LOST---The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Season 5

Let’s start with the good stuff.

1. The writers wasted no time in sticking with the people on the island. Usually on TV shows when something drastic happen to a group of people, it takes several hours of TV before the audience finds out was happened, and I was originally worried that that is what would have happened here, but thankfully it didn’t.

2. Neal’s death was fucking awesome! As was Locke’s rescue at the end.

3. Hurley’s comedic side remained intact. With all the seriousness that has suddenly tripled in the LOST series, at least the writers had the decency to keep Hurley’s antics very entertaining…….hehe “I love Shi-zhus.”

The bad stuff.

1. Enough with the fucking suspension ploys. If it’s obvious, then quit taking up time trying to make it mysterious. If we all knew it was Sun, and let’s face it we all did, then why just fucking say it’s Sun from the very first moment Kate picked up that phone? Is us not knowing who was on that phone significant to anything in that episode? No. So get the fuck on with it. This also goes for the very beginning, when they spent two long minutes focusing on the gray hair and ass of that guy from the Dharma videos before revealing him, even though we all knew who it was. Now people will say that that’s how they’ve begun almost every season of LOST, but they did that with characters that hadn’t been introduced yet, which made it more interesting than doing it with someone who we all know.

2. “God help us all.” Yeah, because THAT line hasn’t been used in every drama since the fifties. Same thing with characters making ghastly realizations of something terrible by bulging their eyes until they practically fall out.

3. I don’t know about anybody else, but I am fucking sick of the Dharma Institute.

4. LOST is so unpredictable that that IS what’s predictable about it. I had hoped that by this time, the writers would have moved on from that paradox. But no, they keep plowing on as if nobody seems to know their dastardly little secret.

5. Some of the dialogue was thoroughly laughable. “I have to find out where we are(dramatic pause) in time.”

6. Other mysterious things that were unnecessary: A. Ethan’s appearance. Great to see him but a scene that could have been cut. B. While I’m sure the women viewers got incredibly hot when they saw Sawyer go without a shirt on for three-fourths of an episode, I’m sure the ever-creative writers could have found something for that group other than going around the island complaining about wanting to go back to the beach until the island finally shifted in time again.

7. ::sigh:: Okay, so having the island be able to shift through time is a very
interesting twist, I will admit. At first, I was excited. Now, seeing how they have
abused that twist is making it just plain stupid. Having time travel in a single episode is always dangerous; making it the central feature of an entire show is simply not smart. I feel as though I can say with a good deal of expertise because I am a Star Trek fan, and at least 20%, if not more, of all Star Trek episodes have dealt with the idea of time travel. Hell, the entire story arc of the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise was about time travel, and many fans just found it ridiculous(Star Trek: Enterprise was another J.J. Abrams project, ironically enough). The problem with time travel is that it raises way too many questions about linearity. It’s especially annoying in this case, when the island doesn’t stop moving through time, and just keeps randomly going back and forth at its own leisure. It can’t seem to pick a direction, which looks like someone is controlling is; but we know for a fact that at present-time in the show, nobody is. Bottom line, if the audience is has to ask too many questions, they will eventually lose interest. Time travel is a dangerous thing to toy with on television because so little is known about it.

The ugly

1. LOST started out with two great elements. The first were the characters and their stories. The second were how the stories interconnected and the relationships between all the people on that island. They were destined to meet, and the most fascinating thing to watch was how they got there and what they will do next. There is a third element, the mysteries and unpredictable turns---but again, once one realizes the unpredictability paradox, the mysteries lose their appeal. Which moment did you like better: when you found out another secret of the Dharma institute, or when Penny and Desmond were reunited at last? What on Earth made these writers think that what they had originally wasn’t gold? The first two seasons of that show were amazing. Yes, there were mysterious things on that island, but they weren’t the main focus. The characters were the main focus, developed with good writing and interesting pasts, and they all needed each other and they all helped each other. Then they got to the third and fourth seasons and suddenly it became about the stupid little Dharma Institute and about how Ben Linus and Charles Whitlow are bastards. And the fifth season doesn’t look like it’s going to be any different. LOST has strayed away from the stuff that made it great and instead trying to cough up a “gripping” plot, which it never had in the first place and doesn’t need.

2. These writers seem have to problems when it comes to recognizing what people are going to pay attention to more. From what I’ve seen of the fifth season, it looks as though the entire season is going to be spent just rounding up everyone to get back onto the island. If that continues to be the case, then I’m going to skip the entire fifth season and then tune back in for season 6, because we all know they’re going to end up back on the island. If they didn’t then the show would end. So quit stalling and let’s go. I don’t fucking care how they manage to get everybody back together(I know I said I love the characters on this show, and I do. That’s why I’m pissed at the writers, because they introduced something into the show that’s made me care less about the characters). I don’t care because a fucking island just moved! In time! Who the fuck cares about what everybody on the mainland does? Who cares if Hurley doesn’t want to go with Ben? Who cares if Sun wants to kill Ben? Who the fuck cares about what any of these people are going to do since they can’t die and are all going to end up on the island anyway? An entire fucking island just moved! Let’s focus on that, the more interesting part of the show. We’re going to hopefully find out how it moved, but I doubt it’s going to be in season five. So like I said, if this whole stalling ploy continues, I’ll wait around until season 6. I’ll go watch reruns of Avatar: The Last Airbender, a Nickelodeon show that my roommate’s got me hooked on. It’s also a show that LOST could learn a few things from about good storytelling.

3. When people watch TV, they don’t just want to sit there and do nothing. Have you over gone over to a friends house and they sat by as they played a one player video game for hours on end(my girlfriend can attest to this, embarrassingly enough)?
You get bored really quickly, because you’re not doing anything. You’re not engaged. The audience of a television show wants to feel like they’re in the show, even if they know they’re not. Come on, admit it, there have been times when you watch TV when you want to give advice to one of the characters, or fight alongside a hero of yours. The audience wants to participate or at least feel like they are, and the writers of LOST have just about taken that away from them. LOSTpedia, LOST2.0, and all that other stuff ABC has put out doesn’t count because it’s not the actual show. Maybe those things are pretty good at engaging LOST viewers, but the show itself is not. To go off on a slight tangent here, a big part of President Obama’s successful campaign what that he said things like “Yes, we can.” He asked his voters to participate; he asked them to help him and the government out. Meanwhile, McCain and Palin went around the country telling people how they’re going to protect the American people, and boost American healthcare, and jumpstart the American economy---basically the government is going to do everything and us Americans will have to do nothing. Obama won because he inspired people to engage themselves, which is what people like to do. LOST is taking up people’s time and not letting them get involved in the actual show, mainly because a lot of people are so damn confused that it’s not even worth the effort anymore. I’ll bet anyone 1,000 bucks that the writers have no clue how they’re going to end this. It shows badly.

All this being said, I still have faith in LOST. Five episodes into the first season I didn’t like it, but I gave it time and it turned itself around. So maybe that will happen in the fifth season and all this will be moot. We shall see.

Here are some things that I wish for LOST:
1. Realize that we’re not laughing with you, we’re laughing at you. That whole thing where Hurley’s mom wasn’t getting anything Hurley was saying was a very pathetic attempt by the writers to say “hey, we understand your concerns.” Nobody cares.

2. Go back to focusing on the two great elements. Please.

3. Come up with ideas that aren’t the equivalent of simply dangling something shiny in front of the audiences’ faces.

4. Realize that the Dharma Institute is a pointless piece of crap that has completely destroyed your show and find a way to remove it entirely.


Ciao everybody.