Tis The Seasons
Looking back at Lost, I'd give every season an A except for the last, which was a bit of a drop-off. Even at its worst, there's never been an episode I didn't enjoy.
How would I rank the seasons?
1. Season One
The greatest season has to be the first. By later standards, the overall plot moves pretty slow (takes a while to find the Hatch, and then they spend a whole lot of time trying to open it--plus there's an awful lot of time spent arguing about living on the beach or in the caves), but this is the season that introduces the situation and most of the main characters, not to mention the basic format. Nothing can
equal the first time.2. Season Five
Some fans didn't like the later complications, as the action moved away from getting off the Island and toward the battle between Widmore and Ben, not to mention the bigger battle between Jacob and MIB. Some also didn't like the sci-fi aspects coming to the fore, but I loved it. I thought season five had more momentum than any other, with the Losties on the Island having to deal with time flashes and then with the Dharma Initiative. In addition, we had Locke traveling back to LA and Ajira flying out to the Island. At least half the episodes are classics and most end with great, often shocking moments. Also, for all the tension, it probably was the funniest season, with Hurley, Miles and Sawyer all at the top of their game.
3. Season Three
I guess the odd seasons are the best. Season three was the last open-ended season--soon after the producers and ABC planned an end-date. It was also the last full-length season and the last season to rely on flashbacks. This means there's some temporizing as the show is running out of non-repetitive backstory. There's also the dreaded Nikki and Paulo (who aren't that bad, actually--they really only take up one episode, and it's perfectly acceptable when you can watch another right after). But when this season is working, it's amazing. Many fans objected to the opening six-show block featuring the characters caged on Hydra Island, but I like it. While the middle of the season had a bit of lassitude, it still features great stuff like Juliet's flashback and Desmond's flashes. And the second half of the season, where Locke, Sayid and Kate go to rescue Jack, and then Jack and Juliet return to the beach while Locke joins the Others, is as good as anything the show ever did.
4. Season Four
This is the first shorter season (shortened more by a writers' strike) and also the first to feature regular flashforwards and a new sense of purpose. It was a chance the show took, and while it lost some fans, I think dramatically it paid off. (If they'd stayed on the Island still looking for a way off I think they'd have lost more fans.) The Freighter Folk add interesting twists, and the action off the Island, as we're introduced to the Oceanic Six,
mostly works.5. Season Two
Still a lot of fun, but a letdown from the first season. It introduces new plots and characters, some work, some don't. What works? Desmond. The Hatch. Mr. Eko (sort of). Threats from the Others. And, above all, Ben. What doesn't work so well? The Tailies in general. (A lot of the season was about them, and considering their fate, that sure was a lot of work to get Bernard across the Island.) Locke stuck in the Hatch. And a lot of time spent with Charlie, Sawyer and others (including a flashback for Rose and Bernard) that doesn't really move things forward.
6. Season Six
I've written extensively about it. No reason to repeat my criticisms here.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:01 AM
2 Comments:
I would rank Season Two higher. Yes, it had some slow parts (although not as much as Season Three). But Season Two was the last time that the viewer knew no more than the Oceanic protagonists.
What happens if the Button is not pushed? Is the "Hatch" just a psychological experiment? Who are the Others, and why are they stealing children?
The moment when the bearded Other appeared and issued his warning -- "This is our island!" -- was the scariest moment in the series.
Season three begins with Juliet and Ben playing good-Other-bad-Other to Jack, and then at the end of the very first episode of that season, we see Ben and Juliet having a private conversation. From this moment on, we the viewers understood the Others better than Jack.
This continued throughout S3 -- we learned that Juliet was a spy before the protagonists did, we learned that young Ben had lived in the Dharma village two whole seasons before the protagonists did, and we had more pieces of the "Who is Richard?" and "Who is Jacob?" puzzles than any of the protagonists did. And at the end of S3, we know that our heroes would get off the Island, and by the middle of S4 we knew that they would probably be returning to the Island... and so on.
When the protagonist is trying to solve a mystery or achieve a goal, and the viewer already knows the solution and knows that the goal will be achieved, it decreases the immediacy of the drama.
Knowing the solution, or that the goal will be achieved, only decreases the immediacy of the drama if that's all that matters. In fact, how much the audience knows is a regular question any writer must ask, and often--more often than not, in fact--the proper dramatic answer is the reader must be given information withheld from the characters. This can lead to excellent dramatic scenes where where the viewer knows something and wonders when and how the character will find out. (We can even see this in Lost's first season, when Sawyer tells Jack about his encounter with Christian.)
It reminds me of Hitchcock's famous distinction betweem surprise and suspense. Imagine some people sitting around playing cards and suddenly a bomb explodes. That's surprise. But if you know the bomb is about to blow up, every moment of what would otherwise be a prosaic scene is now suddenly filled with tension. Knowing what a character doesn't know can be a very powerful device. Lost used viewer knowledge selectively (eg., we know some got off the island, but not who), and often effectively. Keeping viewers in the dark for six seasons (which they partly did as far as the final conflict) would be a choice, but one hard to sustain and probably not the best strategy. Think of all the great stuff at DI in the 70s, where the characters had all sorts of knowledge but were still in danger.
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