No, I would definitely recommed against it. I could tell from probably mid-season 2 that it was going to be dissapointing, that they were just keeping us on an endless mystery treadmill with no satisfying resolution in sight. I should’ve stopped watching it then - I did downgrade it to half-watch status. I have 2 computer monitors so I watch some shows I’m only half interested on one while doing stuff like reading the SDMB on the other.
But in retrospect I wish I’d have stopped watching when I realized it was just going to end up being mysterious stuff just for the sake of mysterious stuff, always one-upping itself to keep the viewers interested until things got so random and weird that it just couldn’t hold together anymore. That’s more or less what happened, except they had a planned end date 3 years before the end. But you’d think that would’ve helped - that they’d get a clear idea of where they were going and work towards a satisfying ending… but they didn’t.
I mean - imagine you (someone who’s seen the whole show) experiencing the show again by watching it with someone who never saw it. The new person might constantly ask you stuff like "Wow, [whatever mysterious thing cropped up that episode] was amazing… it must be really interesting to find out how that turns out. And you’d have to constantly give answers like “uh… well they never really explain” or “yeah that turns out to be unimportant” or “yeah that doesn’t end up making any sense”. There’d be so few, if any, moments where you’d say to the person “oh, you’re in for a treat when you see the meaning behind that one!”
I’ve never bought the “it’s about the characters!” BS that people use to defend the show. Especially since they usually come off as smarmy and elitist about it (not the post in this thread, but in general there’s been an attitude persistant through the threads on the series). They think that they’re somehow on a higher level of artistic interpretation that they don’t worry that the actual story and plot don’t make sense, that us simpletons who care about the plot aren’t as cool as people who care about the characters and that we’re wrong to expect anything to be consistent or make sense. But the funny thing is - it may be even stupider as a character show.
The characters constantly change their motivations to service whatever nonsensical stuff was required by the plot that week. The characters are almost uniformly stupid and their motives often nonsensical. The romantic relationships were for the most part lacking in substance or chemistry or anything interesting. Few of the characters grow meaningfully during the series, and some even regress. Even if you somehow hold the attitude that the plot is unimportant because the show is about the characters, it still doesn’t make sense because there’s very little interesting about the characters.
Now during the first season, it certainly gives the appearance of having interesting characters - you find out interesting stuff about their background, it seems like there’s some greater purpose about their presence on the island, at this stage it seems more plausible that they’re basically in shock and dumbfounded (and hence willing to be strung along without understanding anything), but they don’t get any better in that regard. They get much worse - they start to have access to more information yet don’t share or inquire further or seem to care. Their first round of flashbacks hint at something really interesting, but their second and third rounds of flashbacks range from mildly interesting to tedious. Even with TV being a vast wasteland, there are far more interesting shows to watch if you want a character-centric piece.
The first season is really good - it gives the impression that the writers know what’s going on, it’s presented in a really slick way, and it gives you the impression that this is going to build into something great. It doesn’t. It basically coasts for 5 years on the way the first season hooked everyone, and manipulates you just enough that you think if you stick around you’ll figure out what it’s all about. You don’t.
:mad: