We never learned who was the Man who was in charge of the Lamp Post and finding the island? Or what the US military was doing on the island in the 50s? Was it to them just a proving ground for nukes? What about Alvar Hanso? Dharma? Ann Arbor mentioned last season? Why did they demand Paul's body last season after Amy's run in and shotting of Others?
This was all stuff raised in the show so I guess you can't be faulted for wanting answers to these questions. But really, answers to those questions belong in a show about the island. And I think we can look back now and say that while the island offered up cool weirdness every week, it's really a story about the passengers of Oceanic 815.
I've said it a thousand times--if writers like Ron Moore, Tim Kring or Lindeloff/Cuse don't want to be saddled with a complicated mythology there is a simple solution--do not include it. Just do their pure character-driven show.
L/C want to say that this show is a story about the 815 passengers but the mysteries, questions, mythology was a significant focus of the series and as a viewer if I'm led to believe that the writers are giving it a 100% and it isn't there as a MacGuffin and I spend time on it it better go somewhere.....and it did up to a point--Seasons 3-5 was heavily Plot/Mythology. You can't watch those episodes and not see a ton of nothing but exposition, character reactions, twists, cliffhangers, dovetailing threads, insight into Widmore, Ben, Eloise, Dharma, freighter folk, Temples, time travel, timelines, history of when Juliet came or the Purge occurred or when Ben was born or the name of the Dharma sub or seeing backs of statues or islands disappearing or wheels being turned or how do they become the Oceanic Six or what is Michael up to on the freighter etc etc etc.
The character stuff is there but in a secondary way. It was about advancing plot, getting people into place. And with the brilliant way they did so in the last three seasons pulling together a myriad of seemingly disconnected pieces from four seasons and tying them together in surprising but in hindsight very plausible ways. I mean they even addressed how Dharma located the island and I thought that would never be addressed so it gave me hope the writers would continue like they had been to continue to check off questions *they* raised and continue to have stuff be tied off in the elegant style of S3-5.
So if they want to do character stuff I'm not certain this was the best venue for it. With so much going on LoST never really had the opportunity to give depth to a lot of things character-wise. We got a tiny sliver but not the kind of development that a series with fewer characters and storylines would get.
Sun/Jin's deaths had no build up, their deaths were plot points as was Sayid's. What character arc did Claire have or Sayid? Apparently according to L/C the whole point of evil Sayid was to say if he is told he is a good guy he is.
What was so riveting about Kate? Jin? Hurley? this season.
Why was the US military on the island? Well, there's maybe one or two people still alive who even know they were there, and even then they're only fuzzy on it. So why bring it up? Well, they left a nuke. THAT matters to everyone involved. Are they curious about why it's there? Maybe, but nobody's around to tell them. All that matters is that there's a bomb kicking around. That's immediately relevant to them.
Yet they made a point in "316" for the camera to zoom in on a military surveillance photo of the island. I just thought there would be more to it.
We're building up to a big conflict. I would call bullshit if Jack started asking questions about food drops, Hanso or statues.
YMMV, clearly.
But S3-5 demonstrated how you could go about addressing questions in interesting and natural ways that are an organic outgrowth of the story being told. I don't see why this couldn't happen here. I'd rather have focused on these other things than what we got this season with the boring alternate flashes and the drawn out scenes week after week of Smokey assembling his team or the dull time at the Temple with the most boring Others we've ever encountered
And as far as building to a big conflict--the way the build up has been handled by L/C this season hasn't been very exciting or graceful. They just stumbled into the finale with the idea Smokey is going to destroy it. Compare that to how it was handled with the excitement in season four surrounding the Six leaving and the assault on the island by Keamey's commandos. Or season five with all the chaos falling around them.
I thought it was established in one of the mobisodes/games/pop-up video episodes that the food drops where being orchestrated by Eloise Hawking out of the Lamp Post?
I don't do extraneous material. It should be included onscreen. I shouldn't have to watch a podcast, read an interview to have the writers tell me, watch a webisode, read a comic online etc. If so the writers aren't doing a good job. Moore had this bad habit too on nBSG
What if I didn't have a computer or internet access--how would I know this.
