I’ve already relegated it to a corner of my computer monitor while I go about other tasks. It allows to stay informed at the water-cooler without having to put up with the inane characters and plot “twists.”
ETA: I also wish the show would do away with the low-budget, cheesy cgi. The smoke, in particular, constantly breaks (for me) any immersion the show might have had going, at that point.
They were pretty candid that that was exactly what they had to do in season 2 before they got a committment for a hard end date from ABC. Not surprisingly, that is when the show meandered. Since then it has been pretty focused, imho.
I agree with you to a limited extent here, but I’m more willing to forgive that because I think that the over all story lines are cool and it’s not so bad as to be unbelievable.
We will just have to agree to disagree here. They spent a whole season setting up Jack losing it, replete with him being “haunted” by his dead dad. That’s pretty good motivation for me. Ditto for Hurley, he kept getting visited by dead people. Sun wanted to save her husband. Said got dragged back agaisnt his will. The only one who’s motivation didn’t make much sense is Kate, and I’ve always considered her the most weakly written of the main cast members. But, seeing as they have built a pretty good track record of Kate doing dumb things when she is upset, I’m willing to give that one a pass.
Pretty easy to explain, actually. They already had the character of Ben planned out. When “Henry Gale” got captured he was just supposed to be one of the Others, a al Eathan or Mr. Friendly. The actor was so good they said, “We’ll just make this guy be Ben, not some minor Other.”
I don’t know for sure if that’s what happened, but it seems perfectly logical to me.
Fair enough, but pretty much any explanation would be “logical” by Lost standards 
Wow…you know, that is a totally AWESOME explanation! If it’s really what they intend, I could live with that easily.
Actually, I think that’s part of the reason that I’m willing to cut the writers a decent amount of slack. They have introduced so many things (i.e. time travel, ghosts, monsters) that usually turn into spectacular messes, but have largely avoided the usual pitfalls.
Have they? Perhaps you’re right–I’m not even sure what the “usual pitfalls” would entail; maybe they’re all new ones?
The other version of this is when character A does explain to character B what’s going on and why they should walk across the island, but then demands that they don’t tell anyone else because it would freak everyone out.
Really? After smoke monsters, polar bears, hostiles, submarines, hatches, prehistoric statues, and miracle healing, we’re worried about freaking the nameless-lost-extras out? How in the dark are these guys?
Either that or the reason why they can’t tell anyone is because “we can’t trust anyone else” But then when it blows up in their face and everyone knows about it by the end of the episode, they proceed to do the same damn thing two episodes later. :smack:
Well the most obvious one I had in mind was introducing all sorts of paradoxes via time travel.
Dude, the thread was about lost having lost it now that we’re into season 5. 
Glad you’re enjoying it though. You really haven’t been spoiled all that much if those were the only two things you saw. BUT STOP READING. WHY DID YOU EVEN READ THIS REPLY YOU SILLY PERSON!
Opinions differ obviously. I thought this was a great development because it broadened the show considerably: it was a way better reveal than having the hatch be full of aliens or some other stupid nonsense. When you look back on everything we’ve learned about the Island, you can see them inching into its history, and the Swan is a strange and decrepit machine that gave the characters a great foil, particularly in the way it played out in the end (with Locke’s loss of faith clashing against Eko and the way that Locke and Desmond intertwined).
As I remember, a) he had a weight belt, so he was basically sinking and then moving underwater, not swimming in the sense you’d worry about when not knowing how to swim (i.e. trying to move through water AND stay above it breathe) b) he never expected to come back up to air anyway.
He probably did learn to swim better on the Island, but we know that he still ultimately sucked as a swimmer even towards the end because Desmond’s future-vision saw him drowning if he tried to save Claire.
His dad did teach him how to swim, though it’s certainly possible to suck as a swimmer in the ocean even if you’ve paddled about in a pool a little.
I didn’t catch this, but apparently in that flashback someone can be heard off screen shouting “Come on, Desmond!”
Those meanders were more about killing time than not knowing where they were headed though, as far as I can tell. Like the flashback things I keep harping about: they ran out of the CORE flashback insights they wanted to convey about the characters, and ended up doing a bunch that were sort of filler, just replaying themes they’d already developed.
It’s been years since I watched the show, so I don’t really remember many. Except for being the end of the episode cliff hanger, The Black Rock fiasco qualifies. Why would the French lady lead people miles without mentioning it was a ship?
One thing that made it obvious the writers were making it up (at least early) is the caves. There was a sort of mini arc in the first season about moving to the caves, but it was dropped with no explanation. I guess that was eventually adapted to be part of the hatch plot.
Those are both actually pretty good ones, and I got nothing really in retort to either of them other than that they simply didn’t bother me at all, and still don’t particularly.
French lady is crazy. No one had any idea to ask, thinking that the BR was, well, a rock.
And the caves. I dunno. They pretty much didn’t mention them after the hatch. I assume that the main reason for moving back out on the beach was that it was near where all the food and supplies from the hatch were closest to, but they never really went into it, you’re right.
Hurley mentioned the caves once later on. I can’t remember why, but he said he was gonna move to the caves because no one lives there anymore.
In my opinion, Lost is the greatest television drama series of all time. It requires more attention and thought than other TV shows and does not lend itself to casual viewing, which is why many do not like it, but it has more depth and quality than any show I have ever seen. I say this, not as a Lost fanatic or fanboy, but as a viewer who has watched decades of television and find this particular show to be amazing in the way it engages viewers who are willing to participate to the depth required. It is the first show to move to the next level - call it TV 2.0 - where there is feedback and communication, in near real time, between the audience and the producers/writers. There is a whole 'nother level of participation and engagement beyond simply watching the show - there are clues and other substance (e.g. “whispers” that are reverse-tracked) that the average viewer could not know of without participation of the internet community. I am simply amazed at what this show does and has accomplished. It’s definitely a pioneering effort.
Yup, that all is pretty much true. Where we differ is whether that actually improves the show.
I used to (and still do, to some extent, such as my reading the Lost threads somewhat) kept up on everything outside of the show which offered “insight”–the only problem was I found none of it to be really meaningful, especially considering much of it is fan wankery. In fact, I would ultimately consider it a distraction from what the show should be. The fact that the show depends on this suggests the writers are actually piss-poor storytellers, and have conceived a universe so unnecessisarily convoluted, that it’s simply lost on most viewers (as its yearly declining ratings might imply).
It’s cool you dig that though, but I would find TV to be a very exhausting medium if other shows were to adopt such (poor, imo) techniques.
ETA: I would love to see a “Phantom Edit” version of Lost. A cliff notes version without all the bullshit. I’m reasonably confident the show could be summed up in a seasons’ worth of episodes, or maybe even much less, and be more entertaining to boot.
Again, disagree totally. I watched most of Lost straight through with zero “fan-wankery.” I think it holds up as a story on its own, precisely because it’s so thoughtful about it’s characters, and allows the weird mythology to inform THAT, rather than the other way around. Again, M. Night Shamylan obsessives are going to be annoyed at the lack of “answers” by the end of a given hour, but the story and character arcs are rewarding and amazingly fun if you simply let yourself get involved in them, no question in my mind. And the answers do seem to be coming together in a truly interesting manner as well.
Describing anyone who is unhappy 5 years of increasingly convoluted mysteries that may indicate the writers just keep painting themselves further in a corner as “obsessives” is fanboyish defense.
And there are those that disagree that it’s some amazing character piece, considering that the characters are inconsistent and totally at the whims of what’s needed to advance the plot - the plot that apparently doesn’t matter.
Blah blah blah. You don’t like the story they’re telling, fine. But looking back, it really doesn’t seem that convoluted at all. Getting to where it’s going has certainly involved some stalling for time, but the overall picture is neither crazy nor unfocused.
Again, if you don’t buy the characters, fine. But it’s also perfectly possible to buy them and their motivations and decisions, and at this point it feels like you’re just cheating yourself out of the fun with a bunch of pointless nitpicks. Apply your standard to virtually any drama, and you could end up complaining about the Godfather just as vehemently and bitterly.
Well, you gotta admit, the horse head made no sense. Somebody had to kill a horse, saw off its head, carry the thing upstairs, enter Woltz’s room, place the thing under the sheets… and they had to do it in such a manner that
a. Nobody heard or saw a thing, and
b. Woltz didn’t wake up when the head was put in the same bed where he was sleeping, and
c. Spill not a drop of blood except under the sheets
That alone proves the writers had no idea what the hell they were doing.