I’m not even going to attempt a guess at how Lost will end tonight because a) I’d probably be wrong and b) I don’t want to raise my expectations only to have them dashed in the finale’s closing minutes. The far-from-satisfying Battlestar Galactica finale is still fresh in my memory and I’m hoping the Lost writers can do better, but the current season’s meandering plot has me prepared for an ending full of ambiguity and unanswered questions. And perhaps that’s the point. The show has sometimes been obtuse, but it’s never tried to beat viewers over the head with obvious and simple metaphors. Instead, it’s preferred to let us assign our own meaning to things. And so even when I’ve been frustrated with the show’s slow pace, it’s always been interesting to watch.

I’m going to miss Lost when it’s gone, but my TiVo will still have plenty to keep its hard drive spinning: Breaking Bad, Mad Men, True Blood, and Fringe. Especially Fringe. That show has quickly matured into the best science fiction drama on television with a tremendously fun story about parallel universes. I just hope the Fringe writers have a plan for keeping the story moving forward.

The Empire Strikes Back, one of the bestest movies ever, was released thirty years ago today. That made me about six when my dad took me to see it, which now seems like an impossibly long time ago. For my money, the battle on Hoth remains the gold standard in science fiction action sequences. What it lacks in fancy CGI it more than makes up in the sheer awesomeness of giant dinosaurish-looking tanks shooting lasers. The lightsaber battle between Luke and Vader ranks a close second.

I didn’t fully appreciate how great this movie was until my twenties, but it now resides in a high place of honor in my personal pop culture canon. I may have to watch it again this weekend to commemorate the occasion.

Check out this Army training video of a very early-generation fire control computer. It’s got actual gears. Gears! I think I hear my computer snickering in amusement, but I bet it secretly wishes that it had a few cogs and bronze dials. It’s a sucker for the retro look.

This eerily beautiful bit of tornado porn was recorded by a couple sitting in their car as a twister forms in front of them. It looks way too much like some nightmares I’ve had. But the video’s ominous imagery is somewhat offset by the comically frantic exchange between the increasingly freaked-out woman and the forcibly calm dude. I like to think that, in a situation like this, I’d be Mr. Calm Dude, but only after a mighty struggle with my inner hysteric.

M. Butterfly is loosely based on the true story of a French diplomat who became involved with a male Chinese opera star and was eventually convicted of spying for the Chinese. The Guthrie production presents the narrative in a series of flashbacks as told by former diplomat Rene Gallimard as he wastes away in a French prison. He summons for the audience his memories of his time as a junior officer stationed at the French embassy in Beijing. We observe his budding infatuation for Song, a Chinese opera star who plays the lead role in a production of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. They eventually form a relationship, but Gallamard somehow never realizes that Song is a man. He also fails to recognize that Song is manipulating him into passing secrets to the Chinese government.

The play is a funny and insightful study of romantic love and the extent to which we will sometimes lie to ourselves and others in order to protect our idealized image of a lover. The cast is uniformly great, but Randy Reyes deserves special mention for his portrayal of Song. He’s been in several Guthrie productions, but here he finally brings his wit and wry delivery to a leading role. The scene in which Song finally reveals his true identity to Gallimard is one of the most intense and well-executed I’ve seen at the Guthrie.

As an aside, I heard several older ladies gasp at the full frontal male nudity, so keep that in mind when deciding to take your grandmother to this production.