| |
|
I continue to watch Lost firstly because I've put in two seasons' investment now, which is a great wedge of time to commit to TV by my standards (not to mention looking up the associated ARG style sites and cross-referencing with wiki entries just to understand them). Secondly because I don't think there is a lot of "fresh water" around if I decide the show is "pee pee". I'm not impressed by most contemporary television. Some of it, I admitted on another thread, I just haven't given enough of a chance to, but that's because "watching" a show these days means giving up so much of your life to massive story arcs and, more often than not, checking out a score of fake websites to understand the backstory between episodes. (I exaggerate.)
Thirdly, though, I watch Lost for the elements I enjoy. But the key thing is that the elements I enjoy are exactly those being picked up on this page by those defending the show ~ and that they're all "GREAT MOMENTS". They are all kick-ass shots, or lines of dialogue, or kisses, or sneers, or punches. (Which makes them sound like they're all about Sawyer... which, increasingly, is the case I think. I don't think I'd be watching the show without Sawyer. Sawyer is the sex and the violence, in the best way.)
Yes, it's currently worth watching and waiting for the great moments, and in the last episode there were maybe three great moments. But I can entirely understand the disillusionment from those who want to know that the train is going somewhere worthwhile and satisfying, rather than just being happy that they saw some cool stuff from the window in the last half hour.
I have quite a big problem with the flashbacks now. In season one, it made perfect sense. Here are a bunch of strangers, turned up in a strange land ~ let's find out more about them and how they got here. But just as the device of opening most shows with a close-up of an eye was ditched, maybe that should have been ditched, too. Certain storytelling tics and techniques lose their purpose and worth. I'm not convinced that the flashbacks have been necessary since the end of season one, except when they have to clumsily and hastily introduce characters who suddenly show up in the "present day" (Desmond) ~ which is pretty ham-fisted, shove-it-in storytelling.
3.2 was a particularly irritating example, I feel, because it didn't really give us any more information about Sun and Jin. We learned that Jin wants to protect Sun (we knew that) ~ we learned that he's a hard ass, governed by her father (we knew that). We learn, I guess, through the childhood flashback, that she can be stubborn and cold, which at a real stretch carries through to the final scene ~ but that's being generous.
What would we have lost in 3.2 without the flashback? What would the show as a whole have lost? I think all it would have lost is 30 minutes of screen time and some padding to give suspense to the "present day" drama. Without it, we would have been straight on with the Island story, and it would have been over in 15 minutes without any built in cliffhangers. The flashbacks are just bulking out each episode to lengthen the overall story arc. They are becoming increasingly irrelevant stuffing. And yet this episode was named after the first flashback ~ the flash-flashback to Sun's childhood. As if the glass ballerina was the focus and motif of the episode, which unless I'm being especially dense, I don't see at all. The priority is all wrong there ~ naming the episode after a distant, incidentally-relevant glimpse of Sun's childhood is an example of Lost's lack of appropriate weighting between past and present.
And another annoying thing. If anything, the flashback stressed Jin's hard-assery, portraying him as something like a professional tough. But yet again, just as with Sayid, Jack, Sawyer, Locke and Kate, we see the Lostaways being totally pwned by the Others, just as they are every week, despite every flashback showing them escaping the law, winning fistfights, tracking military enemies, eliminating all threats. It's becoming implausible that while half a dozen Lostaways were apparently on a stone-cold bounty hunter level before they boarded the plane ~ expert with firearms, experienced at hunting, tasty in hand-to-hand combat ~ the Others get the drop on them every single time.
You can be a fan of something, or at least fond of it, and criticise it. It's fan investment that makes you really want something to be better. |
|
|
