The first 2 or 3 seasons of Lost were a cultural phenomenon. The Lost thread here on the Dope went on for pages and pages – each week! The speculation over What It All Meant was wild. Polar bears, smoke monster…the hatch! Oh my god! The numbers! What the hell!!! There was a shot where a shark swam by, with the logo of the Dharma Initiative on its tail, and the internet exploded. (well, at least the SDMB did). it was all so exciting.
And then it went off the rails. It turned out that the writers had no more idea what it all meant than we did.
I completely agree with that; watching the episodes each week and then discussing them here was so much fun. You don’t get that when some are binging all at once and others are seeing a few episodes at a time.
Yeah, I got suckered into “Lost” as well, and by the time I realized it was going nowhere, it was over. At least I can post bragging rights for jumping ship on TWD.
Agreed, it was the right show at the right time, and pushed the right buttons. The episodes were well crafted, but the excitement was about what we thought would be revealed in future episodes. It was a wonderful mystery, but a wonderful mystery with a terrible reveal is just a terrible mystery.
Yes, this seems to be the good advice I’ve gotten from critics. : ) So I guess I’ve got a season and a half to go before I’m back into WTF?! I’d heard about the plot /story being shapeshifted and tossed about to see what sticks. I gathered that on its first run, it was kind of like Twin Peaks for the next generation of viewers, because streaming and all that binge watching we can do nowadays wasn’t a thing then- people still got together and had a viewing party.
People believed even after three seasons of it going nowhere, it would tie up everything and make sense. Thus there was a mystery and trying to work out where it would go, akin to classic Game of Thrones theories. It held interest because there was statements way back in Season 1 that they knew where it would go, and we’d all be dazzled as it fitted together.
This doesn’t work once you know they had absolutely nothing. And were spacefilling and making shit up and not really going anywhere
My description of Lost is it was a television lesson of me losing 120 odd hours of my life to a piece of crap.
I think Lost was a wonderful piece of art in regards to human emotions, relations, & its sticking to the theme of redemption… and a complete failure as a genre piece, and I absolutely love it for this.
It is one of the few TV shows I have rewatched from beginning to end multiple times. 3 times since it ended I believe.
They also had websites tied to companies and organizations in the show, like Oceanic Airlines. They served to further involve people watching the show.
Twin Peaks was clever, engaging…and ultimately an insult to the viewer. Lynch had no idea what he was doing. Later he had no idea in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, but at least they were movies and not series.
If I’d had been told it was like Twin Peaks, and they really did not say that (I’d love to know if someone did though, and it was my fault I missed it), I’d have went nowhere near it. Such revisionism seems to be an attempt to get it a place for people who weren’t tricked by it to watch it again.
We just dropped Dish, got a Fire Stick and started streaming. Liked Queen’s Gambit, The Crown and Money Heist. Squid Game was a bit much so we bailed…
Got hooked on Succession. The problem with series is that they stretch out a theme endlessly. Succession is the extreme example. How many times can five people repeat the same scenario? Guess we’ll find out, cause we’re hooked.
I’m up to episode 5 of Burn Notice. Does it get any better? It seems pretty formulaic at this point, and all the freeze-frame bullshit is really annoying. The lead guy is basically a modernized MacGyver and not all that convincing at it. The girlfriend is totally uninteresting and the plotting is silly.
I personally really enjoyed Burn Notice, from the very first episode. I don’t think it gets “better”. It is what it is, and after five episodes, if you don’t like what it is, you’re very unlikely to like any of it. It is very formulaic, and if the formula (including Micheal Weston’s faux-tradecraft voiceovers and MacGyvering) doesn’t work for you, there’s no point to sticking with it.
I watched Burn Notice as it aired, episode by episode. I’m wondering if the formulaic nature was less apparent or less annoying seeing it like that and if it’s more obvious or more intolerable when the show is being binged.
Yeah, I got suckered into it for a few seasons, but the whole “we’re too stupid to live” thing really got old quickly.