# Let's get "LOST" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452 "2010-02-02T23:58:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/21 "2010-02-05T00:45:30Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > And of course I love the friggin traffic this “deserted” island gets. There’s more people pass through here in a day than through Grand Central Station or Gilligan’s Island. To be fair, they actually have a reasonably satisfactory reason to explain this. ---
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/22 "2010-02-05T05:52:00Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Locke just seems so thoroughly, pathologically dishonest to me. That coupled with the smug, snakelike grin he’s always wearing just paint him as one of the least trustworthy characters I’ve ever come across. He has only his own agenda, which he’s not going to clue you in on, and which has aspects of lunacy and denial. He’ll smile while he cuts you, convinced he’s doing it for your own good. The most dangerous kind of personality I can think of: the self-righteous sociopath. I know other people have stepped in to defend Locke, but frankly I’m just glad someone else has echoed my feelings on the man. I watched Lost with my brother, starting from season 1, this summer, and I’ve pretty much loathed Locke from episode 1. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/23 "2010-02-05T13:33:50Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > And the “Other” who looks like he was drawn by R. Crumb has presumably taken this opportunity and hooked it. Interesting factoid: the guy who plays Ben (who–heh–_does_ look like an R. Crumb character, now that you mention it) was only supposed to be on about 3 episodes–he _was_ going to be “Henry Gale” and “Ben” would be played by someone else, but the producers loved the guy’s performance so much that they combined the characters to allow the actor to stay on longer. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/24 "2010-02-05T16:26:32Z")
Just a couple comments: It’s _science fiction_ at its center, presented as drama and wrapped in heavily serialized mystery and intrigue. If you’re not a sci-fi fan, the whole show will feel very heavy handed and ridiculous. Also, the “fun” of the show is the more-questions-than-answers aspect. Just like the “fun” of **24** is Jack Bauer is superhuman and ostensibly immortal, who lives in a world where full-blown terrorism on American soil is as common as holding up a liquor store. Anyway, glad you’re learning how to enjoy it. No show can have a universal audience, but this comes pretty close. Being a huge fan of science fiction (that is, fantastical scenarios and characters) and puzzle-piece story-telling, this show was right up my alley from the start. That said, take Season Three with a few lumps of sugar; while it has its moments, it was the part of the series where the writers where struggling with progressing the story, as they had no end-date set. So for the first 2/3 of S3, you just have to hunker down and bear it, at least until the last handful of episodes. But, since you won’t have to wait week-to-week, perhaps it won’t be as bad.\* Then Season 4 is pretty damn good, and Season 5 was on par with the first two seasons for me. That’s where the science-fiction _really_ comes back into play. \*Also, S3 was plagued with tons of breaks, reruns, and hiatuses. T’was torture. Now, seasons 4-6 are pared down to about 16-18 hours, with virtually no season breaks. Season 4 is the shortest, because of the writer’s strike at the time. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/25 "2010-02-06T16:42:38Z")
“Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell’s going on.” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/26 "2010-02-07T03:41:41Z")
Also very enlightening are the many, many demonstrations of that apparently most reliable of tools: the rifle butt. Good to know that, whenever you’re with someone and you don’t want them to hear what you say, or see what you do, or follow you, or anything at all, you just apply the rifle butt and it conveniently checks them out for exactly the amount of time you need your privacy, and never with any nasty consequences later. Not even headaches. Makes me wonder why, in all those old movies, the woman would say to the man, when she’s changing out of wet clothes, “You’re going to have to turn around.” How much easier, and more consistently reliable–pretty well foolproof, it would seem–to just apply a little rifle butt, and go on with what you need to do. I’ll definitely keep this in mind for practical applications in the day to day world. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/27 "2010-02-07T04:11:19Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > ::snip:: Got bogged down about two-thirds of the way through when it became clear that this was largely a show about assholes trying to out-asshole the other assholes; an island full of jerks who all should’ve drowned in the first place. ::snip:: This is precisely why I loathe that show to the depths of my soul. Every.Single.Time I even so much as glance at that shite, it’s just people being mean to each other, like some stupid soap opera. I think Lost is too much like Survivor…all backbiting, all the time. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/28 "2010-02-08T02:27:37Z")
Uh . . . OK. So . . . Season Four . . . what the screaming bloody jesus is going on? Each episode confirms my initial theory that this is a huge prank pulled on the audience: random nonsequiturs; the first truly Futurist TV series. Which, OK, awesome. But there’s still two more years to go on this, from where I’m at now. I expect to be highly impressed by how they manage to keep it afloat. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/29 "2010-02-08T02:56:34Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Uh . . . > > OK. > > So . . . Season Four . . . what the screaming bloody jesus is going on? Each episode confirms my initial theory that this is a huge prank pulled on the audience: random nonsequiturs; the first truly Futurist TV series. Which, OK, awesome. But there’s still two more years to go on this, from where I’m at now. I expect to be highly impressed by how they manage to keep it afloat. Oh, they do. And there’s more mindfucks in store. And still, somehow, you’ll have no idea where they’re steering this thing. How far into S4 are you? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/30 "2010-02-08T03:42:43Z")
Ben just conjured up the genii-tornado monster, like the Mayor in Buffy Season 3 with his demon, to lay waste to the mercenaries sent to attack his little ticytacky housing tract in the suburbs of hell. Intercut with some Indiana Jones Iraqi Bazaar chases and Michael undercover on the boat. Seems to me that one of the strongest, most frequently touched on themes for the entire series is parenthood; parent-child relationships. There really hasn’t been a tangent so far that doesn’t tangle itself up somehow in this or that character’s parental–or filial–drama. Relevant? Or just random freudian jetsam on the writers’ parts? (Don’t answer if you can’t without spoilage.) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/31 "2010-02-08T05:44:47Z")
“Destiny is a fickle bitch.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/32 "2010-02-08T06:33:01Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Seems to me that one of the strongest, most frequently touched on themes for the entire series is parenthood; parent-child relationships. All the best cowboys have daddy issues. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/33 "2010-02-08T06:40:00Z")
“Jesus is not a weapon. Enjoy your party.” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/34 "2010-02-09T12:08:36Z")
Season 5 seems pretty shark jumpy so far. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/35 "2010-02-09T17:34:03Z")
Up to 5.5. They seem, well, lost. There’s no real storyline yet; it’s like they’re trying to stretch out returning to the island as long as they can, to milk another season ender out of it or something. And suddenly Jack’s chemistry is all off: this season everyone else is in a show that has stopped taking itself seriously; it reads more like Buffy or Angel; slyly conscious of its excesses and cliches. Everyone milks that standard soap trope; the stricken or puzzled look, held unnaturally long, to allow the scene to fade out. But Matthew Fox is still playing it with that trembly seriousness that seems out of place with everyone else’s deliberate histrionics. Or maybe after four seasons of him being the Scully, it’s hard to buy that he’s suddenly bought entirely into the whole Twilight Zone thing, even moreso than the others. And I’m really getting tired of the whole, “There’s no time to explain! You’re just going to have to trust me!” as a device to keep the audience in the dark. Becomes less and less believable with every iteration. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/36 "2010-02-09T18:07:09Z")
I mean, you either buy into the reasons given why characters can’t explain this or that (and, to be fair, they do at least give some reasons/motivations for characters not to talk or ask certain things) or you don’t. If you can’t, well, unfortunately it’s that kind of show. They basically give you enough to suspend your disbelief if you want to, and then it’s mostly up to how engaged you are with the characters to decide if you want to. It definitely isn’t seamless. But I mean, does your impression of Season 4 at least resolve some of the “random non-sequitur” problem? It all sort of does come together in the end, no: all the strange threads and flashes this way and that? I’ll definitely concede that a good deal of the off-Island stuff at the start of Season 5 sort of feels like stalling though, I remember feeling the same way. Anything that resolves around Jack/Kate or Sun trying to be badass tends to drag on this show, not least of all because Jack and Kate were sort of made into morose characters in a way that was hard to maintain without the audience tiring of them. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/37 "2010-02-09T18:08:03Z")
Lissener - what do you think of Desmond and Penny? you haven’t mentioned them. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/38 "2010-02-09T22:36:35Z")
Yeah, the character leaps in Season 5 don’t sell; I can’t see the character that took four seasons to build as Jack getting that thoroughly defeated, and then boom back to normal just by shaving his beard? And Sun no longer seems like anyone I know either. Desmond and Penny’s storyline seems way to tacked on to be so central, you know? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/39 "2010-02-10T18:28:10Z")
It’s interesting how much more compelling Locke’s character gets, the weirder the show turns. He’s far more appealing as a character when he’s in a state of doubt and bewilderment than when he’s a tower of certainty. Early on, his demeanor of smug self-righteousness was a huge turn-off for me. I just wanted to reach through the screen and slap that smarmy, knowing grin off his face. But as his place in the scheme of things becomes more and more uncertain, and his sense of himself more and more in doubt–and that obnoxious smile has been slowly replaced by an expression of questioning wonder–he’s become a character of depth and complexity. The more supernatural his storyline waxes, in other words, the more human he’s become as a character. Bonus: he and Ben have an odd chemistry onscreen where there’s as much wordless communication between them, which is nonetheless clear to us as we observe their interaction, as their spoken interchanges. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452/40 "2010-02-10T18:33:20Z")
Yeah - although I’ve never been a Locke fan (for exactly the reasons you mentioned), he and Ben are easily the best actors on the show. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-get-lost/527452.md?page=3)