OT: LOST Season 3 Discussion **** SPOILERS ****

[Feanor]

Could've been suicide (he had the pearls, which is a romantic gesture consistent with suicide) or it could've been...Sun. That would be thematically consistent with the opening scene and the title of the episode: The Glass Ballerina.

Interesting. I assume/hope they'll go back to that back-story at some point this season and reveal what really happened.

[Airdog]

That's one interpretation.

Well, don't be shy....

Could've been suicide (he had the pearls, which is a romantic gesture consistent with suicide) or it could've been...Sun. That would be thematically consistent with the opening scene and the title of the episode: The Glass Ballerina.

I was leaning towards the suicide angle, but you just peaked my interest with Sun doing it herself. She is capable of killing, as was evident at the end of the episode.

Interrrrresting.

[Slumberland]

It's great to see the old Locke back.

The idea of a polar bear dragging Ecko across the island intact strikes me as utterly ridiculous.

Not sure how Desmond, Locke and Ecko were THROWN by an IMPLOSION. It wouldn't bother me so much if I thought they were ever going to explain it... but they never explain anything on this show. Oh, right... we know why the plane went down... the electromagnetic anomoly... which itself will never be clarified.

I just think that three years in, there should be some discernable advancement of the plot. Throw us a freaking bone, and stop simply piling on the mysteries.

[wpw721]

I just think that three years in, there should be some discernable advancement of the plot. Throw us a freaking bone, and stop simply piling on the mysteries.

I agree with you. My wife gets so frustrated with me when I b*tch about the lack of plot advancement. You should check out this site I love the bitterness fiesta! http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com ... m=708[url]

[wco81]

I just think that three years in, there should be some discernable advancement of the plot. Throw us a freaking bone, and stop simply piling on the mysteries.

I agree with you. My wife gets so frustrated with me when I b*tch about the lack of plot advancement. You should check out this site I love the bitterness fiesta! http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com ... m=708[url]

Come on you guys are just nitpicking about a show you hate.

[RobVarak]

No comments? Was everyone underwhelmed?

I enjoyed it. I'm not sure that I buy that they're on a different island. There's the polar bear problem for one. And it just feels...wrong.

Brilliant line when Sawyer told Benry that he'd like Of Mice and Men because they kill puppies

And that actor who played the warden was one scary looking dude.

[Naples39]

And that actor who played the warden was one scary looking dude.

The whole episode I couldn't get this image out of my head;

[wco81]

The twist at the end -- conning the con artist to get his respect -- seems to try to put The Others in a more benign light, despite Trixie's warning to Sun that if she shot her, they would become their enemies.

Certainly if they had implanted the pacemaker, it would have gone beyond the pale of any scientific experiment.

Yet they are clearly treating them like lab rats, monitoring them, manipulating them.

Plus we can't forget that Ethan killed and didn't some of the tail-section people get killed? Or at least abducted?

So Henry's offer to Jack and then trying to win Sawyer's confidence, has to be taken with a jaundiced eye.

They also tried to humanize Juliette, by showing her guilt at being unable to save Trixie (or whatever the character's name is).

But if these were decent human beings, they would have helped the survivors from the start in an open, direct way. Instead of f***in with them, killing them. They threw the bomb on the raft, with no guarantees that they would survive. And they shot at Sun.

If they later reveal they were purposely missing her but just making her think they were trying to kill her, it would be a big copout.

[vader29]

It was a good episode last night, I liked how Jack started to play Juliette against Ben and the others telling her she just follows orders. Also in Sawyer's flashback he comes up with another good nickname when he called the guy he was trying to get the location of the money from "Costanza"

[RobVarak]

It was a good episode last night, I liked how Jack started to play Juliette against Ben and the others telling her she just follows orders. Also in Sawyer's flashback he comes up with another good nickname when he called the guy he was trying to get the location of the money from "Costanza"

Even better was when he called broken-nosed guy, "Chinatown."

[Feanor]

Did Sawyer kill one of the Others back at the end of Season 2? I have a memory of him shooting one of them from a distance with a rifle, but I don't think it's ever come up since....

[Zeppo]

And that actor who played the warden was one scary looking dude.

That's Bill Duke! A very good actor and director. If you've never seen it, check out his movie Deep Cover (1992) with Larry Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum. Tremendously good movie, that. Duke is weird looking, no doubt, but every time he shows up in a movie or TV show (like, when I saw the last X-men movie in the theater) I reflexively holler 'Hey, it's Bill Duke!'

The ep. was OK, but I miss the other characters. The whole 'do you love him' . . . 'I just said that to stop them hurting you. . . ' was very silly to me. I'm not a big fan of this dividing up the eps so completely this way, where we won't see any of Locke, Ecko, etc. when we're in a Jack, Kate n' Sawyer episode. Maybe it's that I'm more interested in the other characters we already know than in these new 'Others' people they keep creating.

[RobVarak]

That's Bill Duke! A very good actor and director. If you've never seen it, check out his movie Deep Cover (1992) with Larry Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum. Tremendously good movie, that. Duke is weird looking, no doubt, but every time he shows up in a movie or TV show (like, when I saw the last X-men movie in the theater) I reflexively holler 'Hey, it's Bill Duke!'

D'oh! (Smacks self on forehead!) I am just terrible at putting things like that together. That's a great movie..and soundtrack! Looking at his IMDB listing, I should obviously know him from about 10 different things LOL

As for the "split" episodes, I've seen a couple interviews where actors and staff have indicated that it's a change made because of the difficulty of shooting in Hawaii. It's part of a major change in the logistics of how they film.

Apparently they've struggled for the first two seasons on many of the backstory scenes because they need to recreate non-Island locales on Hawaii. This year they've split up the shooting schedule differently, brought their CGI people over from the mainland and made some other technical changes to simplify the process. For whatever reason, they wanted to change the actors' schedules along with all of this.

[Danimal]

Umm if you haven't watched tonights episode stop reading now.
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Thanks Lost for killing off my favorite character. I'm actually kind of in shock, didn't see that coming at all.

Blah!

[RobVarak]

I'm pissed too, but it was a good episode. That scene in the clearing where he faced his "brother" was chilling.

[matthewk]

It looks like next week is the season finale?!? I was distracted by the kids at the end there, but I thought it said next week was the season finale. It just started back up. I must be missing something. Either that, or the actors want so much money now that they're limiting the number of new episodes, much like they did with Friends near the end.

[RobVarak]

It looks like next week is the season finale?!? I was distracted by the kids at the end there, but I thought it said next week was the season finale. It just started back up. I must be missing something. Either that, or the actors want so much money now that they're limiting the number of new episodes, much like they did with Friends near the end.

They're taking a long break until next year. This eliminates the new episode-repeat cycle that seemed to irritate everyone in Seasons 1 and 2. Good move, IMO.

[Diablo25]

Yeah, like 15 straight episodes without a break starting in Feb.

[Airdog]

That was definitely a fairly sweet episode and I also didn't see Ecko getting killed, and he is/was one of my favourite characters as well. It's strange that last time he stared down the "smoke" but this time it killed him. Opens up a lot of interesting questions about that thing as a "security system" or a judge of moral character, etc. .

I was pretty surprised that Ecko even decided to unrepent and say that he wasn't sorry, because it seemed that was what he was always going for.

At least we know why he was building a church, beyond just for praying, as the nurse told him that he owes Yemi a church.

They kind of left the situation with his "home-town" a bit in the lurch though. I figured that he planned on having the other militia protect the town for a smaller cut of the vaccines, but you could look at it as him just killing those few guys and leaving the town to fend for itself afterwards. Either way, that part seemed a bit rushed. This episode will probably be better on DVD with expanded cut-scenes.

The one-eyed guy is probably the owner of the glass eye which they earlier found in another hatch. I wonder where he is though. And I guess that they are definitely going to introduce that new couple into the regular cast. Something about them just reeks of B-grade acting so I don't think they'll stick around for too long.

I wonder where Bernard and his wife are? I think they're the only characters that haven't showed up in the new season at all.

And the crisis of Jack perhaps having to perform surgery on Ben is pretty interesting. He could either help usurp him (kill him) and hope that they will let him go free, or do the surgery and make a deal with Ben to let him off of the island. Something tells me that Jack simply won't leave the island without at least Kate (and hopefully everybody).

Overall, it seems that they've been trying to remove the supernatural out of the show and then injected it back in with the smoke monster, and there's a lot of interesting twists on the way. I'm entertained.

[Spooky]

I thought the episode was a total let down. Bad acting (especially that new couple), bad dialogue, and killing off one of the best characters??? Are you kidding me?

I LOVE this show and have never felt like any of the episodes were particularly bad, but I was really let down last night for many reasons. I am also feeling like they have too many story lines going on and are not able to focus enough one any of them. It’s like nothing is getting accomplished in the last few episodes. I am starting to become conscious of the writers “stalling” or dragging this season out so they can stretch the show out for a few more seasons.

It seemed like in the first two seasons so much would happen in each episode. Now it feels like we barely get anything other than a few leaks and more flashbacks.

I am not going to stop watching by any means, but I am just a bit let down this season, especially after the great opening episode. And that new couple has to go (god I hope we don’t start getting back stories on them!!!!).

[jondiehl]

It looks like next week is the season finale?!? I was distracted by the kids at the end there, but I thought it said next week was the season finale.

I had to do a double take as well and rewound it on the TV. It said "FALL" ...... "Season Finale".

[ScoopBrady]

A lot of people were complaining about the running 1 or 2 new episodes followed by 2-3 repeats during the holiday season. ABC decided to run 7 episodes, take a break through the holidays, show a new show in Lost's time slot (Day Break), and finish the entire season without interruption.

[matthewk]

I almost think I'd be better off just waiting for these to come out on DVD. Like Spooky said, there are so many plot trheads going on right now that you don't get much at once. Take the Sawyer/Kate story. We see them every other episode, and after next week we'll be waiting until January to see any more. At least if I wait for a full season on DVD, I can get the entire story all at once, instead of getting pieces of 4-5 stories spread out over 6 months. I'm all for suspense, but it's to the point where it's so spread out I can't keep up a high interest. I feel like I'm being forced to eat at a breakfast buffet, but I'm only allowed 2 items on my plate at a time, and in between each plate I have to sit for an hour to let it digest.

I still think it's a great show, but it's getting too drawn out.

As examples, we have not seen a single thing about the people who "discovered" the sailboat's location at the end of season 2. We have not seen Walt or his dad since they left. No one seems overly curious about how the station imploded, and yet they all made it out (one without clothes, BTW).

No one is asking about the plane that dropped food. If you were stranded on an island and a plane dropped food, wouldn't you be kinda interested in how that happened?

There are just too many unanswered questions that are never answered. You get 1 answer for every 5 new questions. I just hope they don't end the series with this grand explaination that leaves the fans to come up with ways to tie the "revelation" to all the odd happenings.

[wco81]

So Ben is doing all these things just because he needed surgery?

Um, wouldn't it be a lot easier to return to civilization and get treatment, rather than play these games with a spinal surgeon who fell out of the sky?

The security system or the monster makes a return after a couple of years. Locke said he saw a bright light while Eko saw the smoke that thrashed him around like a ragdoll.

There's some theories that the smoke reads the hearts of people and only punishes "bad" people, which may be why they have had Eko's back story before killing him off with the smoke.

But the smoke tried to drag Locke down into a hole before Jack pulled him out.

Ratings are reportedly down this season and there's widespread discontent about the spawning of new plot threads while dropping a lot of old ones without any satisfactory resolution.

Maybe viewer reaction and lower reaction will make them streamline the action. If that does happen, that would tend to support the contention that the writers are making things up as they go along, padding to try to extend the series as long as they can.

[RobVarak]

So Ben is doing all these things just because he needed surgery?

Um, wouldn't it be a lot easier to return to civilization and get treatment, rather than play these games with a spinal surgeon who fell out of the sky?

There is more here than meets the eye, as usual. I'm not sure that the Ben health crisis is legit. It might be a ruse to mess with Jack's mind.What better way to manipulate him than play to his ego and principal skill? Even if it's not, don't mistake coincidence for fate...or should we?

It might be a plan by whatshername to get Jack to kill Ben. She's was the only doctor on the island prior to Jack's arrival after all.

I also strongly doubt The Others' ability to return to civilization. I think they clearly have access to the trappings of the outer world, but beyond their sending Michael off into the ether we have no indication that they can actually "cross over." They may be quarantined, after all.