Well of course the rules don't apply to Desmond

Don't know if any of you are big "Lost" fans. I'm not, but still caught the season premiere last night. Actually the first hour was all I could handle because it appears this season they are finally resorting to that most confusing of plot elements -- time travel. Oh God why.

As if this show needed a more labyrinthine narrative. Even the writers seem to be struggling with it -- they already are exempting characters from the rules of space-time. So the character can wake up after experiencing a change in his past and say something like, "That wasn't a dream, it was a memory." It's gonna need a lot more of gun-toting Hurley to maintain its DVR status.

This got me thinking -- what TV shows have successfully used time travel. Quantum Leap and Doctor Who are the only ones I could think of that don't completely suck. Uh, Heroes? I guess that worked out OK for a while. Yeah wikipedia's got nothing. Seven Days? Christ. Although that Outer Limits episode sounds promising.

What's weird about this is that time-travel works so well in other media. There are tons of well thought out films and books that deal with traveling through time, from The Time Machine to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Something about the small screen seems to make it bad.

I think that inherent crappiness is because often traveling through time is resorted to as some kind of plot cure-all. Your basically granting the writer's god-like powers to sew up any dangling plot string. Shot in the leg and bleeding to death? ZAP, now you are in a time/place where there is someone with crack bullet-removing skills. It's just too easy, lacks the kind of payoff the viewer of such a convoluted show deserves. Explain the black fog monster and the polar bear goddammit!

They should make a show where a different person goes back in time every week to kill Hitler.