THE TIME TRAVEL SEASON IS OVER. THE FLASH-FORWARD SEASON IS OVER. WE HAVE SOMETHING DIFFERENT PLANNED. Reading Alan Sepinwall's twitterings about the Lost panel at Comic Con makes me wonder about something. Is Lost the seminal television event of the last five years?

NO, SHE HASN'T BEEN DEAD THE ENTIRE TIME:I don't normally blog about movies that I have not seen and have no intention of seeing, but Gawker's reveal of the big twist ending for Orphan is just too good to pass up, and the proposed alternate title they give it based on the ending is Mansquito-level awesome. I won't spoil here, but the comments are fair game.

ZOMBIE HIP HOP REVIEW IN ACT I, ZOMBIE REVIVAL IN ACT II, ZOMBIE BRIDE IN ACT III: So it was a zombieriffic So You Think You Can Dance 100th episode. We had revivals (I never was that much of a fan of the bench dance, but Wade Robson and the Season II cast were great fun in Ramalama, and I noticed a lot more about Jaimie's work in the hummingbird dance than I did the first twelve times I saw it). We had a montage. We had Homecoming Night for many of the old casts (and Kherington appeared to be wearing a skating costume, so if Fame doesn't work out, there's always Ice Capades). We had heartbreak (Nigel was exceedingly unhappy about one of the eliminations, and I was unhappy about one of the non-eliminations). We had a world-record group hug (all of the choreographers came on stage, presumably to take a bow for the audience, but it looked like they were there to see off the bootees). My only complaints, really, were the opening number (Chorus Line is like acid in my ears) and the part where Katie Holmes's vanity number ground the whole show to a screeching halt.

ONE-SHEET SPOILERAGE: A few notes on the new Chuck poster, at which Fedak gave Alan Sepinwall the first look, maybe as a token of thanks for Sepinwall moderating the Chuck Comic-Con panel tomorrow:

• They're taking the 80s influence to another level. It takes cues from the semirealistic illustrated posters for Big Trouble in Little China, Goonies, Caveman (kind of), and Meatballs, among other 80s comedies.
• I never noticed how much Chuck and Sarah look like Greg Brady and an edgier Marcia Brady. Now that I've seen it, I'm going to want to unsee it the first time they start making out.
• Tony Hale is the only regular from last season missing from the poster, so it looks like the denials of casting cuts were mostly accurate.
• Speaking of the missing Tony Hale, Big Mike is back in his manager's clothes, and Morgan is back in his Buy More polo.
• And Chuck is still wearing his Nerd Herd gear and apparently driving the tricked-out Nerd Herd car. I kind of wanted him to be done with the Buy More.
• But what's that gun he's holding? I have to wait until January to find out?

Sorry if that's excessive geeking out.

I GET PAID TO BE SUSPICIOUS WHEN I'VE GOT NOTHING TO BE SUSPICIOUS ABOUT: Via @baseballcrank, 5 Cats that Look Like Wilford Brimley. Also, and I forget who tweeted it to me -- the greatest Wedding Entrance (this week) from St. Paul, one which only could have been improved upon with the insertion at 2:45 of the Castle-led "group approach to the stage" sequence from the end of Dirty Dancing (2:55, like anyone here doesn't know exactly what I'm talking about).

It's Friday; find us something else that's equally pointless-but-amusing.

I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'VE EVER SEEN STAR WARS, BUT IT"S LIKE HOTH OUT THERE. --DIBS! Sure Diana Eng didn't get all that far in Project Runway, but that's because Tim Gunn never asked her to make a fashionable HAM antenna to track satellites from a Jiffy Pop tin and seventeen subway tokens.

Now that's a woman who can make it work, people.

AND THE MISSES KEEP ON COMING: As a fan of The Shield, The Wire, and many other adult-drama, hard-boiled, or faux hard-boiled cop shows that trace their lineage more or less directly to Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, it was inevitable that Dark Blue (TNT, Wednesdays, 10/9C) would get a few hours of my time this summer. I had high hopes that it would turn out to be something worthy, gritty, and complicated, but those hopes are waning. Two episodes in, I hope it’s not too early to offer reflections and solicit input from anyone else who has been watching.

For the most part, on the positive side, Dark Blue looks good. Literally. It is visually compelling, if perhaps over-reliant on stubbly machismo among the male leads. Long shots, tight shots, quick entrances, pointedly lazy pans into obscure shadow are deftly juxtaposed in a dramatically dim and pulpy palette of dingy browns and night time blues and grays. These all serve to heighten an expectation of moody drama, gritty intensity, complicated emotional states, that, on the negative side, the scripting and staging of the show and the one-dimensional relationships between the characters have (so far) failed to deliver.

Diplomatic parentheses aside, I’m more concerned that I’m being too easy on this one than too hard. Stubbly suggests gritty, but it doesn’t get you there. Chemistry between the leading characters is lacking. In many respects the first two episodes have felt like a collection of focus grouped half measures.

For example, one simple strategy for simultaneously heightening tension and establishing the character of a single episode bad guy is to have said bad guy shoot an underling. For disloyalty. For incompetence. For being FBI. Whatever. It’s fast and the message is hard to misunderstand, but it’s not very subtle or interesting. It’s the modern equivalent of holding a mortgage on the farm or tying the eldest daughter to the railroad tracks. Two episodes in, it’s already been used twice too often.

Another trope they’ve obviously got a fully paid royalty-free worldwide license for is A Method For Tying A Variously Tough And/Or Desperate Guy To A Chair And Subjecting Him At Gunpoint To Threats And Interrogation. Lines of dialogue for said threats and interrogation seem to be under third-party license as well, likely from the Internet Underworld Figure Loyalty Test Emulator. In the preview for next week’s installment, sure enough, a desperate looking guy, very possibly an underling, was shown tied to a chair.

Internet Underworld Figure Pre-Deal Banter Emulator and Internet Undercover Cop Perp-Baiting Emulator have also been given a vigorous work-out, to similar effect. It’s bad enough to be a party game: During the (dramatic?) pauses that are inserted to lend gravity to the dialogue, you may repeatedly find yourself able to guess the next line from the antagonist or protagonist in time to speak it aloud with the character in question. “There, was that so hard?” Just for example. (No, it wasn’t.)

A notable exception this week was a single jarringly incongruous scene that might have redeemed the whole episode if it had been played for laughs instead of straight-up. In said scene, a homicidal gun runner (he killed an underling) with a stripper girlfriend begins commiserating with a stubbly under-cover cop (who is tied to a chair) about his paramour’s intimacy issues while the boss is out of the room. There is no point to this scene whatsoever. It is nothing if it is not funny. It is not funny. Instead, we are invited to experience a moment of suspense as the undercover cop strains in his bonds towards the emotionally distracted gun runner’s weapon. We decline the invitation.

The longer-term character issues they’re setting up for the season are being handled with similar delicacy. One cop loves his wife. Another keeps weapons, drugs, and bales of hundred-dollar bills in a hidden compartment in his bedroom. A third is a recovering drug addict. The marquee lead, Dylan McDermott, wears sunglasses indoors and mumbles. It might be enough, if it were better executed, but at this rate Dark Blue has maybe another ninety minutes to captivate me. If it doesn’t have me tied to my chair by then, I’m gone.