What did you guys think of lost?
- Thread starter heroofheroin
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I'm not gonna deny that it was pretty stupid of them not to even start with an outline of what they were going to do. That IS lazy, and it left them with some dumb plot twists and odd inconsistencies.Fox12 said:
But it's not unforgivable. You seem to be quite offended by their philosophy. I won't defend their methods, but in the end the came up with a really good show anyway. The messed up plot doesn't diminish how well they handled most of the characters. It sure worked on me, anyway.
I've been thinking of rewatching it. When it was airing, I watched every episode. I'd say it's a mixed bag. Seasons 1,2 and 4 are very solid (4 being the best), 5 and 6 are IMO okay, and 3 was just awful. There is great enjoyment and suspense to be had about the mysteries on the island and not guessing who's going to die next, but that kind of tension an only be sustained for so long. It kind of falls apart towards the end, but not on a flaming disaster level.
The first two seasons are great and fairly coherent by the series' standards. Many new reveals and twists will likely have your jaw dropping, because it's so strange and unpredictable. I'd say you can skip about the first 12 episodes of season 3 easily, then watch at least until the end of season 4. Don't feel bad if season 5 or 6 causes you to quit the series, you won't miss anything monumental. Overall I'd say it's pretty decent, but only because there's extreme highs and extreme lows.
The first two seasons are great and fairly coherent by the series' standards. Many new reveals and twists will likely have your jaw dropping, because it's so strange and unpredictable. I'd say you can skip about the first 12 episodes of season 3 easily, then watch at least until the end of season 4. Don't feel bad if season 5 or 6 causes you to quit the series, you won't miss anything monumental. Overall I'd say it's pretty decent, but only because there's extreme highs and extreme lows.
I wouldn't say offended. Disapointed, maybe. I was young, but I remember liking the beginning of the show. I guess I just found it hard to care when I figured it wasn't heading anywhere. I do have an overwhelming dislike of J. J. Abrams, though, and this is certainly where it started. If the show had any strong points, it was despite his efforts,'and can be attributed to the rather strong acting performances and a handful of decent writers. But then the show floundered due to a lack of direction, which could have been easily avoided if they had simply plotted out where they wanted ago.TheVampwizimp said:
I don't mean to sound aggressive, I just don't like to see that blasai attitude in writing, and it's extremely common in Hollywood.
I got hooked on it at the beginning, but as the show went on, it became pretty clear that the show wasn't going to really answer any questions, it was just going to continuously ask new ones to keep you hooked. Shows like that, to me, really need to have a beginning, middle, and end written out ahead of time, otherwise they're basically just dragging things on to keep things dragging on.
"Breaking Bad" was, to me, a good example of a show done right. It seemed (to me at least) like they went into the show with an idea of how things were going to proceed and how it was going to end, and they just kind of built the show around it as it went on.
"Breaking Bad" was, to me, a good example of a show done right. It seemed (to me at least) like they went into the show with an idea of how things were going to proceed and how it was going to end, and they just kind of built the show around it as it went on.
Where do they say they were just making stuff up? I watched an interview where the creators actually said that before the pilot aired they discussed where the show would go in the broader sense, not the details, so it seems they had the broad strokes of the story figured out.Fox12 said:
I've read the writers comments where they basically admitted that a lot of the weird things in the show were just tossed in. Why was there a polar bear? Who knows. It shows through in the writing, though, they seemed to have dug themselves into a hole, which is why it jumped the shark towards the end.IOwnTheSpire said:
I don't have the sources, though, so take my comments with a grain of salt if you want : /
My advice is quit after season one or two.
I watched through the end and wish I hadn't. It goes downhill the whole way. The longer Lost goes on, the more obvious the meandering and ass pulls become. Towards the end they start explaining things.
If you ask me, every explanation is worse than the mystery that prompted it. The entire last season is a disaster.
I watched through the end and wish I hadn't. It goes downhill the whole way. The longer Lost goes on, the more obvious the meandering and ass pulls become. Towards the end they start explaining things.
Magic.
It's "hip" to bash Lost after the fact, but it's a show that captured the imagination of a lot of people. Part of the appeal was trying to figure out what was going on, as they basically pulled one bit of weirdness out after another and every time they would show something it would just raise more questions. It was paced well, and did a good job of selling you on there eventually being some kind of central logic that would tie all the events together, but in the end while they did answer all the questions and tie it up they left a ton of things hanging or just forgotten, and the last season was pretty much a giant "huh, that's it?".heroofheroin said:
I'd actually say the first three seasons were pretty strong, but that's when the illusion that JJ wasn't talking crap about having a plan fell apart.
I could tell you how it all ends, and I mean it's okay, just not satisfying compared to the rest of the series, and it fails to redeem everything once it starts to lose steam.
It should also be noted that the elaborate deception that was Lost was in part reliant on multi media, as JJ's people released a more or less unrelated book that was supposed to be one that is mentioned in the show (the name eludes me) which had people slurping it up looking for clues. When he released a series set for "Alias", his previous, highly successful TV show, it included an organizational map like the one in the show showing how all the conspiracies and organizations were supposed to interrelate. Among other things was one particular organization that becomes central to Lost. For those that followed "Alias" you'd know that while it was more or less a straight spy show a lot of the time, it dove off the deep end with weird science and pseudo-mysticism part of the time as a lot of the organizations were battling over the creations and secrets of this ancient Italian guy who was supposed to be at least semi-immortal and apparently had cell phones and stuff back in the Renaissance. From that one little bit JJ dropped he helped the after the fact sales of his previous show's collections as people re-watched Alias religiously to find connections between the two shows since they were supposed to be in the same universe. There were also a few very subtle nods in Lost that implied that there might be something to this if I remember, but in the end it was never followed through on and there wound up being no connection between the two shows at all, and their mythologies wound up being entirely different. The thing is that half the "fun" and what helped capture the imagination was as the whole thing unfolded in real time and communities of "losties" talked about the show and compared notes and such, nowadays you can look everything up on the internet and render yourself faintly disappointed if you want to.
To be honest I think one of the big things "Lost" proved (which helped JJ's rep) was the power of social media and viral marketing. That said the ultimate fall of the series and disappointment seems to have held people back from wanting to try and do the same basic kind of thing again. Namely because of the difficulty of creating something that will involve people this way that doesn't involve simply making it up gradually as you go along and then creating a giant ass pull of an ending which doesn't live up to half of what came before. Lost generated so much energy, if they tried again and failed too soon there is a good chance someone would come looking for the heads of network executives. JJ himself also seems to have squandered a lot of his good will on that ending, and his general mistreatment of the "Star Trek" franchise, combined with "Cloverfield" which also failed to live up to it's hype and apparently wound up being followed by the controversy that JJ deceived a lot of the actors involved as to what kind of movie it was going to be, but by the time they found out he had them under contract and they couldn't do anything. He pretty much played off his reputation and other work to convince people he was doing another pseudo-reality-grounded sci-fi/fantasy drama like Alias or Lost as opposed to a relatively B-grade found footage giant monster movie.
It was a show with great promise that never really delivers. Few of the mysteries are actually solved or explained, interesting things are seen by the characters and not brought up again until several seasons later(if at all). The giant statue foot seen in season 2? Doesn't get mentioned again by anyone for several more seasons, as if finding a giant statue foot is a completely normal thing.
I think the things that bothered me the most were that they knew season 6 was going to be the last and instead of making some kind of attempt to explain everything and tie everything up, they didn't bother. So you'll have entire episodes of characters faffing about looking for tree frogs but god forbid we learn anything important or useful.
The numbers thing is explained....but you had to play a game on the website that was only there for a limited time to find out what it meant. Otherwise you have to dig through the wiki, because apparently it was too hard to actually integrate this into the show itself. It's fine if you want have extra information as part of related media, but asking someone to go read a book or visit a website in order to understand the show is basically admitting you don't know how to write.
I think the things that bothered me the most were that they knew season 6 was going to be the last and instead of making some kind of attempt to explain everything and tie everything up, they didn't bother. So you'll have entire episodes of characters faffing about looking for tree frogs but god forbid we learn anything important or useful.
The numbers thing is explained....but you had to play a game on the website that was only there for a limited time to find out what it meant. Otherwise you have to dig through the wiki, because apparently it was too hard to actually integrate this into the show itself. It's fine if you want have extra information as part of related media, but asking someone to go read a book or visit a website in order to understand the show is basically admitting you don't know how to write.
