LOST---The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Part VII

I suppose there comes a time in all critic’s brains where they have to take an “emissions” test. This test involves them analyzing their own thoughts and making sure that what they are saying is in agreement with what they are thinking.

This week, LOST did a number on its audience, but still came off with a bold step forward. Though last week’s episode certainly put a road block in front of the immense progress season 5 had been making in previous weeks, last night’s episode course-corrected the show’s momentum and brought season 5 up to speed.

The good:
1. Though the changes in him have been raising many questions as of late, Sawyer’s transformation has earned him a spot in the good category this week. At first, Romeo Sawyer did little to woo the audience into believing him, but last night the changed Sawyer came alive in a new light. The episode showed how the changes going on were affecting Sawyer, and showed that these effects were clearly much different than the effects on Jack and Locke. Sawyer is evolving more into a central character. Hopefully, the writers will observe what they have done with Sawyer and thus learn why breaking character consistency can strike concrete interest.

2. Seeing the doors open on that van and watching Hurley step out with Sawyer watching was very heart-warming.

3. That statue that the audience saw in the one time travel flashback looked awesome, not to mention very intriguing. It also tells us what that four-toe foot once was.


The bad:
1. The dialogue took a step back this episode. The most glaring example was Sawyer’s continuing line “As long as it takes”, which sounds like something Leslie Neilson would have said in one of the "Airplane" movies.

2. This time, the setting was full of Dharma people, and seeing the Losties in them did not renew my faith in the Dharma Ear-Packers League. Why couldn’t the island have landed somewhere else?

3. Seeing Dharma and the Others talking about truces only reminded me of the war mentioned in the previous episode, and the reminder was not very reassuring. Though originally I thought this war would not be a full scale, kill-all kind of war, this episode increased my suspicions that it could turn into exactly that, with the Others wielding an army of smoke monsters, and the Dharma Puffballs Club whipping out homemade versions of the AT-AT Walker from "The Empire Strikes Back". I tell you this not because I honestly believe that that will happen, but because this is the only solution I can think of that would actually be interesting to watch. I don’t trust J.J. Abrams with managing a fictional war.

The ugly:
1. Since the fifth season has picked up its momentum again, I had to dig deep inside my critical mind this week to see if I was resisting any niggling doubts about my treatment of LOST. I find that my thoughts about the show remain solid. I still think it is a good show that needs to change at its fundamental level. Plus, I decided after much investigating that I was still doing a good job of criticizing what I see on LOST. What I think of LOST has stayed the same since the beginning of season 5, but what I see changes from week-to-week, and that is what I comment on most in these reviews.

Nice episode this week. The story was good, the flashbacks were not confusing, and the character work here was nothing short of brilliant. Now that the reunion here, lets see what these “chosen ones” do next.

Ciao.