Friday, May 7, 2010

A rant about Lost


I love Lost. Such an incredible show, dark, edgy, intriguing, unpredictable.
So why is the current, final season such a piece of crap?
I really haven’t enjoyed it (and I’m not going to stop watching it after investing so many years in it!)
It’s all the writers’ fault. They have completely Lost it.
We used to be on the same wavelength as the writers, we used to trust them... But no longer.
This season is a mess! People just running around like they’re in an action movie, ‘answers’ being revealed in a really casual ‘didn’t you already know that you stupid viewer?’ way, and everything just generally being very samey. Lost isn’t an action movie. It shouldn’t have submarines in it or huge gun battles or Pantomime villains (I’m looking at you, Jim Robinson).
Let’s look at last night’s episode as an example. This is the one that’s on Sky tonight (‘The Candidate’), so avoid it til you’ve seen it, cos there are some really big spoilers!!
- Sun and Jin – in this one, we say goodbye to Sun and Jin, but it’s so contrived! There’s an explosion on the submarine, and somehow, while everyone else is standing there, Sun manages to get trapped behind a wardrobe and several tons of piping – which means she has to die!!! No one else gets trapped like that! C’mon writers, don’t treat us like morons.
- Sayid: Sayid, the Iraqui character, kills himself in a suicide-bombing incident... D’oh, bad idea, writers... So what happened to this huge subplot about him being some kind of weird zombie? Nothing, that’s what happened...
- Submarine: The Losties escape on a submarine (stupid submarine) and decide they can’t wait just 2 minutes for Claire to get on board too. Well, fuck you, Losties!
- The Smoke Monster now disguises himself as John Locke, and everyone seems to know this – so why do the (new and crap) Ohers decide to have a gun-fight with him? And how come Smoke Locke never does anything apart from stand around looking annoyed? Let’s see him transform!!
- When the sub explodes, near the bottom of the ocean, Jack manages to escape with an unconscius Sawyer, supposedly being able to get thru the sub’s hole with water pouring in, and being able to get Sawyer to breathe with an oxygen tank, even though he’s unconscious. Big fat Hurley also gets thru the same hole and manages to athletically escape with Kate in his arms. Yeah, right. And after this, in pitch black, Hurley/Kate are able to locate Jack/Sawyer immediately on the beach, cuz they just happened to swim to the exact same point... Gah!!! Stop it, writers! Yes, I know you need to get the characters into place, but honesly, stop treating us like morons!!!
And let’s look at the episode as a whole. A really dynamic episode, but this is Lost – it’s not the Poseidon Adventure. And wait a minute, yeah it’s exciting, but if you stop and think for a minute, you realise...again, nothing gets answered.
How many ‘answers’ have we had this season? Three! The numbers was answered in a quick fashion – and it’s an okay answer, I’ll give them that. The whispers were explained in a really casual way, almost as if the writers are saying ‘duh, didn’t you figure that out?’ And Jack’s dead dad ghost sitch was again answered in a really casual, throwaway manner, relating directly to a specific event from six years ago!! I can’t remember it, and also, I figured you’d already answered that one anyway.
Some people are saying ‘Lost isn’t about the answers, it’s about the drama.’ Bollocks! You create questions, you need to answer them! If I ever watch this series again, I know there will be dozens of moments when a question comes up that won’t ever get answered. Who was Miss Klugh? What was going on with Walt? Was Mikhail immortal? And I really wanted to see all of Danielle’s back-story (no, we didn’t get it all, as much as people say we did).
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe we’ll get loads of answers in the 2 and a half hour long finale, but at this point, I severely doubt it. And any writer that talks about the audience (who want answers) in such a dismissive way as this (in a recent interview) should be ashamed of themselves!!!:
It’s like when you spend time with a 3-year-old, you quickly find out that one question just begets another — there’s a “why” in the wake of every “why” — and the only way to end the conversation is to say, “Oh look, a Chuck E. Cheese!” The show is doing its best to say, “Oh look, Chuck E. Cheese!” For example, we’ve now given the viewers as much as we’re willing to say about the numbers, and we’re moving on.

Lost, you have two and a half hours to restore my faith in you – but I’m not holding my breath :(

2 comments:

Sean Azzopardi said...

I agree with a lot of this Martin. This was just too much.
The moving from one island location to another and back again, I was shouting just make your mind up !
Most of the big dramtic moments have been drained of any drama. Why do we not see Locke change into Smokey, it's not like there is any mystery as to what he is.
I could go on, but I'm suprises at two lame episodes in row.
It's like i'm not watching Lost, and that's a shame.

Mart said...

i am now convinced that we are barely going to get any more answers in the finale!
a lot of the hardcore fans are saying 'oh Lost isn't about the mystery, it's about the drama'. bollocks! they raised soooo many questions and they're not going to be answered!!
Boooo!