I had a message on my phone the other day that went kind of like this:

“Beth, do you like The Event?  I hear it’s just like Lost.  I mean, I’ve never seen Lost, so pardon the pun, I was “lost” in it; it was too confusing.  However, I love The Event.”

I’ve had a few people ask me for my take on this show after it premiered, usually people who didn’t watch Lost, but they knew I did and they seemed to be asking for my blessing or looking to bond, since they missed their bonding chance with Lost.  It took me a bit (a whole few minutes), but I finally found the premiere

online and watched.

Here are my thoughts having watched a whole 2 1/2 episodes of The Event:

• It’s not Lost (not necessarily a bad thing – I didn’t always light a candle at the altar of Lost)
• It’s not even Lost-light, well maybe it is if you’re pretty loose with your comparisons – there are mysterious happenings on The Event and there were mysterious happenings on Lost and some are sustained from episode to episode – practically the same show. 
• By episode two we know the big mystery is aliens who crashed on Earth and are now a bit miffed
• I really hate aliens
• Blame the X-Files

I’m not against all aliens – sure, I think Ferengi, Klingons/Jaffa, Cardassians, Wraith and the Centauri are fairly annoying and that the Hirogen are just the Star Trek kid cereal approved rip-off of Predator, but if those lovely people from Caprica came looking for a place known as Earth, I think we could find a spot for them and their generic mid-western accents.  They look like us, they sound like us and hey, they have cars and hearses, which means they might have similar burial rituals (honestly, who can trust a society that doesn’t’ stick with the 6’ below the ground or “light ‘em up” rule of thumb? Stuffing your dead in a jar for a year and tucking it away in a corner may be great where you come from, but I’m not coming over for tea anytime soon if that clay pot is actually your grandmother nestled away next to the table – it’s not you, it’s me).  At the very least, the fact that they invented cars is a sign that they have combustion engines and where there’s a combustion engine there was once fire and wheels – and we all know those are the cornerstones of any trustworthy civilization.  If they can’t make fire, but they do have a ship, there’s something hinky going on.

I will admit, I’m not against all aliens (just a particular disdain for most bipedal, oxygen breathers). I do kind of dig those quirky little bugs that lived in the slum of District 9 – can you believe their love of Alpo? Crazy things!  And what sort of backward individual doesn’t love the Asgard clones?  “Thor, ol’ buddy!” And I even take a shine to those frisky guys that burst from your chest. However, that’s about the limit of my alien tolerance.  ALF I’m looking at you.

What actually killed aliens for me? the whole X-Files alien conspiracy. I was an X-Files fan girl – they had many great episodes, but every few episodes or so a writer would get uppity and say, “hey, we need to get back on that over-arching storyline – ease up on those random chupacabra ghost encounters and dust off the alien conspiracy again.  Hey this time, instead of beating the Samantha abduction thing to death, let’s throw in some bees and a cornfield; our audience will eat it up – black oozing eyes FTW!  We’ll even sew up the guy’s mouth.  CREEEPY, eh??”  But it wasn’t, it sucked, it was overly confusing and it detracted from the show.  Is the cigarette smoking man really Mulder’s father?  I don’t care.  Now get Mulder and Scully back on that werewolf sighting or that family where mama was a mouthy, hillbilly torso strapped to a board.

As I was watching The Event and we get to the part where the plane heads through the portal just in the nick of time to avoid hitting the president, I told Jay “if it’s something crazy like angry angels or ghosts, I’ll stand by the show and continue to watch, BUT if it’s aliens like I think it’s going to be, I’m throwing in the towel”.  And sure as shit it was aliens.  Aliens who look like us, live longer than us and are pretty pissed that they are stuck in Alaska – I would be, too.  And now they’re roaming around (a few avoided detention) and they have A PLAN! A crazy plan that apparently involves picking on some dopey guy who just wanted to take a cruise with his girlfriend, but he’s slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together.  *YAWN*

Do I like it?  No.  If they’re actually stuffed in purgatory and this is a schizophrenic’s fantasy, let me know.