I for one enjoy the fact that the show is being dragged out. Seriously, why woudl anyone want everything they've built up to to be over in 2 hours, that would be boring and super anti-climactic. People are just getting angry with the producers because they cant take the suspense. So what if they dont answer all your questions, I for one like the mystery in this show. Not every show that gets put on the air has to be resolved within a half hour, then it would just be Lost: the lame situation comedy.
Edit- And yes I do agree that all the killings do seem like wasted potential. I don't hjave a problem with Ana Lucia being killed but the whole Libby thing seems like a waste considering hos much effort they spent buildign her up these last few episodes.
I can only assume that Libby's story isn't quite dead yet. The creators of Lost are capricious, but not so much as to create a complete mystery and forget about it. If we don't find it out from a Libby flashback, we'll probably get it in a Hurley flashback.
The point of the show is to be as mysterious as possible; characters being fully used is a secondary concern.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
The point of the show is to be as mysterious as possible; characters being fully used is a secondary concern.
Very true, and that's a problem. The characters are what give the mysteries emotional weight. If we don't care about the characters, twists and mysteries don't have much oomph. And we can't care about characters if they're not fleshed out or are written inconsistently.
The mysteries being the primary focus of the show is something I resigned myself to awhile back, as long as the characters were at least of some concern. But lately, it feels like they use the characters like pawns to setup the twists they want rather than allow the story to grow organically from the characters as they already are.
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The mysteries being the primary focus of the show is something I resigned myself to awhile back, as long as the characters were at least of some concern. But lately, it feels like they use the characters like pawns to setup the twists they want rather than allow the story to grow organically from the characters as they already are.
My point exactly as I was trying to put it. They've grown more concerned with the mystery and throwing more of them out there than just letting the story tell itself. There's far too many questions and not enough answers. I can't even keep all the questions in my head long enough to remember them when they are answered.:-/
My point exactly as I was trying to put it. They've grown more concerned with the mystery and throwing more of them out there than just letting the story tell itself. There's far too many questions and not enough answers. I can't even keep all the questions in my head long enough to remember them when they are answered.:-/
I actually don't even mind not getting some things answered. In fact, there are a lot of mysteries on Lost best left unsolved purely because they can only be big letdowns at this point.
I don't mind the deluge of questions much mostly because unless they directly affect a character I like, I can ignore them. And my sanity thanks me for doing so. It's much more annoying for me when they heap on character-related mysteries without answering the mysteries already in place for that character. Though I can't complain much about that since this year they've been mildly good about addressing big character mysteries (like Kate's original crime, Claire's missing time, etc). Which actually might be resulting in the writers' ADD with characters.
Does anyone else have a suggestion for where to watch/download this episode? I'd really like to see it and all ends have come up dead so far.
I would definitely not suggest searching for "Lost [2x20]" on demonoid.com.
Indeed, I would discourage anyone from doing so.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Yea, I've tried downloading on Limewire about 6 different things with Lost - Two for the Road or 2x20 or something similar, all were not what they appeared to be, usually eps from other shows.
The mysteries being the primary focus of the show is something I resigned myself to awhile back, as long as the characters were at least of some concern. But lately, it feels like they use the characters like pawns to setup the twists they want rather than allow the story to grow organically from the characters as they already are.
Again, I feel like this is both completely true, and the entire purpose of the show. The characters are pawns. They serve the purposes of the island and its master(s), wittingly or unwittingly. The reason we get to see their back stories is to show how they are predisposed to react in a certain way to the situations the island throws at them. In this way, the back stories exist to decrease the fullness of their identities. As we see more, we realize that they are cogs in a machine whose purpose and scope is only slowly being revealed.
That's the appeal of the show to me, so I'm sorry if this comes off as being overly argumentative or defensive. I'm also not saying that it's wrong of you to derive enjoyment from the show for different reasons from me (or even for different reasons than the creators' intended, if I have pegged them right). I just think that, considering our differing expectations, one of us is necessarily going to end up disappointed.
Again, I feel like this is both completely true, and the entire purpose of the show. The characters are pawns. They serve the purposes of the island and its master(s), wittingly or unwittingly. The reason we get to see their back stories is to show how they are predisposed to react in a certain way to the situations the island throws at them. In this way, the back stories exist to decrease the fullness of their identities. As we see more, we realize that they are cogs in a machine whose purpose and scope is only slowly being revealed.
That's the appeal of the show to me, so I'm sorry if this comes off as being overly argumentative or defensive. I'm also not saying that it's wrong of you to derive enjoyment from the show for different reasons from me (or even for different reasons than the creators' intended, if I have pegged them right). I just think that, considering our differing expectations, one of us is necessarily going to end up disappointed.
You come off neither argumentative nor defensive, so no worries.
And I won't end up disappointed, because I already am. I hold good television to the same standard as I hold good cinema. I want to watch a story unfold through the experiences of interesting, deep and indentifiable characters. Good stories and good characters are symbiotic, neither can really exist without the other. And with Lost the way it's become, the characters might as well be rocks with names painted on them for all the depth and pathos they're given.
Lost started out as a breathtaking character-driven drama. One need only see the beautiful character work in Walkabout or Confidence Man to realize that the show once gave exceptional consideration and care in building complex and interesting characters. In season two, they only introduced a single new character (Eko) that matched the complexity and depth of the veterans, while several season one standouts (Sayid, Charlie, Locke, Jack) have spiraled into one-note charactictures and predictable, pedestrian stereotypes. And I feel the show has suffered as a result.
A show based on mysteries and big twists can be interesting without good characters to support the story, but I don't think it could ever be considered a great show. Deep, involved characters give a show its heart, without them, every twist in the world will only be hollow.
When Shannon was killed off, she had only been in half of the season two episodes to that point and only had a sizable role in two of those. By the time she was unceremoniously sacced, her character had been given little time to make us care about her so that the audience would be genuinely affected by her death. They tried to do just that in her final episode, but it was too little, too late. No one was very attached to her so her passing wasn't at all a sad thing as it probably should have been. The dramatic death fell flat because the character had been treated like a prop with sexy legs and not like a sympathetic character.
It's one thing to be a pawn figuratively in the storyline and a whole other to be a pawn in the minds of the producers.
The thing is, Mikey, I agree that season 2 has taken a hit. However, I think the reason is because this is the second act in at least a three season series. Season One was so character driven because:
1. We needed to establish who the people were
2. We didn't know, nor were supposed to know, anything about the island
Season 2 is the season in which there needs to be delivery. Certain things about the island need to be answered. Thus, I feel this season needs to be more plot-driven than character-driven because they are making way for what will happen in Season 3.
That, or I just have more faith in the writers of the show than you do, although you're more than welcome to replace faith with gullibility depending on how the show turns out.
That, or I just have more faith in the writers of the show than you do, although you're more than welcome to replace faith with gullibility depending on how the show turns out.
I don't believe in having faith in the writers unless they've earned it and any goodwill the Lost writers have earned was used in swallowing last year's bloated, semi-pointless finale.
Perhaps much of my disdain for the character-shirking focus on mystery and dramatic twists is because when I first bagan watching, I thought the show was going to be a character-driven drama about survival on the island. Not the convoluted mess of questions and confusions it's become.
I don't believe in having faith in the writers unless they've earned it and any goodwill the Lost writers have earned was used in swallowing last year's bloated, semi-pointless finale.
Wait, whoa, what?
I thought the last episode of the series was fantastic personally.
I thought the last episode of the series was fantastic personally.
Exodus Part 1 was exemplary. It did absolutely everything right and it's final 10 minutes (from Sun's flashback to the launch of the raft) form what was probably the best single act of an episode in the first season.
The two-hour finale proper, however, was utterly boring. It had pacing issues out the ass, ended on the wrong note (I think the Walt-napping would have been the correct story beat to close the episode on) and aside from a handful of scenes (Sun's talk with Shannon about them being on the island as punishment, exploding Arzt, the montage of everyone boarding the plane and the aforementioned Walt-napping) little of interest happened. After the amazing quality of part one, Exodus part two failed to deliver in almost every way. Part of me feels that Exodus part one could have been the finale with a few tweaks and been far better than the real deal.
Interesting that you think so, because I thought the way the hatch was blown open and the sequence of events which followed was incredible. Also, we finally saw the monster for what it was.
Wow, Michael must have made a deal with them...he shoots himself in the shoulder at the end to allow Henry Gale to escape, faking the fact that Henry killed everyone, and supports it with his injury. Anyway, the random Libby killing sort of pissed me off, it felt awfully tacked on...I half expected a third random guy to come out of another corner and get shot.
This episode sets the stage for the season finale, which seems to be an all-out war with the Others, if the what's been said throughout the season is correct. Does anyone have any guesses as to what the big revelation/mystery cliffhanger at the end of the season will be?
Oh, and just curious, how did Jack's father die, was it mentioned somewhere?
He essentially drank himself to death; it was mentioned in (I believe) several flashbacks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
How could Michael possibly have made a deal with the Others to help Henry escape? He didn't even know Henry was there until he got back.
He did what he did for one reason: to start a war with the Others.
It was a hypothesis. He could have been playing along with them, even though the chances that anyone catches anything suspicious about him knowing about Henry prematurely would be slim.
But now that I think about it, your explanation makes sense too. I was originally gonna say that they got him to intentionally mislead Jack and the others by describing the Others as primitive tribe dwellers, but it was most likely to give them a sense of security and supremacy that would spark a war.
Did he really have to kill Ana to spark a sense of outrage though? (it seems, by the facial expressions on his face, that he was surprised by Libby and accidentally fired.) He could have simply lied about the mistreatment of the captives or some such rubbish. They really warped his moral character with this action, and I hate that we had no prior sign/clues to it. (Sure, he was obsessively looking for his son, but to kill a friend in cold blood to perhaps spark a war that perhaps may bring his son back, that's pretty cold.)
I'm still not totally convinced on your theory though. It seemed like the others were already convinced by him to start a war (they went to get guns.), what real incentive did he have to do what he did? Sure, it may increase his chances of success a bit, by outraging the other castaways, but the risk of failure and exposure would outweight that.)
Edit- And yes I do agree that all the killings do seem like wasted potential. I don't hjave a problem with Ana Lucia being killed but the whole Libby thing seems like a waste considering hos much effort they spent buildign her up these last few episodes.
The point of the show is to be as mysterious as possible; characters being fully used is a secondary concern.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Very true, and that's a problem. The characters are what give the mysteries emotional weight. If we don't care about the characters, twists and mysteries don't have much oomph. And we can't care about characters if they're not fleshed out or are written inconsistently.
The mysteries being the primary focus of the show is something I resigned myself to awhile back, as long as the characters were at least of some concern. But lately, it feels like they use the characters like pawns to setup the twists they want rather than allow the story to grow organically from the characters as they already are.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
My point exactly as I was trying to put it. They've grown more concerned with the mystery and throwing more of them out there than just letting the story tell itself. There's far too many questions and not enough answers. I can't even keep all the questions in my head long enough to remember them when they are answered.:-/
I actually don't even mind not getting some things answered. In fact, there are a lot of mysteries on Lost best left unsolved purely because they can only be big letdowns at this point.
I don't mind the deluge of questions much mostly because unless they directly affect a character I like, I can ignore them. And my sanity thanks me for doing so. It's much more annoying for me when they heap on character-related mysteries without answering the mysteries already in place for that character. Though I can't complain much about that since this year they've been mildly good about addressing big character mysteries (like Kate's original crime, Claire's missing time, etc). Which actually might be resulting in the writers' ADD with characters.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
I would definitely not suggest searching for "Lost [2x20]" on demonoid.com.
Indeed, I would discourage anyone from doing so.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
I get it using torrents the night the episode airs. Fast, reliable and prompt. You should start there. Not with Limewire and junk programs like that.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Again, I feel like this is both completely true, and the entire purpose of the show. The characters are pawns. They serve the purposes of the island and its master(s), wittingly or unwittingly. The reason we get to see their back stories is to show how they are predisposed to react in a certain way to the situations the island throws at them. In this way, the back stories exist to decrease the fullness of their identities. As we see more, we realize that they are cogs in a machine whose purpose and scope is only slowly being revealed.
That's the appeal of the show to me, so I'm sorry if this comes off as being overly argumentative or defensive. I'm also not saying that it's wrong of you to derive enjoyment from the show for different reasons from me (or even for different reasons than the creators' intended, if I have pegged them right). I just think that, considering our differing expectations, one of us is necessarily going to end up disappointed.
You come off neither argumentative nor defensive, so no worries.
And I won't end up disappointed, because I already am. I hold good television to the same standard as I hold good cinema. I want to watch a story unfold through the experiences of interesting, deep and indentifiable characters. Good stories and good characters are symbiotic, neither can really exist without the other. And with Lost the way it's become, the characters might as well be rocks with names painted on them for all the depth and pathos they're given.
Lost started out as a breathtaking character-driven drama. One need only see the beautiful character work in Walkabout or Confidence Man to realize that the show once gave exceptional consideration and care in building complex and interesting characters. In season two, they only introduced a single new character (Eko) that matched the complexity and depth of the veterans, while several season one standouts (Sayid, Charlie, Locke, Jack) have spiraled into one-note charactictures and predictable, pedestrian stereotypes. And I feel the show has suffered as a result.
A show based on mysteries and big twists can be interesting without good characters to support the story, but I don't think it could ever be considered a great show. Deep, involved characters give a show its heart, without them, every twist in the world will only be hollow.
When Shannon was killed off, she had only been in half of the season two episodes to that point and only had a sizable role in two of those. By the time she was unceremoniously sacced, her character had been given little time to make us care about her so that the audience would be genuinely affected by her death. They tried to do just that in her final episode, but it was too little, too late. No one was very attached to her so her passing wasn't at all a sad thing as it probably should have been. The dramatic death fell flat because the character had been treated like a prop with sexy legs and not like a sympathetic character.
It's one thing to be a pawn figuratively in the storyline and a whole other to be a pawn in the minds of the producers.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
I want to make a joke so badly but I won't.
The thing is, Mikey, I agree that season 2 has taken a hit. However, I think the reason is because this is the second act in at least a three season series. Season One was so character driven because:
1. We needed to establish who the people were
2. We didn't know, nor were supposed to know, anything about the island
Season 2 is the season in which there needs to be delivery. Certain things about the island need to be answered. Thus, I feel this season needs to be more plot-driven than character-driven because they are making way for what will happen in Season 3.
That, or I just have more faith in the writers of the show than you do, although you're more than welcome to replace faith with gullibility depending on how the show turns out.
I don't believe in having faith in the writers unless they've earned it and any goodwill the Lost writers have earned was used in swallowing last year's bloated, semi-pointless finale.
Perhaps much of my disdain for the character-shirking focus on mystery and dramatic twists is because when I first bagan watching, I thought the show was going to be a character-driven drama about survival on the island. Not the convoluted mess of questions and confusions it's become.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Wait, whoa, what?
I thought the last episode of the series was fantastic personally.
Exodus Part 1 was exemplary. It did absolutely everything right and it's final 10 minutes (from Sun's flashback to the launch of the raft) form what was probably the best single act of an episode in the first season.
The two-hour finale proper, however, was utterly boring. It had pacing issues out the ass, ended on the wrong note (I think the Walt-napping would have been the correct story beat to close the episode on) and aside from a handful of scenes (Sun's talk with Shannon about them being on the island as punishment, exploding Arzt, the montage of everyone boarding the plane and the aforementioned Walt-napping) little of interest happened. After the amazing quality of part one, Exodus part two failed to deliver in almost every way. Part of me feels that Exodus part one could have been the finale with a few tweaks and been far better than the real deal.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
This episode sets the stage for the season finale, which seems to be an all-out war with the Others, if the what's been said throughout the season is correct. Does anyone have any guesses as to what the big revelation/mystery cliffhanger at the end of the season will be?
Oh, and just curious, how did Jack's father die, was it mentioned somewhere?
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
But now that I think about it, your explanation makes sense too. I was originally gonna say that they got him to intentionally mislead Jack and the others by describing the Others as primitive tribe dwellers, but it was most likely to give them a sense of security and supremacy that would spark a war.
Did he really have to kill Ana to spark a sense of outrage though? (it seems, by the facial expressions on his face, that he was surprised by Libby and accidentally fired.) He could have simply lied about the mistreatment of the captives or some such rubbish. They really warped his moral character with this action, and I hate that we had no prior sign/clues to it. (Sure, he was obsessively looking for his son, but to kill a friend in cold blood to perhaps spark a war that perhaps may bring his son back, that's pretty cold.)
I'm still not totally convinced on your theory though. It seemed like the others were already convinced by him to start a war (they went to get guns.), what real incentive did he have to do what he did? Sure, it may increase his chances of success a bit, by outraging the other castaways, but the risk of failure and exposure would outweight that.)