Lost

I spent most of the season thinking their existence was basically an extended exercise in begging the question. That they had pay-off didn't really justify the way they were basically ephemeral to the action in most episodes of the season — which is particularly obnoxious, given the way there were other plots that were begging to be told (e.g. Illana, Widmore and particularly Claire).

If there had been less of them, I could have dealt with it, regardless of the way they ended up being a needless abstraction/complication to the narrative.

Not necessarily, especially when you consider all the subtle touches like the son of Jack and Kate and the sense of closure it brings to the story when you know that it's actually not an alternate reality but rather a kind of afterlife. I also love that they imply that stuff happened between the end and the "flash-sideways", that Walt may very well be the "Jacob" of the island at the time when all the cast moves on in the "flash-sideways"...

All that redeems them for me. They aren't perfect, but I prefer that they did something different with the alternate narrative rather than "admitting defeat" and going back to flashbacks/forwards because it's what everybody (as in everybody who preferred the earlier seasons) liked.

edited 18th Oct '13 5:04:56 AM by Akalabth

@Akalabth: AR Gs would be one thing. I think I saw the first two? I don't really remember anything about them that sticks out, so whatever made it for you, please share.

I didn't really want the nitty-gritty like Alvar Hanso. That wasn't interesting to me. It's more stuff like... everyone crashed on the Island because two brothers couldn't make nice with each other? really? and then the best times of their lives was when they were struggling for existence on a tropical island with people they barely knew? that kinda stuff. I think I would've preferred more ambiguity in that area, but eh. I'm not one of the writers.

@Nicknacks: I stand corrected. What Kate Did was great. :)

re the flash-sideways: I didn't realize it was confirmed that David was Jack and Kate's son? I mean it'd make sense, but otherwise he seemed kinda dangling. But mostly I'm going from the experience when I was watching the show while it aired. It was beyond frustrating to watch these stories of people we didn't know but we really did know when there was so much crap going down on the Island. At that point, I just wanted a conclusion, you know? Didn't so much care about these other people when I cared about their original iterations. And that they were all really dead was a bit of a letdown. I tend to care about what happens in life, not the afterlife.

Plus it was such a Christian rendition of the afterlife, which felt kind of evangelical to me. They're led into the afterlife by Christian Shepherd? Really!? And they all couple up into island approved relationships — so Sayid and Shannon, rather than Sayid and Nadia, which makes no sense — and why are half of them even in the afterlife?

Given that it took them 17 odd episodes to reach that point, I don't think this really worked. If they only become emotionally involving when you know the terms of the universe, then they weren't involving for nigh sixteen hours.

David was Jack and Juliet's son. Jack confirms this in the last episode, he and Juliet were apparently divorced.

So the presence of Desmond in the Flash-Sideway version of Oceanic Flight 518 didn't grab you from the start?

I was a little disappointed that the Flash-Sideways wound up being the afterlife as opposed to just a mirror universe from Juliet activating the bomb, but it was neat seeing these parallels and alternates come into play: Locke and Ben being friends, Jack being a dad, Hurley being an entrepreneur, Sawyer being a cop, Kate still being on the run, etc).

What did they all die from? It took me a bit, that plot point was shaky, but here:

• Jack died from the stab wound inflicted by Fake-Locke, he turned the Island over to Hurley. Bit of a plot hole here, I think, because Jacob had all these amazing powers that Jack didn't seem to inherit. At the least, when Jacob first inherited the position, he displayed some level of super strength during the flashback where he created the Mist Monster. But you know what, Ben managed to kill Jacob just by stabbing him and letting Fake Locke roll him into a fire, so invulnerability isn't necessarily part of the deal.
• Kate, Claire, and Sawyer lived out the rest of their lives and died from natural causes. This was kind of weird because we last see them escaping the Island.
• Hurley and Ben did the same, but they became the Island's tenants after Jack died, so they probably lived longer until Hurley approached Walt with the job.
• Saiyid died saving the people on the sub that Fake-Locke tried to blow up.
• Sun and Jin drowned on that sub.
• Charlie died at the end of Season 3.
• Boone and Shannon died in Seasons 1 and 2.
• Juliet died after the bomb went off.

They all came back together because their collective consciousnesses/souls wanted to "reunite". They all got the chance to enjoy more peaceful lives, reunite with the people they'd lost.

hey're all there because they all died on the Island. So, heh, yeah, "Island-approved" relationships I suppose.

I chuckled when I heard that Christian Shepherd bit.

But all that aside, if you read the Tropes page, you'd think that Lost had a Gainax Ending, but it really isn't. Most of what occurs in the conclusion is either explained by Christian at the end, or played with/alluded to multiple times over the course of the show.

edited 19th Oct '13 10:11:31 AM by FOFD

weirdly enough for all that it used Christian imagery it wasn't all that Christian. as a girl raised in the church, orthodox Christianity is a "what happens on earth affects what happens in the afterlife" kinda deal. it was no more Christian than it was any of the other religions referenced on that display in the church. it was this...weird New Agey postmodern amalgam of things. all roads lead to heaven, et cetera.

Damon Lindelof himself said that it was very new-agey yes (here's one example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5chCMRsEVo ). Again, did not really bother me...

All the stuff both of you listed above though, I totally get is stuff that can upset people. I just don't feel that strongly about it. I'm certainly not the right guy to confront about plotholes and things like that, because I'm very easily entertained, and when a show, like Lost, provides enough for me to be happy about, and enough good writing and interesting characters, I honestly can't be bothered about the fine print. I'm very rarely the one to be really bent out of shape concerning details, except when it's stuff that I don't like in which case I will nitpick them to death if necessary.

And also, and I think this is a big point, I did not get into the series until it was finished, and so I did not have the sense of waiting for the series to be resolved, and the six-year wait for the finale. The first time I watched it I've watched it about a month after the finale aired and it took me something like a month to finish it, so I had a much more condensed experience than most other viewers, which may also explain that I did not really have any serious expectations or anticipation built up going into the finale, at least certainly not as much as a viewer who would have been involved in the storyline of the show for six years, spending the in-between seasons breaks setting his/her mind more firmly on the direction he wanted the show to follow or thought it would.

So yeah for all of these reasons and more (I find the music is absolutely outstanding and if you know me a bit you know that music for me is a really important part of any of the things I really love) I haven't been bothered as much by the latter seasons, and I considered the fact that had I not seen the show the way I did I would perhaps not have had the same opinion of it today, but with that said I still really love it on a deep emotional level, and even if I try to conceive it as objectively as possible I believe it still is a solid show. But at the same I totally understand any criticism you might level against it, it's not flawless, and it's certainly not above being analyzed and criticized (but then I don't think anything is so...).

edited 23rd Oct '13 2:13:43 PM by Akalabth

oh, definitely. Different people have different experiences and that shapes how they see their media. and just cause I criticize Lost doesn't mean I didn't/don't enjoy it, it's just that I see some of the flaws in it really clearly now where I didn't before.

and if you can't think critically about your media then you're just drinking it in, and that's usually not a good idea.

Uh, dude, trust me, I'm not disagreeing. In fact, your outlook is very similar to mine.

I'm trying not to gush over a show that I finished watching a week or two ago. Believe me, I could spew things I loved about it. I love piano pieces, and the show was full of those. Characters, setting, production values, story arcs, character development. I can go on.

I enjoyed Lost immensely. My only real regret is not being able to experience the anticipation of what would happen next with the rest of the world. It's a wonderful show really. I had to stop myself from chugging down season after season on Netflix. I'd finish a season, or get to a good twist, and put it off for a week or more and watch Fringe or Buffy.

I think it's easier to enjoy fiction if you drink it down and let yourself enjoy it, unless you're an actual critic and have to write objectively. Yeah there's a point where everybody yells "bullshit", but fiction would stop being fun for me if I sat down and over-analyzed everything. But that's me, because I live with people who've reached points in their lives where anything I try to get them to watch always gets a "seen it already" response from them, and I'm doing my best not to become like that.

So in short, I'm trying not to gush. Didn't mean for it to come off as standoffish criticism.

edited 24th Oct '13 9:20:37 PM by FOFD

In all honesty I wasn't looking to end the discussion on this topic, and it's totally possible that my opinion of it will change over time, but yeah at the moment pretty much any criticism I can find against is quickly lost against the good points of the show.

And to answer one of your statements above Maridee, the fact that they crashed on the island because of the conflict of the two brothers, it's true, but I perceive it as more tangential than a direct consequence. Especially since hundreds of years have passed, the rivalry between them is still present, but it's gone into more of a game as the years went by. For me the plane crashing is more a result of Jacob's boredom than actively looking for a successor (the fact that he went and sought them out notwithstanding, it still looks like he's mostly doing this for the hell of it).

Also, the fact that "the best times of their lives was when they were struggling for existence on a tropical island with people they barely knew", this thing I always found a bit amusing and bewildering as well. When they said that I was like "what, they spent the whole time getting shot at and running around the jungle and that's the best time of their lives ?" and to this day I still find this amusing.

But I kinda get it, in a way it's also where they found people who mattered in their lives, but as far as the good times go, we don't see a lot of that in the actual series. The three-odd years spent by Sawyer and Juliet and the rest in the seventies was probably happy times though, but we don't see that, and as soon as the others (Jack, Kate, Hurley...) show up, it all goes down pretty hard, pretty fast. At some point Sawyer even mentions this in one example of superb lampshade-hanging — something along the lines of "damn we were fine for three years, no explosions, nothing, and then you show up and bam !"... there may have been a "son of a bitch thrown in there, possibly.

edited 25th Oct '13 5:12:02 AM by Akalabth

There should probably be some happy medium between gushing and critical thinking, and I apologize if what I've said in this thread has dampened your enjoyment. something I'm working on not doing. ^note actually if you'll let me cross-fandom here being overly critical of Once Upon a Time around me drastically decreases my enjoyment of the show, weirdly. although the fandom has a lot of negativity. which makes sense because season 2 sucked, especially the last half, so now I don't know if I'm just overreacting or if people are just being overcritical of what is, essentially, a B tv show about fairytales.

...I really uncritically enjoy almost every minute of Benjamin Linus' existence. Creepy little Iago-esque self-deluding manipulative man. Best.

I kinda wonder if Jacob had the ability to see the future. Aside from having the Losties time-skip back into the past, and the whole fate/destiny drawing them to the island, there's the numbers.

but yeah - gotta say, the rest of their lives must've sucked hardcore.

...I suppose technically you could argue that maybe the afterlife was all Jack's delusion because he needed to believe that his life had purpose and meaning and really, everyone has their own separate afterlife filled with all the things they need to move on to the next life. But that's probably stretching narrator unreliability a little too far.

and oh man. how hard Sawyer and Juliet crashed and burned. NO. JULIET. NO.

edited 28th Oct '13 9:17:45 AM by Maridee

Usually I find that when critical thinking dampens my enjoyment of something, I'm probably not liking it as much as I think. But with Lost, I've seen and heard and accepted and understood pretty much everything that people believe is wrong with the show, and it still has appeal for me, that's how I know I love it and will probably always will, despite its flaws.

That being said, I'm glad that there's people on this topic who are more critical than I am towards the show, because I encourage critical thinking without which there would be no discussion, it would be just me gushing about the show and there's no point in doing that.

Benjamin Linus is indeed awesome. It's my favorite character with Locke. You never really know what he's thinking, and he's always, well almost always, two steps ahead, without ever sounding too self-absorbed for his own good. And when he gets emotional, it's all the more awesome in that it is unexpected (such as when he loses his daughter).

About Jacob seeing the future, I honestly don't know, I've never even thought of that. With the extent of his powers never truly explored or explained it is totally possible though. Might be interesting to see the series again with that in mind. That would explain a lot of things.

The afterlife for me is more of a shared space than Jack's fantasy alone, since there are details about characters that resurface that Jack could never have known about. Also, I don't know, but if I were to imagine "the afterlife according to the gospel of Saint Shephard" I would imagine something a lot more mopey and sulky. Maybe that's just me though.

I love Juliet so much. That season ending was hard for me, almost as much as the finale.

see for me I know and appreciate the show for what it is, and I don't expect it to be better than that, and it's shown an unexpected ability to surprise me. And...fairytales. Characters. I just see it getting back up on its feet again, and it's hard to see people tearing it down because it's not how they expected or wanted it to be. which...applies to a lot of situations, I'm sure.

I think whenever you look at a piece of media, at some level it's always going to be easier to see what you want to see rather than what is actually there. You bring a lot of assumptions into it. I can describe a large room, dimly lit, empty except for a card table and a pair of chairs - but your conception of this room is not going to be the same as my conception of the room because we have different experiences of large rooms that are dimly lit.

so to some extent there's always going to be that fundamental disconnect because you are not the same as another person, even if the essential communication gets across. it's probably more a matter of not letting your preconceptions get in the way.

ohhh man. Ben losing his daughter was one of those big moments. It was such a fridging for Rousseau and Alex, such a waste, but it was a chilling moment. because he chose not to sacrifice everything for Alex and that made all the different. I think he genuinely believed that Jacob would protect her, though. in his way he was just as much of a believer as Locke was.

I think if I were rewriting the show...I would make Richard Jacob, because that'd be an awesome reveal. it's also more concise that way, you don't have to give both Richard and Jacob backstory and you can spend that time on other stuff, and then you have Jacob as someone with a lot of history in the show. but as it is Lucifer is Jacob, which is hilarious.

heh. maybe it's just real enough to be real, but not real enough to be the actual people there? I'm not sure if I buy Ana Lucia as a corrupt cop in her next life. She was complicated, but she wasn't a mercenary. Or maybe that's just her self image at that point.

...okay, I feel like we should establish some kind of spoiler policy in here because I'm not entirely sure what classifies as a spoiler and what doesn't.

I try to make peace with that as much as possible, because one has to agree at some point that the screenwriters will never have the exact same idea in mind as you about where a show should be headed.

Most of the time the shows I really like is more because I really like the direction the show took, but pretty much each time I would've never thought of it, it's just that the result ends up being in the same wheelhouse as what I enjoy. Actually I like shows with an open end, be it intentional or not (cancellation), because it allows you to imagine what would've come next, yet I know a lot of people hat that. Preconceptions and expectations are hard to beat. (I like the concept of the dark room. Very effective metaphor...)

We should just hang a huge "SPOILERS AHOY" sign at the beginning of this topic. Maybe even in the title.

For me before seeing Lost, Mark Pellegrino was that hitman in Mulholland Drive, and seeing he's not in the movie a lot, I just picture him as being Jacob wrecking shit up yet again in a different way this time.

Honestly Ana Lucia in the afterlife is just a result of the screenwriters just throwing their hands in the air and saying "the hell with it, why don't we just let Michelle Rodriguez ad-lib her entire role ?" because why not. It's just Michelle Rodriguez being Michelle Rodriguez to me, I don't find it that strange.

If I were in the screenwriters' shoes the Jacob/Richard thing wouldn't be the first thing I change... More like Paolo and Nikki, probably.

-stares at last post - wow. can you tell i'm midway through my English degree or what? the dark room thing isn't even mine, I stole it from Thursday Next, which is wonderfully meta.

Mostly I try to like good shows, well-written shows, shows with a twist that surprise you. Fun shows.

I think we need a mod in order to change a thread title. or if it becomes a problem, we could just have two threads - a LOST spoilers thread and a LOST for newbies thread?

hmmmm...I think I would let Kate build up with her happy-go-lucky girl next door persona before revealing that she was the fugitive later on in the season. And I'd let her kill the Marshall. less focus on Jack and his issues. season 1 is pretty tops, tho, so I can't think of anything much I would change.

less lady character deaths in the following season - or at least if you're going to kill a woman make sure you kill a guy, too. keep those ratios even. LOST had an awful lot of fridging. and while we're on gender dynamics, give women roles and storylines that don't have to do with men or children. don't make them live on an island where pregnancy equals death. Why not change that to people on the island don't age or die? (...or give birth. poor Claire. but can you imagine Ethan crawling out of his grave?)

not sure what I'd do for the overall mythological arc. or how you relate science and faith in a mystical way that satisfies both.

I'm totally with you on the fridging in second season, it's insane. I don't think it would've hurt if Michael's killing spree ended up murdering a guy instead of just two girls. And I know Ana Lucia went away pretty fast because I'm guessing they did not intend to keep the actress for very long on the show, and it was a guest star spot kind of thing, but Libby, that was just unnecessary.

Ditto the pregnancy thing. It's incredible that when you have a female doctor on the show of course she has to be a fertility doctor. It would've been more interesting if Jack and Juliet switched jobs, but I don't think they had thought of the Juliet character by the first season. I also wouldn't have minded the no-child born on the island thing if it was just infertility on both sides or death on both sides, but again the fact that pregnancy = death is pretty stupid when you look at it.

And the worst part is Lost isn't even the worst offender in terms of gender equality. I've been watching Revolution (another Bad Robot show by the way), which for the most part I enjoy, but they have those cool, competent, even badass female characters, and they just keep having them frequently incapacitated and/or having to be rescued by the male characters. And when they invert that (last episode I watched, episode 4 of season 2, minor spoiler but you see it a mile away anyway so...) they manage to have a black guy being the traitor (and it happens twice). It's getting on my nerves a bit, to be honest (and I'm neither black nor a woman, so take that for whatever it's worth), especially since it's on otherwise fine and competently-written shows.

Less focus on Jack in season one would've been interesting, but I see him as the audience surrogate at the beginning, and to me his role is toned down a lot in later seasons in favor of a more truly multi-focus narrative, so I don't mind having to spend the first season with him, even I too would've preferred if they treated the Kate character differently.

The overall mythological arc I wouldn't really touch though. It's one of the elements of the show I unabashedly embrace, even though I know I'm probably a minority on this.

PS : I had never heard of Thursday Next, looks fun, I'll look into it...

edited 28th Oct '13 1:39:46 PM by Akalabth

I think I heard that they killed her because Ana Lucia wasn't very well liked. and that's why they killed Libby with her, so people would care.

I think some of the things they did with Juliet were fascinating - she was a fertility doctor who impregnated a male rat, that's pretty damn cool. I mean they didn't do anything with it afterwards but that's cool. And it fit thematically, but...it's still just one more woman doing woman things. maybe if they'd had Naomi be Keamy, it'd be different, or if Charlotte had lived longer, or...et cetera.

gender equality is one of the reasons I really do like Once, which is written by Horowitz and Kitsis who started on Lost. It's basically just ladies nonstop doing awesome things in all your fairytales, and that makes me happy to see. It's not so good racially, which sucks - actually it has a real problem with that, first five black characters are all either dead or imprisoned. but otherwise it's been a fun ride.

...Hannibal is really amazing with racial and gender equality, though. That would be where I got the one to one rule from, because they actually went through and counted.

I think what would've helped the mythological arc for me is if it'd had clearer setup earlier. because as it is, Jacob and Mi B are kinda late additions. if there'd been more of a relationship, mainly.

edited 28th Oct '13 8:58:15 PM by Maridee

Hey, I'd never seen that Verge interview, nice to see.

Haha, Joshua Topolsky is one of the people who thinks they were dead all along. *sigh* Actually I don't think he paid attention. Like, when he says "if it had been revealed to been on another planet blah blah blah....".......like, the show wasn't just "weird" stuff. There was dialogue in season one that fits with the ending. Locke's especially. I bring up that stuff and people tell me "Well I just figured Locke was crazy". :/

edited 28th Oct '13 10:22:24 PM by occono

It's very true, I've discussed Lost with people that belligerently hated the ending, and when we started discussing why, I realized that, like Josh in this interview, they didn't actually got what the ending was about, and felt cheated because they thought it kind of nullified the whole experience. It's just how it goes sometimes.

Pretty much every example you quoted could've made things better. I have to say this is not the kind of problems that hinder my enjoyment of viewing the show, when I'm actually watching an episode I mean, but looking back on it it's those elements that they could've done differently and which would've just made all the good parts that much more awesome.

The fact that they killed off Ana Lucia because of fan response is possible, though I doubt the response was ever as negative as against Nikki and Paolo, or the island "hippies" for example. I've never had a problem with her personally, and I liked her relationship to Mr. Eko (another character that went away too fast, albeit for different reasons). Having Libby killed alongside "to make people care" would then just be another egregious example of fridging.

I have never checked out neither OUAT nor Hannibal, but OUAT I wanted to see it so I'll probably get around to it sooner, especially since I've finished a couple of other series recently and new stuff to watch would be swell.

I honestly don't think they had thought of Jacob and the Man in Black earlier. Both Damon and Carlton were pretty clear that they were making stuff off the top of their heads up to at least the middle of season 3, which is for me where the show really starts to shine. But imo it's also due in part to network meddling, I highly doubt that ABC wanted to pull the plug too quickly on a potential cash cow like Lost.

Edit : nothing to do with anything but, I laughed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGeASXjd0UU

edited 29th Oct '13 10:55:11 AM by Akalabth

They probably had some form of basic version of Jacob and Mi B in their heads early on, given the Backgammon speech and the bodies in the cave with the black and white stones. Maybe not the exact details. They've said as much.

They sort of dropped the idea of the Island having a will and influence of its own in the final season, when Locke had emphasized it so much. I think they weren't up to the challenge of writing about a sentient island, and two warring magician human brothers was an easier narrative.

I think for me with Lost now, I enjoy bits and pieces of it, but I don't necessarily enjoy the whole thing as a piece of art. I'd have to really sit down and watch it again though, and I'm not exactly in a place where I have time for that right now. so no Lost reappreciation for me.

...oh man. that music, though. The music was always spectacular I still love it. Life and Death still brings me to tears.

and ooh. what about Jin and Sun. best love story, or best love story?

Looking for more information on Ana and Libby's deaths, I did find this Lostpedia article, which is a sum-up of most of the issues people had with it. dunno how y'all feel about wikis, but you're here so they must be somewhat legit.

I do know that they fought for six seasons and no more. Or at least that is what I remember hearing at the time.

And that video. That was pretty great, I think they showed it at Comic Con?

maybe. I dunno how hard it is to give a sentient island motivation.

Lost has a few really great episodes, but they were few and far between. It mostly sat comfortably in the B- range, for me, mostly because of how cynically constructed the entire thing was.

When the show was actually trying to say something, I enjoyed it an awful lot.

How do you feel it was cynical? Not debating, but looking for specifics.

A lot of the cliffhangers, the way that characters wouldn't share information with each other or talked cryptically, and the way the characters would routinely announce that they had separated into two camps before traipsing back and forth between the two were cynical feeling moves, used to pad out the narrative or introduce false tension. That way you'd stay for the rest of the episode/come back for the following one.

I feel like it's designed to keep the wheels spinning but offer no real progress.

Mmm. Yes, that does make sense. It was more organic in season 1 where the divide between the beach and the caves was the divide between hope and settling. but season 3-4 where the divide was between Jack and Locke and everyone (re: Kate and Hurley) kept bouncing, that was tough. I enjoyed Locke as a bad logistical leader, though. Kinda wish we had seen more of that. (Kinda wish he hadn't been killed off so early. Bad Ben.)