Two series that I watch are about to come to an end. Lost and Dollhouse. With Lost we have known for a few years that the 6th season would be its last. Dollhouse was forced to an end a couple months ago. This all makes me think about the end of The X-Files.

The X-Files was my favorite series in college. Quite possibly my favorite series ever. Seasons 1-5 were awesome. The first movie came out which was really hyped and I feel lived up to the hype. Season 6-7 were really good as well, but you could easily see that they had moved from Vancouver to California. After season 7 David Duchovny didn’t want to be a part of the series anymore, but Fox knowing that The X-Files was a cash cow went on with seasons 8 & 9 anyways. A very big mistake. I have yet to meet a fan of the series that enjoyed the last 2 seasons, my wife even stopped watching and she’s just as big a fan me. Duchovny of course came back for parts of season 8 & 9 (but it didn’t make a difference at that point) and the second movie, which also seems kind of blah. I really wish the show had ended at season 7.

Dollhouse up until Fox announced was canceled seemed to really be wandering and not giving us a whole lot of answers about anything. Thankfully Fox allowed Joss Whedon some time to finish off the series, instead of just blowing it away like they did with Firefly (in my opinion his best series). This has given Joss the opportunity to spew forth lots of answers. Since Fox canceled the series I have actually enjoyed it a lot more and will miss it. When Fox announced the cancellation I was really ambivalent to the news. Fox making Joss condense the show to 7 or 8 episodes what would have been dragged out over 3-4 years is a quick payoff for the fans. Though I am sure many will be upset over the quick end.

Lost announced the end of the series a few years back. This really let JJ Abrams and crew plot out where the series was going to go and how to end the show and how to lead up to that end. I really think this was an excellent decision on the part of ABC. I am really going to miss Lost when it goes off the air, but it is a thousand times better then some of cast or crew getting upset and leaving the show and the series dragging on for a few extra seasons that no one really enjoys and really brings down the series as a whole.

There are lots more shows that dragged on too long Prison Break, Alias (thankfully ABC saw that error quickly and it only dragged on for about half a season too long). And way to many that end earlier than they needed to Buffy, Angel, Jericho.

It is definitely a fine balance of not canceling a show to early and not letting drag on to long. I think Lost might be the first series that has ever found that balance.

Fuel.tv just put out an article and short bio on a great photographer Josh Letchworth.

Starz is premiering a new show soon Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It looks to be somewhat in the vein of Gladiator & 300. Which is definitely a good thing. Staring the beautiful Lucy Lawless (Xena, Battlestar Galactica). For those of you without Starz, it looks like the show will be available via Netflix streaming right away. The series premier is on January 22nd. It looks like they are spending a lot of money on visual effects, hopefully they are spending a lot of money on writers as well (time will tell).

Google has just updated Google Docs (for some users, the rest of us coming soon) To allow users to upload any file type they want onto Google Docs, up to a 250 MB file. That’s really convenient especially since you can share files with other users. Does this mean a name change is imminent as well, since it now won’t really be just docs?

More importantly Google.cn will no longer be censoring their search results. That’s a big bold move, from a big bold company. One would hope that this would lead to radical changes in China as well.

I love cupcakes and I love games, but apparently not as much as Robin Dahlberg does. Robin made cupcake representations of 100(+) games. Here the are all beautifully presented in the 100 Cupcakes Game. Can you get them all? I sure didn’t, not even close. I think I got 50 of them. Some I had never even heard of, but most wrong answers are followed by an “Oh, yeah”.

Thanks to Wil Wheaton for the heads up.