::Lights dim as a proscenium curtain that says “Lost Season 6 Reviews” rises. The audience of 100,001 hushes, shushing each other violently as they settle into their seats. In the darkness a row of trumpets start playing a grand fanfare. As the fanfare crescendos, more rows of trumpets join it, until the stage is filled with the sounds of majestic horns, as if on some sacred battlefield. Lights scan up and down the stage, revealing various silhouettes of LOST like Hurley, the four-toed statue, Locke and Ben. Over the speakers, we here one-liners and dramatic moments from the past, both on the show and off it. They echo from wall to wall: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” “You hate Lost!” “Doing what I always do…surviving.” “Walt!” “Lost is one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen!” “Dharma Center for Homosexual Beekeepers” “We have to go back, Kate!” This continues for five minutes, then ten, then even twenty, holding the audience together as their knuckles turn white from clinging too hard to their seats. Suddenly, the comments die off, and the sound of rapid, foam-mouthed monkeys are thrown over the speakers. On-stage, silhouettes of monkey poo being flung from one side of the stage to the other can be seen. As this gets worse and worse, the monkey sounds are replaced with the sounds of humans arguing over Lost, but the poo flinging continues. The fanfare reaches its Olympian peak, and a gigantic Dharma curtain drops at the front of the stage. Seconds later, a live cannon fires somewhere off-stage and the Dharma curtain explodes into a thousand burning pieces. As if on cue, a sick guitar solo now starts rocking the stage---::
All right, all right, sorry, sorry. I just wanted to have a little more fun.
Welcome to Season 6 everybody, and what a Season it looks like it’s going to be. The magical Island of Lost: filled with exotic wonders, ancient “monsters”, all kinds of different humans who want to kill each other, and the best entertainment gimmicks beaten to death that money can buy. Let’s get started.
The Good:
1. It’s the Others! No, really, it is this time! I mean it; it’s the Others! Finally! Okay, so they weren’t seriously called “the Others”, but how many more groups of people could possibly be living on this island? So it’s the Others!
2. Charlie! And Boone(I liked him)!
3. Hurley with a gun is just funny.
4. The first ten minutes of this premiere were nothing short of breathtakingly brilliant. These writers may get on my nerves all too frequently, but that does not mean that they do not have their moments, and even their minutes and hours, of solid beauty. The opening scene on the plane introduced the new "reality" twist as if it was a ship in a bottle. These people almost appear to be happier, even though we know they're not. One almost cannot judge their actions in this timeline. It was very relaxing. And let’s face it, even the sharpest critics of this show had to smile and feel completely awesome when the camera went into the sea and we saw all the island’s stuff sitting there covered in seaweed.
5. J.J. Abrams has taught these writers well(or perhaps they taught themselves, who knows). As I said back in the “That 70’s Show” review, structure is a building block that, while not the most important thing, can easily make or break a show. While LOST may be filled with all sorts of malfunctioning gimmicks and gadgets, the show has managed to maintain a rigid structure. I may not personally agree with what is included in the structure, but certain aspects of it always strike a positive chord in me. Each season is fantastically different and has its own unique qualities. Plus, we always seem to meet a new group of people every time: Season 1 was the survivors, Season 2 was the Tailies, Season 3 was Ben’s People, Season 4 was the freighter, and Season 5 was the Dharma Seagull Shit and You Program(oh come on, did you really think I was going to convince myself to get rid of the Dharma names?).
The Bad:
1. Same old “carrot-on-a-stick” shit. Come on, people, enough with the mystery and suspense gimmicks. You don’t necessarily have to give us the answers all at once, but adding new mystery-on-top-of-new-mystery like zits-on-top-of-zits is getting old! And fucking boring! This is your final fucking season, so stop feeding us the same bullshit you always do. I stand with my girlfriend, who stated the following after watching only the first hour of the premiere: “this show would be more exciting if something normal happened.” I get the feeling that the writers decided to cancel their own show not as a gift to themselves, but because they knew they couldn’t keep bullshitting people for too much longer. I know J.J. Abrams and his associates like to take one mouth-watering gimmick and beat the shit out of it until its blood and fluids saturate the Earth’s crust(see: “Cloverfield”), but now it’s just starting to get pathetic.
2. Jacob lives! Oh wait he doesn’t. Okay then, Jacob lives…on! You know, on most shows, a character who dies and then comes back as some sort of supernatural apparition is exciting, but on this show it's just kind of a buzzkill.
Purgatory:
1. The Others. Yes, I am glad we know who the Others are now, but now we have to see what they bring to the table and if its worth anything.
2. It appears as though the primary characters are now “lost” in reality. While I find this idea interesting, I find it interesting with a grain of salt, and have deep-seeded fears that this idea is no more than a repeat of last season’s “off-the-island” storyline which resulted in---surprise!---them realizing a greater purpose and then going back to the island. Plus, I think we all know why things are subtly different in this new reality: the affect of no-Jacob.
3. Darth Smoke Monster: while part of me is generally thrilled to see the old classic of good vs. evil starting to emerge, I’m not sure if such a story can work well on this show, what with all the moral ambiguities in…well, everything.
4. The writers keep using time travel to solve all their problems. Only for so much longer, boys, only for so much longer. You're lucky this is the last season you have to write.
The Ugly:
1. Most of my lovely, well-dressed, and NERF-sword-wielding critics liked to paint me as a LOST-hater last season(creepy right?....sorry, bad joke), mainly because the only places in the entire world to find reviews like this are places like this website(1) and this website(2). Let me clear any confusion up now, again for the critics as well as new people: I like LOST. Though I liked seasons one and two way better than the “gripping” and “Mind-blowing” seasons 3-5, I am very interested to see how everything works out in the end, and am impressed with how the show is structurally put together. That being said, it has its flaws, and I’m not talking termite-size flaws, I’m talking Death Star-size flaws. Keep in mind, these are just my opinion of the show; what I see when I look at that screen, mixed and cooked with observations of mass media and observations of the people who watch/consume it. It is not meant to represent any universal truths, and research will be used only when i feel it is needed. It is up to you, the audience, to trust me of your own free will. I promise you my conclusions are 90 percent based on what I observe, and I welcome any and all challenges to them. I have no intentions of trying to mislead or discourage anybody from watching the show.
2. J.J. Abrams is back, ladies and gentlemen. I can’t remember where I read (though I swear this was on Lostpedia somewhere) that Mr. Abrams’s name might be removed from the credits in Season 6 as executive producer, but I know I read it. Nevertheless, at the end of the opening credits, there he is, as executive producer. Now, some people like Spielberg, the Coen brothers, and Mel Gibson attach their names to films by being listed as the executive producer, even though they do not contribute anything to the film; hence why movies tend to have as many “executive producers” as Tiger Woods has mistresses. Television is different; the executive producers of TV shows are usually the creators of the show(3). As seasons go on, they step back from directly contributing the show to an even better(or much worse) position, executive producer/person-who-approves-the-writers’-creative-decisions(4). To all those who told me that J.J. Abrams stopped contributing back in Season 1 and/or 2(they didn’t know exactly), executive producer counts as contributing; therefore please welcome Mr. Abrams’s presence back to these reviews. I promise he won’t get brutalized as much or as bad as DL and CC may potentially be.
Answers:
This is a new section I’m going to start in direct honor of Season 6. As more and more questions from seasons’ past begin to get answered, I will keep track of them here. Bear in mind, the writers have a long way go(5). Also, if anyone reading this confirms an answer that I miss, in any episode, please inform me of it.
Season Six, Episode 1:
1. The Man in Black is Smokey the Monster…and pretty much every other apparition that has ever appeared to the Losties on the Island. Check.
2. The Others. Yes, that is verbally unconfirmed but as I said: how many more other societies could there possibly be on this Island? Check.
3. The ankh in the guitar case is a message from Jacob. Not a huge answer but an answer nonetheless. Check.
All around, a B+ opening episode, which is a gigantic step up from last season’s D- opener. ABC says the time for questions is now over and the time of answers has begun. I hope they’re telling the truth about that, because I highly doubt these writers can answer every question they’ve come up with in the past. That being said, I am excited, intrigued, and ready to see what this season has to offer. Let’s go!
Ciao
Reference list:
1. http://thetvaddict.com/2008/06/30/why-i-hate-lost/
2. http://www.chrisdiclerico.com/2006/10/14/i-hate-lost-an-epiphany/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_producer
4. http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/executive-producer4.htm
5. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/lost-unanswered-questions_n_442135.html
Sites that are vainly similar to my efforts here:
1. http://www.slate.com/id/2242745/entry/2242746/
2. http://www.lostreview.com/
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