Lost

[EyeKhan]

I just finished watching 6 years of Lost in 3 months. Anyone a big fan back in the day? I'm interested in your impressions. Note the below contains every spoiler you can think of but since the series has been done for seven years or so I'm not bothering to hide anything.


My Impressions:

A. I don't believe the End is how it was envisioned in the Beginning. You can see several obvious revisions over time by watching it all in such a short time period.

B. I think the Michael plot line and the theft of his son was necessary b/c the son entered puberty. The stealing of the children seemed to peter out as a Big Mystery... I recall the son was supposed to be "special" for a while, Aaron was supposed to be special, then there was the 'all pregnant women die' plot, and so on...

C. Speaking of the Others - their nature changed again and again as the story arc got revised. At one point they are mysterious jungle woodsmen, then like project oriented scientists, then like mystical servants, and so on.

D. I think the ultimate story line of Jacob and his Brother was at one point supposed to be Ben and Whidmore struggling but that got dropped and the mythologized characters brought in and expanded. Probably it was a planned idea from the beginning that evolved over time.

E. In the first season I had concluded that everyone on the flight was dead and their time on the Island was like a temporary Limbo... I'm not exactly sure if in the End they had all died in that first crash or if they had died when they nuked the island. Probably the former, though.

F. Mr Echo's story seemed to imply the Black Smoke was like a judge. You may or may not recall that when the smoke surrounded people in that season you could see people in it from their past - people they had wronged maybe....

G. Not sure how the Black Smoke could reside beneath the temple at one point and then at another point the Temple be the place of refuge FROM the black smoke. Same with Ben being able to call on the Black Smoke to help him at one point but then know nothing about what it was later. Revisions revisions.

H. Speaking of the Black Smoke - I think it was a plot device initially - season 1 and 2 - and didn't become anything substantial until Mr. Echo.... I don't think the initial plan was to make it a character the way it ended up.

I. All in all I found the first three or four seasons very good. There was a lot of bold story telling. The final season was disappointing. I didn't like the Jacob thing much at all. Too much supernatural foo foo.

[Wraith]

They clearly didn't have anything resembling a plan going into it. I wish TV writers would stop going into these things and setting up big mysteries, figuring they'll come up with an explanation a few years later. They really need to have a plan and a bible up front to prevent all the inconsistencies that you noticed. BSG had the same problem.

I think you may have misunderstood the end though - they all died at different times and places, and they weren't dead when you saw them at all during the series (except the flash sideways bits in the last season).

[Bitter Jeweler]

Damnit. You're gonna make me watch it again!

That show got me hooked on watching TV shows at work. I think I watched that whole series on my ipad, and prompted me to get a bigger screen at my bench.

(I'm diggin' West Wing now)

[EyeKhan]

I think you may have misunderstood the end though - they all died at different times and places, and they weren't dead when you saw them at all during the series (except the flash sideways bits in the last season).

The very last scenes of the final episode showed the original plane crash site with no survivors, no tents or campfires etc. It's not a stretch to conclude that all along everyone on the island was dead based of that.

It is also reasonable to conclude that everyone on the island died when Juliet set off the nuke, which was when the 'parallel universe' story line started. However, on consideration I think you're right. The parallel universe' was the timeless limbo place they all went to after their natural lifetimes ended and the only reason they were there all at once was it's timeless nature and because they spent a lot of quality time together during life.

Generally speaking I think the show jumped the shark after some left the island and and were gradually concluding they needed to return. It was still interesting and fun to watch, but it was going down hill. The writers jettisoned and contradicted everything interesting about the Others, IMO. And the last season was just a big winding down and tying up of all the loose ends in a not so interesting way.

[Ominous Gamer]

The way you're describing the limbo concept in Lost, it reminds me of the theme in Riverworld.

[Hazir]

I' d have to watch it all over again to comment on anything you wrote. But what I do remember is that I was one of the few people who felt the final episode gave closure in a very moving way.

[Khendraja'aro]

They clearly didn't have anything resembling a plan going into it. I wish TV writers would stop going into these things and setting up big mysteries, figuring they'll come up with an explanation a few years later. They really need to have a plan and a bible up front to prevent all the inconsistencies that you noticed. BSG had the same problem.

I think Babylon 5 is one of the few shows to pull off a multi-season story arc as perfectly as possible in the TV environment.

[Wraith]

The very last scenes of the final episode showed the original plane crash site with no survivors, no tents or campfires etc. It's not a stretch to conclude that all along everyone on the island was dead based of that.

That was just bookending. The last scenes were the reverse of the first scenes of the show.

Remember the rest of that last episode, when they talked about how Hurley lived long after the rest of them as guardian of the island or whatever Jack was before he died (It's been a while). Ben was his #2. I'm not really making any supposition here - I thought I remember this all being spelled out explicitly in the end (though again, it's been a while). The parallel universe in the last season was limbo and they all wound up there after they died because of their connection with each other and the island. They were able to truly move on as soon as they remembered reality.

[Wraith]

I think Babylon 5 is one of the few shows to pull off a multi-season story arc as perfectly as possible in the TV environment.

I was actually thinking of that same series as one of the few exceptions I've seen when I wrote that post. Supernatural was another good one, though the original plan ended at season 5 and it's kinda obvious that it did.

[Bitter Jeweler]

I couldn't get through season one of Babylon 5, and Supernatural never hooked me.
Ill probably go back to Supernatural at some point, and give it another chance.

[Wraith]

Season one of Babylon 5 was rough. It didn't have very many redeeming qualities. It didn't start getting good until the end of that season, but it quickly got fantastic in season 2.

[Lewkowski]

Lost was great I agree it was obvious the writers made it up as they went along. However it didn't stop me from staying hooked all the way to the end. Netflix rocks.