My damned DVR is eating my life.

It seems like every free moment I have is now haunted by the notion that somewhere in the digital ether, episodes of good shows I haven't seen yet are waiting patiently for me to watch them. So very patiently. Staring at me with the TV-show equivalent of big, mournful, puppy-dog eyes. I never thought I'd miss boredom.

The situation's gotten so bad that I'm actually upset when good new shows hit the airwaves, and relieved to think that even terrific shows like NBC's Kings -- back on the air for a summer burnoff, and more eerie and eloquent with each passing week -- will soon be gone for good. If only so I don't have a Hulu queue and DVR hard drive groaning under the weight of Ian MacShane awesomely delivering quasi-Shakespearean dialogue and stabbin' folks  Swearingen-style.

All the same, I just can't quit watching USA's Royal Pains. That's a testament less to its Burn-Notice-but-with-a-doctor premise, and more to its set of engaging characters brought to life by a really great cast. It's the kind of cheerful, breezy summer series USA seems to do better than any other network.

A couple of times in the past few weeks I've heard the Monkees' rendition of the immortal Goffin and King's "Pleasant Valley Sunday". It's got a brilliantly shimmering pop melody, but aside from that it's also a sharp criticism of life in suburbia, an indictment of shallow materialism, a warning about succumbing to a numbing life in Status Symbol Land where you're surrounded by the smell of burning charcoal from all the backyard cookouts.

I'm nearly forty now. I don't consider that I've acquired wisdom for the ages but I have picked up the wisdom of a forty-year-old, for what that's worth. And I was thinking about this today. I once again found myself somehow, after seeing television commercials for miracle cleaning products since 1971, on all fours on my bathroom floor scrubbing with a brush.

When I was younger I agreed with the Monkees wholeheartedly. This was no simple adolescent revolt against one's elders, either. In fact my parents weren't all that interested in Pleasant Valley. They never collected status symbols: No fancy new cars, big beautiful house, expensive TVs. At one point my father drove a tow truck, not professionally, but as his regular commuting vehicle. No, my parents didn't care about appearances. They always looked -- they still do -- to just getting by. Making their way, day by day, climbing over whatever obstacles arose, occasionally grabbing what happiness they could: That was, and is, their way.

So I wasn't rejecting my parents when I turned away from Pleasant Valley. I'd made a definite decision to avoid what I saw as so much worthless and mirthless junk. For me, true value lay in the things I'd pursue all my life: Science and philosophy and art. I spent my time reading Kant, Hume, and Buckminster Fuller. Learning to play chess and studying engineering. Painting.

Well, I managed to avoid Pleasant Valley, yes I did. I don't have a status symbol to my name. I live in the suburbs, sure, but the one I live in is nothing like Gerry Goffin's lyrics, even if he wrote them about a place less than 20 miles from my house.

What I realize now is that a Sunday in Pleasant Valley looks pretty good. All those things I've invested in my whole life thus far -- all the thinking and the understanding -- haven't gotten me anything. I don't need philosophy. I need something to clean my goddamn bathroom floor.

In this, the first “real” episode of “Lost,” we learn how Kate came to be in the company of the U.S. Marshal, how to construct a dog whistle when you’re stranded on a haunted island, and how not to put someone out of his misery. A full report on “Tabula Rasa,” written by series co-creator Damon Lindelof, right after I search the fuselage for B-O-D-Y-S…

Our friend Jimmy J. Aquino at the mighty Fistful of Soundtracks blog has begun a new series of posts he's calling "Lacuna Matata." His mission is "to preserve the fading memory of TV shows (or in some cases, comic books) that no one except me remembers watching because the networks somehow Lacuna'd these things from everyone's noggins." Part one deals with the short-lived Fox series, Tribeca. Part two is everything you would ever want to know about Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Check it out.

I love film music. Love it. One of the first LPs I ever bought with my own money was a John Williams soundtrack (although I'm embarrassed to admit which one.) I'll often buy soundtracks to movies I haven't seen or have no plans of seeing anytime soon. Carter Burwell's score to Twilight, for example. 

So it was only a matter of time, I suppose, before my collaborator Joel Mathis and I did a podcast about movies and their soundtracks. We had a lively and wide-ranging discussion this weekend with Washington Times critic/Denver film maven Christian Toto and Fistful of Soundtracks host, blogger and fledgling comics writer Jimmy J. Aquino. I read Toto's reviews religiously and I've been a fan of Aquino's Internet radio show for years, and so it was a real treat to talk to them both. Among the topics we discussed:

• Whether Drag Me to Hell is suitable for toddlers and why Sam Raimi should be admitted to the Overrated Artiste Club;
• How the symphonic tradition up and moved to Hollywood and whether soundtracks deserve more respect than they get;
• Why Ed Asner should be made into an action figure and Walter Matthau was a great if unlikely action hero;
• Who deserved to get the Matthau role in the upcoming Taking of Pelham One Two Three remake;
• "And much, much more!"

Alas, none of us had seen UP when we recorded this episode, but if we had, I might have confessed to bawling through half the movie. Because I'm a sap. But I would also have made the point -- as if it really needed to be made -- that much of what makes UP so memorable and poignant, especially in the film's opening scenes, is Michael Giacchino's score. Giacchino, of course, gave us the music to the Star Trek reboot. And he also did the soundtrack for the upcoming Land of the Lost. (Ah well, two out of three ain't bad.)

After you've listened to the podcast, I hope you'll visit What Would Toto Watch and A Fistful of Soundtracks. And graphic novel fans may want to check out Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, which feature's Aquino's story, "Sampler."

With the ending of the penultimate season of “Lost,” I had a wacky idea. In early 2010 — seven months from now — ABC would begin unspooling the final 17 episodes of this wonderful show, which I would provisionally place in my all-time top 10 TV series list.

“Lost” is a show with plenty of narrative twists and turns, some (just how many depends on who you ask) planned, some unplanned. The realities of creating a weekly TV show that’s got aspirations of being a “novel for television” mean that, over time, some threads simply go nowhere. (Hey, novelists don’t have characters demand that they get out of their contract halfway through the story. At least, not sane novelists.)

In any event, to celebrate the coming conclusion of this story, I decided to go back to the beginning. And, inspired by Alan Sepinwall’s retro-recap blog entries about series such as “Freaks and Geeks,” “Cupid,” and “The Wire,” I’ve decided to blog about those episodes as well. (I’m hardly alone; find more people doing this same thing here.)

While Alan Sepinwall was kind enough to do two versions of “The Wire” recaps, one for veterans and one for newbies like myself, currently my plan is to blog only based on full knowledge of the show’s entire run up through mid-2009. (If someone out there really wants to watch “Lost” from the beginning, let me know in the comments and I’ll consider creating a newbie version.)

With that said as prologue, and powered by those Sepinwall watch-alongs that I’ve done the past few summers, more about the extraordinary pilot episode of “Lost” as soon as I find an assortment of pens…

Up is really, really good.  Go see it.  I cried.