The reason I constantly bring up LOST is that I found it to be one of the truly great series I've ever seen. It just impresses on so many levels and that can't help but spoil me a little in what I expect out of other shows.
Lost, like SN, had the constant guiding vision of the same people over its lifetime. Lost is by no means perfect. But it is as close to perfect as I've seen. It had its slump in season two but it recovered nicely from it and since season 3 up until season 6 in my opinion has been the most consistent series ever in terms of producing solidly good to great episodes week in and week out.
Rarely have I felt like the writers were stretching out the seasons due to a lack of material to sustain the year like say ENT's third season or nBSG last few seasons where those shows would definitely have benefitted from truncated seasons rather than supplementing the more interesting mythology arc episodes with those less interesting filler hours.
It was actually the opposite with LOST where it felt like they had far too much ground to cover. The writers don't sit on their hands they get down to work and don't waste a single second of screentime. Every episode feels possessed and driven--fast-paced covering numerous threads constantly, feverishly providing exposition, introducing characters, introducing mysteries, adding new clues and pieces of the puzzle to the mix, always advancing the plot, maddeningly weaving in and out of stories, setting up everything. There is an urgency to LOST that I have rarely encountered in terms of narrative purpose. The only other show that comes close was season one of Heroes.
Yes I'll be the first to agree that the series drew things out but in hindsight you can see why it was necessary--the show is so interconnected that the writers had to methodically time when they revealed things otherwise it would have spoiled what was to come. The writers had to introduce something and stop short of going any further, set it aside and then proceed working on another part of the Big Picture then set it aside and work on yet another section and in that regard I would call them architects. And as the show nears the finishing line you can see how carefully everything was mapped out in the writers' minds--they knew what they wanted to cover in each season and when the revelations should be unveiled to the audience. You can see how they carefully almost Tetris-like would drop in place a key piece of the puzzle that suddenly unified several seemingly disparate threads and smoothed the frayed edges by bring them in line settling a particular unfinished piece of the puzzle. To me that is truly impressive. One criticism I do have is the series covers so much in an hour jumping around from thread to thread that I sometimes regret that it doesn't stop and take the time to give some depth to the thread but I long ago accepted that everything is in service of the Bigger Story that is the series and any additional depth I want to inject will be up to me filling in the blanks.
And what I find so impressive is how beautifully intricate the show is when you step back and retrace all the various character paths and histories. And it was the kind of heavily serialized drama I'd been clamoring for years--LOST showed you could do all mythology all the time and it work. I always hated when shows like DS9 would leave the Dominion war alone for nearly entire seasons but with LOST I get all mythology, all core material all the time. Every thread is about the arc. In fact, the one hazard with arc storytelling is inevitably having a weak thread(s) that are less interesting than others but LOST has managed to make the alternating threads interesting and because of this I would argue that LOST is the most consistent series with the weakest episode being merely average--always of course a Kate or Jack/Kate episode--otherwise the rest range from solid to great to excellent.
It demonstrated how expertly the writers could juggle not just two or three separate threads but several within an hour. Their seasons were also self-contained with its own set of guest characters and specific elements to focus on yet marvelously threaded into the much larger Tapestry.
It has just been a series that has been a great reward to watch every week and a thrill ride to watch waiting to see what happened next, how characters would cross paths, what shocking plot revelations were up the writers' sleeves, what secret character connections there were, seeing the writers capturing all the character reactions and remembering all the details like who knew what when. It was a series I have probably invested more time in than I normally would have analyzing, picking apart, looking for subtleties weaved in by the writers but it was the worth it given the extra effort the writers put into it.
I also appreciated how it ushered in a whole new brand of storytelling where things weren't answered immediately, the narrative was non-linear which was something we had to become accustomed. The series saw an episode as merely a piece of a larger puzzle and its purpose was to contribute various individual pieces to the building Big Picture. Its interconnected nature offered numerous ways to examine storylines and character histories. The show provided some of the best in tv history cliffhangers and twists that I know I never saw coming.
So has LOST spoiled me? Of course. Do I penalize other series that don't emulate it? Nope.
The issues I have with SN have nothing to do with LOST but rather the perceived weakness I have for it. Is a limited budget going to affect the show? Yes. Am I disappointed that it isn't as strong on plot as I would like? Yes. But I've watched plenty of shows--not for action, eye candy, fight sequences, location shoots etc--for just their quiet intimate low-key non-ambitious character drama and I honestly feel SN often misses the mark for me as a viewer. I'll be the first to admit I will never love these characters the way mswood, Dorian or the big Dean contingent or Sam girls do--I connected with them early on and over the years that connection has weakened for a variety of reasons. So when you are doing character stories when that investment isn't there it is going to factor into how much I enjoyed a particular episode as well as how much the other factors--like budget, plot etc--are going to bother me. If I enjoy the episode I'm not going to be bothered much by limited budget for instance as I would if I was bored the entire time.
I only post here to provide another perspective. Afterall that is the point of discussion threads. Otherwise they'd be pointless if they were a unified chorus. I don't go into any episode of any show with a checklist of what must be present for me to enjoy it. That's why I avoid trailers, spoilers, leaked script sides, podcasts, leaked clips taken out of context and why I never read a thread until I've seen the episode and typed up my opinion & posted it etc because I want to go in unsoiled by expectations one way or the other.
