Letters to the Editor
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Heather, your summary of Lost Season 4 is spot-on
I am giving the show the benenfit of the doubt because they have a lot of work to do bringing the plotlines together and making them go whereever it is that they originally planned for them to go.
But....
The show is getting emptier. The characters are in personality limbo. There's a lot of running around without necessarily getting anywhere. People are kidnapping others, killing them, trading them, convincing each other to run over here, refusing and staying over there, double-crossing, questioning, relaying expository info, and otherwise DOING STUFF but not enriching the story or experience much.
The show does have some intrigues and developments that keep it going. But it's as frustrating as it's ever been. You wait for a meal and you keep getting small bites passed under your nose and then put back on the plate.
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Lost
I kinda, sorta disagree.
Most of the folks I know who are fans of the show are happy with the changes: things are happening!
Most of the folks I know were tired of the flashbacks: "Hunh? wha!?!? Sawyer's a con man? You don't say! I didn't see that coming. No wait. I did. Twice now."
Most of the folks I know love the flash forwards. They make us wonder about how the show's gonna get where it's going. Before it was just treading water.
And it seems viewers agree in general. Ratings are up.
For some fun reading on Lost check out Doc Jensen on EW.com.
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Deepening LOST appreciation
For those who are not impressed with this season of LOST, there is another level on which to appreciate show which will illuminate this season in a new way. Jensen's columns at EW.com are nice, but there is a writer who blogs at powells.com (yes, the book website), who is truly amazing. His name is J. Wood. He untangles and reconnects the many, many cultural and literary references that LOST is working from, and he goes a long way to connect all that to the crazy science-type wierdness that is happening too.
You should really check him out if you are feeling a bit disappointed with LOST this season: www.powells.com/blog/?author=104
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*eyeroll*
So Heather is disappointed with Lost because the "problems" are getting solved in each episode to her particular satisfaction. It's taking too long! The answers aren't right! Whine, whine, whine. Why doesn't any of this surprise me?
Lost isn't for people who want answersnowdammit! It's for people who are willing to go the long haul, to have patience and see how it all turns out. What so many people don't get about the show is that it's not a series of short stories, like most TV series - it's one long novel. Do you expect a mystery novel to give you answers in every single chapter? If you wouldn't feel cheated by that, you're not a mystery lover.
You're miffed by all the guns and think it's boring? (Have you been watching, Heather? People have been waving guns on that island since the third or fourth episode of the show, or didn't you notice?) The show goes through phases precisely because of the long novel-like rhythms of it. Last season, I was getting bored when the whole King-Benry dynamic was being played out over lots and lots of episodes. But I stuck with it because I realized it's a long story that has many ins and outs, and just because I don't get why a piece of the puzzle is there doesn't mean it's senseless. It just means I don't have all the information yet. And getting that information is most of the fun. Sometimes I think I know the answer, but then I don't. Sometimes a plot twist seems silly or self-serving, but two or three episodes (or a whole season) later, it falls into place and I get why it was there.
That kind of intricacy is pretty rare in television, and I for one, love it. I know this story won't be completely told until the end, two years from now, and that's okay with me. If it chaps your ass, Heather, why the hell are you still tuning in? It's not like the show's convoluted nature is news anymore. You can always watch Boston Legal if you really really need to get your answers each week. (Another great show, by the way, but in a different way.) The rest of us will be happy with the odd, intricate, goofy grandeur of Lost
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Abby Negative?
> Of course he's haunted by having killed Ana-Lucia and Abby
Libby
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kill, pussycat, kill
I get the reference (a very cool song on a very cool CD), but I missed how the "pussycat" part actually relates to the Havrilesky's critique--can anyone clue me in?
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Never mind!
I just realized it probably has to do with one of the characters. I confess I dont watch or have a TV, I just liked Heather's writing (and I'm happy to have learned that Tracey Ullman is still going strong).
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Ana-Lucia and ABBY...
I can't believe Heather got that detail wrong, but more importantly, I can't believe I missed the error. I mean, come on, Libby is Hurley's girlfriend. What is up with her anyway? She sells Jesus Man the boat, she turns up in the asylum, she nearly becomes Hurley's girlfriend, and then she's caught drunk driving on Oahu's north shore...? (oops, that's real life)
I appreciate a lot of the other Lost fans' responses on here. Your defenses of the show are convincing. I just wish I could "flash forward" to when all the shows are on DVD so I can watch them the best way possible, which is 3+ shows at a time. That's how I watched Season 1 and Season 2, and it was the only way to go. I watched all of Season 1 in about a week and I swear when it was over I felt like I myself had been on that island.
I hate waiting around. I can't believe I'll have to wait over 2 years to find out what the hell is going on with everything. Sure, "Lost" is like an unfolding mystery book and blah blah blah, but at least with a good mystery book you can stay up all night and read to the end (or get a sunburn on the beach reading to the end.....I got one of my worst sunburns ever due to a good mystery book).