Sick and Lost

One good thing to come from being sick, and therefore off work, for the last few days, is that Mrs Doombreed and I have begun watching the first two seasons of Lost.

For those not in the know, Lost is the story of a group of people who survive a 'plane crash on a tropical island, and how they deal with two facts: the first is that nobody knows where they are; the second is that the island would provide storylines for a whole season of The Twilight Zone.

We're about halfway through the first season, and already the show has provided the winner of the Legal Alien Award For The Best Star Trek Reference In Any Show.

Two of our heroes, Locke and Boone, are out a-scouting when Boone makes an off-hand comment about "red shirts" (and any self-respecting Trekkie knows what they are). Locke, not being much of a telly watcher, doesn't get it, so Boone explains about how, whenever the captain and his pointy-eared chum beam down to a planet, they are accompanied by anonymous people in red shirts who, inevitably, die. Locke ponders this for a second before replying:

"Hmmm.. Sounds like a piss-poor captain to me.."

Which, if you think about it, is a fair assessment of a captain who loses crew at the rate Kirk did.