Last week I woke up as kind of a new man. LOST impressed me beyond just being able to keep my attention and keep me intrigued. I was highly excited for the first time since Season 2. The ending of the premiere made me sort of second guess myself, but I figured I’d wait until next week until I passed judgment on it. Well, it’s next week, and LOST is being a bitch again like it always fucking is.
The Good:
1. Nothing. Yeah, that’s right I fucking said it: nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. Let me say it again: nothing. There wasn’t even humor. What’s-his-face (the Security Guard from Season 3) getting hit in the head again and then shot was all right, but that was more satisfying than humorous.
2. All right, so I started writing the “Bad” section before realizing there was actually WAS something pretty good; the part where Jack swallowed the pill was pretty fucking badass. There…there you go…something good.
The Bad:
1. Ethan Fucking Goodspeed’s character has run his course. Quit bringing him back. The only thing anybody remembers(or cares) about that guy is that he is an asshole, albeit in disguise.
2. Last season Jack’s character started getting messed up, what with his tendency to start conflict with anything and everything for no reason whatsoever, as well as his brief “New Locke” phase. This week’s episode proved that that mess is unsalvageable and that Jack’s idiotic character cannot be redeemed. That first “pill scene” between him and Dogen was complete and total bullshit, both in terms of writing and how it fits into the plot. I love how the writers are now realizing the many questions they have to answer in a short period of time and thus have started taking quicker, more full of shit-than-ever shortcuts. It never crossed Jack mind that maybe Dogen could be manipulating him using guilt? I thought Jack didn’t trust the Others. I thought Jack didn’t trust anything.
3. Claire as part of the bad guy brigade. Really? Seeing her wielding a shotgun made me laugh. I would sooner believe an 80 year old Deforest Kelley as a gun-wielding henchmen then Claire.
4. Apparently the only thing affecting people in the LAX Reality is the Island reality. Simply put: if I was a pregnant woman(god that would be ugly) who’s taxi just got hijacked by a screaming woman with a gun running from the police; a woman who then kicked me out onto the curb without my stuff in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, I doubt I would ever trust that woman again, much less get back in the cab with her while she is UNCUFFED. And the writers, of course, excuse this by saying “I just knew”, thus saying that because of their Island relationship(sounds like a Nicolas Sparks book), both knew the other was trustworthy. That, or the writers are deeply insulting the intelligence of their characters. Seeing as how the writers have done this before(1), this actually does not surprise me very much.
5. LOST, you insisted, and whined, and moaned all of last year that you wanted to be entirely about plot; and while some people abhorred(hated, reviled, detested) that idea, you said “fuck all” and stuck to it. You can’t go back now. This episode featured character development which, despite being very interesting and even moving, is something the writers chose to abandon once the characters were firmly established. And, while I feel as though it is never too late for anything, this is the last season and you have a lot of questions to answer. So stop trying to go backwards and just get on with it.
The Ugly:
1. It seems as though the stance on mainstream media has started to change recently. Nowadays, it has become more than obvious that video games, instead of “being brain pulverizing”, “violence-inspiring”, “as-bad-for-your-mental-health-as-Eminem-lyrics” trash, are now making kids and college students more intelligent(2). Recent studies, mainly if not all composed by Steven Johnson(including the video game study), are hypothesizing that television is also doing just that. Keep in mind, I said “hypothesizing”. Here are some(3) of those studies(4). While these studies do prove that television itself is getting smarter, that does not necessarily mean that the people watching them are getting any smarter. Cause and effect is a naturally occurring phenomenon in the universe, while television is controlled programming. Simply because one writes a smart show does not mean that its viewers will thus be more intelligent by watching it. It all comes down to what a person’s opinion of intelligence is. To me, problem solving is merely one form of intelligence, thus having shows like LOST, Alias, and Hill Street Blues exercise that part of the brain very well. The trouble with shows like this is that the different elements that the aforementioned articles highlight as signs of a smarter show are not different elements of the SHOW; they are merely different elements of the PLOT.
1. Many overlapping plot strands.
2. An unclear distinction between the major and minor plot strands.
3. A relatively large number of primary characters.
4. Moral ambiguity.
5. No narrative hand holding.
6. Non-linear action.
On paper, all of those elements would appear to make for a good all around show, but in execution they come as simply serving the plot. Example: LOST. LOST has many overall subplots, but they all connect to one gigantic plot that the show follows. The major and minor plot points of Lost, even when they switch from one to the other, still connect to one gigantic plot point. The primary characters go away and come back for reasons connecting to the main plot. The moral ambiguities of the characters: because of, and/or triggers more of, the plot. The purpose of no narrative hand-holding on Lost is to stretch out the plot. All non-linear action on the show relates back to the central plot in some way. Now if one is strict to the teachings of Aristotle, then everything serving the plot is just fine, as Aristotle believed plot to be the Chuck Norris of Grecian Theatre(5). However, history has proven that plot need not be the master facet of theatricality. In today’s world, any television show can use merely one of the “Oceanic Six” up there as the central facet of the show and be successful. Many have tried, most have failed.
2. Anybody analyzing television ratings, with enough ego to fill the Grand Canyon, will tell you that shows fail because “It doesn’t have what it takes” or “the numbers speak for themselves” or some other generic insult that sounds like it’s from the days of the Bush Administration. When judging a show as bad, ratings are the first things broadcast networks look at. Yet plenty of shows have been haled as “ground-breaking” and “amazing” by critics and fans alike, but have barely lasted one, desperation-filled breath in the mainstream media’s ratings chart(“Arrested Development”, “Firefly”, “Miracles”). Most, if not all, of these shows center around character development; the premise for “Firefly” was “Nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things”(6); “Arrested Development” survived for three seasons on merely the personalities of the characters within it. Yet character development is more than likely the reason why they failed; apparently, people don’t keep people’s attention. Audiences more than likely excused these shows as “going through the motions” after certain events. In short, nothing really happened on them. Audiences sit down and prepare for something to happen plot-wise, but are not rewarded, and thus change the channel.
I don’t know why these shows fail, and my beliefs on it are just theories, but when is mainstream media going to change to a less caring mode? Okay, so you only have 3 million people watching it while other networks have a decisively less intelligent show that is garnering 10 million. Big fucking deal. If new television shows are eventually going to need all six of those elements up there simply to be demanded by audiences, then we could potentially be seeing the biggest downgrade in the output of thoughtful new television shows in history; and more shows designed to keep us on the other end of a string(not to mention the fact that mainstream film has already started to become more like television). Also, seeing as though LOST executes the “Oceanic Six” to high success, just imagine what it is going to be like when other writers try to take that formula and make it “newer” and “better”.
Answers:
1. Claire is alive and well. Check.
2. Everybody on the Island is back in the same timeline, as [further]evidenced by the abandoned Dharma Center for Brainwashed Cat Poop buildings.
A rather ridiculous episode; let’s hope for a better one next week.
Ciao.
References:
1. http://www.buddytv.com/articles/lost/harold-perrineau-upset-with-lo-20058.aspx
2.“Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.” Johnson, Steven.
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24TV.html
4. http://hubpages.com/hub/8-Television-Shows-Scientifically-Proven-To-Make-Watchers-Smarter-DVD
5. “The Poetics.” Aristotle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics_(Aristotle)
6. http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/TV_Shows/F/Firefly/2002/07/22/734323.html
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