Lost started out with a fascinating premise, and developed well, albeit with some pretty goofy things (monster, etc). As last season wore on, I began to wonder why I was addicted, but still enjoyed it.
The first episode this season began to get ridiculous, and last night (9/28) it was so idiotic, and rife with far too much screaming and yelling, that I gave up after 30 minutes.
It has some excellent actors, really interesting character development, and a novel concept, but the writers now must be running out of ideas at best, and at worst, must be on LSD or something. Too bad.
All last season I watched the show because everyone kept telling me it was so good - so I’d convince myself that I enjoyed it and I’d watch it.
I got about 10 minutes into last night’s show and thought to myself, “You don’t even like the damn show, why are you watching it?”
So I put on “Network” and watched that.
I think I hit my ridiculous quotient long ago. I don’t know if you’d call this show science fiction or not but I just have real trouble watching any science fiction, dunno why.
What exactly was so “ridiculous”? And how about “idiotic”? I don’t see any difference between the unlikely things happening last season and this one, so your complaint remains too vague to be worth commenting on.
I think the show is still riveting…BUT mainly because I still hope the writers have some kind of surprise in store. They’d better not just be making this stuff up as they go, that’s all I can say. Each individual episode is fascinating, yes, but they could just be stringing us along. This show better have the Payoff to end all payoffs…or you’re gonna see an audience rebellion like you’ve never seen before.
I say all this because last night’s episode was the first one where I sorta sensed the writers just spinning their wheels because they couldn’t quite figure out just what was supposed to be in that damn hatch.
Yea, but that’ll happen after they’ve cancelled the show and the audience has seen the last episode. Only then will they realize they’ve been strung along with nothing to show, and an “audience rebellion” at that point will be, well, moot.
I disagree. I think the producers are gonna have to give some answers as to what’s going on on the island pretty damn soon…or people are gonna start getting upset.
I came in, because I’m almost there. I get this Chris Carter tug at the back of my neck saying “You’ll never know what’s up! I’ll keep creating season finales and premieres and you’ll still never know!” After the season finale, I said, “If they don’t clear up some stuff early on next season, I’m out.” Well here we are, and nothing is forthcoming except more questsions. I think I’ll see what’s up with the Others before checking out… Maybe Michelle Rodriguez can liven things up.
Man, you people are impatient. I can understand saying “I don’t like the show, I’m not watching it anymore.”, but “I don’t have all the answers yet, so the writers don’t know what they’re doing” is ridiculous. Ever thought that their timeframe for telling their story might not exactly follow your own internal expectations of how the show should pan out?
You’re right, but I think the producers should show some Good Faith and provide some answers by now! I love the show, don’t get me wrong. I’m hooked on the damn thing. But with each episode I get the uneasy feeling that the writers, unable to provide a satisfying rationale for what’s going on, simply continue to write themselves into a corner. It seems as if they’re gonna pile mystery upon mystery until the only outcome will have to be along the lines of “It was all a dream” or “It all occured in the mind of an autistic child.”
I hope I’m wrong. And I’ll keep watching to see how they manage to pull this off.
If I’m not mistaken, the writers admitted some time ago that they were just making it up as they went along. (Sorry, I don’t have a cite, just a vague recollection of hearing/reading that.)
As if that weren’t obvious enough on its own. They’ve written themselves into a corner and I have zero faith that they’ll be able to write themselves out of it in anything approaching a satisfactory fashion. After the thudding anti-climax of the season finale, I no longer care to watch it - but I still do because my SO still likes it and laments that we never watch anything together.
Amen. In the first two episodes of this season, we’ve already (a) seen inside the hatch extensively, (b) seen the application of the mysterious numbers, and (c) seen more “new” people on the island than last season in its entirety. And people still bitch! The season just started–are they expecting all the mysteries to be answered in the first 6 weeks? What will the rest of the season consist of then? There haven’t been 30 episodes in the series’ life yet and people complain that they’re being “strung along”. :rolleyes:
Oh, you don’t want to be on my wavelength, trust me!
But I agree with you that I cannot imagine a scenario in which all the mysteries are cleared up in a satisfactory way. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to do it, but I’m starting to get that sinking feeling in my stomach.
I’m not really following the internet reaction to this show, but here’s a theory about the hatch (and my apologies if this is too obvious): what if the plane somehow crashed in the future, after most of civilization has been wiped out by a plague or something, and the island is some kind of survivor outpost? Maybe that doesn’t make any sense. I have no clue.
They’re both making it up as they go along AND they know where it’s going.
That is, they know the secret of the island, and they’ve got some landmark events that they know will happen, but they don’t know the details of who does what and when.
Which iss the smart thing to do. Because actors might get pregnant or get hit by the catering truck or ask for inconvenient amounts of money, so they have to keep some flexbility.
I watched the “extras” DVD of Season 1, and Damon Lindelof said that they have an overarcing storyline of about 5 years. He also says that for some of the stuff, they are making it up as they go along. For instance, they wrote in the parts of Sun and Jin simply because they liked Yoon-jin Kim’s audition so much and wanted her on the show.
That doesn’t mean that the 5 year story is any good. I hope it is. But I expect that they will parcel out the answers in small increments. Heck, we got the answers to one of the biggest mysteries right off the bat last week. We found out what was down the hatch. Which of course raised about 10 other questions…
What I don’t understand is why you’re having this reaction NOW, after all that we’ve actually learned and seen in these two episodes, instead of some time last season, like the time the light in the hatch went on, and then wasn’t mentioned for months, or during the long and pointless “we found a metal door in the ground but we won’t tell anyone” business, or after the “we found two dessicated corpses with mysterious white and black stones… now let’s never mention them again” or whatnot.
I think this season is just fine, so far.
I could have written this post, had I mustered the energy to care enough to do so. drm’s post too.
I was dubious when the show first started, quickly got roped in by the interesting characters, and the various mysteries were still pleasantly mysterious.
But now, after the first two eps of this season, I’m wondering what I’m doing, watching this train wreck. The flashbacks are boring and tedious and I can almost hear the writers saying “hey, lets make lots of boring and tedious flashbacks so we can string people along for four more years!” Jack’s wig was too much. Seriously, I couldn’t watch. I had to fast forward through his flashbacks. I fast forwarded Michael’s flashbacks this last ep too. His story bores me. I really don’t care that he wants to be a good father. He’s a schmuck.
It pissed me off they spent so many episodes making us wonder what the hatch could possibly be, then they introduce the guy who is going to end up living under the hatch, all in one episode! If they were going to do that, then why bother with all that wasted time during all the other episodes?
What really pissed me off about last night’s ep was, nothing happened. The entire episode was simply a repeat of last week’s episode, only viewed from a slightly different perspective. Wow, the writers have figured out a new technique for drawing out the show even more interminably. What’s next week going to be, retelling the exact same episode, only this time from the perspective of a fly on the wall?
I’m also pissed off at myself, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep watching every week. After last night’s ep, I firmly resolved to simply record it, let five or six eps build up, then watch. It’s turning out to be that kind of show. Absolutely nothing interesting or important is going to happen. It’s like a soap opera where you only have to watch once a month or so because it takes that long for anything to happen.
As for myself, I actually am looking at it from the perspective of someone who watched The X-Files. There’s a show that had no idea how to resolve any mysteries. All the mythology stuff was pointless.
But there’s no way I’m checking out now. It’s only the beginning of season two. I still have may great episodes to look forward to. I’d hate to miss the “Lost” equivalent of “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” or “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” or “Small Potatoes” or any number of other great episodes just because I’m too focused on the mysteries or because of a few less than stellar episodes.
As long and I’m entertained on an episode to episode basis, I’m in.
To a large extent, I agree with levdrakon. I thought the first episode this season was all right. Clearly they crowbarred Desmond in, but I really liked that they answered a big question right at the beginning of the episode, but that only created more mystery.
However, this week’s episode sucked. It was retread upon retread. We learned nothing new about Michael and Walt from his flashbacks. A lengthy section of the raft story consisted of, “MICHAEL! MICHAEL! MICHAAAAAAEL!” “WALT! WALT! WAAAAALT!” It seemed like padding.
And then, retelling the hatch story was pretty weak. There were a couple of tidbits we needed to see, but since the big mystery was already gone by the time Jack went down (i.e., Kate wasn’t eaten by the giant spider from IT or something), they could have told it all last week by cutting back and forth.
I hope this was an anomaly, and things will advance next week. It certainly looks like it from the preview.
I think I would like it better if it were to run for a set amount of time and then just end…like say 5 years or 100 episodes (so they could syndicate it.)
What I hope does not happen is that they run it for several years, giving you tiny answers to a few question, then the ratings stay good and they add more “mysterious” plot line stuff. Then the audience gets tired of all the BS and quits watching, the ratings fall and wham they just end the show without all the questions/mysteries answered or just cheaply rapped up. That is a definite possibility
American television just seems to beat shows into the ground…Will & Grace, ER (kill it kill it please!) etc. unlike many BBC shows that run for a set amount of time.
