I just have to say that, even though each week is making me more frustrated with the show, I still have to keep watching because I just love Michael Emerson in anything he does! That guy is so perfectly creepy, his voice here reminds me of a combination of Kevin Spacey in Se7en & Hannibal Lecter. I’ve never cared for Jack, Sawyer or Kate, but put this guy in the scene and I’m glued to the screen. Nice guy too.
The backstory of this episode was particularly revealing. Sawyer, a con man! Did you know that?!
Wee! I so don’t care that much about this show’s mysteries and occasional revelations. It’s bubble-gum chewing eye candy and the flashbacks are mostly fast forwarded.
In my perfect world Desmond gets transported to the Battlestar Galactica and maybe is revealed to be the next Cylon, or he gets transported to Heroes and his powers - among other things - are to make his clothes fly off at random times.
I’m quoting this out of context, because it touches on something I’ve been thinking about.
When I first heard about Lost, I decided not to check in: "Why would I want to watch a scripted version of * Survivor? People stranded on an island, trying to survive? Bleh."* Then a friend sold me on the show and I got caught up during the mid season hiatus.
I’m getting back to the idea of this being a scripted version of Survivor. It’s not reality (as such it doesn’t make any kind of sense) it’s not television reality (it makes very little sense) and it’s not reality television. I’m leaning towards meta-reality television. It’s as if the participants of survivior were not aware that they are in a tv show. And where reality tv strives to force the participants into contrived conflicts, put obstacles in the way of some small reward and generally treat them as lab rats, we’re watching that happening to people, or rather characters who, from their own perspective, are forced to live through equally ridiculous stunts. It’s the dramatic way of having our contestants walk on glowing embers one week, and trying to put together a couple of odd planks into a picture to win an extra meal (or maybe a fish biscuit even).
And as with Survivor, where the stunts actually have little to do with survival, in the universe where Lost takes place, the obstacles and hardship have very little to do with surviving after a plane crash on a remote island. Food’s a-plenty, as we can see watching Hurley, until recently, they had their own laundromat and Dharma ranch dressing.
We see the Losties being jerked around by an unseen puppet master, but in a way, the meta-puppet master (I’m looking at you J.J.) is jerking us around.
I do enjoy the acting, the interaction among the characters and seeing how they change and what motivates them. But in a way, I’m just watching reality tv, with better production values, and a script to keep the lines shap and witty.
Did any of this make any kind of sense or am I thinking too hard?
Charlie, I don’t know if you were in on the earlier threads from the first season, but there are two important points to keep in mind about Lost:
-
They didn’t expect to make it to a second season. They have back-pedalled on this and are trying to retcon a Babylon 5-level of plotting and storyboarding, but no. The first season, they were just making it up as they went along.
-
They said multiple times that this series is not about surviving, it’s not about the island, it’s not about the mystery or the Others. It’s about the characters.
Yah, and with their bringing in Trixie for a few episodes, we can only hope that Ian McShane makes an appearance. Preferably a long one. As Al Swearingen.
I liked the episode OK. I didn’t like Desmond’s plot, though; I liked the way they were being subtle about it up until then. The whole lightning rod thing was the equivalent of flying a plane through a scene with a banner reading “HEY EVERYBODY–DESMOND CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE”. I guess it’s going to become relevant, and they want to make sure everybody is clear on that before we move on.
I think it’s high time to get some answers about the Others. I don’t mind being strung along, but only so far.
And a medical nitpick–when Jack was operating on Trixie, she went into asystole, and Jack asked for paddles. That’s not right; you don’t shock asystole. He should have asked for some epinephrine. It makes sense, though, since he’s a surgeon.
He’s the leader of a third group on the island, one that refers to itself as the “Cocksuckers”.
Ethilrist -
I know. Which makes me do the comparison to Survivor. Those kinds of reality shows (as opposed to American Idol or Amazing race) is all about the characters and their interactions: “Can we get people to do something really stupid with the promise of a prime rib dinner?” “Can we get Sawyer to betray his true self with the threat of hurting Kate?”
Er, what?
Dammit, I meant to have a smiley after that. It’s a long-standing tradition for us internists to give grief to our surgery colleagues about their general medical knowledge. (How do you hide a dollar from an orthopedic surgeon? Put it in a book.*) They give us grief for not actually fixing anybody. It’s dick-waving, mostly.
Truth be told, neurosurgeons like Jack have to be pretty much superhuman, intelligence-wise, just to survive the residency.
- How do you hide a dollar from an internist? Put it under a bandage.
When Sawyer was about to wake up, the Others were talking about having lost some communications/power (?) after the sky turned purple. Couldn’t be sure, but it sounded to me as if they had no idea what had caused this phenomenon. Wasn’t Desmond’s hatch still under their surveillance? Shouldn’t they know it has imploded?
It’s not outside the bounds of reason that the Others have no clue whatsoever what was going on behind the scenes in the Swan. So far as we saw, they could have just thought it was an elaborate Skinner box, just a slightly-more-fancier version of the feed-the-bears cage they put Sawyer in. Plus, as I recall, they were all fairly busy with their captives when the balloon went up, and they haven’t had any contact with the Lostaways since.
I like the Heroes option. More GILF on one show!
And he was in prison (though we may have already known that, I can’t recall).
And he (at least thinks he) has a baby daughter.
And he was willing to forgo a considerable sum of money on her behalf.
I still enjoy the show. I still like the flashbacks and the depth that they continuously provide to the characters. I still like trying to anticipate where the story is going, and I still cherish each (albeit rare) obsucre occasion that I’m right.
It certainly appears that there are a significant amount of Dopers who are fed up with the show. That’s too bad.
I didn’t get this one…Chinatown? Huh?
Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.
Why am I the last to find out these things??
Nathan ‘Big Damn Hero’ Fillion to be on the Nov 8 ep
Casting Link a roo= lite spoilage.
And, on the plus side, at this point in “Lost,” I can honestly say that I don’t hate everybody, just almost everybody – but hey, that’s a vast improvement over most of the last few seasons of Survivor, anyway. I actually care what’s going to happen to these guys. Plus: no Probst, with his goofy hats, and nobody sporting the short-shorts-and-knee-socks combo, which is always a good thing. I’ll take what I can get. 
Speak fer yerself. I would not object to seeing Kate, Sun or Claire in the shorts/socks combo. Juliet, not so much, for some reason. Probably because Claire and Shannon have dibs on being the cute blondes in Lost.