The day I stopped watching ‘Lost’ (Lost.S05E13)
Posted April 18, 2009 – 8:07 pm in: TV
There used to be times when I really liked watching ‘Lost’. This Television series follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island. The main message, in my opinion, is the way people deal with being ‘lost’. Some of us need religion to establish the framework for our existence while others try to work out the logic.
On the second and third seasons, I really liked the flashbacks to the characters’ past. My favorite episode was “The 23rd Psalm” when the Nigerian militia tries to force Mr. Eko’s brother, Yemi, to kill a man. Yemi can’t do it and Mr. Eko as a child, saves the life of his brother by shooting the man instead of him.
There used to be a good story line in ‘Lost’, for example when the survivors started to discover evident of the Dharma Initiative, a research project meant to discover some sort of utopian social discipline. It was really exciting, and you really wanted to know more about it, similar to the satisfaction you got from X-files by discovering the unknown.
It used to be much more scary as well. The survivors were constantly being kidnapped by ‘The others’ while moving in the open spaces of the island. This was always followed by spooky whistling sound effects. When Walt was kidnapped, ‘Lost’ introduced an interesting dilemma by giving his father the option to save him by scarifying his friends.
Things went really wrong in season 5. It seems that the writers had a brainstorm together and wrote down every gimmick they still didn’t use. The list looked a bit like this:
1. Time travel
Isn’t it going to be cool if the survivors could travel in time in see the island in the past? Absolutely not, it has made this season annoying by reshuffling the time every 10 minutes. The worst line ever was when Hurley decides to write “The Empire Strikes Back “ and suggest it to George Lucas. This is so cheesy and seemed to be borrowed from the classic film ‘Back to the Future Part II’ when young Biff used time travel to bet on the result of a sporting event.
2. Speaking with the dead
Let’s give Miles the ability to speak with dead people. Hurley can do it better. It was working with the Sixth Sense; maybe it can work for us?
Sure- I suggest you also add a Robocop arms to Jack and a Batmobile to Sayid!
3. The island can bring the dead back to life
Ben killed Locke but guess what? The island can bring people back to life, isn’t that great? Why not help the survivors get their pets back like in ‘Pet Sematary ‘?
‘Lost’ is running out of ideas and can be noticed when Mr. Eko story is replicated in Sayid’s childhood story- Sayid’s brother is being bullied by his father who asks him to kill a chicken to prove he is a man. He can’t do it and Sayid is happy to do this instead.
‘Lost’ used to have 15 millions in season 1,2,3 compared with 11 millions in the current season. I am not surprised. The long time delays between each season didn’t help as well. Thank god season six is the last one. It should have happened long time ago when is was still fresh and inspiring. It must be another example of how being greedy for money ruins creativity.
Do you watch ‘Lost’?
What do you think about the current season?
12 Comments
You have some valid arguments. It really was the first 2 seasons that drew me completely into the world of LOST. The 3rd season didn’t do a whole lot for me, but the end of it was great. I liked the flash forward story style.
To be honest season 5 is my favourite. I guess you can say it is gimmicky because they are using time travel to answer a lot of the mysteries, but I always give LOST the benefit of the doubt that it will all make sense in the end!
To me season 5 had some dull moments, like dealing with the Oceanic 6, but I really liked all the on island stuff. I don’t mind them being in 1977 and I thought it was hilarious that Hurley *could* be the author of the Star Wars sequel, you know the show writer have been dropping hints about Star Wars for quite a while now, and it was cool to see this obvious shout out.
I think this last episode was just a levity episode after the Ben/Smoke Monster one. I know next week is some kind of clip show, followed by the 100th episode and then the season finale.
All I can say is hang in there! You seem like me and Heroes, I think they are limping along but I watch it every week and hope for the best!
I believe that lost was written to be three seasons long, but part way through the second season it was picked up for another three years. Thats why season 1 and 2 were so amazing, and well throught out. Take your favourite book or movie, now pretend its gotta be twice as long… What would you add to it? What I wonder, is how would Lost have ended, had the writers been able to end it the way it was intended to end.
Anyways, we’ve made it this far… might as well just hold out a bit longer, its ALMOST over.
Just my $0.02 anyways
and what would u wanna do the maker of the lost would u want see the pasagers in the all episodes tring to get off the island and to never do it ??? i think the ‘island want u ‘!!!! hahaha i just wanna se an extra 100 episodes and by the way i,m from ROMANIA were areu form ???
keep ‘n touch?! pls excuse my not so good
translation from romanian into english see ya’
I just like it the way it is.
very very happy to see a lot of answheres now
Greetings from Holland
Marko
Judy- that’s a good point. It just feels bad when something that you used to like has changed so much… I remember being really curious about what will happen next, but now I don’t feel it anymore…
Do you watch other good series?
Thanks Marko! Holland is great!
Why did it take you so long? I lost interest half way through the first series, even though I was in Italy and there wasn’t much choice of decent TV.
You seem like someone with good taste and an interest in esoteric things so maybe you need to bring your TV viewing up to the same standard…
Hi Suzie, I actually almost don’t watch TV at all… Lost was the only series that got me hooked for a while. I think that I waited because I was hoping that it will get better but it didn’t… Is there anything you think is worth watching?
I love it. It has the right blend of humour, sci-fi,action, adventure and character development to keep me hooked. I don’t watch much television but this is the only show I will not miss during the week. JJ Abrams won’t let his fans down.
S05E13? Really? I thought the show jumped the shark in episode 6 of the season when they tried to have Eloise give some half-assed scientific explanation of how the Oceanic Six would get back to the island. Getting as many of the survivors as they could to improve the odds? Locke needs something of Jack’s fathers? It just made no sense to me.
I’m still watching the show, and if I pretend that one episode never aired and instead they just got back to the island some more logical way, I enjoy it for the most part. I’m rather enjoying seeing the early island from the perspective of the Dharma initiative, including Miles’ dad, the Swan, and everything else.
Though at the end of S05E14 they kind of ran themselves back into a corner, I think. [spoilers if you haven't seen ep. 14 yet] It just seems like the only options they’ve given themselves are for Jack to detonate the H-bomb and everyone just dies (which is obviously unsatisfying), for him to detonate it and everything goes back to normal and Oceanic 815 lands in LA (which is a lame Dallas ending), or the storyline never has a chance to reach fruition (which is just a red herring waste of our time).
I keep watching though. The early seasons were good enough that I’m giving the writers the benefit of the doubt. They could always pull some twist that I’m just not seeing.
Hi Dylan,
I haven’t watched Lost since I wrote this post and I feel much better now… I agree with you that the early seasons were good but I think that it got off the track probably because of commercial reasons.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers don’t have any control on when is it going to end and that is why they are running out of ideas.
It is important to know when to stop.
The writer do know when it is going to end. They knew in season 4 that S6 would be the last and I think they changed gears and had a bearing to steer the ship rather than just sailing open waters (S1, 2 and 3). I don’t know what to make of the fianle yet, I need to see the next episode to really make a call if I like where it is going. But with this show I never know until they tell me. I for one am looking forward to S6 and I think S5 was their best yet.