The thing is, for me anyway, I just I don't believe them. I'm kind of an asshole in that if you lie to me once, I'm very skeptical of everything you say from there on out. In their case, the "Oh this is not a sci-fi show, everything can be explained through normal science" bullshit line has made me VERY distrustful of anything they say. They may very well be telling the truth about having it all planned out, but I find it hard to trust them.
Example of changing direction: Ben was only supposed to being in 2 or 3 episodes but because of the actor/character decided to give him a bigger part. I have no problem with that change because it probably made the journey so much better. Example of future planning: The runway being cleared in S3 by Kate, Sawyer and others. It was used in S5 so that Ben's plane could land safely.
The problem as I see it is that IMO the plan was to initially make us think LOST was a standard - if a bit strange - drama, and over time move into the sci-fi arena. So to the creators, it always was a sci-fi show. But one that kept it's powder dry on that front for a while. But the fans very quickly ('cos we're clever like that!) sussed out that LOST was indeed a sci-fi show - so what could the creators do when confronted? If they admitted it, then we'd have said "Alrighty then! Give us the big sci and indeed fi! And do it now!". But LOST is a slow-burn concept that needed to take it's time to get round to the juicy sci-fi. So they said "Nope! No sci-fi here!". They had to. That's my take on it, anyway.
I'll buy into they've always known more or less where they were going, but had little idea of how they were going to get there. But now that there is a definitive end point, I'd say the path to the end point is probably pretty clear. Now the hard part is making it mesh up with everything that's come before.
As I understand it, by the time they were into S2 they knew exactly what would happen all the way through. The only big diff has been actor changes; people leaving the show (for drinking? heh) or upgrading the role of Ben. It's not a huge change to the story though. All that changed was that Henry Gale was going to be offed in a few episodes, then in S3 when they're captured they would have been introduced to the leader of the Others played by a diff actor with the same character/backstory. They knew they were gonna be SF the entire time but they couldn't say that or the audience would dwindle from 23 million to 9 million, which is exactly what's happened this season. That's why they discover Adam and Eve in the cave at the beginning, as future proof that they knew what they were doing all along.
Above Average. Nice episode for Kate (for a change). The scene where Sawyer and Kate turn lil Ben over to Richard despite the warning was creeeepy as hell... But I don't think the writers needed to give lil Ben amnesia. I don't recall any point at which he "should" have revealed he already knew the Losties. It would have given him more power over them not to reveal that, and he always had that "I know more than you do" aura about him. If Jack saved lil Ben, something else would have made him evil. Jack's speech to Juliet about the island doing what the frak the island wants to do says to me that he's starting to grasp the "rules."
Agreed, I think they could have got away with Ben eventually revealing that he did indeed remember them all. Much more interesting that way.
Did I miss it? Between Juliet delivering Ethan and her trying out her hand at bullet-extraction surgery - when did Juliet explain to the Dharma-hippies that she had more than just auto mechanical skillz?
That threw me as well. I guess once she delivered the baby they figured she could be the backup medic. Of course she's been living there for three years so I imagine they've already had a situation where she had to use her medical skills.
It's only been a couple of days and the doctor isn't due back from the Looking Glass station for another week or so. So Juliet is all they have.
Anyone else think that it was weird that Alpert said that Ben would no longer be an "innocent?" Seemed like a very purposeful use of the word. Makes me wonder if the Eden theory is true and in a truly mind-fucking moment it turns out the islanders are the original seed for human life on Earth! Ok not really, but I really am curious what exactly Richard Alpert meant by no longer being an innocent. Is there a crazy cow woman on the island with a magic vagina that heals people?
True, and they don't usually notice all the little coincidences that keep happening to them, but Jack was starting to notice before he and the others returned to the island.
To which a normal person would stare blankly for a moment then respond, "Seriously, Ben, I have no f*cking clue what you're talking about." "Whatever Happened, Crappened." Probably my least favorite episode of the season. Yeah, it was all totally predictable, but there were a few good bits, like the last few seconds. Can someone tell me what happened after Locke said hello to Ben? That was the point my kids started screaming.
He just said, "Hello Ben. Welcome back to the land of the living." Didn't slit his throat or anything, at least not yet.
Good rationalizaton. But, in reality, the creators knew in broadstrokes where this series was headed. They knew it was going to incorporate SF concepts. Personally, I think they said it wasn't SF in order to keep the audience. Get them hooked and then when the SF concepts became clear, hope the mainstream audience wouldn't leave in droves. Mr Awe
^ In a recent interview, Cuse and Lindelof said that they thought that the show would lose some if it's audience this year because of the scifi/time travel elements, they just didn't know how much of a dropoff they'd see.
^^ Ok, so that fits in with my guess then. They wanted to delay (art of the stall, huh?) that dropoff for awhile. Mr Awe