It's been quite a week for Hollywood hyphenate J.J. Abrams. His relaunch of the Star Trek franchise topped the box office. And his two TV series, Lost and Fringe had ambitious finales.

Actually, the two episodes had a number of similarities.

Each gave us a first look at the powerful figure who has been pulling the strings (Jacob on Lost and William Bell on Fringe). Pay some attention to that man behind the curtain.

Both shows had characters with their heads swathed in bandages like Claude Raines in The Invisible Man (Ilana on Lost and the nefarious David Robert Jones on Fringe). And both shows were unsatisfying.

To recap: On Fringe, Olivia steps out of an elevator and into a parallel universe where the twin towers still dominate the Manhattan skyline.

On Lost, Juliet somehow survives a 300-foot plunge down a concrete shaft and then sets off a thermonuclear device - by tapping its metal shell with a rock.

These are cliff-hangers? Season finales should leave you on tenterhooks, not scratching your head all summer.

Makes you long for the days of "Who shot J.R.?", doesn't it, J.J.?

You can dance if you wanna. TV is fickle. For the past few months, everyone has been talking about the can't-miss Gossip Girl spin-off, set in Los Angeles in the '80s during Lily's wild teenage years.

By the time the flashback episode establishing the premise aired this week, the consensus was that the spin-off had no chance of making the CW's schedule next fall. (We'll find out for sure on Thursday, during the network's annual up-front presentation.)

I blame the period music. Men Without Hats? Really?

No, the musical moment of the week came during 30 Rock's finale when an all-star lineup of singers convened for a hilarious televised benefit to secure a kidney for Jack's newfound father (guest star Alan Alda).

Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Mary J. Blige, Adam Levine, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Earle, Clay Aiken, and many more singing, "He needs a kidney / No, he doesn't need a hand / He just needs a kidney / A hand would be an even harder thing to give."

Sublime.

Walking tall. Many readers wrote in to complain about last week's column in which I maintained that NCIS's Mark Harmon was of less-than-imposing stature. Almost all of them pointed out that the former athlete is 6 feet tall.

All I can say is that it seems like an awfully short six feet. I've noticed that the leading men in many of TV's law-and-order procedurals play shorter than their height. Take Anthony LaPaglia on Without a Trace or the hunched William Peterson, recently departed from CSI.

Maybe they stoop to conquer?

Come here often? There were some classic lines in prime time this week.

On Lost, Locke intruded on Ben, who was dreamily looking out to sea. "Ben, I have a question," he said. "Pisces," quipped the scoundrel without missing a beat.

Then there was Agent Cho on The Mentalist. The team had approached the cabin of a backwoods coot. Cho hammered on the door, shouting "CBI" (the obscure acronym for California Bureau of Investigation).

The hermit popped up behind the agents with a shotgun. After he was subdued, he groused, "You're pounding on my door, saying 'CBI.' CBI. Like that's supposed to mean something."

"Yeah," said the always deadpan Cho. "We do need better brand awareness."

BTW, I looked on the Facebook fan page for actor Tim Kang, who plays Cho. Pisces.

Contact staff writer David Hiltbrand at 215-854-4552 or dhiltbrand@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/daveondemand.