of "New Amsterdam" on Fox with interest, if not unbridled enthusiasm. The season finale is tonight....

I love "Bones." Love it. I love the series title character, Dr. Temperance Brennan (Bones), I love her fellow science geeks at the lab, and I love her ambiguous, potentially-romantic relationship with the very Catholic Seeley Booth, the FBI agent...

Just recently, I wrote about how "Men In Trees" (starring Anne Heche) has quite a few interesting "religion" plotlines going this season, including one about a Christian pastor, Eric, who loses his Elmo church congregation because he's unmarried and in...

Like many other women I know, "Men In Trees" grew on me (ha!) quite a bit in its first season last year and I'm happy to see it not only survived to see a second, but made it through the...