I have a feeling they're gonna bring out the hoary cliche

Heh. That would appeal to the side of me that sekritly likes the hoary cliché when I'm in the mood for it, but narratively, it'd be boring.

Sawyer said he wasn't that different from Jack, right?

Maybe he's a pediatrician.

just like we are not (yet) seeing Charlie's withdrawal symptoms include vomit.

Dude, didn't you see the last season of 24? TV-heroin withdrawal takes about 8 hours and the only symptoms are sweating and moodiness. Easy-peasy.

What. Jess. Said.

OR, maybe the dislocated shoulder thing was a Very Subtle Clue that Jack's not really the doctor he says he is.

I'm thinking Jack's the red herring. he's set up for us to believe in him as the hero, but he's not. I think he's definitely not what he appears to be, which is why he has no chemistry with the humans.

I think Sawyer is set up to be the bad guy, but we're going to find out he's actually the Han Solo guy, the reluctant hero, working hard at the bad-boy self-serving thing, but unable to come down ultimately on the dark side.

And, having experienced repeated shoulder dislocations, I was screaming at the tv, "No, no! God, don't pull! Support the elbow, rotate the arm slowly but firmly until you feel it slide into place! Dumb writers! Dumb!" Also, the agony would be before the re-location, flare into white-hot at the moment of, and then magically stop. Like, instantly. Why, thank you young rock god!

The reason Jack said that Kate would see there was little difference between him and Jack is because:

a. They're both gay and hot after Sayid, and/or
b. They're both criminals or have committed unethical acts (four years ago?)

Well, it'd be amusing if they implied Charlie's withdrawal also included uncontrollable diarrhea, but this is not Farscape after all.

Maybe he's a pediatrician.

Or, maybe Sawyer dropped out of medical school after a crisis of conscience and has become a redneck poet-philosopher. And his copy of Watership Down is peppered with notes in the margins that expound the nature of man and its complexities in an unpredictable universe. Or maybe pictures of naked women.

Okay, so I have a general TV-writing question.

Stuff like this, little stuff, like the correct way to re-locate a shoulder, or how triangulation works... Is the problem that the writers aren't using google as efficiently as the could, or is the problem that they just don't care?

Or am I setting up a false dichotomy? I am, aren't I? Dammit! A Masters in Philosophy and I don't know any better than to set up a false dichotomy! Idiot.

I saw a person relocate a shoulder at a rehearsal just like they did on the show last night, so maybe there's more than one way?

Stuff like this, little stuff, like the correct way to re-locate a shoulder, or how triangulation works... Is the problem that the writers aren't using google as efficiently as the could, or is the problem that they just don't care?

Little of both, I think. Mostly, they don't want to bog down the dialogue with medical/tech exposition, so they try to put things in the simplest terms possible. And usually, that involves consulting their expert and then saying "Okay, but if we wrote it like this instead, would that be okay? For television?"