Is Lost Lost?
Five weeks into the second season of Lost, many people are wondering if the show has lost its zip. But while Teevee newbie Ed Carson argues that the show ground to a near-stop in the latest episode, veteran Vidiot Lisa Schmeiser holds out hope that the show may have turned a corner. They took time out of a busy day at work to debate the burning issue: Is Lost lost?
Ed Carson: Lost is boring. There, I said it.
Lost was terrific during the first season, mysterious, exciting, with many interesting characters. It was appointment television. You had to watch Lost — and right away — because everybody at work would be talking about the episode the next morning.
Even when Lost was a mess (like the first-season finale) it was an interesting mess. But this season, little or nothing happens during each episode. I think J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof are trying to drag out the stories as much as possible, because he doesn’t know where he’s going.
Last week’s episode (“…And Found”) marked a new low. Back at the main camp, the hatch was neither seen nor discussed. The action: Sun loses her wedding ring. Later, she finds it. The back-story — like all the others this season — told us nothing new. The Koreans Sun and Jin are looking for love. At the end of the throwaway flashback, they finally meet. But given that they are married, I think it’s fair to say we already knew that.
After all the time spent on the ring and back-story, Lost’s creators only had to show us the evil bare feet of the “Others” to wrap up the episode. Entertainment Weekly described episode 5 as “jungle fluff” and the writer was trying to be nice. It was yet another episode where we didn’t get much of anything.
Lisa Schmeiser: I disagree! We learned a lot. First, we learned that Jin and Michael have bonded. They’re buddies! Michael actually admitted that Jin’s his friend, and Jin was willing to take a punch from Mr. Eko rather than be dissuaded from following Michael into the jungle. So we’ve seen a relationship develop — and plausibly — over time.
We’ve also learned that a few days on a raft with Sawyer is like a floating Berlitz language-immersion program, if Jin’s growing proficiency is to be believed.
And the parallels between the flashbacks and the real-life action have rarely been so strong. First, I think it’s the first episode where multiple people have advanced the flashback narrative sequentially and linearly to one narrative conclusion. Second, it’s evident that the flashback was to point out how both Sun and Jin have already mentally and emotionally made their fresh start with each other — and it happened when they were least looking for it, as opposed to when they were (separately) planning to run away from their old lives.
I may be a sucker for thinking this, but I am hopeful that the way the flashbacks progressed, coupled with Jin’s seeming return to who he was prior to dealing with the father-in-law from hell, indicate that the plot-line with these two crazy kids is wrapping up. Which would be a good thing: not only would it be a pleasant change of pace to see a married couple on TV that wasn’t a joyless wreck, it would be handy to have this plot-line gone so the episodes can focus on Locke, Charlie & Claire’s island rendition of the Sid & Nancy story, the love quadrangle with Sawyer, Ana-Lucia (you know her right hook is like catnip to the masochistic redneck), Kate and Dr. Morose, Michael’s search for Walt, Desmond’s inevitable return, etc.
EC: Sorry, you’re a sucker. There’s got to be at least one more flashback about how they fell in love. The Michael, Locke and Hurley (and Jack, IMHO) flashbacks this season basically told us very little in terms of history/character. So why do you think Abrams and Lindelof, looking to run out the clock, would neglect a chance to milk the Koreans again?
OK, so we get the idea that Jin and Sun are ready for each other. But we didn’t need two-thirds of the episode to know that. It was clear by the end of last season that they were close to reconciling. Sun’s sad burying of the bottle and her later conversation with Kate — with perhaps Jin briefly focusing on his ring — would have been enough to nail that point home. The wedding ring storyline was a waste. As for the flashback, we get how Jin was ashamed and looked down upon for being a fisherman’s son, and that he was determined to make something of himself. Hmm…where have we heard that before? Oh yes, last season. Oh and Sun was set up on a blind date.
OK, so Michael and Jin are buddies. That’s happened over time. I can’t say I’m surprised. (Michael’s claims aside, we also know that Sawyer did not like it when pirate-Others said they were going to take Walt.) Also, one thing we know about Jin is that he is willing to take (and give) serious beatings when he wants to.
Jin’s rapid English knowledge is sort of amusing because it’s a version of a standard TV formula. Stupid guy suddenly develops into a genius. Actually, one of the best examples was in Felicity… created by Lost’s J.J. Abrams.
That brings up a real problem with Lost. People don’t communicate. The people from the raft spend the night with the last people from the back of the plane, but apparently don’t discuss the Others or what happened to all back-of-plane survivors or why they stayed for several weeks while the Others picked them off.
The fact that Jin, with about 15 words of English, is able to move the plot along via action and communication better than just about anyone on the island, speaks volumes.
LS: Okay, I cede you the point that people just don’t communicate on Lost. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a scene and thought, “How, in an era of TMI, did forty-odd closemouthed people end up stranded on an island together?” Yes, I do think it’s a manipulative tactic on the part of the writers. After all, if the characters don’t know as much as the viewers do, that adds to our viewing experience as we breathlessly wait for characters to react to each other’s revelations. And I also think turning each conversation into the conversational equivalent of a Funky Winkerbean strip is a delaying tactic. After all, the more that goes unexplained or unrevealed, the greater the number of plot options later.
However, I think you’re missing something in the most recent Sun/Jin flashbacks. Each of their season one flashbacks showed how they were hiding parts of their personality, and how that deliberate decision led to worse and worse problems. This time, we see how each of them seem to suffer initially for sticking by their convictions, but are ultimately rewarded.
I think it’s important, because these flashbacks seem to indicate a turning point in the series’ theme: ‘Nad up and live honestly. Think of how many different flashbacks throughout the series are predicated on someone a) being lied to or b) lying. And they may do it with the best of intentions (Sayid) or with the worst (Sawyer, Shannon) — but for 20-some episodes we got hit in the head with this message: lying is never the most convenient option. Telling the truth may suck (see also: Jack), but lying will ultimately make things worse.
And underlining that point is this most recent flashback, which more or less says, “Tell the truth and beautiful people will be flinging themselves into your arms.”
I’d like to think the most recent episode moved the plot machinery in place for the next series of events. At least, I hope it plays like that.
I will admit that until episode 5, I was ready to write the show off, because lord knows there’s plenty about it that irritates me. I think the writers encourage pareidolia — i.e. the practice of seeing patterns that aren’t really there. The polar bear is case one. How do we know it’s not just a shaggy-dog story — much like the one Locke tells when Sawyer’s on the hunt for a boar he thinks has it in for them? I also think that one of the reasons people are willing to spend hours dreaming up jackass theories about what the numbers mean or why the dream sequences matter is because they’re trying to invent context in a show that doesn’t give you much.
So maybe I’ve joined the ranks of the fangirls and fanboys with my suspicion that episode 5 will be a linchpin in multiseasonal plot arcs.
EC: I’ll be honest, I hadn’t considered the be-true-to-yourself theme and how it compared to last season. Jin held to his convictions and that randomly led him to Sun. That random/fate reward system bugs. Also, it was strongly implied from the first season’s flashbacks that Jin won Sun’s heart by being his true self, then lost her because he followed his father-in-law’s commands. But OK, I’ll accept the lesson.
However, I don’t think Sun’s half of the flashback was useful. She was basically along for the ride.
Of course, if your theory is correct, this makes another Korea flashback all the more likely. We need a flashback of their budding relationship, in which Sun must decide whether to be true to herself and defy her father by secretly romancing Jin. Hmm…What do you think she’ll do?
Also, I still found the flashback boring. Last season we were beaten over the head with lying-is-bad. But we also learned a lot about the characters — and the stories were interesting.
To me, the common theme among the flashbacks this season is that they are dull and next to useless. But hey, they do eat up 15 minutes of every episode.
LS: Dude, if you don’t like the random/fate reward system, you are going to be in for a long season of misery. In addition to the “lying is bad, ‘mkay?” theme, the other theme with which we are repeatedly smacked about the head and shoulders is that we can control nothing in this world except our reactions to random stuff. This bugs me more than any time-wasting with the flashbacks: the persistent idea that the universe works in mysterious ways and instead of trying to understand it, we should just have faith in it. OR ELSE.
(This explains why Jack is one of my favorite characters: he’s fighting the good fight for the Enlightenment with his silly insistence on things like “facts” and “proof,” despite being surrounded by ninnies nattering on about fate. Out of all the characters, he’s the one with the greatest understanding that truth is better served by observation and a rational mind than by misty declarations of faith.)
(So you can see why I shrieked in frustration when he pressed that damn button. I don’t like that the show seems to be setting up a zero-sum game between empiricism and mysticism; this kind of either-or nonsense is eerily reminiscent of the creationist garbage currently clogging school board debates nationwide.)
(Also, could I put in more parenthetical statements?) (No.)
So if the show wants to show up flashbacks of Sayid ripping his entire CD collection to MP3s, I don’t care. The show’s closed-captioned, I have a TiVo, and if I get bored enough with the flashbacks, I can just hit fast-forward and get the general gist from the captions. This way, Lost and its flashbacks are actually converted into a solidly entertaining, time-efficient show!
Just knock off the mystical crap, Lost, because it’s demeaning to the human struggle to learn how the world really works.
EC: I will leave defending the Enlightenment on TV to Lisa.
I agree that Lost’s flashbacks are not the biggest problem with the show; they’re just the most obvious. It’s sort of like the difference between a news show and a special news bulletin. I don’t expect a news show to be a thriller, but if a network breaks away from the regular scheduled program, I’d better be for a good reason.
Still, the real problem with Lost is not the past but the present. Not much is going on in the “live action” because I really believe that Abrams and Lindelof don’t know where they wants to go.
(My take has been that rather than setting up a choice between empiricism and mysticism, Lost is trying to have it all. It’s a scientific experiment/conspiracy — and full of magic. Sort of an Island of Dr. Skinner meets Fantasy Island. The producers can’t make sense of it all. If everything is possible, then nothing is impossible and there is no “answer” to Lost. So they just give even more questions.)
Eliminate the flashbacks, and the episodes would move so slowly they’d threaten to go in reverse. Maybe Abrams would simply rerun the same episode over and over again using different camera angles, like he did in this season’s second episode.
I’m still watching. It’s the second-best show on Wednesdays at 9. I expect that at least a few times this year Lost will put on a real show.
In the meantime, I’m getting a real kick watching the producers pull out all the stops to, well, put a stop to the action.