Lost in translation

• Posted in On TV

I used to love Lost. Not so much anymore.

Season 1 totally rocked. The story, the characters, the backflashes — it was all good. Then, came Season 2, with the weird hatch and weirder Others. The show lost its original focus — people trying to survive on a tropical island. Instead, we got debates about fate and destiny and religion and science. Not to mention more mysteries with few answers.

Now, we’re in Season 3. And it pretty much blows. The show has gotten too convaluted, and the storytelling just isn’t what it used to be. Case in point — this week’s episode. It was all about Mr. Eko, the drug runner turned priest haunted by his brother’s death.

I’d heard rumors that someone was going to die, and as soon as I saw Eko’s first flashback, I knew that it was him. They did the same thing with Shannon and Ana Lucia last year. If I was one of the Lost actors and having a flashback episode when one of the characters was supposed to get killed, I’d be really worried.

The flashback didn’t tell me anything new about Eko, other than why he decided to build a church on the island. But okay. I can live with that. Eko is still an interesting character. Even if I find it highly unlikely he can survive an explosion, get mauled by a polar bear, run a high fever, and still somehow walk miles into the jungle.

It was the monster that ruined it for me. Talk about stretching the realm of believability. I would have been okay if the monster had been genetically mutated polar bears or some sort of crossbred experimental bear-jungle-cat hybrid. Something, anything remotely believable. But black, boiling smoke as your monster? Yikes.

We’d seen the monster before last season, and I thought it was just as silly then as I do now. And it seems to have the ability to shapeshift into people. Weird. And kind of dumb.

As for having the monster kill Eko … what was the point? It would have made more sense (not to mention have been much more believable) to kill Eko in the hatch explosion or let the polar bear eat him. (BTW, the polar-bear special effects need a lot of work.) And why even kill Eko? We didn’t know him that well. His death won’t have the impact of Locke or Jack getting offed.

Then, there’s the other side of the island, where the Others continue to play mind games with Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. I don’t know what they’re up to, and I’m almost to the point of not caring anymore. And tuning out. Permanently.

What about you? Are you still loving Lost? Inquiring minds want to know …

4 Responses to “Lost in translation”

  1. spyscribbler says:

    Hmmm, see, the charm of Lost was always “What if your plane crashed on a deserted island and you were stuck there?”

    Mixing in monsters just doesn’t work for me, especially this late in the game. It somehow violates the promise of the series for me. But then, I only watched the first season and a bit of the second.

    It is addicting!

  2. Jennifer Estep says:

    That’s exactly my point! Now, they’re not even trying to get off the island anymore. They’re too busy running around exploring hatches and stuff. Not to mention the fact that food conveniently falls from the sky, taking away their struggle to survive.

    I just wish they would wrap up the Others storyline and have Sayid kill the monster. Then, we could get back to the important things — learning more about the characters and their motivations.

  3. Brian says:

    Lost is not lost. I find the layers and depth of the series to be a great plus. With so many crime dramas that wrap their stories up nicely in an hour, I find the wide ranging complexities of Lost to be refreshing change to network television.

    I do everything possible to avoid spoilers. I don’t even read TV Guide or Entertainment Weekly because of the possibility of finding out too much information about a series I am watching. I am content to allow the series to be revealed to me as the producers see fit.

    I think that your view of Lost and Veronica Mars has been tainted by the “Jump the Shark” phenomenon. It seems that more and more viewers are not able to simply enjoy the television experience. A race appears to be taking place among viewers to be the first to declare that a series has “Jumped the Shark”. Thus they are ruining the great journey that a television series can be.

  4. Jennifer Estep says:

    Don’t get me wrong. I still love a lot of things about the show, including the flashbacks and Sawyer’s quips. I just think they’ve made it a little too weird, out-there, and convaluted with the hatches and the Others.

    What also troubles me is the overall story arc. I’ve read some interviews with Abrams and the show’s producers, and I just don’t think they have a solid plan in mind or know where they’re going with the show.

    Like the monster. We saw the moster a lot the first season, but not so much last year. It was like it just disappeared. Or the producers/writers couldn’t figure out how to explain it and decided to make it go away. And we haven’t seen the French chick in forever.

    What I think would be really interesting to see, like in Season 5 or 6, is them getting off the island and trying to fit back in with regular society.

    And it’s not so much about the show jumping the shark as it is about the limited payoff. Sure, every episode I learn more about the featured character, but not so much about the mysteries on the island.

    This is why I like the structure of shows like Buffy and Angel and Veronica Mars much better. You have your season-long bad guy (or several bad guys this year on VM), but the story arc is wrapped up by the end of the year. There’s a sense of closure and moving ahead, which I just haven’t been getting from Lost this year.

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