Lost

[robbie3982]

Who''s ready for Lost tonight??? Do you think this will be the last season? FI heard/read somewhere that the producers don''t want to go on after this season. I hope they do though.

 

[Scintillating]

So excited for the premiere tonight.

yeay.

Scintillating...

 

[Mara]

meh..i''m sure it will be more of the same, more Q''s and weird happenings and no real answers!!!!

but of course, tivo is set.

 

[FireGoddess]

I''m excited, but the patience is wearing thin. There were a few good episodes last year, strung out with a ton of bad ones that gave no new information. Most of the people who used to watch the show with me have stopped, out of boredom and frustration.

There was an open letter to the creators of Lost on msn.com yesterday pleading for the show to stop resting on its laurels from all the season 1 praise and get back to what made the show so good before. I couldn''t agree more.

 

[njc]

The producers were “on the radio” this morning (it was a taped interview) and they were saying something about they had a certain timeline in their head for how long the show should last and ABC had another. ABC thinks as long as its making money, they’ll keep going, but the producers don’t want to have to drag anything out if they don’t have to. They already have the ending written and everything planned out, but they never said if this was it or not.

I tried to watch the show the first season, but couldn’t figure out what was going on (it was like 3#) and gave up. DH and I stumbled upon the big wrap up last week and I have to say I get it now and am a little interested now. Only problems is Wednesday is my softball night and we don’t have a TiVo, so in a couple weeks when softball is over, I may be back in the boat of trying to figure out whats going on!

 

[littlelysser]

I''m watching too...though not expecting lots and lots...but who knows.

 

[Fancy605]

Oh I am so excited to watch lost. This is actually the first time I''ve watched it on air really. I watched the DVDs last winter and this summer. So I am excited to finally see it without accidentally figuring out things that happened from preview comercials and such.

Sooo tonight''s episode was---nevermind, I am not going to comment until the other coast has had a chance to see it.

 

[larussel03]

I love watching it, but FI always says "nothing ever happens" I guess that''s true but I like the suspense...even if not that much happens!

 

[Mara]

sheesh talk about more questions than answers yet again after watching tonite''s show!! and does anyone else get the urge to punch fish-eyed Ben in the face when they show his beady little eyes?

interesting opening when they were showing the group of them in the ''small hidden community'' thing on the island. and then they alluded to being dharma leftovers. but what is the deal. and why are they totally messing with them?!?!

 

[Jelly]

Not only did i want to punch Ben...but I wanted to punch Jack''s wife Sara!!

Who was Chachi? And why was he locked up too?

 

[Cailet]

Date: 10/5/2006 1:42:13 AM
Author: Mara
sheesh talk about more questions than answers yet again after watching tonite''s show!! and does anyone else get the urge to punch fish-eyed Ben in the face when they show his beady little eyes?

interesting opening when they were showing the group of them in the ''small hidden community'' thing on the island. and then they alluded to being dharma leftovers. but what is the deal. and why are they totally messing with them?!?!

Funny - the Ben/Henry Gale character was supposed to be only a 3 story arc(he was supposed to escape from the hatch never to be seen again) - but apparently the actor tested SOOO well with audiences/producers that they made him into "Ben". Totally wanted to punch him -- in fact the whole time Kate was walking down the beach I was shouting "B!tch slap him! Backhand right into his face!" to the TV - my bf got a kick out of that!

You know - I watch the show thinkng everything is a set up, so it''s hard for me to buy anything they show. Like the kid in the cage across from Sawyer - probably a plant by the "others". Juliette - totally playing a role to manipulate Jack.

Hopefully they will pick up the pace. I read that the producers have a whole "ending" written or at least decided on and ABC is trying to get them to drag it out for as long as possible - haven''t heard that they want to end it THIS year but that they have a timeline in mind. So at least they have a plan for the show to head somewhere. Unless of course it is all PR. hehe

 

[Mara]

both greg and i hate hate hate Ben!!! he''s just so slimey looking! with those bug eyes!

the thing i kept thinking the whole show was where are they getting all of these things? like the file on jack, the taser gun things? those are all recent acquisitions. so if they are dharma leftovers and got stuck on the island so they what, made the best they could out of it? then how do they have a connection with the real world? or maybe this is that mystic part of it that has been there all along, like they have figured out a way to get what they need without ever leaving? *twilight zone music*

this is what i mean about more Q''s not really answers!!! because it seems like everything they do on this show is just designed to make you ask yourself more things! like yeah who was chachi? and what is that weird fish biscuit thing in the cage with sawyer?

i kept thinking that it seemed like all three of them were under some sort of ''behavioral study'' kind of thing. like jack with the juliette character, she was totally just messing with his mind the whole time. and then sawyer with the escape, greg thought that chachi was a plant as well. but all the kid did was escape and then let sawyer out. was it to see if sawyer would go? or if he would listen in times of panic? and then with kate, having her shower in the weird big gym kinda bathroom and then putting on the dress and messing with her head. it all just seemed like some weird scenario things to see ''what will she/he do in this situation?'' whats the point?

anyway, greg had a good point last nite. we were saying how desperate housewives is getting way out there with it''s plots and they are hardly believable. well lost is hardly believable as well EXCEPT that they are outside the rules of regular society on this show. there is no society. so outlandish things like people being taken hostage and messed with and all that is acceptable on a show like this. you are more likely to believe it than on DH when someone hit and runs someone else and the police never even investigate it (that we have seen)...or choose any of the other 10 times someone breaks a law on DH and it''s okay. so i think that''s what keeps people not quite so irritated with lost. haha.

 

[littlelysser]

I SOOO did not puffy heart Lost.

Um, why is their a beach community on the island?? And why are these seemingly normal people so hip to torturing other people. Call me crazy, but book club, cd player, couches = civility. Keeping people in a bear cage and feeding them fish biscuits? Not so civil.

And word on the tasers and the files on the people - where did they get this info?

WHY WHY WHY? and I do not say why in an intrigued way...but more why in what the (*^$# kind of way.

If the Others don''t want anyone from the outside world messing with their island paradise, I''d be alright with that. BUT HOW THE (*^$# did Walt''s comic book predict the future? And the numbers? and Locke? And JUST THE WHOLE DAMN SHOW!!!!!! GAH AND FEH AND MEH.

I am soooo annoyed.

 

[Cailet]

Yeah - I wasn''t so sure they were Dharma leftovers.
When Jack asks that Juliette kind of brushes him off in a way that seemed to me she was saying
"i''m not telling you who we are but if you want to think we are these dharma folks go ahead"

And I think that the Others can get off the island -- I mean Ben/Henry told Michael how to get home on the boat right? Of course we have yet to see if that actually happens. My guess is that Michael and Walt end up running into Sail boat dude''s rich girlfriend and try to rescue the rest of the folks (all the while with Michael trying to cover up what he did)

 

[FireGoddess]

Irritated!!!!

Ben is SO creepy. The whole Kate in a dress on the beach thing skeeved me out.

I could go on, but I''m too irritated and everyone covered what I wanted to say!! It''s time for some answers, not more flashbacks and more questions.

 

[FireGoddess]

I thought this ''open letter to the writers of Lost'' was great.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=235632

 

[Jelly]

That is quite a humorous article!

Dear ''Lost''
An Open Letter to the Show''s Producers

Dear J.J. Abrams, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelhof:

We''re huge fans of your work on "Lost" — but we feel for you. Right now you''re probably still steaming over getting slighted at this year''s Emmys. As huge fans of the show we have to tell you: you brought a lot of it on yourselves.

We don''t really blame you. It would take the self-restraint of a saint to not let all of your first season success go to your heads. "Lost" became the water-cooler show of water-cooler shows. Every network has been trying to churn out serialized dramas because of it. You guys made sci-fi cool. You generated a bunch of fans who rival Trekkies in their devotion. And above all, you got monster ratings. It''d only be natural that you thought you could do no wrong.

Where did the second season stumble? In a word: inconsistency. There were some brilliant episodes, and the introduction of the faux Henry Gale rocked. But there were some clunkers too. In season one, you had several dozen people who wanted off the island. In season two they seemed to give up. As well, they didn''t use the hatch for the reasons they originally set out to -- as a place of refuge from the Others.

And then there were the character inconsistencies from Season 1 to Season 2. Locke was a man''s man in Season 1. A man with an intuition about what was happening on the island. In Season 2, Locke became a whimpering crybaby. Michael was among the island''s most decent guys in season one. He was a careful planner and thinker. Last season, however, Michael became a double murderer who barely bothered to strategize about freeing Henry Gale.

So how do you make things better? We''ve got a 10-point plan for you to find your way again (though perhaps we should have made it a 4-, 8-, 15-, 16-, 23- or 42-point plan instead).

1. Solve more mysteries. We can already hear you saying, "But we told people what the hatch was and we showed people that pushing the button actually meant something." Big frickin'' whup.

After two seasons, we still don''t know much about Rousseau.

Or why the Others kidnap children. We don''t know why so many of the castaways crisscrossed paths before boarding Oceanic Flight 815. We don''t know what happened to Jack''s dad''s body. We don''t know how Walt has special abilities. We don''t know what causes things to randomly appear. We don''t know what the smoke monster is. We don''t know how Locke became paralyzed. And so on and so on.

Pick any five mysteries and solve them once and for all. And unlike seasons past, don''t add four puzzles for every one that you solve.

2. Kill off a main character. A real main character this time. The death of a main character would do a lot to restore the sense of danger on the show. As it stands, fans have come to the conclusion that most of the cast is pretty secure. Eliminating someone would change that.

Killing off a main character would also allow you to pull some emotion out of the survivors. Can you remember the near-complete lack of sadness when Ana Lucia and Libby were buried? How can you expect viewers to care when the characters themselves don''t seem to?

3. Plan more. You''ve likely got only a few episodes under your belt. Work out the big picture for the rest of the year if you haven''t already. And focus on the small things too. The fans are detail-oriented and notice inconsistencies. Even minor screw-ups will damage your credibility.

4. Make plot twists more twisty. A lot of last season''s developments were obvious to folks who watched the show with regularity. It was easy to predict that Dave was someone Hurley imagined. And most people connected Eko to that Nigerian drug plane.

5. Forget the flashbacks. Or at the very least, phase them out. They were an interesting storytelling technique in the beginning, but they''ve since grown tired. The flashbacks tend to tell us stuff you''ve already established by previous flashbacks -- Jack doesn''t like his dad, Sun and Jin had a troubled marriage, etc.

The main reason people are tuning in is because of what is happening on the island. Minimizing the flashbacks would go a long way to giving the audience what they want.

6. Develop the characters more carefully. Yes, Jack is Mr. Cool, but does he also have to be a Jack of all trades, able to outshoot Kate and hustle Sawyer? Hurley is a fat, funny guy who had a mental breakdown, but surely there''s more to him than that, right? Kate has self-esteem issues, but does she also have to flip-flop from being a strong, independent woman to being desperate for Jack and/or Sawyer''s approval?

7. Introduce new characters with caution. Remember the lesson of Ana-Lucia. What sounds like a good idea on paper may not work out quite so well on screen. And in case you''re looking for more philosophers to name characters after, how about adding a Rorty, Wittgenstein, Descartes or Socrates?

8. Tone down all the extracurriculars. It''s great that there''s a book and an interactive game and all that, but the fact that all this stuff exists makes us wonder why you can''t simply spend more time planning the series. Plus, it''s a TV show. We shouldn''t have to do homework to keep up with it.

9. Grow up when it comes to women and sex. Just because genre shows have a time-honored tradition of killing off women who have s-e-x doesn''t mean you have to stick to it. In fact, there should be a lot more sex happening. It''s a deserted island after all. People shouldn''t have to buy magazines to see tantalizing pics of your hot stars.

10. Strive for more balance. Keep in mind that some viewers are going to watch an episode once, while others will review an episode frame by frame like the Zapruder film. Try to make sure there''s a good mix of scenes with just one or two characters. And blend in the other castaways so that it''s not just the big guns all the time. Juggle the action, the character moments, the humor and the horror, and you''ll be well on your way to reaching new heights with the show.

Thanks for your time, guys. Best of luck with your third season. We''ll be watching.

Sincerely,

Raoul Mowatt,
Special to MSN Entertainment

If Raoul Mowatt found himself on a deserted island, he would want a laptop for writing, a couple DVD sets for entertainment, and access to all the amenities in the Swan Station hatch, because vinyl records and showers rock.