No Show Is An Island
I'm going to talk about Lost. There are no major spoilers, but if you don't know the show, and some day hope to, knowing anything about it could hurt.
Most people, as far as I can tell, think the latest season of Lost is great. But I have noticed a few complainers who don't like it when the action is off the island. I don't agree. There's plenty of action on the island, but the show works because of its characters, and they work (if they work) no matter where they are. After all, the early seasons flashbacks were off the island, too. Furthermore, just because the characters aren't on the island doesn't mean they aren't dealing with the overall mysteries of the show.
A complaint that was heard in the early seasons was Lost never answers any questions. You don't hear that so much any more. In fact, one of the more satisfying things about this penultimate season are the satisfying moments when things start to click into place. Compare this to Battlestar Galactica, which, because they're making it up as they go along, often has new revelations that make you wonder if they know what they're doing. Or Heroes, that often gives you the feeling there are tremendous internal battles going on behind the scenes that make them throw out everything and start again every few episodes.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:35 AM
4 Comments:
*** SPOILERS for previously aired episodes ***
The most astounding thing about Lost is that they don't seem to forget anything.
In late season three, when we saw Ben's life story, there was a girl named "Annie" who liked him when he was a kid on the island, and gave him a doll. By the time he's a teenager, we don't see any sign of Annie. What happened to her? I fully expect that the writers will tell us someday, and I am very confident they haven't forgotten about her.
Similarly, the big Desmond episode in S4 required that Faraday have memory lapses. I expect these to be explained at some point (probably very soon), even though many viewers might not even remember this point.
Whereas the writers of Heroes (deliberately) forgot about Peter's Irish girlfriend and the New Orleans superheroine completely. And Caprica Six overthrew the entire philosophy of Cylon society out of love for Baltar, and now she loves someone else and shows no sign of remembering Baltar at all.
I'm not saying Lost has perfect continuity, but it's pretty darn close. (There are some inconsistencies in the chronology, but you have to look pretty hard to find them.) But the most important thing is that the writers assume that their audience has an attention span longer than a few weeks. Which is very nice.
More spoilers ahead.
In the first season of Lost, as well as the second, a lot of naysayers claimed they were making it up as they went along. But the producers said they knew where they were going, even if they weren't certain of every milepost along the way. (I'm sure they didn't know how important each character was. I'm almost sure, for instance, they didn't plan on killing Boone and Shannon until they realized the characters weren't working. And I've read that they weren't planning on making Ben a central role until the actor did such a good job.) They even claimed they put stuff in the first and second season that would pay off later which would show they knew what they were doing.
And now we're starting to see some of that. For instance, Locke had a vision of a plane flying overhead--and now we've seen where Locke goes back in time and actually did see that plane. Or Sayid looking at the underground area of the Swan and saying it reminded him of Chernobyl, and now we see Daniel suggesting they bury an H-bomb in cement years before. And though this is a hunch, I'm getting the feeling some of the time traveling may even finally explain the mysterious whispering that some characters heard in the first season.
I'm sure the whole plot is way too complex for even the producers to keep in their heads. But when it's all over, I will set some time aside and watch it again just to see how it holds together.
One mystery that I don't know if they will return to -- but which I am curious about -- is the story of Cindy and the three Tailie children (Emma, Zack, and unnamed). These kids were abducted very early after the crash; maybe they are confused, but shouldn't they want their parents? In one Juliet flashback, Juliet tells Ben that these kids are asking about their parents.
Cindy stayed with Ana Lucia's group until she was snatched just an hour or two before they encountered Sayid and Shannon. She ought to hate and fear the Others as much as Ana Lucia and her group did; many of her associates died, and they hid in fear for weeks. But then in early season three (by the bear cages) and again in late season three (when Locke was camping with them), we see Cindy and the kids, and they are happily members of the Others now. Why? How?
That is something they have to return to. For one thing, it's too big to leave hanging out. Second, ever since we've met the Others they've made a big deal about children, and the show keeps adding children, so I think that's a central pat of the story.
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