Letters to the Editor
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Agree, but with reservations
I completely agree with your central premise, i.e. loving Lost’s mystery and delayed gratification, and the fact that revealing too much too early will only serve to weaken the tension and ultimately the entertainment value of the show. If anything I think they’ve given away slightly too much too cheaply in the latter episodes, but that’s another post for another time.
One thing I can’t agree on is the fact that the writers have always had a plan for all the constituent parts of Lost, a blatant exhibit for the prosecution being Paulo and Nikki, introduced to us in season 3 (and not 2, as stated in the article). This clearly wasn’t planned from the off, serving more as an experiment on the ability to bring new characters and sub-plots into the show than anything else. I guess as you start to kill characters off (and rumours are rife about 3 to 5 biting the bullet this season) then you’re going to need new ones to fill the void, a bit like the tailies did for a few episodes of season 2.
The problem with the Paulo and Nikki experiment is that it went badly wrong, certainly in the eyes of the fans. Even the all-too-knowing “Who the hell are you?” quips from the mighty Sawyer couldn’t save them from the chop. No, the reason Paulo and Nikki were killed off was because this particular experiment had failed, although I must say the episode in which they were despatched (Exposé) was a very clever one technically, threading their back story and imagery through most of Lost’s key moments.
But, going back to the main point of the article, yeah… keep the conundrums coming!
Kryz.