J: The fall TV season is almost here! What are your top three favorite pilot/series premiere episodes of all time?
Mira:
1. Pushing Daisies: I can still imagine scenes from this pilot, and it's been a couple years since I've watched it. Ned describing bringing his mom back to life, only to accidentally kill her again; running around in a meadow of daisies with his dog (Digby?) and then his dog gets hit by a vehicle and he brings the dog back to life; describing Chuck's crazy mermaid aunts... It was so vibrant and represents the show's quirkiness so perfectly in 40 minutes.
2. Glee: This episode also well represents what made Glee so exciting and fun and great in the beginning! From highlighting all the characters through their audition songs to introducing snarky Sue, gullible Finn, enthusiastic Mr. Schuester... And of course, "Don't Stop Believing." Perfection. :)
3. Alias: This is the only pilot episode of a show that hooked me so much I ended up watching 8 straight episodes in a row. Actually no, Veronica Mars may have hooked me in a similar way. (I watched the entire first season over the span of one weekend.) But I'll still give Alias an edge. I mean the red wig, the Chinese speaking, the excitement of a story told forward and backward -- it was a great pilot!
Jennifer:
1. Friday Night Lights: I hadn't seen the movie, I didn't know anything about Texas, I had no interest in football, but this pilot, especially the second half, just shot me straight through the heart. Love love LOVE.
2. Lost: I ended up having plenty of problems with this show, but one thing I'll give J.J. Abrams is that he definitely knows how to start off a show (perhaps that's why he's had more success in movies lately). There was a lot to set up -- a huge cast of characters, the flashback construct, the mystery/possibly sci-fi style and atmosphere -- and it was hugely successful with all of it. It's been rare that a pilot excited me as much as this one.
3. Roswell: A less obvious choice, perhaps, but don't forget that this show was created and written by Jason Katims who went on to run FNL and Parenthood. All the characters are introduced so well, the use of music is amazing (especially love the first scene in the Crashdown of Max saving Liz with Sarah McLachlan's "Fear" building in the background), and there's a nice balance of romance, humor, action, and suspense. Ah, the old days of the WB...
Showing posts with label Lost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lost. Show all posts
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Still Lost: At least it's over?
Plenty of people more knowledgeable about and invested in Lost than I am have already written about the series finale in great detail but I figured that I might as well chime in and finish up the story of my relationship with the show (see parts one, two, and three).
Bottom line? I found the finale to be generally pretty disappointing, but my expectations had not been that high. I caught up with all of season 6 in just a matter of weeks, squeezing in the last 5 episodes into the weekend right before the finale, so in a way I felt like I'd had less of a chance to mull it all over and form any theories. So while I didn't find the ending to be terribly satisfying, I'm not outraged or anything. The writers kind of dug their own grave with the number of questions left unanswered over the years so the likelihood of resolving everything was pretty slim, especially since they seemed to be under the impression that the viewers really just cared about the characters.
The biggest problem I had with the finale was that I felt like it really only addressed things that happened in this last season. The action climax was all about defeating the Man in Black/Locke/smoke monster, who wasn't even introduced until the season 5 finale. The whole deal with Jacob and protecting the glowy cave and MIB not being able to leave the island still doesn't really make any sense to me, but I was fine with the resolution of Jack killing Locke and dying to save the island and with Hurley (and Ben) taking over for Jacob. (Although...did anyone else find it kind of lame that pulling the plug out of the hole in the cave didn't cause more destruction faster? It seemed way too easy for Jack to get back to the cave and replug the light.)
What I'm not fine with is how all this relates to the first 5 seasons of the show. I mean, wasn't Jacob the leader of the Others? Didn't he bring the candidates to the island? So what was up with the Others' hostile behavior during the early seasons? I get that Jacob was a hands-off leader but the Others always acted like they knew everything. How did what the Dharma Initiative was doing with electromagnetism or whatever relate to the glowy cave? What in the world was the deal with Charles Widmore? With Walt? All of these things were just pretty much ignored.
And the emotional climax of the finale, in the"flash-sideways," turned out to actually have nothing to do with the island at all: it was some kind of purgatory where all the characters went after they died (whenever or however) to "find each other." I can understand why the writers did this--it was fun for both them and the audience to have these fun what-if scenarios and allow the characters to get their "happy endings." I loved the idea of Ben as a crotchety high school teacher, of Miles and Sawyer as an LAPD detective team, of Hurley as a happy millionaire philanthropist, and of course Kate as still pretty much exactly the same person. And the Sawyer/Juliet and Charlie/Claire reunions were pretty wonderful. (Less so Sayid/Shannon--was I the only one who totally forgot that they had a thing? Wasn't Nadia supposed to be Sayid's true love??)
But I found a lot of things about this ending to be somewhat troublesome. Why was Desmond the first one to know where they were anyway? Why did Eloise not want Desmond to gather everyone? What did it mean that Ben didn't want to go into the church? Why were Desmond and Penny there but not Miles, Daniel, Charlotte, etc? And most concerning--this means that the blowing up of the Swan station at the end of season 5 decidedly did NOT work. I think one of the main problems I had with Lost in general was that the characters seemed to always think they knew what was going on or what they had to do, but it turns out that they were really just blindly doing big things and getting nowhere. Are we supposed to take this as some kind of comment on human nature or something? The producers and writers can claim it was all about the characters as much as they want, but Lost was a mystery show. And when it turns out that most of the events of a mystery show, while they happened seemingly organically and were definitely interesting, didn't even really matter? Kind of not cool.
I don't know, maybe some of the questions I have were actually answered at some point or can be explained otherwise, but I don't really care enough to look into it. This isn't really a show that you can endeavor to fully understand as a casual viewer, which is what I consider myself, and anyone who, like, doesn't read message boards to be. So whatever, it was a fun ride. I've invested just as much time on shows that were not nearly as high quality and ambitious as Lost was. I am pretty glad that it wasn't on my mind week after week for 6 years though. I think the payoff would have been even less if that had been the case!
Bottom line? I found the finale to be generally pretty disappointing, but my expectations had not been that high. I caught up with all of season 6 in just a matter of weeks, squeezing in the last 5 episodes into the weekend right before the finale, so in a way I felt like I'd had less of a chance to mull it all over and form any theories. So while I didn't find the ending to be terribly satisfying, I'm not outraged or anything. The writers kind of dug their own grave with the number of questions left unanswered over the years so the likelihood of resolving everything was pretty slim, especially since they seemed to be under the impression that the viewers really just cared about the characters.
The biggest problem I had with the finale was that I felt like it really only addressed things that happened in this last season. The action climax was all about defeating the Man in Black/Locke/smoke monster, who wasn't even introduced until the season 5 finale. The whole deal with Jacob and protecting the glowy cave and MIB not being able to leave the island still doesn't really make any sense to me, but I was fine with the resolution of Jack killing Locke and dying to save the island and with Hurley (and Ben) taking over for Jacob. (Although...did anyone else find it kind of lame that pulling the plug out of the hole in the cave didn't cause more destruction faster? It seemed way too easy for Jack to get back to the cave and replug the light.)What I'm not fine with is how all this relates to the first 5 seasons of the show. I mean, wasn't Jacob the leader of the Others? Didn't he bring the candidates to the island? So what was up with the Others' hostile behavior during the early seasons? I get that Jacob was a hands-off leader but the Others always acted like they knew everything. How did what the Dharma Initiative was doing with electromagnetism or whatever relate to the glowy cave? What in the world was the deal with Charles Widmore? With Walt? All of these things were just pretty much ignored.
And the emotional climax of the finale, in the"flash-sideways," turned out to actually have nothing to do with the island at all: it was some kind of purgatory where all the characters went after they died (whenever or however) to "find each other." I can understand why the writers did this--it was fun for both them and the audience to have these fun what-if scenarios and allow the characters to get their "happy endings." I loved the idea of Ben as a crotchety high school teacher, of Miles and Sawyer as an LAPD detective team, of Hurley as a happy millionaire philanthropist, and of course Kate as still pretty much exactly the same person. And the Sawyer/Juliet and Charlie/Claire reunions were pretty wonderful. (Less so Sayid/Shannon--was I the only one who totally forgot that they had a thing? Wasn't Nadia supposed to be Sayid's true love??)But I found a lot of things about this ending to be somewhat troublesome. Why was Desmond the first one to know where they were anyway? Why did Eloise not want Desmond to gather everyone? What did it mean that Ben didn't want to go into the church? Why were Desmond and Penny there but not Miles, Daniel, Charlotte, etc? And most concerning--this means that the blowing up of the Swan station at the end of season 5 decidedly did NOT work. I think one of the main problems I had with Lost in general was that the characters seemed to always think they knew what was going on or what they had to do, but it turns out that they were really just blindly doing big things and getting nowhere. Are we supposed to take this as some kind of comment on human nature or something? The producers and writers can claim it was all about the characters as much as they want, but Lost was a mystery show. And when it turns out that most of the events of a mystery show, while they happened seemingly organically and were definitely interesting, didn't even really matter? Kind of not cool.
I don't know, maybe some of the questions I have were actually answered at some point or can be explained otherwise, but I don't really care enough to look into it. This isn't really a show that you can endeavor to fully understand as a casual viewer, which is what I consider myself, and anyone who, like, doesn't read message boards to be. So whatever, it was a fun ride. I've invested just as much time on shows that were not nearly as high quality and ambitious as Lost was. I am pretty glad that it wasn't on my mind week after week for 6 years though. I think the payoff would have been even less if that had been the case!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Lost or: How I Learned to Stop Griping and Just Enjoy the Ride
This post is possibly not going to really be of interest to anyone, because at this point, there probably aren't very many people who need to be convinced that Lost is in fact worth watching, but my journey with the show has been maybe a little different from other fans so I thought I'd at least record some of my thoughts.
I started out loving the show. As a TV fan who loves serialized dramas, how could I not? Throw in a little mystery and science fiction and I was hooked. But I started getting frustrated with the show pretty early on. By the end of the first season I was getting annoyed with how slow the show was moving and by the second season I was writing a full-fledged rant about it.
My main issue was that I didn't see how the kind of story Lost was telling was going to work with the indefinite endpoint of a traditional network TV series. I didn't like the idea that the writers were just going to throw in more and more confusion and misdirection in an effort to keep the show going. Also, one of the things I especially hated was that with all this confounding stuff going on, instead of being given answers the viewers would just get subjected to even more flashbacks of say, Jack's daddy issues. I mean, I'm all for character development but there's a point where plot and well, common sense, start to get sacrificed. One scene in particular that I remember exemplifying this was from the season 3 premiere, in which Jack was captured by the Others and being kept in that underwater station with Juliet. Juliet comes to Jack with a file that has all these documents about his life. Instead of asking how and why she has this information, instead Jack asks if his ex-wife is happy?? Seriously?
Soon after this I stopped watching the show. There were just too many characters I didn't like (including random and infuriating new ones like Nikki and Paulo, who the writers later tried to appease the audience by "comically" killing them off) and I was finding the show to just be a chore to watch. But then the producers did something I never expected: they agreed with me, and set an end date for the show!
Now, this didn't bring me back immediately. It turned out that I wasn't the only one who hated the first part of season 3 and people seemed to mostly agree that the show was just getting better and better but it still took me over two years to decide to start watching the show again. I think part of me didn't want to get sucked in again only to have things go bad again, so I waited until last fall, just before the final season was set to start airing. I just finished season 5 yesterday and may or may not catch up in time for the series finale.
So I'm still quite a bit behind, but you know what? I'm not really worried about the show disappointing me anymore. As soon as the producers set the end date, things started to happen. Starting with the season 3 finale, they mostly stopped with the angsty flashbacks and started doing the much more plot-driving flash-forwards. By the end of season 4, the present and future timelines had converged. Season 5 gave us some of the most fun episodes ever with the time-traveling, and now in season 6 we're onto a new construct: the alternate reality "flash-sideways."
That isn't to say things still aren't confusing. I watched seasons 3-5 in about a 6 month period and I still needed a lot of help from wikipedia in keeping track of what things happened and when they happened. I can't imagine how anyone remembered anything between seasons of the actual airing schedule. And there are plenty of things that still confuse me if I think too hard about them, like probably most things involving Locke and Ben and that big wheel thing and all the time travel stuff...
But you know, that's the funny part. Now that I KNOW that the show is ending and that the writers are going to at least endeavor to give us a satisfying ending, I'm no longer fixated on "getting answers" and I can actually enjoy the character moments. Jack and Kate are still annoying and their doomed romance just makes me twitch, but Sawyer has been awesome, Desmond and Penny are wonderful, Juliet has really grown on me, English-speaking Jin is a huge improvement, and I really like a lot of the newer characters like Miles and Faraday and Lapidus.
Actually, I think the reason that Sawyer, Juliet, Dan, Jin, and Miles became such favorites of mine is that the episodes where they're stuck in the 70s and join the Dharma Initiative were just so unexpected and as fun as a show like Lost can be. I just love that even though they were the ones "left behind" they're the ones that actually make lives for themselves for three years, unlike the Oceanic 6, who were either torturing themselves or being harassed by Ben or Jack or whoever. I remember reading a spoiler a long time ago that Sawyer and Juliet fall in love and thought that was totally illogical but actually watching the episodes, it makes sense because Sawyer becomes a different guy. As LaFleur he's still as badass and snarky as ever but he's more settled down than he's ever been, and just so much more likable as a leader than Jack or Locke or Ben. Although, I guess, I kind of like Ben. I mean, I don't like him, but Michael Emerson has just done such a phenomenal job making that character complex and alternately sympathetic and loathsome.
Anyway, I've only watched the first two episodes of season 6 so I can't really comment on what's going on now that there are only four episodes left but I'm just enjoying the ride. No over-analysis here, no theorizing, no obsessing over little details. Maybe that's for some people, but not for me. The finale may or may not wrap up all the storylines, it may or may not make sense, but it'll be an ending, a PLANNED ending, which is more than a lot of TV shows get and really the only kind that a show like this should have.
See that? The entire point of this post was to validate that in my rant from over three years ago, I was right!!!
I started out loving the show. As a TV fan who loves serialized dramas, how could I not? Throw in a little mystery and science fiction and I was hooked. But I started getting frustrated with the show pretty early on. By the end of the first season I was getting annoyed with how slow the show was moving and by the second season I was writing a full-fledged rant about it.
My main issue was that I didn't see how the kind of story Lost was telling was going to work with the indefinite endpoint of a traditional network TV series. I didn't like the idea that the writers were just going to throw in more and more confusion and misdirection in an effort to keep the show going. Also, one of the things I especially hated was that with all this confounding stuff going on, instead of being given answers the viewers would just get subjected to even more flashbacks of say, Jack's daddy issues. I mean, I'm all for character development but there's a point where plot and well, common sense, start to get sacrificed. One scene in particular that I remember exemplifying this was from the season 3 premiere, in which Jack was captured by the Others and being kept in that underwater station with Juliet. Juliet comes to Jack with a file that has all these documents about his life. Instead of asking how and why she has this information, instead Jack asks if his ex-wife is happy?? Seriously?Soon after this I stopped watching the show. There were just too many characters I didn't like (including random and infuriating new ones like Nikki and Paulo, who the writers later tried to appease the audience by "comically" killing them off) and I was finding the show to just be a chore to watch. But then the producers did something I never expected: they agreed with me, and set an end date for the show!
Now, this didn't bring me back immediately. It turned out that I wasn't the only one who hated the first part of season 3 and people seemed to mostly agree that the show was just getting better and better but it still took me over two years to decide to start watching the show again. I think part of me didn't want to get sucked in again only to have things go bad again, so I waited until last fall, just before the final season was set to start airing. I just finished season 5 yesterday and may or may not catch up in time for the series finale.
So I'm still quite a bit behind, but you know what? I'm not really worried about the show disappointing me anymore. As soon as the producers set the end date, things started to happen. Starting with the season 3 finale, they mostly stopped with the angsty flashbacks and started doing the much more plot-driving flash-forwards. By the end of season 4, the present and future timelines had converged. Season 5 gave us some of the most fun episodes ever with the time-traveling, and now in season 6 we're onto a new construct: the alternate reality "flash-sideways." That isn't to say things still aren't confusing. I watched seasons 3-5 in about a 6 month period and I still needed a lot of help from wikipedia in keeping track of what things happened and when they happened. I can't imagine how anyone remembered anything between seasons of the actual airing schedule. And there are plenty of things that still confuse me if I think too hard about them, like probably most things involving Locke and Ben and that big wheel thing and all the time travel stuff...
But you know, that's the funny part. Now that I KNOW that the show is ending and that the writers are going to at least endeavor to give us a satisfying ending, I'm no longer fixated on "getting answers" and I can actually enjoy the character moments. Jack and Kate are still annoying and their doomed romance just makes me twitch, but Sawyer has been awesome, Desmond and Penny are wonderful, Juliet has really grown on me, English-speaking Jin is a huge improvement, and I really like a lot of the newer characters like Miles and Faraday and Lapidus. Actually, I think the reason that Sawyer, Juliet, Dan, Jin, and Miles became such favorites of mine is that the episodes where they're stuck in the 70s and join the Dharma Initiative were just so unexpected and as fun as a show like Lost can be. I just love that even though they were the ones "left behind" they're the ones that actually make lives for themselves for three years, unlike the Oceanic 6, who were either torturing themselves or being harassed by Ben or Jack or whoever. I remember reading a spoiler a long time ago that Sawyer and Juliet fall in love and thought that was totally illogical but actually watching the episodes, it makes sense because Sawyer becomes a different guy. As LaFleur he's still as badass and snarky as ever but he's more settled down than he's ever been, and just so much more likable as a leader than Jack or Locke or Ben. Although, I guess, I kind of like Ben. I mean, I don't like him, but Michael Emerson has just done such a phenomenal job making that character complex and alternately sympathetic and loathsome.
Anyway, I've only watched the first two episodes of season 6 so I can't really comment on what's going on now that there are only four episodes left but I'm just enjoying the ride. No over-analysis here, no theorizing, no obsessing over little details. Maybe that's for some people, but not for me. The finale may or may not wrap up all the storylines, it may or may not make sense, but it'll be an ending, a PLANNED ending, which is more than a lot of TV shows get and really the only kind that a show like this should have. See that? The entire point of this post was to validate that in my rant from over three years ago, I was right!!!
Friday, May 18, 2007
2007 upfronts
Since Jenn's not around to blog about the Upfronts, here is my opinion of it in short:
NBC
NBC
- Yay for giving Zach Braff & co. the opportunity to end Scrubs right.
- Yay for giving Friday Night Lights another season, but they deserve a full one, not just 13 episodes!
- Yay for another season of Heroes, though that is no surprise.
- Boo for canceling The Black Donnelly's and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (though I know that perhaps I'm one of the few people that LOVED that show).
- Unsure what I think of Las Vegas without James Caan and with Tom Selleck instead, but we'll find out next year!
- None of the new shows particularly excite me. So... meh, we'll see.
- No surprise on the renewals of Ugly Betty (which I still need to catch up on), or Grey's Anatomy.
- Yay for them giving October Road one more shot. I really liked it, but it might be just cuz I like Jake from One Tree Hill.
- It's cool that the Lost creators decided to set a deadline for the show. But really, do they need 5 more years? I guess, I won't be starting that show anytime soon...
- Surprisingly I'm excited about the Grey's spin-off, Private Practice.
- So what happened to that Traveler show?
- Not surprised by How I Met Your Mother's renewal, but yay!
- Glad to see NCIS, Numb3rs, and Shark will be back.
- May give Cane and maybe Kid Nation a try.
- Sad but not surprised to see The Class is gone.
- Not surprised but glad to see House back.
- Kinda want Prison Break to be over already. Okay, okay, I like the show, it's just inane that he escaped prison in Season 1, he continued to escape prison in Season 2, and now he's captured and is going back to prison.
- Amy Sherman-Palladino making a new show? Yeah, I'm there. The Return of Jezebel James(working title apparently) will get at least a few tries by me.
- Ending The O.C. this past year was the smartest thing Fox could've ever done!
- One Tree Hill needs to go.
- Yay for FINALLY ending Seventh Heaven and Gilmore Girls.
- Boo for completely screwing up what WAS a great show (Veronica Mars) by going so back and forth on how many episodes it was getting this year. And now by not making a decision on whether it's getting renewed. UGH. I don't think I will be buying Season 3.
- I probably will not be able to keep myself from watching Gossip Girl, unfortunately.
- Lipstick Jungle(NBC)
- Bigshots(ABC)
- Carpoolers(ABC)
- Cashmere Mafia(ABC)
- Cavemen(ABC)
- Women's Murder Club(ABC)
Monday, January 15, 2007
in which Jennifer admits that those Lost people might know what they're doing after all
So remember when I wrote this monumentally long post about Lost arguing that the nature of American TV has basically doomed the show and that the showrunners are too full of themselves to see what's really happening? Well, I might have to take back that second point, because THEY HAVE AGREED WITH ME ON THE FIRST. They are negotiating a SERIES finale date with ABC, likely after a fourth or fifth season.
Some quotes from Damon Lindelof by way of the Ausiello Report:
"They could produce a sixth or seventh or eighth season, but would anybody be watching. The show would be so miserable by that time. Was it really The X-Files anymore when David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson weren't on the show? For me, The X-Files wasn't about 'Have aliens invaded?' it was about Mulder and Scully, a skeptic and a believer. And once that element of the show was gone, the show was over. So we don't want to produce those episodes of Lost. And we're not going to produce those episodes of Lost."
"I think it will bring a lot of the audience who left back. To say like, 'I was wrong. They are going to give me [answers]. Whether I like it or not is yet to be determined.' But I think the questions the audience is asking is not, 'Will the answers they give us be satisfying?' It's, 'Will they give us the answers at all.' And that's a very good question to be asking."
This isn't to say I'm going to pick up the show again right away. There are still a lot of problems with the show that I don't know can be fixed. I've just stopped caring about most of the characters and I can't stand Jack or Juliet. When a show begins to be a chore to watch, I don't see any reason why I should continue to bother, and that's the way I've been feeling this season. But if the show really is going to end after five seasons, then I'll probably feel compelled to catch up before the end to see how it all wraps up.
Which means that Lindelof is completely right.
So, there have it, kids. There might some brains and logic and common sense left in TV after all, and no one, NO ONE, is more shocked than I am that it's coming from ABC and Lost.
Edited to add: a ton more info on Maureen Ryan's blog.
Some quotes from Damon Lindelof by way of the Ausiello Report:
"They could produce a sixth or seventh or eighth season, but would anybody be watching. The show would be so miserable by that time. Was it really The X-Files anymore when David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson weren't on the show? For me, The X-Files wasn't about 'Have aliens invaded?' it was about Mulder and Scully, a skeptic and a believer. And once that element of the show was gone, the show was over. So we don't want to produce those episodes of Lost. And we're not going to produce those episodes of Lost."
"I think it will bring a lot of the audience who left back. To say like, 'I was wrong. They are going to give me [answers]. Whether I like it or not is yet to be determined.' But I think the questions the audience is asking is not, 'Will the answers they give us be satisfying?' It's, 'Will they give us the answers at all.' And that's a very good question to be asking."
This isn't to say I'm going to pick up the show again right away. There are still a lot of problems with the show that I don't know can be fixed. I've just stopped caring about most of the characters and I can't stand Jack or Juliet. When a show begins to be a chore to watch, I don't see any reason why I should continue to bother, and that's the way I've been feeling this season. But if the show really is going to end after five seasons, then I'll probably feel compelled to catch up before the end to see how it all wraps up.
Which means that Lindelof is completely right.
So, there have it, kids. There might some brains and logic and common sense left in TV after all, and no one, NO ONE, is more shocked than I am that it's coming from ABC and Lost.
Edited to add: a ton more info on Maureen Ryan's blog.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The problem with Lost
Warning: this is a very long post.
There are two camps of Lost viewers: those that love the twists and turns and don't mind that each episode usually brings more questions than answers, and those that are frustrated and like to complain about how the show is going nowhere and how ridiculous things are getting. Members of the former group like to tell members of the latter to lighten up and just go along for the ride or just stop watching. Members of the latter group ignore them and continue to watch and complain.
I am definitely a member of the latter group. My complaints started pretty early on, by the end of the first season. My main gripe with the show then was that the show was just too slow moving. Every week I watched and every week I found out pretty much nothing. And I was starting to get a little worried about the direction of the show. There were already too many loose ends, too many things that were shown and then never touched again. I felt like I was being manipulated by the writers, and I didn't really appreciate it. Now I know that storytelling is inherently a form of manipulation, but I think that the best storytelling should at least seem organic. Lost was not feeling organic.
Second season, I decided that I would stick with the show, but I was going to watch it in chunks, a couple of episodes at a time. That way, I'd feel like more was happening. And it kind of worked. Plus the airing schedule last year sucked and people were constantly complaining about how long they would have to wait between episodes. I was spoiled here and there but watching 4 or 5 episodes in a row made me feel like so much was happening! But then around the second half of the season, I was starting to get worried again.
Things were just getting much too complex. I felt like the writers and producers were sitting around the table congratulating themselves for being so clever and shocking the audience once again. I imagined someone going "Oh I came up with this thing that's totally cool and will totally mess with the viewers" and whoever's in charge going "Oh yeah? Throw it in there!" I listened a couple of podcasts and read interviews with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and they are just way too impressed with themselves.
And after watching the first two episodes of this season, I still feel like the writers are still more interested in being clever and manipulating the audience than actually telling the story. But I've come to the realization that it's not really all the writers' fault. It's a problem with the entire concept of the show.
Those viewers that love the show believe that the writers have everything planned out. But I don't see how that's really possible. Anyone who writes movies or stories or novels will tell you that your story has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. For a movie or a novel, you determine when the end comes. You take however much time or pages you need to tell your story, and then there's the end. But for Lost, the writers don't know when end is going to be. They say they have things planned out for 6 seasons or something but I don't believe them. Maybe they have a basic idea of what they think is going to happen but there's nothing that says they have to stick with it and they really don't know how long the show's going to last. It can depend on the network and the ratings and the producers and the actors and a million other things besides the story. So if the Lost writers really do have the story planned out like they say, they have to be very careful about timing, about when and what they reveal, because they can't run out of story. So instead of being afraid of running out of story, they HAVE to make up more. Hence all the crazy twists and turns.
So I know what you're asking. If this is true, then how can any TV series be successful? There are a lot of answers to that. Shows that mirror real life, like most sitcoms and many traditional dramas, don't have a problem. Life goes on. As long as you have interesting characters, there's plenty of material. Procedural shows (crime, law, medicine, etc) have standalone episodes: the story starts and ends in one episode. And so-called serialized shows like 24 or Buffy generally do season-long arcs, a story that comes to a resolution by the season finale.
But Lost? It's just one really big, really long mystery with no definite end point. And I guess I just can't wrap my mind around that. I can't be confident that the writers are going to tie up all their loose ends. I can't be confident that the ending they supposedly have planned is going to actually be satisfying and make sense. And if it's actually their intention to leave things open-ended and with unsolved mysteries? That just seems like lazy writing to me.
I guess the real question is whether I'm going to keep watching. I probably will, but I probably won't be that invested in it. Meaning yeah, maybe I'll take the other camp's advice and lighten up and go along for the ride. But I still won't be proclaiming the show is brilliant...
There are two camps of Lost viewers: those that love the twists and turns and don't mind that each episode usually brings more questions than answers, and those that are frustrated and like to complain about how the show is going nowhere and how ridiculous things are getting. Members of the former group like to tell members of the latter to lighten up and just go along for the ride or just stop watching. Members of the latter group ignore them and continue to watch and complain.
I am definitely a member of the latter group. My complaints started pretty early on, by the end of the first season. My main gripe with the show then was that the show was just too slow moving. Every week I watched and every week I found out pretty much nothing. And I was starting to get a little worried about the direction of the show. There were already too many loose ends, too many things that were shown and then never touched again. I felt like I was being manipulated by the writers, and I didn't really appreciate it. Now I know that storytelling is inherently a form of manipulation, but I think that the best storytelling should at least seem organic. Lost was not feeling organic.
Second season, I decided that I would stick with the show, but I was going to watch it in chunks, a couple of episodes at a time. That way, I'd feel like more was happening. And it kind of worked. Plus the airing schedule last year sucked and people were constantly complaining about how long they would have to wait between episodes. I was spoiled here and there but watching 4 or 5 episodes in a row made me feel like so much was happening! But then around the second half of the season, I was starting to get worried again.
Things were just getting much too complex. I felt like the writers and producers were sitting around the table congratulating themselves for being so clever and shocking the audience once again. I imagined someone going "Oh I came up with this thing that's totally cool and will totally mess with the viewers" and whoever's in charge going "Oh yeah? Throw it in there!" I listened a couple of podcasts and read interviews with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and they are just way too impressed with themselves.
And after watching the first two episodes of this season, I still feel like the writers are still more interested in being clever and manipulating the audience than actually telling the story. But I've come to the realization that it's not really all the writers' fault. It's a problem with the entire concept of the show.
Those viewers that love the show believe that the writers have everything planned out. But I don't see how that's really possible. Anyone who writes movies or stories or novels will tell you that your story has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. For a movie or a novel, you determine when the end comes. You take however much time or pages you need to tell your story, and then there's the end. But for Lost, the writers don't know when end is going to be. They say they have things planned out for 6 seasons or something but I don't believe them. Maybe they have a basic idea of what they think is going to happen but there's nothing that says they have to stick with it and they really don't know how long the show's going to last. It can depend on the network and the ratings and the producers and the actors and a million other things besides the story. So if the Lost writers really do have the story planned out like they say, they have to be very careful about timing, about when and what they reveal, because they can't run out of story. So instead of being afraid of running out of story, they HAVE to make up more. Hence all the crazy twists and turns.
So I know what you're asking. If this is true, then how can any TV series be successful? There are a lot of answers to that. Shows that mirror real life, like most sitcoms and many traditional dramas, don't have a problem. Life goes on. As long as you have interesting characters, there's plenty of material. Procedural shows (crime, law, medicine, etc) have standalone episodes: the story starts and ends in one episode. And so-called serialized shows like 24 or Buffy generally do season-long arcs, a story that comes to a resolution by the season finale.
But Lost? It's just one really big, really long mystery with no definite end point. And I guess I just can't wrap my mind around that. I can't be confident that the writers are going to tie up all their loose ends. I can't be confident that the ending they supposedly have planned is going to actually be satisfying and make sense. And if it's actually their intention to leave things open-ended and with unsolved mysteries? That just seems like lazy writing to me.
I guess the real question is whether I'm going to keep watching. I probably will, but I probably won't be that invested in it. Meaning yeah, maybe I'll take the other camp's advice and lighten up and go along for the ride. But I still won't be proclaiming the show is brilliant...
Thursday, May 26, 2005
J.J. Abrams Hate Club Volume 2
I predicted correctly that I would be more forgiving of Lost, but it's not really that much more. I've slowly been getting irritated by this show all season and now I'm wondering, should I just get out now?
The problem with Lost is that it just moves SO SLOW. Networks want to make more money and stretch out successful shows as long as possible, but because Lost has a restricted setting and plotline, that just means that the viewers are perpetually left hanging. There is really just one big mystery to be solved (why the heck they're on the island) and once that's revealed and/or the survivors get off the island, there is no show. You can't just start over. And unlike the X-files (which also had a long, drawn out overarching mystery), there are no small cases that can be wrapped up in one (or two) episodes to keep the show moving. The flashbacks were fine for this season, but do we really want to be finding out even more details about why Jack got on the dang plane two or three years from now? I don't think so.
This season finale had a whopping three parts and we learned basically nothing and were given a whole shitload of other questions. At this point the writers have given themselves so many clues and loose ends that I wonder if any explanation will make sense. Do the writers really think that we're all still going to be watching three years from now if we STILL haven't seen the monster or security system or whatever the heck it is? Maybe there are some patient viewers out there, but I am NOT one of them. At this speed it's practically a daytime soap with better acting. But at least those give you a new episode every day...
J.J. Abrams, you can go and shove that stupid hatch up your ass. Lost is going up against Veronica Mars next season and guess what I'll be watching? If a good number of TWOPers say that the show has redeemed itself with some actual progress (which I highly doubt, considering J.J.'s track record) MAYBE I'll watch it on DVD. That way at least I won't be waiting weeks and months for some damn answers.
The problem with Lost is that it just moves SO SLOW. Networks want to make more money and stretch out successful shows as long as possible, but because Lost has a restricted setting and plotline, that just means that the viewers are perpetually left hanging. There is really just one big mystery to be solved (why the heck they're on the island) and once that's revealed and/or the survivors get off the island, there is no show. You can't just start over. And unlike the X-files (which also had a long, drawn out overarching mystery), there are no small cases that can be wrapped up in one (or two) episodes to keep the show moving. The flashbacks were fine for this season, but do we really want to be finding out even more details about why Jack got on the dang plane two or three years from now? I don't think so.
This season finale had a whopping three parts and we learned basically nothing and were given a whole shitload of other questions. At this point the writers have given themselves so many clues and loose ends that I wonder if any explanation will make sense. Do the writers really think that we're all still going to be watching three years from now if we STILL haven't seen the monster or security system or whatever the heck it is? Maybe there are some patient viewers out there, but I am NOT one of them. At this speed it's practically a daytime soap with better acting. But at least those give you a new episode every day...
J.J. Abrams, you can go and shove that stupid hatch up your ass. Lost is going up against Veronica Mars next season and guess what I'll be watching? If a good number of TWOPers say that the show has redeemed itself with some actual progress (which I highly doubt, considering J.J.'s track record) MAYBE I'll watch it on DVD. That way at least I won't be waiting weeks and months for some damn answers.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Lost in Translation indeed
So Lost is another J.J. Abrams show, which makes me a little nervous. Both Felicity and Alias were excellent their first seasons, but then they went downhill pretty soon after that. Lost is doing really well right now. It's fresh and interesting and the large, diverse cast isn't hindering it all. I like slow revelation of the characters with the flashbacks, and since well, they're stuck on a tropical island, it's not like there need to be THAT much plot development. I'm not sure how long this can go on though...the formula is going to get old. And seriously, I cannot go that long without knowing what exactly what the heck Kate did to be escorted by an armed Federal Marshal.
Anyway, one of the more intriguing things about this show is that there are two Korean characters played by (gasp!) Korean actors. Daniel Dae Kim I know from Angel and 24, both English speaking parts, and I was kind of skeptical of his character speaking only Korean on this show. And in the beginning, I thought his Korean was pretty bad. I mean, he claims to have a Pusan accent, and sure, maybe that was part of it, but his speaking was so stilted and unnatural and I don't think that really had to do with an accent. But because of the ensemble nature of the show, he doesn't really have that many lines week to week, so it wasn't too annoying. This week's episode was a Jin-centered (his character), though, and I think he's improved a lot. His co-star, Yunjin Kim, speaks fluent Korean (she's a popular actress in Korea even though she grew up in the States) and she's definitely helped him out. Her character (Sun) speaks English too though...her acting in both languages is really good.
I'm not fluent in Korean by any means, but I can understand a good amount, and it's a bit strange. Most of their lines are subtitled, but some aren't...in that case, I assume the writers didn't want the viewers to know what they were saying or maybe it was just irrelevant, but I understood, so...yeah. I almost feel like I have some like inside knowledge I'm not supposed to have. (The hardcore fans will go so far as to get translations for the unsubtitled lines anyway.)
Another funny thing is that while I was Korea this winter, I noticed that Lost was being aired there. Which makes sense because of Yunjin Kim...but the entire episode was dubbed. But of course they didn't need to dub Jin and Sun. So...all the normally English-speaking characters are dubbed in Korean and Jin and Sun are speaking Korean but they're not supposed to understand eachother? And with Sun switching between Korean and English...even more confusing! A scenario in this week's episode: Sun is speaking Korean. Then she switches to English, and that gets dubbed. Then another character is like "You speak English??" but that's dubbed in Korean! How strange is that?? Haha, I mean, I'm sure that the viewers in Korea won't have a problem understanding what's going on, but yeah...it's still strange!
Oh, and I'm kind of bothered about their characters just being called Jin and Sun. I don't know very many Korean people that would go by just the first character of their given name, and it was revealed in this episode that Jin's full given name is Jinsoo. Which isn't that hard to say or remember...definitely not harder than Sayid. Oh, well...
Anyway, one of the more intriguing things about this show is that there are two Korean characters played by (gasp!) Korean actors. Daniel Dae Kim I know from Angel and 24, both English speaking parts, and I was kind of skeptical of his character speaking only Korean on this show. And in the beginning, I thought his Korean was pretty bad. I mean, he claims to have a Pusan accent, and sure, maybe that was part of it, but his speaking was so stilted and unnatural and I don't think that really had to do with an accent. But because of the ensemble nature of the show, he doesn't really have that many lines week to week, so it wasn't too annoying. This week's episode was a Jin-centered (his character), though, and I think he's improved a lot. His co-star, Yunjin Kim, speaks fluent Korean (she's a popular actress in Korea even though she grew up in the States) and she's definitely helped him out. Her character (Sun) speaks English too though...her acting in both languages is really good.
I'm not fluent in Korean by any means, but I can understand a good amount, and it's a bit strange. Most of their lines are subtitled, but some aren't...in that case, I assume the writers didn't want the viewers to know what they were saying or maybe it was just irrelevant, but I understood, so...yeah. I almost feel like I have some like inside knowledge I'm not supposed to have. (The hardcore fans will go so far as to get translations for the unsubtitled lines anyway.)
Another funny thing is that while I was Korea this winter, I noticed that Lost was being aired there. Which makes sense because of Yunjin Kim...but the entire episode was dubbed. But of course they didn't need to dub Jin and Sun. So...all the normally English-speaking characters are dubbed in Korean and Jin and Sun are speaking Korean but they're not supposed to understand eachother? And with Sun switching between Korean and English...even more confusing! A scenario in this week's episode: Sun is speaking Korean. Then she switches to English, and that gets dubbed. Then another character is like "You speak English??" but that's dubbed in Korean! How strange is that?? Haha, I mean, I'm sure that the viewers in Korea won't have a problem understanding what's going on, but yeah...it's still strange!
Oh, and I'm kind of bothered about their characters just being called Jin and Sun. I don't know very many Korean people that would go by just the first character of their given name, and it was revealed in this episode that Jin's full given name is Jinsoo. Which isn't that hard to say or remember...definitely not harder than Sayid. Oh, well...
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