LOST season 2 discussion thread...... (1 Viewer)

[Arild]

IIRC, the writers always planned for the show to last for five or six seasons... So there probably won't be any stalling beyond the usual, uhh, "laid-back" pace.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Sorry, Mary. I figured you knew something I didn't.

I love the pace. I don't really see Lost as an action show at all. There are brief moments of action, but they are fairly rare when you get right down to it. I guess my mindset is that it's a character study with a strange mystery surrounding it, and I'm not in any particular rush to have the answers to the mystery handed out to me.

 

[Michael Harris]

I think we are putting too much in to the "possibly final" bit. After all, every season is possibly the final season. Just because the writers are planning for a long run doesn't mean it is going to happen. The "suits" at ABC make that determination based on ratings, profitability, etc.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

One point briefly: Every season for every show is its "possibly final" season. With a handful of exceptions in TV history, shows are picked up one year at a time and are subject to cancellation at any time due to poor ratings and other factors. More often than not the cancellation decision comes in between seasons, which means nobody gets to plan a proper ending for a show. Your comment seems to imply that the producers "planned" to end the show after this season and now suddenly have to face another year. I'm sorry, but I haven't seen anything that remotely supports such a notion.

Again, we're assuming facts not in evidence.

1. The writers have no plan for the series. They may have an ending plan in which the entire truth is laid out, but apart from that they're winging it from week to week and the entire enterprise is an exercise in "stalling" the final reveal that will end the show.

The writers have said the opposite, why is that being dismissed?

I don't want to go overboard with the B5 comparisons, but that happens to be an "arc" show that is now complete and about whose production I actually happen to know a great deal.

Star Trek: Voyager, like both versions of The Fugitive were shows like the one Ron seems to be describing: The shows have a goal (getting home for the Voyager crew, finding the one-armed man and clearing his name for Richard Kimble.) That goal can't be reached until the final episode of the series, or the series has no reason for being.

B5, by contrast, was designed like a series of books, with an over-all storyline and each season being one novel in the series. It had a definite end point in mind, but it also had a road map for getting to that end point, and a number of key stops that had to be made along the way in order for that ending to make any sense. "Sleeping in Light" simply doesn't have the meaning it should if you haven't seen where the Humans and Minbari were at the start of the series, watched the growing relationship between Sheridan and Delenn beginning with season two, and peaked into the future (in "War Without End") to glimpse other events and learn the fates of some characters.

It would not have been possible to jump from the first season to the finale, (as it would have been for Voyager or Fugitive) because there was too much of the story to tell in between.

On the contrary, JMS's worry was always that he wouldn't get the full five seasons he had designed the story for, not that he'd have to "stall" the ending every time they were picked up for another year. When the word came down that season four really would be the last one, he had a real problem pulling out whole plot threads so that he could finish at least the key points in the time remaining. When TNT picked the series up for a 5th season at the 11th hour, those plot changes and some cast problems caused the final season to take awhile to get "up to speed", as plot threads that should have started as subplots in season 4 and gradually developed had to be started cold in S5.

When TNT launched the B5 sequel Crusade, there were lots of complaints about the perceived premise: A slowly mutating plague has been unleashed on Earth. It will kill all life on the now-quarrantined planet in five years if a cure isn't found. In addition to the normal medical efforts, Earthgov and the Interstellar Alliance have assigned their most advanced spacecraft, Excalibur, to explore dead, abandoned and forgotten alien worlds and other potential sources of exotic technology and medical knowledge in the hope of finding a cure. That sounds like a classic "end-point show" with the addition of the built-in five year clock.

First fans complained that there was no suspense, because we already knew from flash-forwards on B5 that all life on Earth was not wiped out five years after the plague was released.

Second they complained that the whole story was going to be one big stall because the day the cure was found the series was over.

Sound familiar? The day the castaways are rescued, Lost is over. The day the mysteries are revealed, the series is done. Its all a stall.

Due to creative differences between TNT and JMS, production was halted on Crusade after 13 episodes were shot and the series cancelled. The completed episode were finally burned off as a "limited series" the following summer. But I've read several of the unfilmed scripts from that first season and JMS's internet posts about the direction the series would have been headed in:

1. The show was never about "finding the cure", just like B5 wasn't about the Minbari surrender or Sinclair's missing 24 hours. Those were the entry points into the larger story.

2. Crusade was about black ops, government secrecy, cover-ups and how far people will go to protect themselves. Before the end of season one the heroes would have stumbled onto a secret military base that was experimenting on humans in an attempt to unravel the secrets of left-over Shadow technology a million years more advanced than anything the Humans have. Since the plague itself was based on Shadow genetic engineering exploited by one of their allies, it becomes clear that this project could help solve the plague but that no one wants to risk making it public by doing so.

3. When a cure was released in the 2nd season the Excalibur crew would discover that the cure itself was dangerous in a completely unexpected way - but no one would believe them. The ship would "go rogue", running from both the normal police and military, and the black ops people in an effort to get the truth out and find a real solution to the crisis.

In short, the show everyone thought they were watching in the first season wouldn't be anything like the show they ultimately got. Just as people who thought that B5 was "about" the Shadow War were annoyed when it ended early in season 4, some would probably have been annoyed when the plague was cured in S2 or Crusade. And in both cases plenty of clues to the actual direction of the show were planted in the early seasons, they just weren't obvious until viewed in hindsight.

So all the people who had been complaining were, in fact, wrong. The producers did have a plan, it just wasn't the one the fans thought it was. Fans are entitled to their "perceptions". But sometimes it helps to have enough humility to admit that our perceptions might be mistaken and cut the writers a little slack instead of declaring how stupid or boring on sloppy they are.

Regards,

Joe

 

[TheLongshot]

I knew I was going to get in trouble replying to you, Joe.



I have no assumptions about where the show is going. Personally, I have no clue where we are going. Also, I didn't suggest that ALL of the backstories are non-essential. Actually, I did say that some of them have worked quite nicely. So, a lot of what you wrote about really was beside the point.

The reason why I suggested "foot dragging" is because of the very nature of the show. Part of the problem with having a show based on a big mystery, where you don't know when the endpoint is, is that you have to find places to stretch things out so that you don't wrap things up too soon. On the other hand, you don't want to stretch things out too much so that people will get bored and tune out.

That being said, I don't know if I have yet seen one of those type of shows end satisfactory. Because of the nature of TV, and that they could end at any time, it makes the likelyhood of an unsatisfactory ending more likely, since there might not be time to answer all the questions that have been asked.

As Ron said, there have been far more doors opened than closed in this series so far. That, to me, is troublesome. It is tough to keep multiple balls in the air.

As for trusting the writers, considering how they seemed to mishandle the season finale last season, it really had me seriously considering dropping the show. That's how badly I took it. They have made up for it somewhat this season so far, but in the end, it is how you finish that ends up being important.

Course, this goes to something that bothers me about this board: The fact that not many fans can take critizim of their show. It seems like anything that isn't *happy*happy* about the show is considered a "hater" and are asked, "why are you still watching this show", which really means, "go away, I don't want to hear what you are saying." This has happened on multiple threads here, and it really makes it frustrating to have critical discussion on these boards, since fans cry foul all the time.

Jason

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Note the word possibly.

According to a recent press statement, they just
signed the actors back for a 3rd season. There
doesn't seem to be a long-term contract here so
we never know who is going to sign beyond the next
season.

 

[Arild]

Well, everyone is obviously entitled to their opinion, but when the same people make the same complaints week after week it does beg the question, doesn't it?

 

[Phil Dally]

Lets not forget the guy that was originally in the hatch, the guy running in the stadium when Jack fell on the steps.... What's he been up to lately??? :rolleyes

 

[Eddy-C]

Technically Desmond wasn't originally in the hatch, he's just one of many people to press the button over the years.

 

[TravisR]

Out of curiosity, what questions haven't been answered? Outside of major questions that will be answered at the end of the series or things you'll have to chalk up to fate or dumb luck (people running into each other in flashbacks or the numbers popping up in everyone's lives or why weren't some other messed up people on the plane instead of these particular people), I don't think there's that many questions that have yet to be answered. Eventually, we'll see Desmond again, we'll find out more about The Others, we'll find out why they took Walt, etc.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Shacked up with Rousseau.

 

[McPaul]

I STILL don't know how to quote on this forum, but:

Some guy above said:

It seems like anything that isn't *happy*happy* about the show is considered a "hater" and are asked, "why are you still watching this show", which really means, "go away, I don't want to hear what you are saying."


---------

Now, granted, every show has it's criticisms, improvements, and whatnot, but seriously, if I don't like a show, I wont watch it. In MY language, "why are you still watching this show?" means "why are you still watching this show?".

Seriously, if you don't like it, why are you wasting your time watching it? Watch something else. Go outside!

But maybe, just maybe, you're just as wrapped up in the show as the rest of us and want to see it all play out.

Yes there are a lot of questions left, but since the start of the season, look how many questions have been answered! i.e. look how far we've come?

Now sit back, relax, be patient, and enjoy the ride.

and for those who are STILL impatient and are complaining about the lack of answers...

it's alright, we hear you... WE GET IT.

(however, no matter how much you complain, you're not going to change the direction of the show, that depends solely on the writers and director, no matter how far ahead (or not) they are in writing.

peace.

 

[alan halvorson]

Go to the Post Quick Reply area below. See that "Quote" button above the reply area, along with many other buttons? Copy what you want to quote, hit that "Quote" button and paste. If you don't see any buttons above the reply area, you have some other issue.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Copy what you want to quote, type {quote}{/quote} (using straight brackets "[]" in place of the wavy ones "{}" in my example) and paste the copied text in between.

Regards,

Joe

 

[todd stone]

they are on and island. how could they possibly sign anyone up for a longterm contract for this show heh

 

[Malcolm R]

What questions have? That would be the shorter list.

 

[Patrick Sun]

How long did "Gilligan's Island" stay on the air?

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, I don't make the same complaints week after week. I even say positive things about the show. Do a search on the thread, I'm sure you'll find them.

Course, no one questions people who are always gushingly positive about a show. That kinda begs the question, doesn't it?

Anyways, I said what I came to say. Couple more weeks until the next Lost.

Jason

 

[TravisR]

That's a less than artful way of dodging the question.

They've shown what it's in the hatch, they've shown what happened to the tail end of the plane, they've shown the origin of the plane that killed Boone, they've shown where Claire was and what happened to her, they've shown the monster and it seems like it's a secuity system. Once again, outside of major series finale type questions or things you'll have to blame on fate (the numbers, everyone running into each other before the crash) or questions that will eventually be answered pertaining to The Others or Walt, etc. what questions haven't been answered?

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying that there isn't any questions that haven't been answered (I can think of one thing that was seen in one episode and mentioned never again) but I don't think it's that long of a list.

 

[Mary M S]

Again thinking about Henry and the numbers. I know I’ll eventually get an answer to this since the whole button-pushing thing is heavily featured. Was he lying to Locke at that moment, when he said he was “done lying”?
I perceive the written Henry as capable of returning to old ways (lying when it suits him) but after stress of captivity and Locke’s injury, while affected by the drama/trauma of the day it felt “true” he was trying to convey something Locke did not conceive. I read Gale as anguished and upset lashing out at Locke to devastate him with some “truth”.
I am really just not personally inclined to believe the number reset does not do anything!

I looked at previous posts and I’ve seen two theories posted:
1) Henry is lying and did push the button but entered a ‘different’ code in the computer.
2) the numbers do nothing and this is a mind experiment for any guinea pig in the hatch.

But…we know the island has other hatches, we know the computer is probably tied to other terminals in some manner ….Walt’s posts.
If the button..does effect something and I feel it does partially due to evidence of ‘incidents’ and hasty looking add-on containment type constructions in Swan.. Would not fail safes for any critical task be implemented?
If it were a VERY IMPORTANT clock, wouldn’t it be risky to not have built redundancy in the system?

I can think of only a couple of other possibilites which could allow the reset: to reset something!
1) If it is THE ONLY time-reset console then maybe it is an odds-rotating system., (like a jackpot) If an employee due to unforeseen catastrophic delays does not make it to the console, odds are built in that this ‘one’ time could be a placebo reset. If the wheels line up that time - whoops, - but statistically this would pad things in favor that a single malfunction caused by human error would not initiate {? the unknown}
Or….if enough “missed” resets are logged a remote monitoring system has been warned a new warm body is required on the island for replacement. (food drops indicating there is still some version of automated or safety-oriented survival-type replenishments in place)

2) A ‘backup’ watcher on another terminal (Walt’s location or another hatch) required to act at zero-second ONLY if the Swan console does not reset?

Jason...some people do watch shows they hate (because they like to yell at their TV )
I noticed you do like the show and just have your own opinions regarding its direction and style... but ..even if you detested it... you have the right. We all watch with different perceptions and tastes. Notice we don't all own the same AV gear? ...Doesn’t bother me.