Lost Season 5 (REVIEW)

To me, LOST is a show that works because of one thing: mystery. It presents you with a series of unexplainable or mysterious phenomena, and then proceeds to give you a series of clues--or lack thereof--which allows viewers to postulate all sorts of crazy ideas and theories about what's going on. In my opinion, everything else comes as secondary to that. Sure, you have great characters who conflict with each other, and you have all sorts of plot strands and backstories, but what ultimately keeps me watching is the idea of explaining the unexplainable--of picking up these little strands and pieces of dialog and forming them into a hypothesis in my head. It is that experience that makes this show so satisfying.

So now we come to Season 5 of LOST--a season that is predominantly plot-focused. This isn't bad, perse, except it means that we're not focusing on the mystery and instead focusing on the narrative-vehicle in hopes of arriving at the destination the show wants to take us. Unfortunately, this means that the characters can take a backseat and ultimately become arbitrary plot devices to keep this story going. Jack can try to come up with any reason he wants to find this H-Bomb and blow up the island, but it all feels forced by the plot--the plot compels the characters to arrive at this loop because the new dichotomy of time-travel demands it. This means that we're not so much getting drama or story created by characters and their decisions--think back to Season 3, Jack saves Kate & Sawyer during Ben's surgery, or even Season 2, when the characters argue about interrogating Ben--instead, it means that the plot creates the characters, which makes it much less effective and believable. One thing that I think could have helped this situation was to add one or two more episodes in between the crucial plot decisions. Many of the episodes felt rushed without much time for the characters to contemplate their current predicament and forge their own motivations while being out of place in 1977. Instead we, as the audience, are rushed through these characters' decisions to a predefined conclusion.

However, season 5 does have its fair share of mysteries. The opening scene from the season finale is perhaps the best case in point. Ever since season 3, the show has taunted us with the idea of Jacob--who is he, what does he do, and what is his role in all of this? We are finally given a glimpse of this new character in a dialog that hints at the ever-expanding mythos of LOST, perhaps dating centuries back in time. The pieces of this dialog are just a plethora of clues for the viewers to deconstruct and then place in their own personal theories. It is the dialogs like these that make the show's mysteries what they are.

Lastly, I'm going to talk about the notion of receiving answers. As a viewer, I want to know more about the Dharma initiative, so what would be the best way for the show to give us that information? Through endless backstory flashbacks that contain no immediate suspense or tension or relevance to what's happening at the current time? Nope, so here comes the introduction of time travel to place our favorite group of stranded castaways in the midst of the great Dharma initiative to give the viewers the answers they long have waited for. As I've said before, this allows the show to give us exposition in the context of something else: the LOSTies' search for survival and reunion. With this added sense of tension and character placement, the viewers are given the exposition while at the same time caring for the characters in the context of the exposition. Jack, Hurley, and Kate could die at any moment--this couldn't happen in a flashback. Essentially, the time-travel plot-device, however illogical or nonsensical it may be, works extremely well to explain backstory.

But in the end, what do we really want from the show? More answers? Because as time drags on, I start to doubt if that's what I really want from this show. Do I really want to know how and why the smoke monster operates, where the whispering voices are coming from, and why dead people, stallions, and visions pop up all over the jungle? Sometimes, I, as a viewer, just want clues, and more clues to draw my own inferences to decide what's going on. I don't always need a concrete explanation, because when you have an explanation, you don't have a mystery, so why keep watching?

It reminds me of a magic trick. First, LOST has given us the pledge: the normal plane crash on the deserted tropical island. Next, it has given us the turn: hatches, polar bears, statue feet, mysterious Others, unexplainable phenomena. Finally it must give us the prestige: the truth, the answers to all these mysteries.
However, It's been five years however since the pledge. The Prestige seems to be coming, finally, but we'll have to wait for the final season to figure out if it was worth waiting for.

So, see you in nine months.

2 Things I Like About LOST: Season 5

After you can get over the initial facade of time travel and all the science fiction implications it carries with it, LOST has returned to its roots in season 5 to become a better show than it previously was. There are two things LOST does correctly for the most part that make it a much more interesting show this season than compared to last season.

The first thing that season 5 of LOST does correctly is reintroduce fresh, new ideas and concepts. Throughout the course of the first two seasons there are these crazy elements that make the show interesting, such as polar bears on tropical islands; mysterious, unknown groups who kidnap people from lists and take children; whispering voices in the woods; a radio signal repeating a series of numbers for the past so-many years; an underground hatch with a button that resets a timer every 108 minutes for an unknown reason; and so on. However, these new ideas and concepts decreased in growth up until season 4. Season 4 just took the established premise and used it as a war zone without introducing too many major ideas. They explained some of the older mysteries, but did not really expand the show into new territories.
However, Season 5 of LOST has finally took the show into fresh ground where they can do many more things that were previously not possible. By using time travel to jump into the island's history, the show engages the characters and audience in the backstory of the island without giving it to us through boring exposition with a foreknown resolution. By simply having the LOSTies in the midst of the action in the past, it makes the island's history much more interesting.
We also get two time-lines running parallel to each other, and the potential benefits of this concept haven't been fully explored yet. It puts the present-day LOSTies in a unique position by having to blend in with Dharma, or fabricate their identity as a "Hostile" in order to fit in. This concept also puts the other present-day 2008 LOSTies in a confused position as to what course to take next. The past season or two of LOST was becoming stagnant for treading the same ground over and over without making any new conceptual progress in terms of world elements (Jacob's cabin was one of the few new ones), but season 5 has finally introduced some new and interesting ideas that make the show entertaining again.

Continuing from that, season 5 of LOST also gives you little idea what's going to happen next. One main reason I did not like season 4 of LOST as much as the prior seasons was the unnecessary foresight of what was going to happen to all the characters. I understand that the flashbacks were becoming repetitive and useless, but the flashforwards destroyed an entire element of surprise by GIVING you the future outcome of the present situation. You weren't worried that certain characters were going to die--you saw them alive and well in the future. You weren't excited or tense when the helicopter barely made it off the island--you knew it was going to happen. Even though the flashforwards were necessary to give the show much needed life, they came with the unfortunate side-effect of being a suspense killer. During season 4, you almost felt like a passive viewer, because you were viewing a story while already knowing the ending.
However, in season 5, LOST has once again moved into a position where you have nearly NO idea what is going to happen next. That was one thing I loved about LOST during the first two seasons: you have all these interesting ideas, but you have no idea how they will be utilized and what the ultimate goal is for them (other than get off the island). In this season, you can finally sense that feeling again that you don't know what's going to happen next, and because of that you can be more engaged in the show.

As of right now, the time-travel concept is paying off for the show in its current state. However, it seems all too easy for the show to misuse this concept to fall in a convoluted plot mess. In the end, only time will tell.

Lost Season 5: Jumping off the Deep End

Lost has jumped off the deep end. It is approaching the shark. It is coming closer to being a bathos than ever before.

Lost has always been plagued by questions of a ridiculous and a ludicrous nature. You have dead people randomly cropping up and talking to other characters. You have black smoke monsters flying through the island and ripping people into the sky. You have countless unexplainable phenomena.

This worked fine. I didn't need a solid explanation. You actually want the show to explain in quantum physics why dead human bodies re-animate and then verbally soliloquize in the presence of other characters?

Up until now, the show either brushes these unexplainable events aside, or they hint to their explanation through subtle cues in dialog. You get little snippets of science-fiction, time travel, paradoxes, experiments, and quantum physics, but each is never put out in the open for the viewers to dwell upon as the core plot element of the show.

I liked this. It worked because you were allowed as the viewer to piece together your own conclusions on what was going on. And it didn't make all the explanations awkward by forcing the characters to converse about plot elements.

That is the difference with this season's opener. They fully acknowledge the ludicrous, the unexplainable, the ridiculous, the oh-my-gosh-what-is-going-on and throw it out in the open for all the show to dwell upon. This is a huge jump from keeping all the science-fiction, all the subtle plot elements on the side line. It's an understandable leap to steer the show towards a conclusion where all the loose ends are tied up, but this doesn't make it feel any better. The current setup feels so needlessly ambiguous towards its chartered course.

And finally, I am sicked and tired of "twists" that put previous characters in new roles. I know, it was cool to see Desmond as a random jogger who talked with Jack and then he was in the hatch, but in the big picture of things, who cares? Did Desmond knowing Jack beforehand have any real significance? No.

And now they've been doing this little "let's pull the LOST universe together even tighter from two degrees of separation to 1.5!" so that all your random characters continue to crop up in roles that jump from one side of the spectrum to the other. I don't CARE that some lady in some dream was the same lady who was in some other random place doing this thing that totally doesn't explain anything. That's not a twist--that's just a ridiculous character tie-in that makes this universe feel needlessly smaller and smaller.

LOST has always been hovering over the pool of science fiction, the super natural, and magic tricks. Only now has it finally taken the leap to jump in and approach the shark. Whether or not it succeeds in missing the shark or jumping over it, I don't know, but I'll continue to watch it.

To utterly misquote Alfred from the Dark Knight: "Things were always going to get corny before they got explained."
And Harvey Dent: "The mystery is always awkwardest before the explanation. And I assure you, the explanation is coming."
Random LOST Fan: No more dead characters!
Season 1 Viewer: Yea!
Theorist Fanatic: Things are more unexplainable than ever!
Harvey Dent: So be it. No more mysteries...
Harvey Dent: ...Explain them... with TIME-TRAVEL.

Battlestar Galactica (Season 3)

Season 3 Mini! Review¡

Battlestar Galactica is a show about an old man who was in Blade Runner who runs a ship with his son and crew and they have to run away from bad guy robots called Cylons and then at the end of season 2 they decide to settle on a planet instead of finding the long lost colony of Earth but things go haywire because the Cylons find them again and kind of enslave them in occupation but that doesn't make sense because earlier in the season they said they wanted to be peaceful friends with the humans so I don't know what's up with that.

Moving on in a more serious tone, Season 3 starts off with a booming (1 YEAR LATER) subtitle to it. This opens up all the multiple possibilities for character and plot development, new twists, etc. However, I could have done without the not-so-obvious-please-make-it-more-obvious political commentary for the first five or so episodes on New Caprica.

Battlestar Galactica is a character-driven show, as opposed to a more mystery driven-show such as LOST. This means that the character's personalities and motives drive the plot rather than an arbitrary mystery set up on a jungle island. This is all well and good in BSG, except when the character development starts to go in circles. At the beginning of the third season you have this new setup where EVERYTHING has changed from the previous seasons, but then they practically throw most of it away six episodes in and start going in circles with the character relationships so that they are back to season 1 all over again. I was all for the characters developing, changing their relationships, motives, dreams, outlooks on life, etc, but when the characters do it so much that they come full circle into where they were six months ago? I don't know. It seems slightly ridiculous, bordering on absurd.
Also, the characters get even more unbelievable when they forgive a fellow shipmate who stopped the end of the war by not letting the humans kill the Cylons once and for all. It was basically like, the humans were about to launch a nuke into the Cylon death star that would set off a chain-reaction to kill all the baddies in the whole show and end this crusade once and for all, but one little passenger sabotages the torpedo and makes it a dud and the Admiral forgives him and says, who cares we did not want mass genocide anyway, we prefer to fight to the death manly style instead and potentially lose this war because we are humane people.

Despite that, three seasons in, Battlestar Galactica is a show of a much higher quality than LOST and 24. It is consistently better instead of being a roller coaster of good and bad episodes. It actually has real substance and meaning to every episode instead of tantalizing you with the juicy steak of mystery then pulling it away from you until next season. It actually has a story arc instead of recycling the same screenplay every season with the same characters who haven't changed and are still falling susceptible to the same predictable plot twists over and over.

To rank Battlestar Galactica (S3), I wouldn't say it's better than the second season of LOST and it still never reaches the level achieved in the 3-Episode Story Arc "Pegasus" in BSG Season 2. BSG Season 3 doesn't quite top the other contenders in every aspect, all the time, but it is a consistently satisfying and well-made show, and one of the best on television.

BattleStar Galactica :: Season 3: 9.3/10.0

Lost - Season 4 - Finale

I think we've finally felt the backlash of getting the flashforwards handed to us.

The one thing that separated this season of lost from the previous seasons for me, was predictability. The flashforwards essentially have told us the end of the season before-hand, so we're just trying to figure out the "HOW" and not the "WHAT" of what is going to happen.
How would you feel if someone told you the ending of last season's superb finale, and then you just watched the episode to find out all the in-between details? That's what it basically felt like for this season's finale, and almost the whole season.

In essence, I thought this season's finale was the weakest of the four thus far. The way the transitions were made into the "future" flashforwards, seemed awkward at best, especially Locke telling Jack that he is going to "have to lie." Also, the way the show went back to the previous flashforwards of last year's finale didn't seem inventive to me; it seemed compulsive. It seemed like the writers had no idea where the show was going last year and needed to go back to these flashforwards to tie up the loose ends, and because they finally decided what the characters would say to each other instead of adlibbing it all.
The setup for next year's season seemed to make every character as dead-serious as ever, and the final twist of the episode wasn't even a twist, thanks to the three minute conversation build-up that practically said, "SO-AND-SO IS IN THE COFFIN LOL WE'RE ABOUT TO SHOW YOU HAHAHA."
And then I was like, 'great, now we can't be worried about that character's fate anymore.'

I really think the writers had the show like this:
Season #1) Season 1 story Arc Covered + Maybe Two + A little of Three
Season #2) Two + Three Arc covered
Season #3) Season Three + Four Covered - But NOT Five, or Six.
And then they got to season 4 and they finally, Finally, decided on which of the many remaining theories they could end the show on over the next two years, and finally set course on that heading.

As for where I think the show is headed next year?
Season #5: It will be the LOSTies trying to get back to the island (haha, a clever switch from season 1), and there will be flashbacks of what happened on the island up to the present day.
Season #6: The LOSTies, the Whidmores, the Others, and all other interested parties (because they're bound to multiply) will finally confront 'The Secret of Lost Island­™' and discover it was all a dream thanks to LeChuck.

LOST - Season 4 - Ep 11

This last episode of LOST pretty much embodies everything I currently loathe about the show.
1. I hate it when they create more flashbacks/forwards (as it doesn't matter when there's no plot progression) that don't build up character, but instead create melodramatic sequences about people we no longer care about. Even when the flashbacks/forwards create a nice little self-contained story they're still hard to like as they're chopping away time from the main plot.
2. What's the point of letting Jack have a life crisis when we know he gets off the island and is safe?
3. The main thing that I'm interested in is the mystery - Dharma - The Others - The Hatch - Scientific Experiments. When we have these "filler" episodes that supposedly do something other than progress the plot, all it does is make me wait for the next "real" episode where something actually happens. The only thing that happened in this episode is that Claire ran off chasing a hallucinatory vision of a lost family member. And seriously, that gimmick is getting annoying. It might've been cool the first couple times, but they've been using it over, and over, and over for 4 seasons now in the exact same manner with no explanation. And if making Claire run off into the jungle is supposed to be plot progression, then I am sad.

I probably liked LOST best back in season 2. It was the tale of the survivors, and Locke and Jack, in a mysterious hatch on a stranded island, where unknown forces would kidnap the children and certain people on lists, while also loving to play mind games with you; 4-8-15-16-23-42 would repeat on an endless signal that a Navy outpost man heard and went to a madhouse for, and that also happens to be the code for a button which the characters don't know if they should or should not push; and then crazy zany maps of dharma hatches appear on the wall when you put the hatch in lock down mode.
It was mysteriously suspenseful and every element of that mystery was just so intriguing and I loved it.

Now we have the story of characters splitting into so many sub-groups we can't count (The Good Others, the Bad Others, the Jack LOSTies, the Locke LOSTies, the Good Boat People, the Bad Boat People, the Whidmore People), all fighting for something, but we know the ultimate outcome thanks to these flashforwards.
Something feels missing.

LOST - Season 4 - Ep 09

I think I know why I haven't been liking LOST this season that much:
1) You basically know what's going to happen since the season opener, and you were waiting for this showdown the whole time. All the in-between episodes just felt like they were killing time and prolonging the real story progression towards the REAL showdown. (Yes, I'm aware LOST is infamous for killing time and prolonging one subplot four times the length it should be, but it seems oh so more evident this season since nothing much is happening.)
Now that this showdown is finally over, I want to watch where it's going from here, because I really have no idea.
2) The mystery element has been lessened over time so you basically have an overview idea of who is good, who is bad, and what they want. This makes the filler even more unbearable since you're not looking for as many clues.

But that being said, I think tonight's episode was the best of the season by far. By the end of the episode, it really puts the whole show in kind of an epic story arc that is finally being revealed. And, it actually backed up this guy's crazy theory I read last month which now seems totally true. I could link to it, but I won't.

Lost.Season.4.25

4 Episodes In = The Mid-Season of the 8 filmed episodes. After those 8, there will be a short break and then 5 more episodes of the originally planned 16, now cut down to 13, due to the Writers' Strike.

Reviews:
401 - Season Premiere: 8.0/10
402 - 4 New Characters: 8.6/10
403 - Sayid The Assassin: 9.0/10
404 - Kate In Kourt: 8.2/10

Impressions:
The flashfowards are superior to the flashbacks in two ways:
1) They advance the story. The flashbacks could never do this as they could only provide character background.
2) They add another layer of character development. The flashbacks can only shape the character up the the current version of that character on the island. The flashforwards can further define the characters after the crash again.

What happened to the remaining others who were going to some ruins? I have a feeling that the next or final season of LOST will be about the remaining LOSTies + the returning LOSTies (from the mainland) vs the OTHERs vs the people the RESCUERs are working for. And this will all take place in a showdown at some kind of ruins on the LOST island where the secret will finally, or not finally be revealed.

The next episode looks like it will be good, as Desmond and Sayid are about the only characters who have consistently had their head in the game and not side-tracked by emotional subplots.

LOST.Season 4.Episode.1.

SPOOOIIILIERSSSAWIODJAWODJOIAWdjoiawd

It's finally back.

Honestly, it was what I expected--nothing more, nothing less.

More flashforwards, more mysteries, more nonsense, but since I don't have the curiosity-aura on me right now, I cared less than I have in the past.I wasn't looking forward so much to the season opener as I was to the whole season, because I wanted to be shocked by some new revelations, but I knew that wasn't going to happen in the first episode.
The first episode refreshes the viewer on what happened, then sets in motion the events that will take place over the rest of the season.
- Locke splits up the LOSTies into the two categories--(The Locke group: don't trust the rescuers, and the Jack group: let's get rescued!)
- There are a total of six survivors from Oceanic Flight 815 brought back to land (another concept ripped from Battlestar Galactica, of the 12 cylon models), three of them currently identified, and they must lie about what happened on the island because Dharma is watching them?
- The rescuers aren't who they said they were! SURPRISE!
Anyway, I expected most of that to happen, and it did, so there were no real twists in the season opener like Season 2, or even the sucky twist in Season 3.

Score? 8/10

Battle of the TV Shows!

I am going to attempt to rate all the television shows I have seen.

24
Season 1 (9.0/10.0) - 24 is interesting!
Season 2 (9.3/10.0) - 24 gets predictable, but still is good!
Season 3 (6.7/10.0) - 24 is ultra-predictable, has terrible plot twists, and is a terrible show!
Season 4 (7.4/10.0) - 24 starts off good, but ends up in the endless 24 plot cycle!
Season 5 (8.0/10.0) - 24 has some good plot twists, but this show is too predictable!
Season 6 (7.5/10.0) - Probably the best starting of a season, but gets really boring again in the plot cycle!

LOST
Season 1 (n/a) - I didn't watch it!
Season 2 (9.4/10.0) - The pinnacle of mystery and suspense, but ruined by constant filler and unnecessary flashbacks!
Season 3 (9.3/10.0) - Perhaps containing the most awesome season finale ever conceived, also ruined by illogical scenarios which are never explained, and unnecessary flashbacks!

Battlestar Galactica
Season 1 (8.6/10.0) - A pretty good show!
Season 2 (9.2/10.0) - An excellent show!

PRISONBREAK (from watching about 1/3 of the episodes)
Season 1 (8.5/10.0) - An interesting premise!
Season 2 (8.0/10.0) - The show keeps going after they escape! What nonsense is this?!
Season 3 (7.5/10.0) - They're back in another prison with the same characters and have to escape again! I'm sure there's a very formidable reason, but I don't watch the show so it seems ridiculous to me!

So, Battlestar Galactica is the best show, but LOST is more enjoyable due to the mystery element; 24 gets really boring after watching 2 seasons and then falling into predictable cycles; Prisonbreak just manages to keep going after the plot expired and its due date tasted nasty.

p.s. Sorry for using so many exclamation marks. I've been reading too many dinosaur comics.

LOST - Season 3 Finale

There are two ways to view LOST:

"Man, this show is so crazy. So much new stuff is happening and there are twists around every corner. So much unexplainable stuff happens that gives you another mystery to solve. This show is awesome."

or...

"Man, this show is so ridiculous. They never stick to one storyline or answer any questions. All this unexplainable stuff keeps happening and the characters are incosistent. This show sucks."

I'm part of one group.

Goodbye LOST. See you in 8 months.


3 Seasons of LOST summed up in 30 seconds

LOST - Season 3.9

I really think that the last episode of LOST was one of the best episodes all season. The flashback was interesting and tied directly to the story. The conflicts progressed on the beach side. Locke's path ventured into a new element of mystery in Lost. Jacob's "house" was one of the most frightening, and mysterious scenes ever in Lost, and it seems like the new "hatch element" that I've been waiting for.

It's been interesting to see how they're finally revealing the island's mysteries through dialogue and flashback. I've always been afraid that doing that might be extremely ridiculous or corny, but LOST has seemed to pull it off so far.

So many questions seem to be being answered, and so many new ones are being raised. Yeah, it's that thing LOST is infamous for.

LOST - A Not So Comprehensive Review

I will no longer stand for comments saying that the show does not reveal anything.

"But today, you have practically 25/100 pieces of the puzzle! Back in season 1 you only had like 7/100 pieces." - Me, about 6 months ago.
(6 Months Later = Today) Now you have about 37/100 pieces of the puzzle. You know that everything was orchestrated for Ben's surgery, but you don't know why the others are on the island or why they steal kids. You know there is the Dharma Intitiative vs. Hostiles conflict, and that the others live in a nice town.

Lost is getting kind of boring actually, because the mystery is disappearing. They need a new hatch, or something like that that will resurrect the show from falling off a cliff. They need a new mystery element to come in and save the day. The hatch was an amazing story element, and now that they blew it up, they need to do something else besides having the LOSTies get captured over and over again by the others.

One more thing. They need to get all these crazy characters' motives straight.
BEN: The evil second-in-command bad guy. (OTHERS SIDE)
Juliet: Appears to be an other, but wants to get outta here? ( ??? SIDE? )
Jack: Wants to get off the island, but wants to save his friends, but lives in the Others' Camp. (??? SIDE? )
Locke: Doesn't want to let anyone off the island, and is crazy? ( ??? SIDE? )
BEN'S DAUGHTER: Attacks the others, sabotages them, interfers with their plans, yet somehow works with them and lives with them at the same time (??? SIDE? )

THE BEST CHARACTERS:
SAYID: Will kill the others without questioning motives.
DESMOND: Sees the future, and is british.

THE GETTING ANNOYING CHARACTERS:
JACK: ...What is he doing!?!
LOCKE: ... What is he doing!?!?
KATE: ...
SAYWER: Nicknames are getting old, but he's still funny.

The 2 reason to watch LOST:
Funny dialogs between Hurley and Sawyer, and
The story.

That's it.

Lost is still on...

LOST is at a defining moment in the show. They are either going to destroy the show by confuzzling it with all sorts of random plot-holes, or they will finally tie everything together.

Every time it seems like you're about to get an answer, they open the door and present you with another question. Then it takes 2 more episodes to get back to that question, and they still don't answer it.

Needless to say, alot of stuff happened in the episode, but it all felt like it was pushing us BACK in the search for answers. I want to see something EXTRAORDINARY happen, like somebody leaves the island. But nope, the sub blows up, and now we're gonna get stuck watching the others and the LOSTies argue for five episodes.

Next week on LOST, it's revealed that one of the characters is really a mole from the beginning.
If that happens, then lost really has Jumped the Shark(tm).

Tired of Lost.

LOST - Season 3.5

There are about 8-10 more episodes this season (presuming the show ends in May). Here is my prediction of what will happen:

- Ben is no longer assumed as the leader of the others; Ben is the man under the leader, kind of like Darth Vader and the emperor.
- There are two methods to becoming an other: brainwashing, and the voluntary way. Jack is a voluntary guy. Evidently, all the kidnapped passengers are voluntary also, but only after getting over the trauma stage of being planewrecked on an island and captured by a group of savages.
- The LOSTies will meet with Jack and ask what's going on? and he will respond only with, "It's not what it looks like. These are GOOD people!"
- A third faction will be fully introduced, along with the current OTHERs and LOSTies.
- They will go back to the Russian scientists, but only for the season finale.

QUESTIONS:
- If the others are so super-human, then why do they want to kill themselves so willingly? And any super-human powers they have only seem to be intelluctual or psychological to them. They die alot and get schooled by LOSTy violence. And I guess if you are "angry," "scared," or have any negative traits, you cannot gain this super intellectual and pyschological power.
- Jack and that grey haired overweight guy really get along good after 2 days of being back on the main island. They forgive Jack for almost killing Ben, betraying the others, blackmailing them, and all that. There's no better way to settle it than with a game of touch-football!
- How can that French lady live on the island for 16? years, not ask questions, not explore beyond a 2 mile radius of jungle, and then not explain everything she knows to the only new friends she has?
...MMM...

LOST - 2 Types of Episodes

There are two types of episodes in LOST: the ones that developed character and have the characters exploring, and the ones that develop the plot and progress it.
The last episode was about 9/10 character, and 1/10 plot.
Was it a good episode? Yes...
Did anything happen? No...

When LOST first premiered I was not that excited about a Survivor (fiction) show, mixed with Gilligan's Island and Cast Away. I think I watched five minutes of the first episode and the whole second episode. The show was OKAY but I wasn't too interested. Polar bears, repeating radio signals in the jungle for 15 years, french ladies running around the island, one of the passengers is really a convict... Yeah.

I saw probably about 3-5 whole episodes and then I saw the season finale which was awesome. The one real thing that got me hooked onto the show was the plot. The characters are good yes, but they are not the reason I watch the show. I was struck by curiosity about this weird hatch on a jungle island, repeating radio messages for 15 years, polar bears, a group of "others" and all sortsa weird stuff.

It is nice to see the characters interacting with each other and exploring the island, but it would be even better if it was relevant to the master plot.

Side-Note: I wish ABC would just STOP TALKING about LOST and promising SHOCKING REVELATIONS or AMAZING TWISTS.
Because:
1: When you watch the episode, none of that stuff really happens, and
2: I would probably enjoy the episode more if the twist caught me off-guard (Michael in the hatch anyone? :-O ) and...
3: Lots of the AMAZING REVELATIONS they give us, were already inferred by 90% of the viewing audience, except they never said it OUT LOUD in the show. Then they finally say it out loud, and they expect us to think it's a twist or something.

LOST - That last episode.

The last episode of LOST was boring and it made me realize three things:

Nothing happened in the last episode.
This episode was basically boring. The whole episode had all the characters arguing in each other's faces and acting crazy about nothing.
Sawyer and Kate are the first LOSTies to actually ask questions about the island's mysteries flat out, and once again they get a partial answer which is open to speculation (The kids have a better life...).
Jack for some reason can't stop screaming or yelling, and going on a temper tantrum.

And I've been waiting forever for something to happen. The first episode of the (NEW 2nd half) season progressed the story alot. The second episode with Desmond explained mysteries, raised questions, and progressed the plot a little.
But I'm still waiting for them to rescue Jack and attack the others which they have literally been promising for about 5 episodes in the NEXT WEEK ON LOST, but instead fill the episodes with 20 minutes of flashbacks which could've contained more story...

No mysteries were revealed.
NEXT WEEK ON LOST: 3 of the answers to the biggest mysteries are revealed!
But really, nothing is revealed, or nothing that you already knew, or didn't even care about knowing.

I enjoy mysteries and hints rather than answers and explanations.
It's true. I don't want to be flat out told what the hatch does, why the others are there, what the smoke monster is, and all that stuff. I want it to be a mystery. I want them to keep feeding me hints. I don't want the answers, not right now at least.
I want to form my own theories about all the clues out there. I want to keep thinking about the big picture.

But I do want the answers eventually. If LOST ever finishes without answering all the questions, I will kill somebody.

LOST

LOST - Borrowing from other media.

Desmond is Donnie Darko. (Time travelling, controlling fate, altering the future)
Hurley is the guy from A Beautiful Mind. (Seeing imaginary people and interacting with them)
Sayid is kind of like Jack Bauer (war torture machine).
The rest - I don't know.

There are two realms of LOST episodes. There are the ones that are heart-wrenching, inspiring episodes like the one where Boone dies. Then there are the ones about Science Fiction, weird stuff, and hallucinations.
It's hard to know what kind of show you're getting into when you watch an episode. You better brace yourself for being confused and having your suspension of disbelief challenged by crazy plot elements.

LOST - Being weird and confusing all the time, and not stopping it.

NEXT WEEK ON LOST:
You will watch the whole show with your mouth switching between half-open gaps, and full open gaps. The occasional gasp will be heard. 3/27 MYSTERIES will be REVEALED. Stay tune, because you've been waiting 3½ seasons for this. >:D

LOST is back

Despite the negative comments about how the show is too slow, nothing happens, they don't reveal enough, it all amounts to nothing, there are too many flashbacks, or there are too many plot-holes...

...I still love LOST 5x better than 24.

Let's recap:
You have the Dharma Initiative that appears to be a special scientific experiment that challenges all known scientific laws, which occured sometime during the 80s--and they supposedly built all the hatches, stations, and all the stuff on the Island.

You have the Others who are a group of MODERN people on another island off-shore who for some reason play psychological mind games and are very smart. They also keep prisoners (The blonde lady is there against her will?) and want only the "good" people or the children.

You know the island has some mystical powers of black smoke, hatches that have the power to split planes in half, and electro-magnetic pulses eminating from deep within the island.

And then finally we have our LOSTies who are stuck in the middle of this giant mess being tossed left and right, without a clue what's going on. One of them should finally get the guts to say: "Hello others, how did you get on this island, what are you doing here, and why do you kill all of us?" The LOSTies might ask some kind of question like this once or twice, and then they'll leave it alone forever like nothing happened.

I still like LOST. :(

LOST - What will happen the next half season

Jack:
Jack will be in a tight spot for about two episodes. He's either gonna get beat up, escape, or I don't know.
Kate & Sawyer:
They're going to try and escape but instead they meet up with that Girl (With the super slingshot of doom!) and learn more about the island. They might escape, but how can they if they're really on a seperate island?
Locke:
Locke will go on more "spirit-finding journeys" to discover "the island's true motives" so he can find something to do besides hunt boars.
Desmond:
Using his super powers, he's going to kind of go insane and he will die or something else will happen to him. His explanation of powers will be as credible as the black smoke monster, or how they escaped the hatch with no injury.
The 2 New characters:
They are going to hang around trying to find something to do, offer some useless commentary on the situation, and then die or disappear.
Sayid and Hurley:
They might do something meaningful with the other characters.
Charlie, Claire, and the rest:
Nothing's gonna happen. At all.
Benry, Henry, Ben:
I don't really know what will happen if he lives. I mean come on, if they tell Ben what Jack did, what do you think will happen to Jack? Oh wait... Ben promised Jack a ticket off the island.

In January 24 will be back on the air. It will get about 7 episodes down (The 4 hour season premiere) and it will be 1 week behind LOST when it premieres in February.
24 and LOST will be head to head for 16 straight weeks and then clash with 2 hour season finales in May.

The only reason I made this entry was so I would keep my 4 day streak.