George R.R. Martin vs. Damon Lindelof

Oh I'm not letting BSG off the hook I wasn't crazy about its final season either--Caprica six wasted after she became a prisoner only to end up with Tighe?!? and have a baby only to lose it which lacked any emotional resonance, the pointlessness of the Baltar cult subplot, the way the final stretch of episodes were just drawn out with no plot advance only spinning the wheels to time it to come together in the finale, the melodrama really went into overdrive i.e. Adama banging around in his room, the waste of the Final Five after "No Exit", the stupid twist of Tyrol not being the father of Cally's baby, too much pretentiousness etc but I'm harder on LOST because it put all its chips in on mythology and dropped the ball big time. I think if you look at what LOST failed to do with its mythology compared to the unanswered questions for BSG I think you'll see it is monumental.

At the end of the day BSG had nowhere near the investment in mythology or unanswered questions so I hadn't the investment. LOST, on the otherhand, was densely plotted with where the writers left you to piece together stuff and now I feel cheated I wasted all the time because they never supplied those essential pieces.

Like I said these heavily serialized interconnected mythology shows just seem too hard to pull off that's why I believe serialized dramas should approach it like ENT's Xindi arc minus the filler episodes it gave or Heroes season one.

 

Completely understandable. And it's a result of the increasing overemphasis Lost put on the plot (at the expense of character) as the series progressed. I certainly don't deny that Lost kind of "lost" its way in terms of storytelling. It became way too enamored with the idea of plot twists and intrigue -- and its final season was, by all accounts, dismal (particularly with respect to character).

This is where I disagree. BSG also invested, heavily, in its mythology. And while the degree of investment you (or I or anyone else) have in the stories of BSG and Lost may vary, I don't think it's an absolute that Lost was worse off than BSG in terms of wrapping up the mythology with a compelling, rational continuity. Like I said, I could go through BSG's mythos and pick it apart with at least as much success as anyone could do with Lost (likewise, avid fans can equally provide rationalizations). But the point is that both are flawed and, ultimately, what matters is which (or both or neither) connects to you, personally.

I think, perhaps, what it boils down to is that BSG began to fail its own mythology before the finale, while Lost seemed to do so almost entirely within its finale. But the end result is the same. Neither show explicitly (or perhaps effectively) wrapped up their biggest plot mysteries, the ones the shows most exploited to get viewers to tune in each week. I happen to really enjoy the Lost finale, but I can accept and understand why many people did not. I thought the BSG was horrid, but likewise, I can understand and accept why many people connected with it.

 

^I agree. That's why I think these big massive complex mythology series just don't work. I think shows need to get back to basics with more linear storytelling, not as expansive casts, and a manageable number of storylines that are season long not series-spanning--it is just too tempting for the writers to think they can keep putting things off instead of needing answers in the immediate future--that's why I enjoyed season one of Heroes so much. I also have found that by cramming too much into shows the storylines don't get the depth they would have in a more traditional series.

BSG was constantly having horrible editing problems because the episodes ran too long and LOST's pacing was dizzying.

 

Series Long Arcs, do work, if they are plotted out. LOST's problem was they didn't really ahve the answers they claimed they had, they just kept tossing mystery after mystery out there to keep the audience guesssing and entertained. If they had actually planned on providing answers, they very could have.

B5 worked out great, aside from the snag with S4 almost cancellation, that caused S5 to start back up cold, instead of a smooth transition between S4 and S5. Farscape (probably not as tightly plotted) worked out great, too.

"No, don't pay attention to the lack of answers to the mysteries, look over here at this shiny object"

 

Indeed, there's nothing wrong with long arcs, but in order for them to work, the writers have to have at least a basic outline of where it's all going and not make stuff up as they go, which apparently was the case with BSG and Lost.

 

The Lost finale definitely wasn't perfect (the back and forth with the giant cork was a bit silly), but overall I thought it finished up the series quite well, and left me with very positive feelings about the series and characters as a whole. And the same goes with BSG.

Both finales also felt quite consistent with the mysterious, questioning, and vaguely mystical tone of their shows as a whole. Getting answers to every little mystery would have gone against what they were about in the first place (especially BSG, which was all about there being no easy answers). While there's no doubt the writers dropped the ball in a few areas, I have to share their frustration that so many fans never seemed to get what the essential point of it all was.

 

Quite true. Far too often these heavily serialized shows either get cancelled before there's any possibility of resolution to their stories, or if they manage to find a way toward a finale, end up underwhelming viewers because the results simply cannot match the expectations. I don't think there's anything wrong with a long-term plan for a show -- it's actually a pretty good idea -- but week-to-week needs to be a more balanced, more episodic approach. I still think the ultimate blueprint for a series is DS9 which was a show in which each episode had later consequences, but ultimately was far more episodic than serialized (until its final couple of seasons).

 

Well I wasn't arguing necessarily for a more episodic approach--in fact I think for me the days of being able to enjoy standalones has long since passed. What I meant was that they should be serialized just not in the overly convoluted way that these big massive myth shows were. I was thinking more along the lines of 80s/90s primetime dramas that a modest ensemble and had season long arcs some not even connected to each other where each week the episode focused on the ongoing storylines and advanced them every week--and there wasn't a ton of unanswered questions and mysteries to keep track of and no need for half hour long recaps(I kid I kid)rather just a handful not requiring wikipedia or an encyclopedic memory to recall i.e. Dallas, Hill Street Blues, Melrose Place etc.

I enjoyed DS9's arcs but I hated when it went off on the standalones leaving the Dominion War behind. I'm having the same issue with Fringe. If you are going to do serialization I prefer you to do it all the time and not do a mix of episodic and arcs because inevitably the arc material is far more compelling than something that detours from it.

I've heard this argument before but I totally disagree. If it was about the characters and larger themes only and the audience wasn't meant to invest so much in the mythology then they shouldn't have crafted such a massively intricate and focal component as they did. That's just silly of course the mythology was just as essential. Lindelof and Cuse pretty much only talked about it and encouraged the obsessive analysis. If you want just a character drama and th fans to fixate on that alone then don't tack on a mythology they weren't interested in hearing people criticize them for messing up.

To suggest one wouldn't as a viewer evaluate the series as whole taking into consideration all aspects of it including how it handled its mythology is just foolish.

 

^I think a good example of the kind of serialization you're talking about might be Smallville and Supernatural. Both shows basically just have season long arcs, but at the same time the arcs are interconnected, and the events of one season grow off of the other, without being 100% reliant on those events. Another good one IMO would be Nikita, each episode is basically standalone, but at the same time they do build off of and effect each other.

 

No I don't think so. I hate Smallville but watched it here and there and I don't like how they do it. They do mostly standalones then tack on something in the end that ties sometimes to the mythology. I do watch Supernatural and I don't like their approach either--they do standalones and try to peripherally tie in the overall arc sometimes within those standalones and then toss in a truly myth episode here and there. I guess the one show on now that is like what I'm talking about is The Vampire Diaries--a season long arc where every episode is directly tied to the arc front and center not just in the background or tenuously connecting the episodes. Imagine DS9's Final Chapter but running 20 episodes instead of 10. Or like I mentioned Dallas. I mean you can do heavily serialized stories with no filler but not need to play games with the audience by telling the story out of order or piling on an insane amount of mysteries and questions that overwhelms people. Heck soap operas in the 80s/90s did the storytelling style I'm describing successfully for years by doing manageable well developed arcs that unfolded over a period of time. I think what went wrong with LOST and all the shows that tried to copy it was trying to be too big and it just gets away from you when you have to deal with dozens and dozens of characters and tons of mysteries.

 

I'm not saying the mythology wasn't important, but it never felt to me like the main focus of the show. The mysteries and mythology always seemed to exist primarly as a way to push the characters in interesting new directions (the hatch storyline letting us see a new side of Locke, for instance).

And in any case, I felt like, for both series, the larger questions WERE answered. I think the problem for many fans is just that those answers were a little too mystical and not "hard scifi" enough.

 

I see what you're saying now, and I do like that kind of storytelling too. I think when it comes to this kind of stuff alot the times the people making the shows just get carried away after a while, and then the show needs to end they realize this and then in scramble to finish everything they aren't able to provide any kind of satisfactory conclusions to... well... anything. I think the best solution to this is pretty much what you seem to be saying, just do limited arcs.

 

I agree entirely.

 

Finally I could see the pic in the Original Poster's starting post about what Damon tweeted. For some reason, until now I couldn't see the pic with Damon's tweets.

While I hated Lost's ending, I don't think Damon's tweets were "wrong" in any sense. It was a more casual, somewhat-combative funny response.