Lost as an one-season miniseries
- Thread starter Joe Washington
- Start date
lost was the worst thing to happen to pop culture in the last decade. It ushered in an era where good solid writing, well developed season long arcs and the modest character ensemble were replaced by excessive storytelling, ADHD pacing, twists for the sake of them, unwieldy unsatisying mythologies, hollow emotionless deaths, massive casts, dragging shit out for years on end, coincidences aplenty thanks to Fate etc.
it was a series best judged as a whole and as a result fails miserably.
it was a series best judged as a whole and as a result fails miserably.
the show introduced a thousand mysteries and either didn't provide answers or the answers were disappointing. In the end the show became an incoherent mess. And the writers were the worst in that they encouraged the obsessive analysis and importance of the plot and mysteries then at the eleventh hour when they couldn't cone up with a way to pull together the plot points they threaded they pulled a bait and switch by saying the show was really about the characters. I watched it all the way through but at the end felt like I wasted my time in all the hours I invested watching and analyzing it. That's why I don't even bother with lostesque shows like game of thrones, invasion, revolution, zero hour, v, flash forward, the event, daybreak, vanished etc. They rely on gimmicks instead of good storytelling.
bsg and heroes come to mind as far as dragging stuff out.
bsg and heroes come to mind as far as dragging stuff out.
The mysteries were interesting but were never the heart of the show for me, nor did I feel the show "became an incoherent mess". Sorry your mileage varied.
Anyway, if you had such a problem with the writers, why did you keep watching, or at least why did you keep paying attention to them? Barring certain factors I don't care what people have to say about their art if it disagrees with my own impressions of it. If I like it I'll pay attention, and if I don't I won't. I see little point in kvetching about how my impressions differ from that of the artists.
And I didn't realize anyone compelled you to spend hours of your time analyzing the show. Heck of a thing to do for something you weren't even enjoying.
Perhaps you could try suing them for your lost time.
Anyway, if you had such a problem with the writers, why did you keep watching, or at least why did you keep paying attention to them? Barring certain factors I don't care what people have to say about their art if it disagrees with my own impressions of it. If I like it I'll pay attention, and if I don't I won't. I see little point in kvetching about how my impressions differ from that of the artists.
And I didn't realize anyone compelled you to spend hours of your time analyzing the show. Heck of a thing to do for something you weren't even enjoying.
Perhaps you could try suing them for your lost time.
the reason I kept watching it was because the writers said they learned from the xfiles and twin peaks and they wouldn't let their mythology turn into a mess the way those shows did,,,that's also why I analyzed it but I was misled. Now had it all came together like they said then that would have been great. But looking back it is pretty clear the writers got by with an endless string of mysteries and OMG twists,cliffhangers. They clearly had for the most part no idea how to develop them or give them payoffs. Essentially it was a case of the writers throwing a bunch of ideas and teasers together.
and like I said I kept watching until the end because unlike most dramas lost was one big epic story that couldn't be fairly judged without watching the whole thing given its interconnected nature. Pretty much up until season six the show was a series of repeated set up and open ended threads sitting there dangling waiting for the writers to get around to finally addressing them.
I had no idea they didn't know what they were doing. Fool me once shame on lindelof cuse. Fool me twice shame on me hence no more of these convoluted sff lost type shows.
and like I said I kept watching until the end because unlike most dramas lost was one big epic story that couldn't be fairly judged without watching the whole thing given its interconnected nature. Pretty much up until season six the show was a series of repeated set up and open ended threads sitting there dangling waiting for the writers to get around to finally addressing them.
I had no idea they didn't know what they were doing. Fool me once shame on lindelof cuse. Fool me twice shame on me hence no more of these convoluted sff lost type shows.
It's been awhile, but the end of the last episode they did explain all the major stuff. The only left unexplained was Widmore's change of heart or why whatshisname from S:AAB was building the cabin.
We found out what and why the Island is, and why and how the plane crashed.
We found out what and why the Island is, and why and how the plane crashed.
Then I'd say you were watching it for the wrong reasons. You weren't alone, mind you. And you, like many others, were encouraged to do so. So I don't blame you for feeling let down. But right from the start, what sold me on LOST were its character explorations. They heavy investment in character from the early episodes kept me interested even when the series was inexplicably lurching from one plot twist to the next. As such, I enjoyed the tail-section seasons, most of the side quests and, especially, the finale. That isn't to say I wasn't interested in the mysteries, or that I was completely satisfied with the answers provided. But all that was secondary to my enjoyment of the series. So when it comes to other LOST-esque shows, I'd say: watch the first few episodes and see if the characters grab you. If they do, then there's still value to the show - even if the plot isn't fully satisfying.
Game Of Thrones is as far from "lostesque" as it can possibly be.
I did watch Invasion, FlashForward and Event though. Invasion was pretty cool, the rest were just silly ... Now, I don't watch those shows anymore. Shows that are made by inventing stuff on the spot are not my thing anymore.
The characters on LOST were good (well, most of them), but when the entire show is built on mystery upon mystery until the mysteries overshadowed everything else, you kind of expect those mysteries to be answered. When the show ended with "fuck the mysteries, it was about characters all along" explanation and with that stupid cave plug bullshit, I understood that I wasted time on something that was never intended to be resolved or was ever supposed to make sense.
I did watch Invasion, FlashForward and Event though. Invasion was pretty cool, the rest were just silly ... Now, I don't watch those shows anymore. Shows that are made by inventing stuff on the spot are not my thing anymore.
The characters on LOST were good (well, most of them), but when the entire show is built on mystery upon mystery until the mysteries overshadowed everything else, you kind of expect those mysteries to be answered. When the show ended with "fuck the mysteries, it was about characters all along" explanation and with that stupid cave plug bullshit, I understood that I wasted time on something that was never intended to be resolved or was ever supposed to make sense.
Seriously, though, who's enjoyment of the series was critically dependent upon knowledge of the four-toed statue? Or any single mystery? I mean, for example, we found out how the Black Rock got where it was ... but did that knowledge really matter? Weren't the relationships of Penny-Desmond; Jack-Kate; Sawyer-Elizabeth; Linus-himself ... far more compelling?
Damn ... this thread is actually inspiring me to rewatch the series.
Damn ... this thread is actually inspiring me to rewatch the series.
the characters were alright but they became increasingly just plot devices, exposition providers and action figures. Plot became primary. But even if I focus on the character portion of the show I really wasn't that impressed,,,Kate had to have been one of the most annoying characters, the stupid love triangle that just dragged on, I wasn't a big fan of desmond and pennys romance.
a lot of characters were introduced but they were plot devices,,,Ana Lucia, Cindy, widmore, the red headed scientist, Jeff faheys pilot character, Jacob, mib, Hurley was annoying. Even in season one the way the show explored the characters felt more academic than a natural exploration.
really the mysteries for me were the most intriguing aspect of the show. And if the writers didn't want to burden the show then they didn't need to introduce a huge mythology. Shows got by without them for decades relying instead on leaner parallel standalone season long arcs that could easily be followed and understood without one hour recap specials two or three times a year or a Wikipedia.
lost was an interesting experiment but one in hindsight was a misfire. I have pretty much come to the realization that modern storytelling isn't my thing. I just don't like the format. Shows these days just can't balance things like other writers could in the past. Nowadays things are too fast paced and plotladen or they are too slow and their approach comes across as too pretentious going out of their way to create unlikeable characters. And shows are poorly edited requiring podcasts to explain things, scenes are too brief to allow for onscreen dramatization that used to be onscreen not leaving fans to fill in the blanks, casts are too large, seasons are too uneven,,an all around lack of not only consistency in quality within a seadon but even within a given episode causing them to be a mixed bag. And the shows have to cover so much ground servicing so many plotlines and characters they don't even give you a chance to anticipate the next move or appreciate or digest a scene or an action sequence. Angst and love triangles/quadrangles seem to be all the rage. Yawn. Producers ferl like they have to kill off characters each season as some sort of backlash against the dsys when character deaths were few. the problem is the character deaths usually happen to characters nobody cares about ir with so little fanfare that it doesn't generate any shock or emotional resonance. I didn't use to have to settle on strong characters but weak plotting or week casts and decent storytelling. I got both. That's why I pretty much only watch pre 2000 tv shoes and films and music.
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They could do it if you took out all the "What?"s.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcatQSyRK6c[/yt]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcatQSyRK6c
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcatQSyRK6c[/yt]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcatQSyRK6c
Sounds like your problem was more with the characters than anything else. If you didn't like Hurley, Kate, Penny, Desmond ... if you couldn't see characters like Ana Lucia and Eko as experiments in, well, character ... then yeah, the show ... any show ... is going to be empty.
LOST wasn't perfect, that's for sure. But considering how much the series deliberately invested in character and made that investment its primary payoff in the finale, the dizzying plot twists were at least grounded in that investment ... Perhaps it wasn't so much a "misfire" as it was a show whose style didn't suit your tastes.
I like that there are things on the island that we never learned about it. The place has clearly existed for a long time, and the LOST characters only take up a tiny part of it. Do you know every little bit of history about your own town?
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