HBO’s site lists the songs used in each episode, which is great, because a lot of the flavor comes from the musical variety, and they don’t list songs in the credits at the end of the show.

I’ve been wondering since early-on why Kevin Connolly has top billing in the show’s intro credits for his Eric Murphy character, when on the surface it seems to be about the entourage revolving around movie star Vincent Chase played by Adrian Grenier. Haven’t been able to find any solid info on that. I think i’d say E’s my favorite character, but most people seem to go gaga for Jeremy Piven’s ruthless agent extraordinaire Ari Gold.

Still waiting for a crawl-through-the-ventilation-ducts scene. I started watching the show in the middle of season 3 because it had the balls to have Jack execute an innocent man. But all this other crap they keep pulling is getting old.

By the way, if you watched all four hours of the premiere on Sunday and Monday nights on live television, you sat through 1 full hour of commercials.

I feel cheated every time a new set of peoples is introduced in a season premiere, and every time a late-addition supporting character gets their own flashback. Oh yeah, and the “new survivors” that all of the sudden have a name and some speaking lines? Yeah, you’re gonna die a horrible death. Probably something absurd like a volley of flaming arrows raining down from the night sky. Ironically, i guess, i’ve been on this hater tip before, for almost the exact same reasons.

And what was with the photography?  Did they hire a monkey as the cinematographer? The shots in the jungle in the first hour were so poorly exposed. There’s always been the occasional misfocused shot, or lousy lighting here and there, but this was several entire scenes of high-definition garbage. Unfortunately the story is no longer interesting enough to keep me distracted from those distractions. End of rant. Lost is over.

I only started watching the series in the middle of the fourth season, so i’m not sure when the current 24 style matured and stabilized, because it’s been more or less the same since i’ve been watching. Seems like they were really trying to emphasize the whole “real time” aspect, almost to the point that things progressed too slowly to be entertaining. They’ve also really sharpened up the cinematography and editing. Today’s shots still have that hand-held urgency without looking amateur and nauseating. A lot more emotional close-ups with focus racking in later seasons. And the signature split-screen effect works much better now with shots composed for the split with matching sound and music cues.

I didn’t think i had any expectations for the first season, but i have to say that so far i’m a little disappointed. I’m guessing it’ll pick up at some point.