Speaking of The Lost Room…

Speaking of The Lost Room…

Apr 20

I have no commentary on Lost – I got to the fourth episode of the season and then my viewing schedule impoloded. And I haven’t opted to jump to digital recorders just yet, until a few more standards fall into place. I’m just going to do like I did with the first seasons – wait until it’s on DVD and then watch it all back-to-back.

In the meantime, I picked up The Lost Room – a Sci-Fi Channel mini-series. It was on DVD and pretty cheap for two discs. Since I’d heard good things from another friend, I went for it and holy crap – it’s teh awesome!

The story idea is refreshingly brilliant – in the 40s, something happened in a hotel room in New Mexico. The room ceased to exist as part of reality and the items inside were given strange properties. Now, 40 years later, various collectors and fanatics are struggling for control of the items and a cop with no knowledge of what’s going on, ends up stuck in the middle, and forced to solve the mystery of the room in order to save his daughter.

It’s a nice companion to Heroes, really – the idea of average people with not-so-average abilities – only, the abilities come from nail files and clocks, and thus can be taken away.

The rules of the story are really well thought out, which is always a big deal with me. If you’re going to be wacky, there have to be rules, or it turns into Next Generation, where they just invent the magic item they need to solve their problems.

Where it kind of breaks down is at the end, and it’s not that it breaks down, but rather you can clearly see The Salem’s Lot effect – meaning, you can see how they’re hoping the mini-series will transition into a series. Some loose ends aren’t tied up, and not all is right in the world – there are still things to be worked out, and not all the items are known, so there’s a lot of material to work with there.

I’m of two minds about a series, but the DVD is one of the best things I’ve seen in awhile, honestly. I mean, it’s got 8.1 at IMDB, and the Internet Uni-Mind that casts those votes hate everything, so that says something. Right?