This week on the Lost premiere: Jack, Kate, and Sawyer (for love triangle purposes, I'll just call them Skack) are in Otherville, which turns out to be a suburban utopia complete with muffins, book clubs, and high-speed access to Australian autopsy reports. Unfortunately for our protagonists, they're being held in the rough part of town.
Jack's in a 24-esque prison cell, where a cute blond named Juliet quickly breaks him like the pansy with daddy issues that he is.
Sawyer's in a bear cage, where he mostly glowers, quips, and figures out how to get a fish biscuit, but much more slowly than the bears did. Heh. Sawyer's dumber than your average bear.
Kate gets to don a dress and handcuffs for a beachside breakfast with The Artist Formerly Known as Henry Gale. TAFKAHG tells her to enjoy, because the next two weeks are going to be rough. Oh, shit. Two weeks in Lost time is like a full television season in the real world.
The rest of the Losties are nowhere to be found. We still have no idea whether Locke, Desmond, and Mr. Eko are alive after the hatch-splosion. Wait, that's not true. The actors' names are all in the opening credits. Mystery solved. However, I wish episode 3.1 could have tackled at least one question instead of dwelling, once again, on a Jack flashback (Jackback?) in which our hero is so put upon by the world. Sorry, when I consider the tragic backstories of other characters (Locke's dad stole his KIDNEY??? Sawyer witnessed his parents' murder-suicide???) I can't drudge up much sympathy for a self-rigteous jackass with such garden-variety problems as a drunk dad and a cheatin' wife.
Now, I'm not one to complain about Lost's deliberate pacing and cornucopia of mysteries. I enjoy its multilayered WTF-ness; it's what keeps me coming back. However, I agree with one Television Without Pity poster who said that the trouble with the show is that when it does answer questions, it only addresses the whats, never the whys or hows. For example:
Q: What cause the plane to crash?
A: An electromagnetic pulse emitted by the hatch.
Q: But... why? Why did the hatch have world-destroying electromagnetism that was diffused by pushing a button? Who made it so? Now that the hatch exploded, where does the EMP go? How will that effect the island?
A: Shut the fuck up.
My advice to the Lost team: Get crackin' on those whys soon, or you'll soon end up with a X-Files Season 11 mess. Also: Sawyer looks warm in that cage in the middle of the jungle. Maybe he should take his clothes off.
Weekend Awards Wrap-Up: Opening Pandora's Box
12 hours ago
6 comments:
OH MY GOD that was like reading Tolstoy.
I know a show that has WHYs galore. Boston Legal. Tuesdays. 10 p.m. on ABC.
Oh, J.J. I'll start watching BL as soon as you get on the Lost train and ride it all the way to Mysteryland. I have no idea what I'm saying.
Boston Legal has never once tried to answer thing or take itself seriously. That's why it works. Shatner is a clown -- just listen to his CDs and you'll realize how talented he is at being untalented (and perverted).
Scandalous fun, that's all I can say. I'm dropping a lot of shows this season so that I don't become an addict...Boston Legal will not be one of them.
Just to let you know, X-Files only had 9 seasons, lol. Although the last two were awful (and that's saying something, coming from me).
I feel the problem with Lost (which i do LOVE) is that, unlike the Buffy and X-Files mythology, its gotten into a rut of having to have every episode be scandalous and shocking, which is hard to keep up with. The X-Files' mythology really only took up about 10 episodes a season, which seems easier to deal with. But, similar to the X-Files, it seems that the Lost writers feel they are writing a modern-day Bible, where every word out of the characters' mouths are so enlightning and deep. One of my favorite episodes was in the 1st season when they built the golf course and just hung around, but I don't think we'll ever see an episode that light-hearted and fun again (unless there's another Hurley flashback).
OK, I'm doing being nerdy for a bit.
I'm with you, Eric. I think with the mix of personalities on the show, there's a lot of room for comic situations. I loved Sawyer last week, when he was leering at Kate in her dress and then turned to the Other: "How DARE you?!?" We need more of that. I'm a little tired of the whole THE ISLAND IS TALKING TO US and FAITH VS. SCIENCE and bla bla.
Post a Comment