Just opened up my Season 6 DVDs and started watching "LA X" and am already loving it way more than I did the first time. I'm only halfway through the episode right now (maybe more, I dunno, Juliet is about to bite it). Anyway, I was intrigued right away by the Jack/Rose encounter on the plane. Now that I know what the flash-sideways are, I have a feeling they are going to be a lot more interesting to watch. After the turbulence, Rose tells Jack, in a very "wise old woman" voice, that he can "Let go." And when Bernard gets back from the bathroom, she tells him she missed him in a way that makes it seem like they had been separated a very long time. I think Rose was already aware of where she was, and she was trying to help Jack remember too. The turbulence. Then the cut on Jack's neck. Then his encounter with Desmond. All of these things were almost enough to jerk Jack's memory, but he is always so stubborn that he refuses to let go. Then we cut immediately to the Island buried at the bottom of the ocean. We spent all of Season 6 trying to figure out how it got there, but after watching the opening to this episode, I think maybe the Island was simply "buried" in the ocean of Jack's subconscious...or something. Anywho, Juliet just died, and now I'm sad. As we all re-watch the season (now with the appropriate context), let's see how our theories really shape up! (Also, I'm really impressed with the makeup and costume department on this show and how they managed to make everybody look like they did in the 815 flashbacks from Season 1!)
I've been rewatching S6 on the Sunday syndication in my area and I'm just not feeling this season even with everything played out and context given to events. It just overall felt like a wasted opportunity to really go out with a bang instead of a whimper. I will say though that "LA X" was a good episode as far as serving up the intrigue, upping the curiousity factor about last season's events and shuffling everyone around to the places the writers needed them to be in order to set up the new arcs for the season--getting the others from 77 to the present then to the Temple and the characters at the statue. I thought these two parts along with "Ab Aeterno" were the best episodes of the season probably because they felt more like S4/S5 episodes than the other ones this year. I thought the way it they handled the visual continuity from the white screen like we saw in the season finale to the cloud was brilliant. I initially thought that we were witnessing an alternate timeline resulting from the detonation of Jughead and that was the diverging point of this new timeline. Afterall when the goup from the past ended up back in 2007 they all had ringing in their ears so the bomb obviously went off. I thought the idea of a narrative structure that allowed for a dramatic presentation contrasting the differences between the original timeline and a possible alternated one where they actually never went to the island and landed in LA running side-by-side was a very cool idea. But when David, a son of Jack's we had never heard about before popped up later in the season it shifted my theory to the possibility of an alternate universe. I still think the sideways weren't terribly compelling and don't have all that much to offer but this initial foray into them were nice probably because of seeing everyone arriving and how they are so different from the characters we came to know. I also enjoyed finally getting to see the Temple in all its glory. At this point I was going to wait and see how Dolgen and Lennon turned out after a few more episodes but I have to say they were some of the worst recurring characters the series came up with. I personally didn't see MiB being the smoke monster until he told Ben "Sorry you had to see me like that". Interesting Ben didn't know he was the smoke monster and the Others knew of him but apparently not a lot. Personally I thought it was a stroke of genius to merge "who is MiB" with "what is the smoke monster" and still do but I think the way it was developed left a *lot* to be desired. The ending was quite effective though with MiB knocking out Richard and walking off with him. I had no idea what was going to happen especially with no Jacob to keep him in check. I expected a big epic War between the sides of good and evil like Widmore referred to last season. Juliet was up there with Sayid, Ben and Sun as my favorite characters so I was sad to see her go especially knowing Elizabeth ended up on that bore called "V".
I'm with you RoJoHen. I've been rewatching and I'm catching so much more the second time around. Can't wait to get to Happily Ever After and Across the Sea now that I know how the stories wrap up.
At that point, I totally bought into the notion that the flashsideways was an alternate reality where Juliet succeeded in blowing up the island and giving the characters the lives they "should have had." It wasn't till later that I started to realize how aggravating it would be for either storyline to be exposed as a fake in the end. It would have meant that Juliet didn't really give her friends the lives they should have had, if we were seeing a whole bunch of dopplegangers she never even met.
As I suspected, watching Season 6 on DVD is a much more satisfying experience than it was watching it week-to-week. The story flows much better, and it actually feels like it has a purpose. Also, remember when Sayid went crazy and murdered Dogen? That was awesome.
I actually had the opposite reaction which was unusual for LOST. With say a season like S4 or S5, going back you appreciate even more how the storylines merged organically and how everything connected. When I first watched these S6 episodes I gave the writers the benefit of the doubt--why shouldn't I have given the tightly focused storytelling with a clear narrative drive/purpose they gave me for 3 seasons. I said to myself that while the storytelling was a little aimless and things weren't as compelling as S3-5 I'm sure everything would come together beautifully in the end--that the clumsy set-up and sorta bland puzzle pieces would go down better once the Big Picture was revealed. Now going back through the episodes knowing where the story ultimately goes I honestly can't say that this season felt like it had much of a narrative purpose guiding it. It was all over the place. I kept waiting for it to go somewhere, to be exciting--but it never did. The sideways are even more boring now once you realize that about 99% of the events we find the FSW characters in are contrived red herrings that come across as filler to occupy the FSW characters while they are on autopilot until their realizations towards the end of the season. The FSW also served as a way to just to bring back old faces for brief cameos that didn't really add anything. And then when you start racking up all the plot threads that seemed promising when first teased but ultimately once the story played out went pretty much nowhere--the "Claire wanting to kill Kate" subplot, Sayid's resurrection, Widmore's big return to the island, his recruiting of Jin to locate the EM pockets, Des' supposed importance in stopping MiB, Ilana's non-existent backstory, the mystery of how MiB would end the world etc--coupled with the constant jumping around from camp to camp where not much happened it just felt like a way to draw out the season because they didn't come up with much of a final season storyline--it makes S6 feel like a big letdown which is terrible for a series that should be appreciated as a whole.
Knowing now what the FSWs represent, it resolves one mystery for me: the timing. Sometimes it seemed that events occurring simultaneously for different characters were a few days after the plane landing in LA vs a few weeks, and it just didn't make any sense. But when you consider that they existed in a place with no time, the inconsistencies are rendered moot. Neat, that.
There is also the question of why the flashsideways exists the way that it does. Why is Kate still on the run? Why is Sawyer a cop? Why did Jack have a son with Juliet? Jack's son is there clearly to mimic his own daddy issues, but I'm not sure why Juliet had to be his mom.
Because it was contrived in order to make the audience think the FSW was an alternate universe--same faces, different connections, different roles. Another reason why they are pointless--it was essentially a holdeck program or the Matrix--a means to occupy the characters until the moment for them to awake from their simulation. I think it would have been better even if it was just a waiting room to have dramatized what would have happened had the characters never crashed on the island rather than creating differences to mess with the audience.
I think Kate's on the run because her running away from things was her greatest unresolved issue, though it's shown that she's resolved it some degree when she helps Claire. Likewise for Sawyer tending to screw with people, but maybe the fact that he was a cop indicated that he'd already made progress dealing with that in the portion of his life post-island. Since Jack and Juliet had some romantic dealings on the island that never panned out, I thought it was subtle symmetry that in the flash-sideways they had a relationship that dissolved in the past.
I'm halfway through now, just finished "Happily Ever After" which is one of my favorites, and I have to say this really is brilliance. It's better than 99% of the books I've read, 99% of the movies I've seen and 99% of the TV shows I've seen.
"Happily Ever After" and "Everybody Loves Hugo" seem to be popular on the board but I found both to be dull. "Happily Ever After" had an exciting start and finish but everything in between in the FSW was boooooooooring. This was the first episode of LOST that really dedicated the hour to one story--that of Desmond in the FSW and what did they come up with-- Let's see: Desmond in an MRI, Charlie driving them off into the marina, Desmond chasing Charlie around the hospital in a gown, asshole Charlie which was always difficult to sit through. Yawn. Then you had the whole Des/Charlie bar scene--writers need to learn that just because you put two characters together in a quiet scene where there is a lot of talk and no action doesn't make it great character drama. Then "Everybody Loves Hugo" was just about as middling. I like Hurley in small doses whenever he has been the featured headliner the episodes in my opinion sucked barring "Numbers" which was excellent. The rest--"Dave", "Everybody Hates Hurley", "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" or this--meh. So that was already a strike against it but I was willing to give it a shot but then the writers had to go and illustrate the very things about Hurley I can't stand--the overly cute "Hiro"esque portrayal as a lovable overgrown man child. Then he goes and blows up the Black Rock without asking anyone nearly getting everyone hurt in the ensuing explosion. He never thinks he just acts--stupidly. Then to top it off Jack decides in a boneheaded display of judgment thinks Hurley's suggestion going to meet with MIB is a good idea despite the fact that he just got through massacring everyone at the Temple who at this point as far as Jack knows could have included Sayid, Kate etc. Plus they weren't aware that MIB had said to Sawyer and Kate that he needed them alive in order to get off the island even though it was a lie. I also never cared for Libby. Since I avoided the internet when it was on regarding LOST I was completely taken by surprise over the last few months to read about a clamor from certain fans for a Libby flashback, more Libby or irritation about how she was nothing more than a cameo in S4's "Meet Kevin Johnson". The whole Libby/Hurley thing is one of those "best forgotten" elements from S2--it was ham-fistedly handled back then and it never really went much of anywhere--at least to the point I didn't care if they got together or not. So you can tell on my list of things to address before the show ended Libby and the Libby/Hurley pairing was near the bottom. I also thought the casting of Bruce Davison as the psychiatrist was pretty predictable. He always plays those sorts of characters. I also thought the passages in the FSW to get to the beach scene were labored.
I have learned by reading his posts that I disagree with just about everything that startrekwatcher has to say.
Well it would be a pretty dull place if everyone agreed about everything--afterall this is a discussion board which ostensibly is about a group of individuals sharing their differing opinions on a wide range of subjects including LOST's S6. You are perfectly entitled to disagree but instead of discussing me why not enlighten me on what you thought was brilliant about them--it is entirely possible I may have missed the brilliance amidst all the medocrity. Agree or disagree at least I do try to be fair in judging the episodes and try to go into detail about what I liked or didn't like about an episode. I loved S3-S5--could gush about them endlessly but S6 had problems.
If I thought that anything I could say about S6 would actually change your opinion on the subject I might venture to do so. However, the length at which you tend to discourse about all things Lost has largely convinced me that you have well-entrenched opinions that nothing I can say is likely to alter, and I am highly disinterested in debate for debate's sake. Additionally...I love the show, but it -is- just a tv show. Debating it with a friend in real life is one thing, spending my time debating it online with someone I've never met...it's a lot harder for me to develop interest in that. Also, frankly, you tend to make rather long posts, and I generally prefer to tackle things in a more succinct "point-for-point" fashion, which suggests our discussion styles would not be entirely compatible in any case. I find the "essays" posted here often make for very interesting reading, yet also are most prone to disincline me to respond. I will say I rather enjoyed seeing Charlie and Libby again, though, and I don't recall ever thinking Libby-Hurley was "ham-fisted".