Lost Returns
Feb. 3rd, 2010 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteI found the season premiere of Lost to be enterfusing. That is, entertaining a lot of the time, but a bit confused as well. I am glad the show is back and will be here every week. But I do wonder if Team Darlton hasn't figured out when to stop with the new questions.
As we now know, the show has split into two time tracks, one where the Big Boom sent the last castaways back to 2007 and into the battle between Jacob and Fake Locke and one where the flight from Sydney landed safely and most but not all things are as they were. I much preferred the latter track.
I liked a lot of the Island track, mainly because we know those characters so well by now. But we lurched from mystery to mystery, and suddenly found ourselves in the Temple, where (as one of you pointed out with some frustration) we have a Mysterious Asian. The pieces felt like pieces, and not like a whole, and I was impatient to get back to the LAX track. I expect that as the season goes along, the pieces will come together, and that Ben will not seem quite so pathetic and that Jack won't be so mopey. For now, I content myself with learning the relationship between the Smoke Monster and Fake Locke (and presumably every dead person we've seen on the island) and with great performances by Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, and Terry O'Quinn.
But the LAX track was just so utterly intriguing. It's 2004 again. Everything that happened to the cast since hasn't happened, for good and for ill. And we are now made to watch as this track unfolds and wonder in which timeline things are ultimately better. We are also left watching as we see the the destruction of the island changed things not just for the people on the plane, but for anyone with a connection to the Hostiles or Dharma. As evidenced by Desmond being on the flight now. Or by Charlie nearly committing suicide. We know everyone. And we don't know anything. But not in the way of "what are the island's secret?" More in the way of "who are these people?" And "what will happen to them?" (For example: Rose was dying before arriving on the island. Is she still dying? Did she ever get sick in the first place?)
Here is where Lost has struggled at times: When the plot and the characters come together, the show is brilliant. The LAX track was brilliant. On those occasions when the plot, when all the questions, swamp the characters, Lost gets a bit, well, lost. It doesn't happen often. But it happened in the Island track this week.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the LAX track unfold. Like a lot of SF fans, I love a good alternate timeline story (though Team Darlton has asked that we not call either track an alternate timeline since both are, for now, equally valid). I like the meta-story here, of two tracks that will eventually come together in some strange way. I like that talented actors are being asked to play the same roles at different times and in different ways - compare Josh Holloway as older, angry, broken and responsible Sawyer with the cocky and smirking con artist, for one example. There is going to be a lot to savor, and to look forward to. And of course, there are bound to be answers, if not about the island then at least about the cast.
But after five years of endless island mystery and intrigue, I am not sure how much new island mystery and intrigue I want in the last year. For a show that takes lots of risks - and surely going AU after a year of time travel is a huge risk - seeing more of the same on the island feels oddly conservative. I hope that as in years past, this is just the warm-up.
Either way, Lost is always welcomed back. And while it's a good thing for the show to be ending, I will miss these characters and this world(s?) a lot in a few months.
As we now know, the show has split into two time tracks, one where the Big Boom sent the last castaways back to 2007 and into the battle between Jacob and Fake Locke and one where the flight from Sydney landed safely and most but not all things are as they were. I much preferred the latter track.
I liked a lot of the Island track, mainly because we know those characters so well by now. But we lurched from mystery to mystery, and suddenly found ourselves in the Temple, where (as one of you pointed out with some frustration) we have a Mysterious Asian. The pieces felt like pieces, and not like a whole, and I was impatient to get back to the LAX track. I expect that as the season goes along, the pieces will come together, and that Ben will not seem quite so pathetic and that Jack won't be so mopey. For now, I content myself with learning the relationship between the Smoke Monster and Fake Locke (and presumably every dead person we've seen on the island) and with great performances by Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, and Terry O'Quinn.
But the LAX track was just so utterly intriguing. It's 2004 again. Everything that happened to the cast since hasn't happened, for good and for ill. And we are now made to watch as this track unfolds and wonder in which timeline things are ultimately better. We are also left watching as we see the the destruction of the island changed things not just for the people on the plane, but for anyone with a connection to the Hostiles or Dharma. As evidenced by Desmond being on the flight now. Or by Charlie nearly committing suicide. We know everyone. And we don't know anything. But not in the way of "what are the island's secret?" More in the way of "who are these people?" And "what will happen to them?" (For example: Rose was dying before arriving on the island. Is she still dying? Did she ever get sick in the first place?)
Here is where Lost has struggled at times: When the plot and the characters come together, the show is brilliant. The LAX track was brilliant. On those occasions when the plot, when all the questions, swamp the characters, Lost gets a bit, well, lost. It doesn't happen often. But it happened in the Island track this week.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the LAX track unfold. Like a lot of SF fans, I love a good alternate timeline story (though Team Darlton has asked that we not call either track an alternate timeline since both are, for now, equally valid). I like the meta-story here, of two tracks that will eventually come together in some strange way. I like that talented actors are being asked to play the same roles at different times and in different ways - compare Josh Holloway as older, angry, broken and responsible Sawyer with the cocky and smirking con artist, for one example. There is going to be a lot to savor, and to look forward to. And of course, there are bound to be answers, if not about the island then at least about the cast.
But after five years of endless island mystery and intrigue, I am not sure how much new island mystery and intrigue I want in the last year. For a show that takes lots of risks - and surely going AU after a year of time travel is a huge risk - seeing more of the same on the island feels oddly conservative. I hope that as in years past, this is just the warm-up.
Either way, Lost is always welcomed back. And while it's a good thing for the show to be ending, I will miss these characters and this world(s?) a lot in a few months.
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(no subject)
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2010 03:10 pm (UTC)I'm assuming the final mystery has to be which of the two timelines established now will become the final real timeline.
I'm looking forward to seeing how everything continues!
(no subject)
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2010 03:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2010 06:26 pm (UTC)my favorite moment was
Hurley “Jin, if I asked you to take me to where there was like a hole in the wall, where you went with the French team, would you know what I was talking about?”
Jin “Yes”
Hurley “Good”