Episodes like “Sundown” are exactly the sort of show Lost used to string us along in the early seasons without actually revealing much of anything, and make it an experience we enjoyed rather than complained about. It had a main plot on the island that moves slowly and deliberately before unleashing a fast-paced action sequence at the end, an off-island plot that develops characters and throws in a nice “and look how they connect to this other person!” bonus, and a sense that even though answers about the nature of things were not forthcoming, we are gradually learning what questions we’re supposed to be asking. We still don’t know what exactly Jacob and Smokey Locke are supposed to represent or who’s on what side, but “Sundown” made Smokey’s motivation and arsenal a little clearer. Plus, because firm information on the Smoke Monster was withheld for so long, it’s still incredibly novel to see the wind blow, hear that odd ticking sound effect, and then watch John Locke stroll out of the jungle.

Dialogue on this show still frustrates me, and after five seasons of lines like “Someone is coming” and the island-wide moratorium on specific, probing queries, it’s probably time for me to just walk away. But while Jack’s lack of curiosity seems like downright imbecility, Sayid does a much better job of selling the vagueness as carrying a hidden significance instead of a meaningless delay. (Tell it to me in Star Wars! Sayid’s version: These are not the droids you’re looking for. Jack’s version: I don’t know – Are they the droids you’re looking for? Is someone looking for these droids? We have to go back!) The result is an episode where the philosophy and thematic content are more palatable and have direct, concrete consequences on Sayid’s actions. When Sayid ponders whether he’s actually good or evil, he makes the whole journey from insisting he’s a decent man to giving us one of the creepiest crazy villain smiles I’ve ever seen, all inside of one fully packed hour. Even if that experience doesn’t give fans another tangible answer to the Lost puzzle, it shifts the character landscape so dramatically that it hardly matters.

The episode also had a lot of strong minor plotlines going for it. I loved the growing realization that Claire Crazypants is just waiting for an opportunity to rip Kate apart with her bare hands, even if the pit did give me some unsubtle “it puts the lotion in the basket” flashbacks. It was also great to see Keamy come back in a useful way, and nice to see that time itself may shift, but Keamy will always be a crazed, violent guy with creepy eyes who inevitably gets killed off. And speaking of killed off, I never connected enough with Dogen to care much when Sayid drowned him, but I did like his translator/sidekick, Lennon. I’ve missed John Hawkes since Deadwood, and I was hoping he’d become interesting enough to keep around for a while. But he was sacrificed to Sayid’s downward spiral into evil madness, so I guess that’s all right.

More than anything, the music for this scene freaked me out. It's so rare we get a new musical cue on this show, and Claire is already scary enough to make "Catch A Falling Star" seriously frightening.

This episode does little to develop my questions from last week about whether the nature of Lost is inherently scifi or fantasy (or something entirely different), except possibly as it relates to Sayid’s fate. But as I mentioned in the beginning, with an episode where the vague philosophical musings are followed swiftly by Sayid slitting throats and Smoky slaughtering everyone in the temple, Lost is able to set aside some of the deeper critical fretting that comes with frustration. Some of the audience may be dying for answers, but Cuse and Lindelof have made it very clear that the goal is entertainment, not instruction. When the show is sufficiently entertaining, that division feels satisfying.

If only we could have two good episodes in a row so that it didn’t feel like we have to earn every compelling episode by sitting through a dull one, I wouldn’t need to spend every other episode feeling cast into existential crisis about the show’s ultimate purpose. Fingers crossed for next week.

With the amazing US vs. Canada men’s hockey game, the giant inflatable beavers, and The Marriage Ref, NBC’s Olympic coverage came to a close Sunday night. Which means that on Monday, Chuck came back! As you may recall, Chuck last left its viewers in a hailstorm of shipper-fueled outrage, so returning last night felt a little bit like prepping for a commenter’s remake of The Perfect Storm.

Paulie really hates those will-they-or-won't-they-things. Just do it already!

As expected, it looks like there’s been some shipper grumbling about the episode, mostly focusing on Sarah’s growing intimacy with Shaw, but so far it hasn’t approached the Scorched Earth level of demanding a boycott. Some of that must have to do with the fact that “Chuck vs. The Fake Name” was quite a bit more thoughtful and self-referential about Chuck and Sarah’s diverging paths, even working in some pretty obvious meta-joking: “I hate those will-they-or-won’t-they things,” especially when spoken so earnestly by Paulie from The Sopranos, is a small step away from Liz Lemon turning straight to the camera and winking. There was also some comforting commentary from Big Mike and Jeffster (who are as close as Chuck gets to a Greek chorus) reminding the audience that at least some characters on this show remember that Chuck’s supposed to end up with Sarah. Despite what seems like a more permanent and meaningful bond between Sarah and Shaw, I can only imagine those little shout outs go a long way toward at least dialing back some of the shipper fury.

Best Greek chorus ever. Also, I have this sudden desire to own a Crock Pot...

More important than Big Mike’s classic onion tears cover-up, last night’s Chuck was just stronger than “Chuck vs. The Mask.” Chuck’s development fell a lot closer to that sweet spot of being both entertaining on the surface and compelling for the longer term – he was so funny and good at being a stone-cold assassin, but even without Sarah’s explication later on, it was disturbing to watch him balk only briefly before pulling out Casey’s tooth. Of course the Sopranos goons were delightful, and did a great job of selling my favorite moment from “The Fake Name,” when Chuck eavesdrops on Sarah’s real name and suddenly shifts into telling the baddies all about his fraught personal life. Scenes like that are great at selling the advantages of Chuck 2.0. He’s still himself, falling easily out of the spy role whenever Sarah’s involved, and he’s highly attuned to the absurdities around him, but he’s also much more in control of the situation, and is quickly able to convert his lapse into strategy. It also managed to keep being funny, particularly when Chuck points out that Sarah is the one who pushed him to get better in the first place, while in the context of this scene, Chuck’s job is to be a badass, heartless assassin. Episodes like this are strong arguments in favor of the riskier, more dynamic, more conflicted Chuck this season has been trying to inaugurate with somewhat uneven success.

"Shut up shut up shut up!"

I’m sure there are still plenty of infuriated fans out there, and at this point, it’s without question that Chuck and Sarah need some forward momentum. As Alan Sepinwall wisely suggests, the point at which your show actually throws in a funny “will-they-or-won’t-they” line is the point at which that plotline should probably get resolved post haste. But I can only hope that whatever else Chuck shippers find to feed the rage (SHE TOLD SHAW HER REAL NAME!! BETRAYALL!!!!!), they recognize the groundwork this episode went out of its way to establish and try to clamp down on the instinct to panic. An episode that sparkles and fizzes like “Fake Name” should be cause for pleasure, not uproar.

NBC kicked off its new, post-The Jay Leno Show programming last night by interrupting the closing Olympic ceremonies for Jerry Seinfeld’s new show The Marriage Ref.

Tom Papa, host of The Marriage Ref

I’m going to have to go ahead and out myself right now as previously holding out some hope that The Marriage Ref could be funny. The concept, at its most stripped down and simple, is actually sort of interesting. Real life couples re-live some knockdown drag-out fight, and then a panel of celebrity guests weigh in on who’s right. Inevitably in the course of discussing the couple, the celebrities reveal something about themselves and their own marital experiences, hidden inside the chortling and wink-winking. It combines the voyeuristic impulses of shows like Wife Swap and SuperNanny with our culture-wide fascination in repeating the “celebrities are just like us!” revelation over and over again. There’s also a pleasantly optimistic undercurrent to the whole thing, at least in theory – these fights are awful, repetitive, and silly, but they’re not going to be the end of this marriage.

In practice, it turns out, The Marriage Ref is just terrible. The worst part of it all is the sports-themed framework, which attempts to box everything up into stupid, pre-packaged sporty segments like “The Call” and “The Play of the Day.” None of the sports metaphors aid the discussion, and instead, most interrupt the already stilted conversational flow. Natalie Morales’ “Just the Facts, Ma’am” is the most absurd of these, a pre-written bit where the host Tom Papa interrupts the celebrities to ask Natalie for more information on a certain topic, and then she reads out some statistics that are supposed to help the audience better understand a situation. The first couple’s fight is about a husband who wants to stuff and display his dead dog. Natalie informs us that about 1,000 Americans do this every year. No one knows what to say. Tom Papa is also a serious contributor to the show’s herky-jerky quality – Alec Baldwin is a pretty funny guy, so when Tom Papa interrupts him to give us a silly, mindless, clearly rehearsed bit, he comes off as a little kid being a pest at the grown-up table. “Hey, look at me! Look at me look at me look look look at meeeeeee!!” *Sticks a chopstick in his nose.*

Jerry Seinfeld is not laughing with you, sir. He is laughing at you.

Aside from these problems with the show’s execution, it’s clear there’s also a deep flaw in the concept of The Marriage Ref that I hadn’t really appreciated until seeing it. The entire idea here is that we, normal Americans, are offering ourselves up so that celebrities can judge us. While my initial impulse was that coming together to talk about marriage could have a humanizing effect on the celebrity panel, the reverse is actually true. The concept of the show relies on the inherent acceptance that celebrities are so much better than the normal couples that they can arbitrate their marriages based on a two-minute-long clip. And we will accept that judgment, because OMG Madonna! If The Marriage Ref is really sports-themed, then the couples are not really the opposing teams – the couple is the poor ping-pong ball that’s been offered up for the amusement of the celebrities to bat around and then discard. What could be more humiliating?

It’ll be interesting to see how the show performs, and whether the swift and terrible critical response seeps into popular perception. Right now it looks like NBC is going to have to find another lifeboat.