Thursday, February 22, 2007

Is Lost Losing it?
The comments I got last night from the most recent episode of Lost were a resounding, "Meh." Lost used to be a show where the writers gleefully boasted that they were about the questions, not the answers, but after the fan revolt earlier in the season, they're now promising tons of answers. And then not giving any. Maybe they all ended up on the cutting room floor (am I going to have to create answers in more fake deleted scenes?!) but last night's ep had only a couple of revelations, and the flashback just created MORE questions. From the comments:

Re: me not knowing what Bai Ling is saying in one scene.

Hey she say's frightened. I thought it was fertent too. I was like what the crap is that? Haha. I had to rewind it over and over and finally put subtitles on.


Thank you! God, I feel like a dweeb now. I backed it up seriously 8 times. ;)

You liked the music interlude at the end? I thought it was a little too Titanic for my tastes, with Jack "I'm the King of the World" Shephard looking wanly off into the distance. And Jack wouldn't have taken such a beating on the beach if he had pulled the stick out of ass and used it for defence.

It's funny you said that, because when I watched this the first time through and Jack joined Juliet at the helm, I said out loud, "I'm King of the World!" and thankfully he didn't say it. But I still loved the music. Season 1 had tons of beautiful big music with the montages at the end, and they haven't done that in ages. As for the stick... you said it. But I also thought it. ;)
Jacob stole his older brother's inheritance (birthright, includes blessing) and yet God favoured him above his more honest brother. Jacob's sons became the precursors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Is this a reference to the Losties usurping the Others' place on the Island? Or is this something The Others think about themselves, that they are favoured. Ben (Benjamin) was one of Jacob's sons.


When Danny first referred to Jacob's list, I ran a little thing on my blog back in November explaining who Jacob was, but thank you for posting it here again, because it's definitely apt! And maybe knowing more about Jacob from the Bible will lead to answers.

I didn't really like last night's episode. For all the hype that major answers will be given, they basically gave it away in the promos. I'm a big fan of Lost, but they made a mistake doing that promo, because it was anticlimactic. I did like the ending though. I can understand more and more why the revolt by fans. Promising answers and only getting hints here and there.

I'm a huge defender of Lost, but even my husband said at the end of the episode, "Weren't we supposed to get answers?! I don't know how much more of this I can take." I agree about giving away the Cindy thing; I assumed, okay, we know Cindy and the other tailies will make their return, so... we'll know more about them than we learned in the preview, right? RIGHT? Wrong.

Why isn't Sayid Jarrah back yet? He's one of the most interesting Lost characters. And I was so disappointed that Kate had pity sex with Sawyer, because really, how can having sex with Sawyer be a mission of mercy? Finally, did I hear wrong, or did Carl/Karl (Alex's bf) say that the Others live on THIS island? On the same island as our Losties?!


I agree about Sayid. The guy had a couple of lines in the Jin/Sun ep, then we saw him help Locke bury Eko, and finally he ran onto the beach when Claire was drowing. Ooh. Paulo and Nikki have had more lines, for god's sake. For the Kate/Sawyer fans, they can still dream that Sawyer had it wrong, but Kate's face was pretty clear. I worried at the time that that's what was going on (or that Ben somehow put her up to it). As for the island thing, I assumed Otherville was on the north end of the island, and that's why Eko's stick said, "Lift up your eyes and look to the north" so that Locke could begin heading in that direction. It makes sense that with the proximity to the lush, larger island, they'd only use the smaller one for experiments. It also explained why we always saw them on that island. But finally having it confirmed is one of the only answers we've gotten this season.

PLEASE, Damon and Carlton, PLEASE don't screw this up. I've made excuses all along and I still believe in this show completely. Next week's preview, shown on ABC only (CTV didn't air one) was bordering on Heroes-type ads.

Voiceover: Next Wednesday... if you miss this episode...
Hurley holding Charlie's face: "It's dangerous... and there's a chance that YOU WILL DIE." [anyone get the feeling he's doing his best impression of Jack and it's actually a jokey scene?]
Voiceover: ...you won't know what everyone is talking about in the morning.
Hurley: Are you sure you want to do this?
Charlie: Big tree or death (or something like that)
Voiceover: A mysterious cave... a rescue long overdue...
Kate: They've got him and we have to get him back, I owe him that. I'm going to get Jack.
Voiceover: And the reunion everyone has been waiting for!

And then the screen goes black and we hear Sawyer whisper, "Somebody flies... somebody dies..."

Whoa!! Let's hope it's not a big buildup for nothing. Next week's ep is a Hurley flashback, by the way.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it wasn't for the promo promoting the answers, I think I would have liked the episode a lot better. It also would have had more impact had they not shown Cindy in the promos. Also, one of the producers already revealed that Otherville wasn't on the Hydra island in an interview, so that wasn't anything new to me. I guess the third mystery was Jack's tattoo, which is nowhere near as compelling as the other character backstory mysteries. Or was the third mystery it that Ethan was the Other's surgeon/doctor? Given the flashbacks in Maternity Leave and Not In Portland, it was pretty evident that Ethan was a doctor before this episode.

I'm really begining to hate promos.

So if Jacob is the head of the Others, and Ben the head of this "tribe" of Others that we've seen, does that mean their are 11 more tribes? Maybe not all on the Lost Island.

Btw, was anyone else thinking in a Austin Powers voice "It's amazing how Phuket looks in no way like the Lost island."

Anonymous said...

No way Nikki, you did NOT hear Sawyer saying "Someone dies, someone flies"??? LOL I'm gonna have to You Tube it! I hear Peter Petrelli is going to fly by Lost Island and inadvertently kill Charlie :)

The overhyped promos HAVE to go. This is reminding me of The Nine, where every episode is "You have to watch this one to believe it" or "The most critically acclaimed show on TV" or "If you miss this, you'll miss all the watercooler talk tomorrow". Geez gimme a friggin' break! Let the show stand on its own. They are only setting us up for disappointment if they don't match our expectations.

Looking forward to the "fun" Lost episode next week though. They need to get Jack back to the main island and put the Others on the backburner for a while. He can bring Juliet, because I like her!

Nikki Stafford said...

Brian: I agree. Promos are actually what I hate on most shows. On Buffy (and now on Veronica) they would make little Looney Tunes "doing!" noises behind what turns out to be a really serious scene. The voiceovers are never giving us an accurate portrayal of the episode. In the case of Lost and Heroes, they're incredibly bombastic and "you CANNOT MISS THIS ONE." In the case of Heroes, there's always a rhyme in there that sounds like it was written by Johnny Cochrane, and with Lost, they always promise answers. There are only so many promises we can take.
Yikes... 11 other tribes. I never thought of that! Maybe we'll discover a total of 12 hatches; we've already seen 6 on this island marked on the map. Doesn't mean the mapmaker found them all.
And I TOTALLY agree with you that Phuket was so obviously Hawaii it wasn't funny. :)
Roland: Sawyer TOTALLY says it... OK, maybe I just dreamed it. ;) Though I wonder if Hurley's going to fly, to SAVE Charlie from dying. Hmm... "Somebody flies... so somebody won't die." I'm looking forward to the ep, too. I hope it's better than "Dave." :)

Anonymous said...

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I haven't lost interest in Lost. Sure they've been concentrating on my three least favourite characters, but I love Ben (in an 'ain't he evil' way) and I've loved MC Gainey since Con Air. So if I have to put up with Jack to hang with the Others, so be it.

I really don't care that much what's happening with the Island - to me it's just a device for character exploration. Now, let's get back to exploring Sayid, Mr. Lindelof. K?

Jeff Heimbuch said...

As much as I love the show, the last episode just didn't deliver the way I thought it was going too. The guys who edit the promos need to be replaced. Im pretty sure the audience is getting tired of being promised all these answers according to the promos, and then the show just doesn't deliver them. I did, however, like the VW Bus in the promo for this week's episode. Haha.
I'm very much looking forward to Hurley's episode. I'm hoping that he'll find some lawn gnomes somewhere on the island, and spell out "Cluck You, Dharma" on the beach somewhere.

Anonymous said...

As much as I love the show, the last episode just didn't deliver the way I thought it was going too. The guys who edit the promos need to be replaced. Im pretty sure the audience is getting tired of being promised all these answers according to the promos, and then the show just doesn't deliver them. I did, however, like the VW Bus in the promo for this week's episode. Haha.
I'm very much looking forward to Hurley's episode. I'm hoping that he'll find some lawn gnomes somewhere on the island, and spell out "Cluck You, Dharma" on the beach somewhere.