It's been a long summer, huh? A lot's happened. Survivor came and went, leaving us with a whole new list of pseudo-celebrities to take up space in our collective consciousness. The Olympics tried to dig NBC out of the deep hole that CBS's summer put them in, but only synchronized diving kept it from becoming a complete fiasco. Rae Dawn Chong's career completely failed to rematerialize. Oh yeah, and by this late date, deep into fall, we finally got a new Third Watch episode. Huh. Would ya look at that...it's called "The Lost," and in keeping with the theme of burying things, I propose we bury the hatchet of negativity around this show. I'll agree not to get too snarky if you agree not to e-mail me your hot fantasies about Bosco. Agreed? This promise only extends to how far in the episode I get before its sheer badness travels, virus-like, into my brain and boils my blood, making me forget all about this contract.

So, la de da, let's roll tape on "previously ons." from last season...oh, hey. That's Bosco yelling "congratulations!" when Yokas declares that she is unwantedly pregnant. Here's Kim and Jimmy in bed together! No! Jimmy got shot! Badly! Oh, ugh, oh, my brain! My beautiful brain! It...ack, achem, ackkkkk!

Agreement? What agreement? This sucks so far and it hasn't even started yet! Well, pity the poor bastard who bets against an MBTV writer on the issue of snarkiness.

The second season begins with Sully in voice-over, talking about how he's not afraid of much. As he speaks, it's a nighttime scene of thugs in ski masks taking a plastic tarp and some shovels out of a trunk. We hear tinkly music as they gather up a plastic-wrapped, still-moving body and put it in the trunk, placing the tarp and shovels back in with it. Our point of view is at times from inside the trunk, Tarantino-style. Everything's in slow motion. Sully talks about how he's not afraid of heights, as evidenced by that one time he helped a jumper by going out on the George Washington Bridge. The thugs drive off in the car, and as Sully keeps on relatin', they arrive at their destination near the bridge. They take the body out as Sully says that everybody has something that makes their skin crawl. Like this show, for instance, or the thought of Dave Thomas showering. The thugs carry the body to a pre-dug square grave. They put the body in, then throw some jugs of water down there. Is this some sort of Fox Secrets of Magic Revealed special? The buried man takes off the cowl on his head, and it's an old man, not Sully. The bad guys throw some wood over him, sealing the man in his grave. Then they start piling in the dirt as Sully reveals that his worst fear is being buried alive. The no-good crooks put a pipe in the piece of wood, allowing the guy down there a way to breathe. What kind of half-assed burial job is this? This is like putting a contract out on someone, but you're cheap about it, so you try to get a better deal using Amazon.com gift certificate codes.