I keep waiting for this show to stumble but 17 hours in and I’m still hooked by the unusual depth of characterization as well as the series’ ability to maintain dramatic tension and narrative ambiguity. What first seemed to be a potentially hokey amalgamation of Land of the Lost, Lord of the Flies, and Gilligan’s Island has transformed itself into a potent post-9/11 story of human redemption. With its cast of Koreans, Australians, Iraquis and Americans, a crazy French lady and some polar bears; LOST may be the best hour of network television since . . . well, Freaks and Geeks (24’s “wham bam thank you mam” aesthetics and the convoluted machinations of Alias’ Rimbaldi plot do not measure up). Will it, however, be able to sustain itself into a second and third season, or will it flame out spectacularly like Twin Peaks?
I thought Twin Peaks was still compelling into its last season–I’m still waiting to find out what those goddamn owls were up to.
SPOILER ALERT: Yeah, the owls were never what they seemed. Once Leland Palmer fesses up to the murders (BOB made me do it) and dies cradled in Dale Cooper’s arms (as he recites passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead), I had a hard time caring about the other plot strands. But those first sixteen episodes . . . man, what a wild ride!
thanks to john’s “twin peaks” archive sunhee and i had a huge marathon 2 summer ago–we watched an episode a night. it got goofy but still was pretty good. the last two episodes were pretty damned good. and we really liked “fire walk with me” as well. “wow, bob, wow!” has been an all-purpose response in our house for quite some time now.
so, “lost” is out on dvd and we’re going to watch. tip for netflixers: you can’t find the show if you search for “lost”; you have to search for “lost: season 1”. and it still shows up as only the 9th entry on the list of results. smart, eh?
Hmmm.
I’m just over halfway through the season. I will certainly keep going, and we’ll probably watch season 2. And it’s certainly good…
..but up there with “Freaks” or “Peaks”? I dunno. It reminds me of “X-Files,” less for similarity of genre than for analogous weaknesses and strengths. Or “Alias,” for that matter. Although consistently entertaining, I find myself treading water in many episodes–willing to go along, because I’m reasonably entertained and I want to know what’s going to happen next and the acting & writing are quite reliable. But for every episode that makes my jaw drop (or clench) and my head spin–and “Lost,” like those others, has a couple of astounding hours of television–there are many that simply fill space between the solid.
Like “Alias” (in its first season) there’s a backstory rich with complexities worth untangling, even when the front-story character shenanigans seem more conventional. Like “X-Files,” there are a couple of excellent characters and some writers with a rich, dark, surly sense of humor, despite the occasionally tedious conventions of the ‘adventure-thriller’ genre. (And while we’re on “X-Files,” no episode of “Lost” has yet matched the work of Files’ writer Darin Morgan, who wrote about Clyde Bruckman and Jose Chung and who seemed to be deconstructing Chris Carter in every episode he wrote. Poor guy ended up writing for “Millennium” and now is nowhere to be found.)
In short, more uneven than I’d hoped. And while the narrative is nice and shifty, I feel more O.Henry-ed than oh wowed; “Freaks” had characters–like the Coach, for instance–whose development was revelatory, who became not different as a result of what later episodes explored but more complicated. But too often in “Lost” a flashback does a nice number on my expectations, but only replaces them with new surface-level readings. (That said, it is hard to complain about Harold Perrineau, and Matthew Fox is surprisingly good. But Sawyer? Charlie? Bleah. At times, Sayeed and Kate seem far less interesting than they ought to be. Even John Locke, who I want to really enjoy, seems like a handy plot device more than a complicated antagonist.)
So… Jeff, have at me. Tell me how I’m wrong. (I’ll have the series finished by Thursday, too, so maybe I’ll change my mind.)
And if we’re going to go nominating best television, a nod for the recent release of “Buffalo Bill” which I recall–‘though haven’t re-viewed to affirm–as among the best sitcoms ever made.
I basically think all television series–even the best ones (even Freaks and Geeks)–have their down moments and their less than inspiring eps; their wrong turns and their “what were they thinking” plot twists. This medium is hard pressed to succeed when you DVD purchasers are watching an episode daily (or even twice a day). When I introduced Nicola to “Twin Peaks” on VHS, we watched an episode a week. When she introduced me to “I, Claudius” on DVD, we watched an episode a week. There’s something about that one week (or even five week) time lapse that keeps things a bit more on the edge. So, I will not disagree with your responses (and your expectations going into this show must have been sky high), but I think you are consuming the show in a way that it is not meant to be consumed. Too much of a good thing grows stale after a while. Freaks and Geeks was an anomaly and for those very reasons if fell flat on its face (in terms of building a large band of loyal viewers). LOST is one of the most popular shows on television right now. The ability to keep a large audience coming back for more is a tricky predicament (and the studios smell a multi-million dollar pay day if they can stretch this thing to 100+ episodes, which undid The X-Files in the same it will undermine LOST). Don’t be so critical, just watch the damn thing and allow its convoluted logic to have its way with you. By the way, I like Locke a lot. Sawyer feels generic more often than not but he brings some special sauce when needed. And Charlie, well, he’s Charlie. Give him a break! He’s trying to kick the habit and snog the beautiful girl.
Well, point taken about the medium and the way I’m watching. That said, it is exactly how I watched “Freaks”–swallowed it whole in about a week and a half. And, aside from a couple initial episodes, the whole thing felt astounding to me.
And “I, Claudius” hit me the same way, too, watched as a condensed miniseries after rental from the library.
But these are anomalies. Two of the only hour-longs I’ve ever managed to keep up with during a regular season–X-Files and West Wing–both worked in the way Lost works, so….
All Sawyer’s got is a glare and a helluva physique. But if you look at his face real closely, he kind of looks like that owl from the old tootsie-pop commercials. And if I see one more weepy episode about being a junkie, I’m going to start shooting up myself.
we watched all of “twin peaks” on an episode/day schedule. i also caught up with 4 seasons of the x-files the same way (the joke was on me–the 5th season is when it went through the toilet). but i will keep an open mind for “lost”. despite jeff being a sentimentalist.
You’ve watched episode 16???
16–yeah. Outlaws. I didn’t like so much. The stuff with the little kid was, yeah provocative, but I didn’t & don’t really buy the transformations in the adult. And the boar plot? Bleah. Ah well. (Again, guy looks like an owl. A buff, studly owl. But an owl.) (And, yes, I kid. But I don’t think the guy can really act all that well.)
Okay, I looked up the writers and episodes. I dig Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and not just for having the coolest name–All the best cowboy… that episode was outstanding.
I push. Sawyer is not one of my favorite characters either–I’m more of a Jack, Hurley & Locke kinda fellow, AND Kate AND Walt (but not his dad so much). I looked forward to each week’s episodes like I can’t remember (X-Files too but only the conspiracy eps–the sci-fi/creature stuff bored me; The West Wing was just so well-written for a couple of seasons that I dug that too. Freaks and Geeks (though it aint the holy grail), Twin Peaks (but only the first 16), Thirtysomething (particularly the two seasons with Miles Drentell), Hill Street Blues, Lance at 15, Little House on the Prarie, Mannix, Barnaby Jones (the further back I go my critical faculties are deemed suspect). One of the pleasures of being a sentimentalist is that good TV always hits the spot.
Let’s really go back. I loved “Night Stalker” as a kid–oh man, Darren McGavin. Kolchak! I dread the upcoming remake.
As for Lost, yeah–Jack & Hurley. Does Hurley get a backstory? I hope so. I like Terry O’Quinn, but I’m having trouble with the kindly father & scary whackjob duality Locke is meant to combine. But there have been some great moments.
I watched the first 16 seasons of the Simpsons the other night.
Oh – no I didn’t. But I watched the first episode of season 17. I laughed once or twice. But it really wasn’t very good. Neither was Family Guy.
I’m looking forward to My Name is Earl, though I’m not sure why. But that’s it. I have zero interest in the 30 supernatural series coming this fall, including the one called “Supernatural.”
Mike Reynolds – who probably still wants to be a cryptozoologist when he grows up – must be TIVoing hours of this stuff every night.
I do miss having that David Lynch show on TV every week, all those years ago… That was some fun tv.
bastard netflix just won’t send me any of the “lost” discs even though the first one is always “available now”. i have deleted them all from my queue and only added the first one–i’d originally added the whole set in one go. let’s see if this makes any difference. now, if “crash” turns out to be a piece of shit i’m going to be very upset.
i don’t know if it is coincidence but my stratagem above seems to have worked. removed the entire series, added only the first disc and it is being sent to me the very next day. wonder if they have some weird algorithm in place for series discs.
we’re about 12 episodes in. i guess i like it–it is compelling enough. but it is no “x-files”. i could do with less back-story, but i suppose they need to stretch this thing out for a few years. the appearance of the crazy frenchwoman seemed like this series’ windom earle moment, the point where it begins to unravel. perhaps it is because of the extremely compressed viewing we’re doing but i thought they introduced the proof of other people on the island too soon.
how many episodes are there in season 1? and how is season 2 so far? no spoilers please–or at least give spoiler warnings.
As you know I am a fan of this show but last night’s ep was silly. I’m growing worried . . . and it was co-written by Reynolds fav Javier Grillo-Marxuach. I hope this thing rights itself over the next few weeks. I’d hate for such a fun piece of television to crash and burn so quickly.
New shows I like: “My Name Is Earl” (gets better every week); “Invasion” (the pilot did all the things a pilot should do but the second episode was truly spooky in the best tradition of John Carpenter’s work); I will also admit to liking the pilot for the new “Night Stalker” series. I watched the pilot of “Commander in Chief” and was surprisingly captivated by its charm, but it appears opposite Earl so that’s a problem (as well as “The Office” which seems destined for cancelation though I thought this past Tuesday’s ep was its best yet). “Threshold”? No. The Chris Rock sit-com didn’t do much for me. “How I Married Your Mother” feels too generic (great cast, interesting conceit, troubling writing). That’s about all I’ve seen. Old favorites? “The West Wing” is really fun to watch right now, and I like the Sunday night time slot. And “Arrested Development” is the most inspired show on the air at the moment. I must confess I watched “Desperate Housewives” last year but I am so over that show at the moment. That’s about it really.
sunhee and i are almost done with the first season (she’s probably finishing it as i type, here in madison, wisconsin). she might like it a little more than i do but we both agree that while it is interesting enough while we watch, we wouldn’t care too much if for some reason we could never watch it again. we’re both terribly distracted by the awful korean accent of the actor who plays the male korean (even i can tell that he is very far from a native speaker); i wonder how the iraqis feel about naveen andrews…
i’m also increasingly annoyed by the pat back-stories which “explain” the characters. i don’t find the plotting particularly complex either. and is hurley ever going to lose any weight? and is the dog’s coat always going to be that shiny? and where are the women shaving their armpits? these are the things i need to know.
we’re all caught up.
so, there’s our survivors from season 1, a second set of survivors from the back of the plane (who’ve apparently gone a little more lord of the flies than our heroes), a crazed runner holed up in a bunker, a crazed frenchwoman walking the forest, and the others (who turn out to be creepy hillbilly types in a boat). a pretty crowded island, this. now please tell me we’re not going to get survivor set 2’s backstories all through season 2.
More of a return to form tonight . . . thank the gods. The fellow in the bunker (who has run off to . . . well, where) still strikes me as a really stupid choice to open up season two. But the Lost of old seemed to creep back into the writing. A glimmer of hope!
I don’t know. I actually kind of liked episode 2 of this season–the one Jeff didn’t–because it struck me as more “Prisoner”-ish, with the strange training film and the goofball dramatics around the computer and the clock …
…I’m kind of with Arnab: I find the backstories generally, or increasingly, tedious–the stuff I sit through so that I can learn more about what’s happening on the island. That said, I’ve been told I MUST watch now, because I’ve gotten Kris hooked and she’d be mad if I just gave it up. So I’m stuck.
i am happy that they’re killing off the characters i find annoying. first boon, now shannon. personally i would have picked charlie to go second but i am hopeful that it will come with time. then the australian woman whose name escapes me for the moment. interesting that there were no jack or kate sightings last night. well, i use the word “interesting” very loosely.
Arnab you are so snarky, maybe even elitist, in your witty repostes on American television (or maybe its just LOST). I was glad to see the show move back to life on the island (I’m still totally confused by the quarantined hatch, the numbers, computer, etc., etc.). I thought last night’s episode was pretty decent television. That’s about all I ask from television-escapism with a little flair and style. I like that they are killing off characters as well (but two from the same family seems a bit unfair and statistically improbable). By the way, there was a Jack sighting last night. He was the doctor who crossed Shannon’s and her evil stepmother’s path in the hospital . . . remember Jack saved the woman who Shannon’s father crashed into–or maybe she crashed into him–and then married her after the feeling in her legs miraculously returned. In the ER Jack had to choose between the two and Shannon’s father bit the dust. The woman he saved and married is, as we all know, dead but how she died is a mystery and I’m sure will make for a very special flashback in the coming months.
i wasn’t snarky at all in my previous comment–except perhaps at myself for describing the lack of jack and kate sightings as “interesting”. i wonder what the logic of the character killings is (unless someone really is paying attention to who i don’t like)–i wonder if some of them are making decisions to cash in on movie opportunities while the show is still hot. i think the actress who plays shannon is in something new–i could be wrong though. or perhaps the show is just creating room for the story arcs of 3 or 4 of the new survivors.
and i don’t really have anything against american television–i’ve liked a lot of it over the years (though i don’t watch so much of it anymore).
She appeared in The Fog, but I can’t imagine that’s going to do much for her career, which, as of last night, is seemingly over (how’s that for snarky).
Darren Aronofsky to direct an episode of LOST. I actually read about this last week but wasn’t sure the source was reliable. Looks like The Fountain is locked and this will be his next (mini)project:
DA: During the shoot on THE FOUNTAIN in Montreal, I had… I was watching tapes of it, and it was really addictive. It was like the one thing I could watch to just clear my mind at the end of the day before I crashed out, y’know? It was just so much fun. I just got really into it. And then, um, I was like, Well, I wonder if they’d ever be interested in… you know… And I’m thinking, they shoot it in Hawaii. I love all the actors. I mean, the casting on that show is just superb. It’s great. . . And [the actors are] all great. I mean, I don’t know… how do you… that’s the amazing thing to me about the show, is that they cast all these great actors that no one’s really… I mean, most of them… some of them have done a lot of great work, but a lot of them, I had never seen before, and they’re just great. So I was sort of like, That’d be cool. Just spend a couple of weeks in Hawaii with actors. I definitely… look, I’m going to them. They didn’t come to me. So it’s not like going to be, by any means, “a Darren Aronofsky show.†I’m just going there to do an episode of LOST.
does anybody still care? i still watch but with decreasing interest. and what’s up with saeed? didn’t he have a moment last year when he gave up torturing forever? well, i suppose it is a hard monkey to get off your back.
Unfortunately (to this group at least), I still care. I love this show (even when an episode falls short). Last night’s was entertaining enough. The subplot involving Sawyer’s search for a noisy tree frog was a bit much (lost doesn’t do comic relief very well) but the payoff to that plot thread beautifully and uncomfortably connected with Sayid’s move to wrench the truth out of the captured Other. All signs point to this show becoming a Lord of the Flies infused Manichean narrative as the islanders struggle to work through the evil within in order to allow good to triumph. I’m willing to allow Good Deeds to win out in the end, but I’m looking forward to a lot more moral ambiguity (a few deaths and maybe even a ritualistic murder or two) before the show arrives at its conclusion.
Yeah, I gave up in the Fall. I still think the island conceit is a blast, but 3/4 of each show spent in laborious repetitive flashback drives me bonkers.
I’m now officially watching only one show–Battlestar–but eagerly await the return of Tony S and plan to start whining outside Jeff’s door for him to copy it for me every week.
OK, I’m sure I’m the only one watching, but nobody could have predicted what happened in the final minutes last night. Wild stuff!
we’re still watching, still in hostage mode. yes, the end was shocking. perhaps the characters were written out because of the recent legal problems of michelle rodriguez and the actress who plays libby? but it is getting more interesting again. this is the first time in a long time that i’m looking forward to the next episode (we’ll need to get to a tv in los angeles–my in-laws don’t have one!). presumably michael has made a deal with the “others” to free their man and lead the lost’ees to them in exchange for walt? not sure he really needed to kill ana lucia to achieve that.
Still rockin’! Tonight’s ep built on last week’s shocking ending. Michael is now officially evil (or he is willing to sacrifice all for Walt but there is more going on there) and why would Henry want to leave the hatch and return if indeed he did bungle his effort to bring Locke over to the “other” side? If he was just fucking with Locke then what in the hell was he attempting to do.
And they kicked Chris Daughterty off AI. Will miracles never cease???
Tonight’s episode was a great–Rod Serling worthy–effort. Perhaps one of the best episodes of the entire series. Did anybody see it?
yes. i’d rather the stupid main plot had moved forward. instead we got a random morality tale. well, at least now we know what that dude was doing in that bathroom in the other hatch.
OK, the last couple of episodes have been pretty nifty (last night I would, periodically, start to groan at a particularly sappy moment and then the writers would undercut the sentiment with a cruel and unexpected twist of the knife; it was definitely entertaining to watch and I certain felt jerked around and used . . . but in a good way).
I admit, the show has lost it’s uber-mojo (probably in a hatch), but it can still be damn entertaining and the realization that, after next week’s two hour finale, there will only be 32 episodes left (allowing the writers/producers to wrap everything up in a magically realistic bow) does appeal.