If they jumped in and immediately started grilling people about the Swan, they’d get all defensive and clam up. Much more effective to mess with their collected heads for a while until their minds were gooey playdo; worked for Michael. Just a couple days in their hands and he was ready to kill his friends to break Ben free.
Not to mention five people stepping onto the boat. Anyone who’s ever spent time on a sail boat knows that it’s impossible to *not * notice someone getting onboard. Evn if you’ve never been in that situation before, it’s more than obvious that someone is there, even if you’re below deck, making coffee. So the whole act of “What was that? Is there someone there?” That Sun acted out, was written by someone without experience of being on a sail boat.
Also, not only is it a certinty that a boat that size will have an inboard motor for docking, safety ASF. It’s there to provide electricity: GPS, UHF, lights, winches… Wind is the mean of propulsion, engine gives… security (I was born on an oak hull sail boat from the 30’s).
Other than that. I’m enjoying season3 so far. It feel as if the groud zero of the show could have started last week, and the story would unfold from the POV of the Others.
I’m fading. I want some damn answers.
What’s going on with all the psychic stuff? Psychic Walt? Psychic dude telling Claire her baby is evil? What’s with the hallucinations? What’s with all the manfestations on the island?
What about the freakin’ numbers? Why were they on the hatch? Why did they have to keep entering them? How did Hurley use them to win the Lottery, then create all this bad luck, then those same numbers are on the hatch after the plane crashed? What’s the connection?
What caused Locke to be able to walk again? What’s going on with the TCM?
Instead, it’s “Here Jack, eat this food. Kate and Sawyer, break up some rocks.”
I feel like I’m being had.
Ditto. Very much ditto.
-FrL-
Me, too. Go back and answer some of the questions from the first season, dammit!
The freaking Numbers were so important, but no it’s like they had no real meaning at all. Shannon figured out the song “Beyond The Sea” was some sort of clue in the maps, but now that’s been dropped as well.
They don’t care. They only care that you watch. When you stop watching, it’ll get cancelled. It’s only there to keep you interested between the commercials. If you want art, get art. Television is commerce. Doesn’t have to be good. Doesn’t have to make sense. Doesn’t have to satisfy. Only has to deliver eyeballs.
My physical therapist and I spend my Thursday session each week dissecting the show. We have decided that we both really have only one question:
What the hell is going on???
All else is gravy. And yet we both still watch faithfully. What does that say about us?
I’m giving it till maybe Christmas, and if it keeps getting weirder, I’m giving up.
I’ve given up on The Nine already, and I’m giving Heros and Jericho another couple of weeks each.
I don’t care if they cancel it or not. If it gets too far out there, I can quit watching.
As I said before about this one - I don’t want to have to do homework to watch a TV show. I don’t want to have to buy the DVDs to find out more Lost secrets, I don’t want to have to go to all the secret Hanso and Dharma and Oceanic websites to find out more Lost secrets. I don’t want to be lost (no pun intended) because I haven’t kept up with all the on-line gossip.
I just want to watch a TV show.
I don’t mean to sound all snarky at you, randwill - it’s just that I really liked the first season and a half of Lost. But now it’s losing me.
I’ll settle for answers that raise more questions.
I accept that there’s a lot of stuff raised that will never really be addressed (I don’t think we’re ever going to get an answer as to why the Black Rock was inland, for example) and that there’s questions that aren’t going to be answered until the series has pretty much run its course (the numbers), but I need to feel that there’s some movement toward the answers to keep my interest.
Think about it; at the end of season 1 the question was “What’s in the hatch?” And we immediately got an answer that raised a set of questions that had answers that were hinted at and dribbled out over the course season 2. At the start of season 3 we’ve got nothing. “What happened to Jack, Kate, and Sawyer?” was the cliffhanger from season 2 I cared about the least and the answer has been dull as dishwater. This is why my fingers are crossed for next week; we’re getting to a mystery that I care about.
Exactly. But that’s too hard to write. Raising questions and inventing mysteries is easy. They’ve been at it for two years. It’s solving the mysteries in a satisfying way that’s difficult. They’ve shown little skill at that.
Worse, didn’t I read last summer that the emphasis this season was to be on action and adventure and less on the cerebral aspects of the “story”?
I distinctly remember the motor starting before the gunshots… but I can’t corroborate because I don’t tape/TIVO. Anybody?
The 6th episode, in mid-November, will the last one until February. You should be able to make your decision before Thanksgiving. 
Actually, didn’t Benry say something about ‘let them sail around in circles’? I know there was a line about someone sailing in circles? Maybe the magnet on the island messes up compasses and scrambles GPS signals?
-Joe
There was an establishing shot of the (slaves?) working on the construction site that they stuck Sawyer and Kate at.
So, I saw some people working on an area they had cleared and levelled. So I was thinking, “Hey, the Losties are doing something productive after SIXTY-NINE FUCKING DAYS!”.
Nope. My stream of consciousness was just demonstrating.
-Joe
Well that certainly happened to Desmond. Which is why some doubt that Michael and Walt were really sent home. If that’s true, then Ben’s need for the sailboat isn’t getting off of the island. It’s probably to deny the Losties the boat so that they can’t use it to check out the island or visit forbidden areas.
Of course, if the Others are able to navigate out somehow, then the boat could be useful for their escape. Like maybe Michael’s boat goes out of sight of Jack and crew and then is met by another boat that guides them out–or a plane?
I’m not clear on which way Michael and Walt headed wrt to the sailboat, but that presents a wrinkle to this theory. If their courses crossed, and timing was right, the sailboat people should have seen Michael’s boat or whatever other vessel arrived to meet it.
I think the Jin/Sun comparisons are pretty interesting. On the surface, he seems harsh and she seems sweet. But when it comes down to hurting people, he does it without joy and only when ordered to do so. Sun is much more cold-blooded about it.
Speaking of cold-blooded, I was really relieved when Colleen got shot. Nothing against the character or the actress, but this show has really blown my buffer for background blondes. I can’t take any more.
How about using the sun to navigate during the day and the stars by night?
Well, how many average people are capable of doing that?
Among the Losties I could see Locke being capable, but he doesn’t want to leave. As a fisherman’s son Jin MIGHT have some knowledge, but to me it seemed that his father was fishing on a river so large-scale navigation probably isn’t all that likely.
However, even if I can “just head east” wind, current, and the like, without knowing currents and all that they could end up going in circles, missing land, blah blah etc.
-Joe
Desmond revealed at one point that he’d sailed in a direct line for six weeks and just come back to the island. The implication is definitely that it’s impossible to get off the island unless you have precise coordinates or magic voodoo power or something along those lines.
I thought the motor was activated at the very instant that Sun shot Colleen. I remember thinking the writers did this so no one would hear the shot.
-FrL-