Let's Go to Tahiti
Lost - Seasons 2 through 5 (2005-2009)
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
When the first season of Lost was released on DVD, I watched it. I didn’t like it. Everything interesting about the island was regularly interrupted by soppy exposition. Who are the Others? Watch Jack cry instead! In Season 1, no one could be bad completely; everyone had good reasons for the crimes they’d committed. The crimes weren’t even so terrible.
But Lost is a Show People Watch. Steve watches it, for one. I like science fiction, so I held my breath, took the plunge, and caught up with four seasons in time to catch the last one live. I don’t read Lostpedia, but I assume that a lot of fans were relieved by the whiff of a unified story arc about the time Y: The Last Man creator Brian K. Vaughan became involved as a writer with the show. I don’t necessarily credit him with fulfilling the promise of Lost’s premise, but someone clearly decided that Hurley’s trips to the insane asylum did not constitute greatness.
The introduction of Benjamin Linus saved the series. Ben is the show’s best character (although Sawyer is my favorite), and by letting Ben do some truly awful things for largely selfish reasons, the writers had a chance to really write. If the Others began as Lost’s antagonists, they certainly don’t end that way. Once the creators abandoned the reflexive need to have characters’ mistakes be well-intentioned, I began to not want half the cast to perish in a storm.
At the periphery of that new narrative clarity, Lost is full of buried ruins and a true patriot’s affection for conspiracies about officially commemorated past events. What really happened in those South Seas islands where the US Army tested nuclear bombs? The same islands that were part of whaling routes, slaving routes, drug trafficking routes, and explorers’ expeditions? More than we know. But Sawyer is my favorite because actor Josh Holloway, as the hammy soap opera type par excellence, never lets anyone – neither Kate nor us - take it too seriously.
"Sawyer broke your heart. How else were you supposed to fix it?"
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
When the first season of Lost was released on DVD, I watched it. I didn’t like it. Everything interesting about the island was regularly interrupted by soppy exposition. Who are the Others? Watch Jack cry instead! In Season 1, no one could be bad completely; everyone had good reasons for the crimes they’d committed. The crimes weren’t even so terrible.
But Lost is a Show People Watch. Steve watches it, for one. I like science fiction, so I held my breath, took the plunge, and caught up with four seasons in time to catch the last one live. I don’t read Lostpedia, but I assume that a lot of fans were relieved by the whiff of a unified story arc about the time Y: The Last Man creator Brian K. Vaughan became involved as a writer with the show. I don’t necessarily credit him with fulfilling the promise of Lost’s premise, but someone clearly decided that Hurley’s trips to the insane asylum did not constitute greatness.
The introduction of Benjamin Linus saved the series. Ben is the show’s best character (although Sawyer is my favorite), and by letting Ben do some truly awful things for largely selfish reasons, the writers had a chance to really write. If the Others began as Lost’s antagonists, they certainly don’t end that way. Once the creators abandoned the reflexive need to have characters’ mistakes be well-intentioned, I began to not want half the cast to perish in a storm.
At the periphery of that new narrative clarity, Lost is full of buried ruins and a true patriot’s affection for conspiracies about officially commemorated past events. What really happened in those South Seas islands where the US Army tested nuclear bombs? The same islands that were part of whaling routes, slaving routes, drug trafficking routes, and explorers’ expeditions? More than we know. But Sawyer is my favorite because actor Josh Holloway, as the hammy soap opera type par excellence, never lets anyone – neither Kate nor us - take it too seriously.
"Sawyer broke your heart. How else were you supposed to fix it?"
posted by NPK at 1:51 PM
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