Every Wednesday night, like 12 million other Americans, I watch "Lost." And like most of those 12 million, my interest in it has slowly waned since the start of the season. "What? The survivors stumbled onto another oddity on the island that makes no sense, never gets explained, but yet no one seems the least bit freaked out about it?" It was bad enough that they killed off the lovely Michelle Rodriguez, but when the best character on the show, Mr. Eko, was tossed around by the charcoal smoke monster -- and no one seemed phazed by it -- that's when I started to get pissed off at "Lost." Think about it. You're trapped on an island with no hope of escape, there's very little food, a mysterious group of people keep picking members of your party off, there's a polar bear running around in a f**king jungle, and then the biggest guy in camp is killed by global warming with teeth. I'd flip out. You'd find me the next day isolated in a palm tree, wearing Charlie's skin for protection.
Anyway, there is one saving grace to the season: lovely actress Tania Raymonde, who plays Ben/Danielle's daughter Alex. I get an extra little kick out of seeing her, because I remember seeing something special in her years before. About seven years ago I was watching "Malcolm in the Middle" one night and I developed a COMPLETELY NON-SEXUAL Timothy Hutton on Natalie Portman in "Beautiful Girls" crush on Malcolm's rejected girlfriend, Cynthia. She was kind of quirky, she knew Krav Maga, and she didn't care what you thought. You just knew she was going to grow up into a total heartbreaker. Malcolm was such a twit for not realizing this. What the hell was wrong with that little punk that he could blow off cute Cynthia like that? He looked like newborn left in a dumpster by his prom-going mom. I friggin' hated Malcolm.
But the actress playing Cynthia was Tania Raymonde, same gal now starring in "Lost." Here she was then:
And here she is now:
I know! Baby is definitely all grown up.
But this got me to thinking. In the age of Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears and Hillary Duff, we're absolutely inundated with these kids and we basically watch them grow up behind a camera lens. Some of these kids turn out very well -- LeAnn Rimes, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson. Some do not (look at the tragedy that seems to be unfolding with poor Kirstin Dunst). Either way, predicting the career arc of young Hollywood should be course of study in college. It's certainly more important than something like sociology or "political science." Let's get working on this America. For the sake of our futures, and our children's futures.
Either way, I'm tentatively calling this phenomenon The Claudia Principle, after one of my friends would insist -- and yes, it was very creepy at the time -- would insist that little Claudia Salinger on "Party of Five," played by Lacey Chabert, was going to grow up to be a total hottie someday. Did I mention that we thought it was really creepy at the time? I can't stress this enough. Here's Lacey then:
And here she is now:
I know. It was creepy. But damn if he didn't nail it.
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