Arnold
CibbuanoLost Season 1
November 9th 2006 10:40
Recently I decided to get into the show 'Lost'. It was a fairly mammoth undertaking, but I hoed straight into the first season and devoured it all in around a week or two. It was very good! And now I'm hooked.
The first thing that grabbed me was that it was television but with the quality of a big budget film. Everything was shot on location, the plane crash was a spectacular achievement, and the actors were all top-notch (and included a few familiar faces). In an increasingly-diminished pool of TV drama (prime time seems to be completely taken over by reality TV and it's various lame-brained offshoots), 'Lost' feels like a beacon of hope. Television can be ground-breaking and original without being a gimmicky pseudo-documentary.
'Lost' won points with me because it doesn't follow all the usual rules of TV drama. For a start, there are far more major characters than you would usually get in a non-soap opera show. And secondly, there's this science-fiction/fantasy element to what would otherwise be a straight-up survival story. In fact, it's becoming increasingly clear that it if weren't for the addition of these mysterious and speculative elements the show would probably have run out of steam fairly early on. 'Lost' is fed on enigma and undisclosed details (and not in a shonky way, like, say, 'The X-Files').
Being as each episode is highly dependent on the episode before it (this isn't a show where you can just casually watch - you need to see it from beginning to end), there is a sort of formula at work that caps off each 40-odd minutes of air time. Each episode features flashbacks to pre-plane crash life for one of the characters... when I first heard this I thought it would be lame and boring, but I was very wrong. Each flashback is tied into a particular episode - allowing for comparisons between a character's past and present, and shedding light on that character's motivations. This brilliant device is extremely dynamic - it allows for a depth to a large range of characters that would normally take longer to establish (or would be sacrificed for just a couple of major characters and some supporting peers). The flashbacks also help the writers choose what they want to show us... even the most unassuming and straight-up character seems mysterious as a result. In fact, it is in what the writers and directors choose to show us that makes 'Lost' so compelling, even in the non-flashback scenes (witness Mr. Locke's early encounter with one of the 'monsters').
Most interestingly, the 'Lord of the Flies'/social aspect is played down. Two opposing figures grow to assume leadership roles - Jack, the heroic Doctor, is accepted by the bulk of the survivors as their natural leader. Mr. Locke, on the other hand, is a more esoteric and self-sufficient figure that some of the characters find themselves drawn to. He's a tragic, almost pathetic man transformed into a crusading prophet... and it increasingly becomes clear that he is the one most in tune with the new world the survivors have found themselves in. The episode featuring his flashback, "Walkabout", is probably my favourite of the entire series.
The show also demonstrates the ways an opposing world view can help even the most stubborn of individuals. Not surprisingly, there is often a clash of characters, but it seems that teamwork is what might save them in the end, and it will be their differences that is their salvation. It's these implied metaphysical and philosophical elements which seem to give the show it's strongest mileage.
'Lost' is by no means a perfect television show. It can sometimes be a little slow in the action stakes, but overall it's very worthy of anyone's time. There are a lot of subplots that run through the first season, and there seems to be no shortage of curveballs - the surprises and revelations just keep on coming.
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Comment by Keira
Keira's Blog
I have heard from other people who watch it though that it sort of looses it in the second season...
Comment by Keira
Keira's Blog
Comment by Luke
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Sexual AND creepy might be the words.