The Official "Lost" the series discussion

[Deberg_1990]

I figured I would start a thread for this and see what happens....there seemed to be quite a few viewers on the board for this show the past few weeks.....I like the direction the show is taking so far......episode 3 tonight at 7 central on ABC....

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

My problem with Dane's interpretation is that there doesn't seem to be much "textual" evidence for it beyond Jack "landing" and "dying" in what appears to be the same spot on the island. Dane's interpretation makes logical sense when abstracted from the show but I don't see the in-show support for it.

Dane's, obviously, allowed to have whatever take he wants. And if he's comfortable with his own interpretation, so be it. I'm not going to try to change his mind.

But, yes, Reaper. I would agree with your post 100%. Spot on.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

2. *Spoiler* (just for you). The Flash Sideways mean absolutely nothing because it never occurred. It wasn't a flashback or a flash "side". It was a plot device and IMO, completely unnecessary to the plot, the season or the story. They should have used that time instead to further detail the mythology that had integrated into the show from day one. Instead, it was just a waste of time.

I don't believe that's accurate.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Red Brooklyn

When I think "fluff" I think more of shows like Grey's Anatomy. Which is another show that pretends to tackle issues. There are many "morality" issues at play on that show, but it's certainly not opporating on the same level as a show like LOST. To me, Grey's is fluff. LOST is more cerebral.

Not at all time, but at many times, ESPECIALLY early on, GA crushed Lost on character development. I get the angle that GA 'tackles issues' if by that you mean issues like 'what does love mean' or 'what are you willing to give up to be a great surgeon' but they're not a 'here's a guy with AIDS, lets show what a great and loving person he is before he dies' type of 'issues' show.

GA has had it's share of soapy-ness and ridiculous plot developments as it aged, but I'll stand firm that, especially in its early days, and on occasion going forward, it was the gold standard in creating dramatic situations and selling it with winning, real, performances. I've said it before, and I'll admit it again, GA holds the record for episodes in a row that made me tear up somewhere in the episode. It could just be a look, or a pause, or just the perfect facial expression that encapsulated the raw emotions presently playing out, it could range from two strangers become friends implaled on the same pole realizing that extraction and life for one would mean exanguination and death for the other, or Christina realizing in the middle of an emergency surgery that her boyfriend doesn't trust her skills to be his lead assistant, or a brief flash of how much her crumbling marriage is killing Miranda, or a John Doe drug by a bus, mangled beyond recognition and nearing certain death scratching a message into a doctor's hand notifying that he was one of their own, or Meredith blithely mentioning that she has just miscarried to her assistant as she's performing triage on her best friend's boyfriend who was just shot by a grieving widow.
Those may sound telanovela as written on the page, but as I said, it's how they PERFORM these plot beats that sells it. Sells the emotional toll of people in high stress, high skill positions trying to hold together high professional standards and expectations along with their personal life. And it's purchased hard earned tears on many occasions, and that's something Lost, for all it's excellence NEVER did for me.

Maybe that's my failure to connect with Lost, I was so damned interested in the stringing together of all the fantastical mythologies that I never had an ounce to devote to loving what happened to the characters. What happened in their 'personal lives' was an interesting part of the show, but I was never on tenterhooks concerning how their fates would play out, Kate or Jack, Kate or Sawyer, will Locke walk, will Sun and Jin be reunited, Penny and Desmond apart or reunited, . . blah, blah, blah, how the **** are they travelling through time, and what do all these coincidences and replayed themes and murky undertakings tie together.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

This is why you have to look at it like this:

1. The Flashbacks mean nothing to Jack's journey. It's just "filler" for the viewer to become familiar with the character(s) but in the "Grand Scheme" of things, the flashbacks really mean nothing to his current state because it had already occurred.

2. *Spoiler* (just for you). The Flash Sideways mean absolutely nothing because it never occurred. It wasn't a flashback or a flash "side". It was a plot device and IMO, completely unnecessary to the plot, the season or the story. They should have used that time instead to further detail the mythology that had integrated into the show from day one. Instead, it was just a waste of time.

All that matters is what happened on the Island. That's it. The flashbacks didn't help Jack's journey and the flashsides didn't happen.

If you focus on Jack's present, it all becomes clear.

So... if the show was about Jack's journey then why spend half or more of each episode on flashbacks/forwards/sides that are irrelevant to the show? It feels as if your interpretation ignores the bulk of show's screentime because it clashes with the neat, tidy logic you've come up with.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Not at all time, but at many times, ESPECIALLY early on, GA crushed Lost on character development. I get the angle that GA 'tackles issues' if by that you mean issues like 'what does love mean' or 'what are you willing to give up to be a great surgeon' but they're not a 'here's a guy with AIDS, lets show what a great and loving person he is before he dies' type of 'issues' show.

GA has had it's share of soapy-ness and ridiculous plot developments as it aged, but I'll stand firm that, especially in its early days, and on occasion going forward, it was the gold standard in creating dramatic situations and selling it with winning, real, performances. I've said it before, and I'll admit it again, GA holds the record for episodes in a row that made me tear up somewhere in the episode. It could just be a look, or a pause, or just the perfect facial expression that encapsulated the raw emotions presently playing out, it could range from two strangers become friends implaled on the same pole realizing that extraction and life for one would mean exanguination and death for the other, or Christina realizing in the middle of an emergency surgery that her boyfriend doesn't trust her skills to be his lead assistant, or a brief flash of how much her crumbling marriage is killing Miranda, or a John Doe drug by a bus, mangled beyond recognition and nearing certain death scratching a message into a doctor's hand notifying that he was one of their own, or Meredith blithely mentioning that she has just miscarried to her assistant as she's performing triage on her best friend's boyfriend who was just shot by a grieving widow.
Those may sound telanovela as written on the page, but as I said, it's how they PERFORM these plot beats that sells it. Sells the emotional toll of people in high stress, high skill positions trying to hold together high professional standards and expectations along with their personal life. And it's purchased hard earned tears on many occasions, and that's something Lost, for all it's excellence NEVER did for me.

Maybe that's my failure to connect with Lost, I was so damned interested in the stringing together of all the fantastical mythologies that I never had an ounce to devote to loving what happened to the characters. What happened in their 'personal lives' was an interesting part of the show, but I was never on tenterhooks concerning how their fates would play out, Kate or Jack, Kate or Sawyer, will Locke walk, will Sun and Jin be reunited, Penny and Desmond apart or reunited, . . blah, blah, blah, how the **** are they travelling through time, and what do all these coincidences and replayed themes and murky undertakings tie together.

BL is telling the truth about Grey's Anatomy. Season 2 of that show is legitimately very good.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Red Brooklyn

I don't believe that's accurate.

How so?

Nothing that happened there really happened.

Jack and Juliet were never married and divorced. Jack didn't have a son. John didn't receive surgery that enabled him to walk, Ben wasn't Alex's teacher and so on.

So, none of if was relevant to Jack's journey (or anyone else's journey).

[Baby Lee]

I think I'm starting to sense where Dane's coming from. It doesn't help me with understanding his stance, but I think he's provided some insight into his rationale.

Like me, he's frustrated that the creators built up this vast mythology, only to end the show saying none of what intrigued us matter and would never be explained. In response he has created a hypothesis that it was all in Jack's head in a nano-second, and sought out beats and glimpses that back up said hypothesis.

Sharing the same frustration, I have chosen to take the writers [in the voice of Christian Shepard] at his word, particularly in light of the aforementioned stories that did not even peripherally reference Jack as involved or observing or relevant, that 'everything happened' and take it to mean 'sorry for the bait and switch, but we felt we needed a fantastical and gripping setting to draw you into our ecumenical message.' Basically the most polished and gripping, if utterly irrelevant, Jehovah's Witness preamble ever, in a sense an inversion of the 'fantastical tale of Zenu' the SuperAdventureClub gives you at the END of their ecumenical message.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

So... if the show was about Jack's journey then why spend half or more of each episode on flashbacks/forwards/sides that are irrelevant to the show? It feels as if your interpretation ignores the bulk of show's screentime because it clashes with the neat, tidy logic you've come up with.

Right, exactly.

The outcome would have been the same (Jack's enlightenment) regardless of whether it had been on air for two seasons, six seasons or ten seasons.

The producers and writers had mentioned on several occasions that they had lost their way (the Bai Ling episode being as a perfect example) and that they needed an "End Date" to wrap it up. Otherwise, they could have just gone on forever, building up backstories, which weren't relevant to Jack's journey.

The backstories only tell us what happened before the plane crash. They don't tell us what happened the second the plane crashed and they all died. The Flash Sides never existed. Nothing that happened there ever happened.

So once again, all we're left with is the present - what happened since the plane crash and Jack's journey. In the grand scheme, Jack's past and Jack's side didn't help him find enlightenment. It was his time on the "Island" that he found it.

Without this "neat and tidy" explanation that I've come up, the entire show is a mess of plot holes and unexplained phenomena that clearly borders on the nonsensical.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Without this "neat and tidy" explanation that I've come up, the entire show is a mess of plot holes and unexplained phenomena.

I'm pretty sure that once it is over I will be arguing that, yes, the show is a mess of plot holes an unexplained phenomena.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

BL is telling the truth about Grey's Anatomy. Season 2 of that show is legitimately very good.

S1 and S2 (and even the first half of S3) of Grey's were outstanding TV. Especially S2. But I it lost me after Grey "died." And even at it's dramatic best I would call it fluffier than LOST. But "fluff" still probably the wrong word. I was just trying to compare LOST to another hit ABC show in terms of how it tackled moral and ethical issues. I wasn't trying to insult or put down Grey's in any way.

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

How so?

Nothing that happened there really happened.

Jack and Juliet were never married and divorced. Jack didn't have a son. John didn't receive surgery that enabled him to walk, Ben wasn't Alex's teacher and so on.

So, none of if was relevant to Jack's journey (or anyone else's journey).

It was very relevant to Jack's journey, because he couldn't complete his journey without it.

All the events of the FSW happened, they just happened in "after life" time and space. The world was a lie, but the events still took place. Or rather, the lessons learned and the relevance to the journey was real.

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I found that whole scene laughable. Anytime you need a character exposition to explain what is and was happening, you're witnessing poor writing and a poor concept.

It seemed tacked on and cheesy.

We whole heartedly agree on it. Now, we disagree on how much it impacts the seasons when taken as a series.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Without this "neat and tidy" explanation that I've come up, the entire show is a mess of plot holes and unexplained phenomena that clearly borders on the nonsensical.

It is exactly that, but the creators have gambled that, in light of the entertaining ride, and the ecumenical benediction, we will forgive that with the panaceacal reassurance that, however improbable, it all really happened, and in the end our beloved characters are reunited.


Basically, your rationale is 'they can't have left all these tantalizing plots unresolved,' and our response is 'they damn well have, and they hope given the overall experience we'll forgive them.'

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I think I'm starting to sense where Dane's coming from. It doesn't help me with understanding his stance, but I think he's provided some insight into his rationale.

Like me, he's frustrated that the creators built up this vast mythology, only to end the show saying none of what intrigued us matter and would never be explained. In response he has created a hypothesis that it was all in Jack's head in a nano-second, and sought out beats and glimpses that back up said hypothesis.

Sharing the same frustration, I have chosen to take the writers [in the voice of Christian Shepard] at his word, particularly in light of the aforementioned stories that did not even peripherally reference Jack as involved or observing or relevant, that 'everything happened' and take it to mean 'sorry for the bait and switch, but we felt we needed a fantastical and gripping setting to draw you into our ecumenical message.' Basically the most polished and gripping, if utterly irrelevant, Jehovah's Witness preamble ever, in a sense an inversion of the 'fantastical tale of Zenu' the SuperAdventureClub gives you at the END of their ecumenical message.

That's a much better worded theory than what Dane has put forth thus far. In that light, I agree with it. Or, at the very least, understand.

Originally Posted by Red Brooklyn

S1 and S2 (and even the first half of S3) of Grey's were outstanding TV. Especially S2. But I it lost me after Grey "died." And even at it's dramatic best I would call it fluffier than LOST. But "fluff" still probably the wrong word. I was just trying to compare LOST to another hit ABC show in terms of how it tackled moral and ethical issues. I wasn't trying to insult or put down Grey's in any way.

Exactly correct. After season 3 (mid way, actually), it Greyified itself. I have coined the term Greyified which basically means sacrificing everything for the sake of romance and side stories rather than a main tenent. House has been Greyified for a good seasons or two. It was about House but it became about the supporting characters and, specifically, their love lives. Just like Grey's.

[Reaper16]

My biggest beef with Dane's interpretation is that, if so, it would render all of Lost's artistic weight meaningless. Utterly meaningless. The audience walks away from Dane's Lost no better, no more learned, no more informed than when they started watching. Nearly all of the themes played out over the course of six seasons are rendered moot.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Red Brooklyn

It was very relevant to Jack's journey, because he couldn't complete his journey without it.

I'm sorry, I fully disagree.

We're shown Jack as a divorced father who's still a doctor but was previously married to Juliet. That means nothing to his journey of spiritual enlightenment.

[quote=Red Brooklyn;6832164]All the events of the FSW happened, they just happened in "after life" time and space./quote]

Occam's Razor.