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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

TV Watch Lost - WTF Were We?

(Previous season spoilers to follow, obviously)

I consider myself something of a "in for a penny" Lost viewer. That is, I was hooked completely during the first season, but by the third I felt like the core elements had gotten lost themselves - but I still have an interest in seeing the plot through to the end.

To recap, when the show starts up again tomorrow night - we are still pretty far removed from knowing much about how mutant polar bears, invisible whisperers, smoke monsters, purple skies, regeneration, karmic coincidences and time travel all fit together in some semi-explainable format. We've gotten some specifics on DHARMA, some perspective on what was the day to day operation of the island and lots of interesting interconnected bits on the main characters.

Last season's last minute twist to focus on Jack and Kate off the island in some point in the future provided plenty of conversation fodder, but like so many things on the show replaces on question (does anyone ever escape) with even more, and somewhat even more puzzling ones (why does anyone want to return).

Jack seemed to insist that the only way to return the island was a similar fateful crash, so whatever was "protecting" the island seems to be operational. I would say expect a good deal of plots and subplots to weave between "modern day" off island and "back then" on island, leading up to the show's finale.

Hey, they had to run out of backstory plots sometime.

Interestingly, only half of the already shortened season has been written, thanks to the WGA strike - so the ongoing joke of the producers that Joop the orangutan would end up smoking a pipe in a leather chair explaining the whole show in an abrupt finale is now officially closer to happening. Personally, I think they have a lot of ground to tread and very little time to do it, so I'm hoping we don't get any Nikki and Pool Boy type filler episodes this season around.

For those who can't quite remember all the events of the last episode (though I hear it will be replayed tonight w/ added on-screen information, which should be interesting), check out Lostpedia's synopsis.

2 comments:

sterno said...

At least they are being smart and killing the series before it gets totally out of hand. X-Files goes on record as one of the most frustrating shows I've ever seen because they didn't do that. I remember seeing the movie and thinking that we'd have some answers and the next season starts and it becomes clear that they were full of crap. There was no defined conspiracy that they had in mind it was just a bunch of mucked together black helicopter BS.

That they are terminating Lost now suggests to me that there's a somewhat defined concept for it. That if they draw it out too much, they'll actually run out of material that is reasonably canon with the original basis of the show. Maybe I'm being fooled again, but I have hope.

Josh said...

Agreed - stating a clear end date was a smart way to go. Honestly I think the show would have been better served by just admitting it had a concise script to begin with - it seems like we've had a lot of changes because they didn't want to reveal the monster to early, keep Ben on as a character, add new characters, etc.

So I'm hoping Joop won't have to get called in here...