OT: Lost is back!

greggsand · Post by **greggsand** » Tue May 25, 2010 5:04 pm

After getting badgered for YEARS by my family & friends, I dove head first into The Wire. It's hands-down the best written show I've ever seen. Simply awesome & I'm now wondering what the hell I was watching back in the day instead The Wire.

Ok, back to Lost...

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Thu May 27, 2010 4:16 pm

webdanzer wrote:The paragraph I've found that most succinctly expresses my own opinion in this:

Perhaps it's true that the polar bears and hatches and four-toed statues and submarines wouldn't have added up to more than a one-season gizmo of a show without the grounding offered by the intimate personal journeys of the castaways. But, let's face it, "Lost" was not ultimately "all about the characters," as its creators and admirers often claimed, because the characters were not interesting enough to sustain a series by themselves, either. As pleasant as it was to see the gang achieving lives of ordinary happiness in this season's flash-sideways, we care about them because we've seen them go through so many bizarre ordeals. Would you really have wanted to watch a series in which the same people got their s*** together in the ordinary fashion? I didn't think so. "Lost" was not "Six Feet Under."

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/l ... nale_recap

...Or Deadwood, or Mad Men, or The Wire, or Breaking Bad, etc, etc, etc.

I love character-driven stories, and the reason I ultimately fell away from Lost was that these characters were fairly wooden, one-dimensional, and their 'growth' seemed to be dictated by how the writers wanted them to reveal (or continue to mask) the mysteries of the island.

In short, the plot focused on attention grabbing distractions that were ultimately there to be discarded (Shake the rattle for the baby, okay now blow the whistle, okay now play peek-a-boo) while the characters were at best more like cliches or archetypes than real humans governed by psychology, reason, emotion or sense. At worst, they were simple plot devices to keep the parade of distractions moving along.

That's a great column. Interesting theory she has that the showrunners may have overreacted to the sci-fi geek fans' obsession with minutiae of the mysteries and may have swung towards being more deep, spiritual, emotional.

The series squandered its final season in a misguided effort to transform its trademark narrative ingenuity into a grand metaphysical statement.

If I want to contemplate the nature of good and evil, I'll turn to Nietzsche or Hannah Arendt (or, for that matter, Joss Whedon), and if I want ruminations on love, give me Emily Brontë or John Updike (or "Big Love"). From "Lost" I wanted less profundity and more fun.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Thu May 27, 2010 5:04 pm

I have never seen a show where so many people who clearly hated it continued to watch for the sole purpose of saying how much they hate it. I think Star Trek (every iteration of it) was indeed a colossal waste of time, but I didn't tune in for every episode to reinforce my opinion.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Fri May 28, 2010 10:12 am

After some initial dissappointment in the last 15 minutes, I am now at the place where I loved it. I loved the entire journey. I loved both the character driven themes of the story as well as the mysteries. The End does not change any of that for me.

The mysteries that have not been "outed" are still there for us to figure out, and in a lot of ways I'm glad we have so many to think about even now that the show is over. I'm fine coming to my own conclusions based on the information we have been given. The characters had to have closure in the finale, all of the mysteries did not.

I'll be watching these on DVD for years to come. The hard part if trying to find some other series that will fill the void left behind.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Fri May 28, 2010 10:28 am

Brando70 wrote:I have never seen a show where so many people who clearly hated it continued to watch for the sole purpose of saying how much they hate it. I think Star Trek (every iteration of it) was indeed a colossal waste of time, but I didn't tune in for every episode to reinforce my opinion.

Howard Stern built his career on the above scenario. I find it funny I would never watch a show I hated. Hell I bailed on Heroes in season 2 and never went back.

Slumberland · Post by **Slumberland** » Fri May 28, 2010 10:44 am

Yeah, many of the mysteries are not too hard to put together into some sort of working theory.

I'm a little nagged by the Sideways World for various reasons, perhaps because I feel like they were answering a question (what happened after these people died?) no one was asking.

I did enjoy the strange opportunity it afforded Hurley and Ben to look back on their stewardship in retrospect, but I think I prefer that actual depictions of an afterlife be avoided in a show that isn't about the afterlife. They ended up sidestepping more attainable mysteries to paint the greatest mystery of them all as sort of banal and maudlin.

I'm looking forward to the extra scenes on the upcoming box set that goes into the rule of Hurley and Ben, though! I hear Walt figures in somehow.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Fri May 28, 2010 11:00 am

The mobisode "Room 23" from the S4 bonus features helped me come to terms with Walt.

In it, he's apparently being held by the Others in Room 23. Juliet tells Ben that "He's done it again" and that no one wants to go in there because they are all afraid of him (him being Walt).

From that I came to my own closure for Walt that while he has special abilities (just as Desmond, Miles, and Hurley are), Ben & the Others decided that it was better to get him back home and far away from the island because he was too dangerous there.

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Fri May 28, 2010 11:03 am

Was the show really NOT about the afterlife? The show title itself is spiritual, "LOST"

Likewise, half the time, I thought the island was The Purgatory...

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Fri May 28, 2010 12:03 pm

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox ... e-dvd.html

Interesting, I was going to buy the boxed set anyway but this is nice.

Leadfoot5 · Post by **Leadfoot5** » Fri May 28, 2010 12:39 pm

Danimal wrote:http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox ... e-dvd.html

Interesting, I was going to buy the boxed set anyway but this is nice.

Cool info, although that host is a d*****.

Would love to see more of the Lost mythology explored in other media in the future...

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri May 28, 2010 12:48 pm

Once they sell enough box sets, there will probably be talk of a movie.

You know, where they'll really wrap things up.