Er... I'm a bit confused. Are you guys saying that there is no way to discriminate between the quality of answers? I would think that if 'quality' in the case of our current debate relates to how well the answer manages to explain a phenomena and leave people satisfied then there should be some way to discriminate between the quality of answers.
Why is Smokey magical? Majick light.
I would judge that to be a poor answer because it asks the exact same question of the 'answer', so I do not feel like I have any firmer grasp on how things work than I did before.
If, on the other hand, they were to say something like 'women cannot give birth on the island because the strong electromagnetic field disrupts how the fetus is forming' I would think that is a significantly better answer because it 'makes sense', whatever that means. If the answer could also address why the adults on the island aren't affected by the electromagnetic field, the answer would be even 'better', I feel.
Er... I'm a bit confused. Are you guys saying that there is no way to discriminate between the quality of answers? I would think that if 'quality' in the case of our current debate relates to how well the answer manages to explain a phenomena and leave people satisfied then there should be some way to discriminate between the quality of answers.
Why is Smokey magical? Majick light.
I would judge that to be a poor answer because it asks the exact same question of the 'answer', so I do not feel like I have any firmer grasp on how things work than I did before.
If, on the other hand, they were to say something like 'women cannot give birth on the island because the strong electromagnetic field disrupts how the fetus is forming' I would think that is a significantly better answer because it 'makes sense', whatever that means. If the answer could also address why the adults on the island aren't affected by the electromagnetic field, the answer would be even 'better', I feel.
What do you guys think?
I went to lunch and don't feel like going through other people's posts, (so I can only speak for my own view) but the thing I was trying to say earlier is that analyzing these questions and answers like you're doing is dumb unless you're actually having fun trying to fill in the blanks. That the point of the show isn't to answer every, or possibly even most of the questions/mysteries posed to your satisfaction. The point is to resolve the conflict that these mysteries have led to.
People have yet to prove through any rational discourse why the way things have been answered is bad.
Can you give an example of how one would prove something like this through rational discourse because I think numerous people have pointed out very rational reasons for why most "answers" are not really answers.
No, there hasn't been one rational criticism of the answers given throughout the show. They are answers. You can claim otherwise, but you haven't provided any reasoning behind why they aren't answers beyond the fact that you don't like how they were answered. If you think that within the context of the show and its universe that the answers given don't actually give any information then explain this, deconstruct why and how this is the case.
He can't, because he doesn't watch the show. he hasn't watched the show for about 5 years. Everything he knows about the show he learned from reading wikipedia entries and talking to his friends. He is literally arguing just for the sake of arguing.
Er... I'm a bit confused. Are you guys saying that there is no way to discriminate between the quality of answers?
I wouldn't say that. I'd say that the quality of the answer doesn't invalidate its definition as an answer. "Smokey became smokey because Jacob pinballed his skull off a rock and he floated into a glowing toilet." That could be a pretty shitty answer for someone watching (it's quite silly, IMO) but it's an answer. You watched it happen on-screen. You saw what changed Smokey into Smokey.
It's one thing to say "I really think that's a shitty answer." But the fights are happening because people who think it's a shitty answer (and people who don't even watch the fucking show say "I heard that's a shitty answer") try to equate "answer I dislike" with "no answer at all."
Man, a lot of you guys sure have sucked so much joy out of this thread. Why even bother? I guess its the nature of internet-man to be most vocal when he is bitching, but I sure wish we could talk about the show without wading through all your bullshit.
I used to love this thread. Still love the show.
EDIT: Agh! Look what you have done to me, now here I am, bitching about the bitching. I have become that which I hate! All you Lost haters, stop watching and bitching about the show, and I will stop clicking on this thread that I hate and bitching about the thread. We will all be better for it.
I don't think anyone has problems with the supernatural, there can still be rational explanations in a world where these phenomena exist. Lost has done it before. Do I accept that ghosts can stick around and impart wisdom? Yes, because it's established in Miles at a young age, and Hurley has always had psychological problems and this was part of the package. There we go, an explanation for something that doesn't exist in the real world, and no one is upset about it.
For the record, I actually liked the episode a lot, but they did answer questions with more questions - that doesn't satisfy the very reason that people started watching in the first place - what is up with the island? I do think we'll find out, I just don't want the answer to be "because." There's a lot more creative ways to answer it.
Not because I disliked the episode, but last week was the first time in a long time (ever?) that I was longing for more Jack. Clearly they have set up some compelling end game, if I would rather just get to that then worry about Jacob's back story.
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ZampanovYou May Not Go HomeUntil Tonight Has Been MagicalRegistered Userregular
Not because I disliked the episode, but last week was the first time in a long time (ever?) that I was longing for more Jack. Clearly they have set up some compelling end game, if I would rather just get to that then worry about Jacob's back story.
Backstory seems pretty important to the endgame. Especially knowing a bit more about MiB's origins and motivations.
I dont get why some fans have to defend this show so hard.
Like theres only a few people here who dislike it. The rest of us just think the mythology is half-assed, sort of lame and would probably rather do without.
Yet then we get told were wrong and that the mythology is well done and that weve gotten good answers and then we all fight.
Sorry but nobody is going to agree, half this thread thinks the show is fun but cheap thrills, the other half apparently thinks its some awesome piece of art.
We can all agree its better then V...V is garbage.
EDIT: Im at work, so I cant give Jack faces...someone post a good pic of Sawyers adorable dimples.
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ZampanovYou May Not Go HomeUntil Tonight Has Been MagicalRegistered Userregular
I wouldn't say that. I'd say that the quality of the answer doesn't invalidate its definition as an answer. "Smokey became smokey because Jacob pinballed his skull off a rock and he floated into a glowing toilet." That could be a pretty shitty answer for someone watching (it's quite silly, IMO) but it's an answer. You watched it happen on-screen. You saw what changed Smokey into Smokey.
It's one thing to say "I really think that's a shitty answer." But the fights are happening because people who think it's a shitty answer (and people who don't even watch the fucking show say "I heard that's a shitty answer") try to equate "answer I dislike" with "no answer at all."
And then the merry-go-round goes spinnin.
Alright, so then let's get the bullshit semantics out of the way. Yes, there were indeed answers of some form. Words were spoken during the show and images were shown. I think that arguing with whoever originally stated that giving shitty answers is the same as not giving answers is kind of stupid. It should be fairly clear that by saying 'not answers' he's saying he's quite upset with the quality of what was shown, not implying that there was no show and the screen was just black for an hour.
So now that the stupid bullshit is out of the way, can we address the actual meaningful points of debate?
1. Are the current answers being given good? Do you feel satisfied by them and do you think they help explain the Lost universe? Are the answers better or worse than in prior seasons? Are the answers better or worse than in other shows?
2. Should there be an expectation to even get good answers on this show. Is it reasonable for the audience to expect to be explained things that were major themes for seasons? Or is this not the type of show where an audience should expect to get answers? If not, why not / how does one distinguish between such shows? Also if not, why do you think people are confused and expect answers if this isn't that sort of show?
Hey guys! Just 10 days till ABC announces Lost 2: smokey boogaloo.
The sequel should be a show of Desmond just travelling through time fixing stuff with the help of a hologram of a guy from the future with an iphone called ziggy.
As the show progresses, it won't venture too far into science fiction as its mysteries unfold. We're still trying to be firmly ensconced in the world of science fact, I don't think we've shown anything on the show yet that has no rational explanation in the real world that we all function within. We certainly hint at psychic phenomena, happenstance and things being in a place where they probably shouldn't be. But nothing is flat-out impossible. There are no spaceships. There isn't any time travel.
I think that this is what we always saw as the natural evolution of the show, that it would have more overt science-fiction and fantasy elements as time went on and that was sort of always our plan.
The one thing that Carlton and I are steadfast on saying over and over again, and that we're not lying about is that the show is not all a dream. It's happening in the real world, there are real stakes, you're not going to get to the end and cut to black and suddenly realize that this was all sort of a fantasy.
There are sort of fundamental elements of mystery and magic to the show that are unexplainable, and any attempt to explain them would actually harm the show, and in our opinion, the legacy of the show.
Given everything else we have to tell, [Libby's story] is going to be a mystery that's going to have to get answered in year 4. There's really one significant missing piece to Libby's story. We saw in the season finale last year that she met with Desmond, she gave him his boat, and we know that her husband died — and then we know that subsequent to that, she spent some time in a mental institution, the same one as Hurley. The question the audience wants answered is, How did she get from A to B — from Desmond to the mental institution? We know the answer to that question, but the only way to tell that story is through another character's flashback, and that character would have to be another character on the show who is not among the beach dwellers.
Libby's got this mysterious backstory, of which we've only given you the tip of the iceberg. We know she's spent some time in the mental institution with Hurley, and the idea of killing her before she had an opportunity to explain how she got there... we have a master plan for how we're going to tell that story, but it's all posthumous. You'll start to learn Libby's moves through flashbacks over the course of the next season.
Uhh, you know, again, these are not questions that we are going to answer. I think the point we were trying to make with the Libby story is that everything is graded in terms of importance for us, and, as we are doing the last season of the show, it's not going to be sort of a didactic, you know, here's a list of a thousand questions that we're going to answer. That would not make for a very entertaining show. We are focusing on what we consider to be the significant questions, and mysteries, and character relationships. That's the story that we're gonna tell. I think that the reference to Libby was more illustrative of the fact that I think, we accept the fact that in the end of the day there will, probably, you could ask a spectrum of a thousand different fans “Well what question did you not get answered?” and there might be a thousand different answers, but we are focusing on what we consider to be the main questions of the show and the main narritive. It's impossible to tie up every loose end, and we don't really consider, honestly, Libby's story is incredibly tangential to the principle action on the show. For us, the focus of the final season really has to be on the main characters and what would generally be acknowledged as the most significant mysteries.
The 'why' of it all is always the hardest mystery to deal with on the show. If you were to say, “Locke tells them, ‘Hey, this is all happening for a reason,’" and then you’d say, "Well, what is that reason? Why were all those people on that plane?" Obviously that stuff is coming downstream. Probably much of it will be hinted at in Season 5, but why these people, why this time, why this place, why that plane? It’s Season 6 territory.
One of the byproducts of moving toward an end point is that we do not need to constantly introduce new characters into the mix of the show to keep it fresh and entertaining. Especially when there are so many questions about Alpert or about Miles or about Charlotte or Faraday or Lapidus. There’s still so much storytelling to do with those guys.
...the thing that sort of kept coming back towards us [from the network] was, "It can’t be like 'Twin Peaks.' Just don’t 'Twin Peaks' us." They were using it as a verb -- "Don’t 'Twin Peaks' us." It was like, "What do you mean by that?" And it was like, "Just don’t lead up to an inevitable, unsatisfying conclusion and then you’ll lose all your viewership." You need to drag people along. But you need to answer your mystery satisfyingly and every time you answer a mystery, there needs to be just enough mysteries in its wake to make them feel satisfied. The thing is, “Twin Peaks” ...[is] in the pantheon of, you know, it’s an icon.
We started the show sitting in my office every morning having breakfast, talking about what we thought was cool. And whatever we both would get excited about would go into the show and that’s how we’ve approached it all along and that’s how we approached it at the end.
The Lost creators have often claimed they know where the show is going and that everything will ultimately add up. Well, the current creators, anyway. "There was absoluetly no master plan on Lost" insists David Fury, a co-executive producer last season who wrote the series's two best episodes and is now a writer-producer on 24. "Anybody who said that was lying. On a show like Lost, it becomes a great big shaggy-dog story," he continues cheerily. "They keep saying there's meaning in everything, and I'm here to tell you no - a lot of things are just arbitrary. What I always tried to do to do was connect these random elements, to create the illusion that it was all adding up to something." Many plot elements were concocted on the fly, Fury says; for example, they didn't know Hurley won the lottery until it came time to write his episode. "I don't like to talk about when we come up with ideas," Lindelof demurs. "It's a magic trick. But we planned that plot: We seeded references to it in earlier episodes." Fury disagrees. He says scenes with those references were filmed much later and inserted into earlier yet-to-air episodes: "it's a brilliant trick to make us look smart. But doing that created a huge budget problem."
There were certain things we knew from the very beginning. Independent of ever knowing when the end was going to be, we knew what it was going to be, and we wanted to start setting it up as early as season 1, or else people would think that we were making it up as we were going along. So the skeletons are the living — or, I guess, slowly decomposing — proof of that. When all is said and done, people are going to point to the skeletons and say, ''That is proof that from the very beginning, they always knew that they were going to do this."
Now, in regards to the idea that some of us have tried to get comfortable with - that this show was always intended to be a web of intrigue and excitement pulling us in, but never really concerned itself with resolving things or making a coherent story, and certainly never had a plan... I'm not sure why the idea makes some of you so mad. I'm being very complimentary of what they've done. I'm calling it high art, entertaining, a great thing, critical award-winning success, and something I've personally enjoyed. In response, I'm being called a troll, and being told that basically I hate the show and want everyone else to hate it. I decided a while ago that it is a waste of time here trying to prove to everyone exactly why I'm so thoroughly convinced of my idea about what the show is and has been. That doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that I think it is something it isn't. And I certainly don't hate it (well, maybe for a while in season 2 - 3) or want anyone else to. I'm going to discuss it from my own confident point of view, though, and rest assured I will do my best to employ reasonable attempts to coddle those who get fanboishly defensive even when I am praising the show and talking about what an interesting success and entertaining ride it has been.
Maybe we should post a selection of our favorite jackfaces to lighten the mood?
wat u say???
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ZampanovYou May Not Go HomeUntil Tonight Has Been MagicalRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
One of your questions informs the other, so I guess I'm just gonna answer the whole thing as best I can from my perspective.
This show is about the characters. They are well-drawn, strong, and largely archetypal. They are symbols of mankind as a whole, and that island is essentially the chaotic and largely unknowable universe we find ourselves in. These mysteries are embellished to propel these characters in a way that is both entertaining and useful in allowing the writers to tell a story that is a parable/mythology type story about the nature of man. If you're watching it as a sci-fi show rooted in the quest for answers about the universe itself, you're missing the point. I think it's rooted in the quest for answers about finding our place in the universe.
Here's an excerpt from an article by Brandon Sanderson, about fiction that seems relevant to the discussion.
When an author creates a story, he or she develops their Form. Every work has its own Form, an internal logic and consistency that creates a motif for the novel, providing a subconscious context for the reader. In works of fiction, one can often divide Form into three general aspects: Form of Characterization, Form of Thematics, and Form of Prose. It is vital that the author avoid breaking form in any of these three areas...Many readers don't realize that all of these laws are fabrications. Just because a work is deemed 'realistic' does not mean that the author didn't contrive the situations, characters, and internal logic of the book. A well-written realistic book pays very close attention to its Form, and is careful not to deviate. The real difference between fantasy and realism is that fantasy brings with it fewer conventional limits on its original Form. (Though, once that Form is created, it must pay just as close attention to maintenance as the realistic work.)
...The fantasist must pay vital attention to the Form of his or her work. Even though it is possible to provide magical solutions to problems, those solutions will fail unless they fit the established laws of the book. The appellation of 'fantasy' does not give a writer liberal ability to do anything he or she wishes. It allows the author to craft a more diverse Form for the book, but the ideas created therein are still binding upon both author and characters.
...
And so, fantasy cannot ignore its own Form. In Lord of the Rings, the resolution of the major conflict takes place when the One Ring is cast into the fires of Mt. Doom. This is, indeed, a magical solution available only in a fantastic setting. However, it also fits the Form of the work. What would have happened if Frodo had discovered another way to destroy the ring? Such a solution would have felt inappropriate. Gandalf had already explained that there was only one way to end the ring's power.
In addition, finding another solution would have gone against the Form in an even more powerful way....The subconscious Form of the book—the theme of the small hobbit vs. the mighty Dark Lord—demanded that Frodo confront evil at its source.
Man, reading those quotes felt like I was getting punched in the cock by the writers. I've got a pretty bad memory so I don't usually notice these things, but seeing it all in one nice package of quotes really made it pretty clear that these dudes have been lying with a straight face the whole time. That's disappointing.
Alright, so then let's get the bullshit semantics out of the way. Yes, there were indeed answers of some form. Words were spoken during the show and images were shown. I think that arguing with whoever originally stated that giving shitty answers is the same as not giving answers is kind of stupid. It should be fairly clear that by saying 'not answers' he's saying he's quite upset with the quality of what was shown, not implying that there was no show and the screen was just black for an hour.
Here's the thing - the guy initially saying "There were no answers" literally DOESN'T WATCH THE SHOW. So there's that. The problem is when that gets picked up and run with. So really, it's not at all fairly clear that the phrase "not answers" means he's upset with the quality of the answers, because two of the most vocal complainers in the last 15-20 pages of this discussion, regarding the plotting of the show, DON'T WATCH IT. They don't know about the quality of the answers because they're not watching them. They're arguing from a vacuum for the argument's sake.
So now that the stupid bullshit is out of the way, can we address the actual meaningful points of debate?
1. Are the current answers being given good? Do you feel satisfied by them and do you think they help explain the Lost universe? Are the answers better or worse than in prior seasons? Are the answers better or worse than in other shows?
Well, these are pretty abstract/general questions. Are you talking about this last episode specifically? If so - it was a bit of a stumble, for me. Compared to the answers given in previous seasons, it's a little worse, but I wouldn't say it was the worst episode of the series, nor would I say it's The Phantom Menace of LOST. It doesn't fundamentally break what LOST is about for me, but it didn't necessarily push the storytelling forward, either. It just sorta stood there, illuminating stuff I already knew, and shading things that already had depth.
2. Should there be an expectation to even get good answers on this show. Is it reasonable for the audience to expect to be explained things that were major themes for seasons? Or is this not the type of show where an audience should expect to get answers? If not, why not / how does one distinguish between such shows? Also if not, why do you think people are confused and expect answers if this isn't that sort of show?
The expectation question is always a tricky one, because yes: You should expect quality from things you try to watch. Quality is a nebulous adjective, though. But nobody should be watching shit, and I try to only spend time with entertainments that I believe have the potential to actually entertain. The big problem with the expectation game is that it's been turned into such a speculative exercise, that whether the storytelling is good or not ends up taking a backseat to whether you GUESSED it or not. Sometimes this is as literal as people ticking a checkbox in their head and keeping score. Sometimes it's more along the lines of vaguely drawing out a storyarc in your head, and getting disappointed when it doesn't follow that arc.
Don't confuse that for an argument that you should just shut off your brain and watch the show and let it throw whatever it wants at you. Bad storytelling is bad storytelling, and LOST has been guilty of it more than a few times in the past. But sometimes it feels less like people are watching the show than they are competing with the showrunners to see who can come up with the better writing.
LibrarianThe face of liberal fascismRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Just my 2 cent:
I have been watching this show since Season 1.
I have seen every episode and I continue to do so, to see this show finish.
I have enjoyed the show A LOT for the first 3 or 4 seasons, when I was still led to believe that there was a plan behind it all, some brilliant story that was going to come to an ending well thought out in advance and where most(if not all) plot threads would be tied up in a satisfying fashion.
Sadly this has not been the case and the quality of the show has steadily decreased for a while now.
It is really not dumb or "having answers spoon-fed to you" if you expect a coherent universe within the boundaries of the show.
It has to make sense in that universe the lost writers created.
If the writers deliberately break their own rules because it is convenient to do so or if they are pulling flashy ideas out of their ass that is not good writing.
I used to care for most of the characters on the show, now I really wouldn't mind if the island just blew up and killed them all. I really don't care anymore.
Thing is, the writers led us to believe that they had it all scripted out and that they had a very structured approch to the show, they said so since season 1 and then it became clear that they were lying.
Walt used to be the big thing in season 1 and 2. Where is he now? Oops, we kinda got no idea what to do with him and the child actor grew too fast, let's scratch that.
Storylines ended or characters were dropped because actors had to leave the show.
People talking to the dead is one thing, it has been established that people like Miles can do that, this is something I can accept in the setting of the show.
But does anyone remember when the writers swore there was no supernatural explanation behind the story?(Before anyone comes along with "citation needed olol" just google "lost writers no supernatural explanation" and you will find discussion threads from around 2005)
In the beginning everyone was speculating about nanotech as an explanation for smokey because of that.
Now it's a bright light in a tunnel, guarded by Mother.
Where does she come from? Who is Mother? What's the light? Oh, it's like the life source, mhh... ok, smoke monsters are created by throwing dead people into the life light, cool...
And if I question the origin of Mother I am just a dumbass that needs his information spoon fed I guess...
I could give a lot more examples, but the gist is, the show is a very good example of lazy writing and writer's making up crap as they go along.
How big are those gaps we are supposed to fill for ourselves? There are no clues or definite hints we can go by. Of course everyone can find their own reason, wouldn't that be great? If you want to, you can say that baby Jesus made the island.
Name me one GOOD book or movie that expects you to come up with your own explanations, because the writer(s) introduced a ton of stuff and did not bother to follow up on most of it.
If you still enjoy the show, that's cool. I will watch the last few episodes as well and I will remember Lost by it's good moments, and it has had quite a few.
But I don't get the rabid apologists, who seem to think that everyone that does not love this show anymore is dumb.
I never "loved" Lost. Still don't. It's fun as hell, and sometimes achieves really good drama. Only one season of the show has ever broken my personal top 10. I think it's unfair to judge someone's intellectual aptitude based on the tv shows they enjoy, and calling someone a dumbass for being unsatisfied with a TV show is some condescending, shortsighted shit.
I don't understand how talking to the dead is okay but glowing holes is beyond the pale. One is way goofier than the other, yeah, but if you've bought into ghosts and spiritual skype sessions, you've bought into supernatural elements being a part of your show.
What I've found, not only with this show but other shows, is that my enjoyment level has always been higher when it hasn't occurred to me to go digging around to see what the creators are saying about their show. The behind the scenes shit is only hurting the viewing, and creators are doing their show a disservice by essentially providing a running commentary on the writer's room before the work itself is finished. Save that shit for the season box-set. Shut up and let your work talk until your work is done, and THEN start "illuminating" people on the process.
The element of "Betrayal" and "lying" that ends up souring so many viewers is so artificially introduced by the creators, and eagerly eaten up by the viewers, and it never actually helps unless you're caught up playing the game of "armchair screenwriter," which almost always serves to ruin the entertainment you're watching. Of course they're lying. They're professional liars. They're literally paid to lie. These are things I forget constantly, and I go and I click these interviews where these people are pretzeling themselves in order to scratch some PT Barnum itch, and it's a bad call, every time. It detracts from the storytelling in one of the worst possible ways.
I used to pooh-pooh LOST because it always seemed to me its most fervent defenders back in season 1 and 2 were people who appreciated the show almost solely for it's puzzle-solving exercises. it seemed less like a show and more like a televised game of plot-tetris. The plotting was always goofy and silly, but I rolled with it because how the plotting advanced the characterization was really interesting for me. The characters weren't anywhere near as deep as a lot of people give credit for, and the emotional highs the show has hit can't hold a candle to shows like The Shield, Battlestar, The Wire, or hell, even Angel, or The Office. At least for me. But it's a propulsive, fun show, and that fun comes from the characterization and the ridiculous, comic-book plotting.
LOST has never been in contention with any of those aforementioned shows, for me. If anything, it seems closer to an idealized version of Heroes.
ZampanovYou May Not Go HomeUntil Tonight Has Been MagicalRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
This might make me sound retarded, just putting that out there up front:
I think a lot of people are paying way too much attention to what the people making the show say about it/analyzing their intentions. What the hell do they know? They're just writing/producing it. I base my opinion on watching the show itself.
Am I in the minority when it comes to approaching TV/Movies/Books in this way?
Now it's a bright light in a tunnel, guarded by Mother.
Where does she come from? Who is Mother? What's the light? Oh, it's like the life source, mhh... ok, smoke monsters are created by throwing dead people into the life light, cool...
And if I question the origin of Mother I am just a dumbass that needs his information spoon fed I guess...
Give me pretty much any story and I can sum it up to make it sound just as stupid as this. Especially sci-fi/fantasy stories.
BTW, any answer, whether scientific or magic, is going to be just technobabble so what's the difference? And other nagging questions that people ask are matters of plot convenience and hand-wavium. You don't question how light speed works in other major science fiction works, because it allows the plot to move forward.
And the show isn't about mysteries, it's about the characters. If you can't understand this 6 seasons in, where the vast majority of the episodes are focused on the characters themselves and their stories and their interwoven fates, then there's no helping you. There are mysteries, but they're background to the character element. When the show ends, there will be mysteries that remain, but the character element will have come to an end.
Man, reading those quotes felt like I was getting punched in the cock by the writers. I've got a pretty bad memory so I don't usually notice these things, but seeing it all in one nice package of quotes really made it pretty clear that these dudes have been lying with a straight face the whole time. That's disappointing.
Yes thank you Yar for all the quotes.
...and Fatboy Roberts stop telling me to fuck off because thats basically what you are doing. This is a debate and discourse forum where we discuss things.
Your argument boils down to this "You weren't at the civil war thus you can't argue anything about the civil war ever. READING DOESN'T COUNT." Also, there are numerous people in this thread that agree with me who HAVE watched the entirety of the show.
Also how about you respond to my criticisms of the show which are still valid despite your harping on my credibility. We are talking about a TV show its not like a friken lay person arguing with a climate scientist over global warming.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Those people who have watched the show are good with the discussion. You still have yet to explain why, as someone who doesn't watch the show, you're even fucking IN HERE.
Also, if we were talking about the Civil War, I'd expect you to have read a fucking book once or twice. One about the civil war, specifically. If a serious discussion about the civil war was happening in another thread, and my knowledge of it was limited to shit I skimmed on wikipedia and my friend Bill having said he watched North and South a couple times, I'd probably just lurk in the thread and read along because I'd recognize I have almost zero to fucking say that wouldn't make me look like an ignorant sap because I'd have to admit I don't actually know what I'm talking about because I never read anything about the civil war.
THAT'S what you're doing. Please stop fuckin doin it, that's all. Or at least explain why, as someone not watching the show, and furthermore not planning to watch the show, you're engaging with viewers of the show on plotting and characterization that you literally have not seen?
I'm sorry I missed the "Lost fans only" sign at the door.
P.S. my criticism of some of the mysteries are STILL VALID despite having only read about the last 3 seasons. Also I said I was going to watch the last few episodes to see if they do answer questions I had, but I doubt they will pull it off.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
I'm sorry I missed the "Lost fans only" sign at the door.
P.S. my criticism of some of the mysteries are STILL VALID despite having only read about the last 3 seasons. Also I said I was going to watch the last few episodes to see if they do answer questions I had, but I doubt they will pull it off.
No, they really aren't.
You are the kid trying to bullshit his way through his book report after reading the cover jacket and skimming the Coles Notes briefly in the book store.
I'm sorry I missed the "Lost fans only" sign at the door.
Its kind of a taken-for-granted thing. It goes back to that question you keep not answering: Why the hell, if you don't watch the show, and don't plan on watching the show, would you want to talk about the plotting and characterization? why would you want to talk about the storytelling in a piece of entertainment you will not ever be watching? The assumption is that you're talking about the show BECAUSE you watch it, and you want to share your thoughts with other VIEWERS of the show.
I have been responding to criticisms of the show, and agreeing with some of those criticisms of the show, almost entirely with people who obviously HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE SHOW. I haven't been engaging with you except to ask you why the fuck you're even in here because that's the only real pertinent question for you. You're some sort of half-assed dilettante arguing that buying the cliffs notes should get you full course credit.
Lost has always been at it's best when it's been about the characters and the plot and mysteries have taken a back seat.
That I'd definitely agree with. One of the major problems of Lost, and the one that hampers it most IMO, making it a good, fun but not great show for me, is that it is torn in those two different directions - character on the one hand, mystery/mythology/plot on the other. Several of the episodes that focus on the latter are silly, goofy fun but ever so faintly ludicrous, as if the writers had been passing around this gigantic bong as they were coming up with the plot.
As I've said before, I enjoyed "Across the Sea". What I minded about it, though, was that I've come to care about the 815ers, and they're the ones I want to spend time with. It was interesting enough to have Jacob and Smokey's backstory elaborated on, but so far I don't see that it makes all that much of a difference for the Losties and how I relate to them. The last couple of episodes may change that, though.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
As the show progresses, it won't venture too far into science fiction as its mysteries unfold. We're still trying to be firmly ensconced in the world of science fact, I don't think we've shown anything on the show yet that has no rational explanation in the real world that we all function within. We certainly hint at psychic phenomena, happenstance and things being in a place where they probably shouldn't be. But nothing is flat-out impossible. There are no spaceships. There isn't any time travel.
I think that this is what we always saw as the natural evolution of the show, that it would have more overt science-fiction and fantasy elements as time went on and that was sort of always our plan.
The one thing that Carlton and I are steadfast on saying over and over again, and that we're not lying about is that the show is not all a dream. It's happening in the real world, there are real stakes, you're not going to get to the end and cut to black and suddenly realize that this was all sort of a fantasy.
There are sort of fundamental elements of mystery and magic to the show that are unexplainable, and any attempt to explain them would actually harm the show, and in our opinion, the legacy of the show.
Given everything else we have to tell, [Libby's story] is going to be a mystery that's going to have to get answered in year 4. There's really one significant missing piece to Libby's story. We saw in the season finale last year that she met with Desmond, she gave him his boat, and we know that her husband died — and then we know that subsequent to that, she spent some time in a mental institution, the same one as Hurley. The question the audience wants answered is, How did she get from A to B — from Desmond to the mental institution? We know the answer to that question, but the only way to tell that story is through another character's flashback, and that character would have to be another character on the show who is not among the beach dwellers.
Libby's got this mysterious backstory, of which we've only given you the tip of the iceberg. We know she's spent some time in the mental institution with Hurley, and the idea of killing her before she had an opportunity to explain how she got there... we have a master plan for how we're going to tell that story, but it's all posthumous. You'll start to learn Libby's moves through flashbacks over the course of the next season.
Uhh, you know, again, these are not questions that we are going to answer. I think the point we were trying to make with the Libby story is that everything is graded in terms of importance for us, and, as we are doing the last season of the show, it's not going to be sort of a didactic, you know, here's a list of a thousand questions that we're going to answer. That would not make for a very entertaining show. We are focusing on what we consider to be the significant questions, and mysteries, and character relationships. That's the story that we're gonna tell. I think that the reference to Libby was more illustrative of the fact that I think, we accept the fact that in the end of the day there will, probably, you could ask a spectrum of a thousand different fans “Well what question did you not get answered?” and there might be a thousand different answers, but we are focusing on what we consider to be the main questions of the show and the main narritive. It's impossible to tie up every loose end, and we don't really consider, honestly, Libby's story is incredibly tangential to the principle action on the show. For us, the focus of the final season really has to be on the main characters and what would generally be acknowledged as the most significant mysteries.
The 'why' of it all is always the hardest mystery to deal with on the show. If you were to say, “Locke tells them, ‘Hey, this is all happening for a reason,’" and then you’d say, "Well, what is that reason? Why were all those people on that plane?" Obviously that stuff is coming downstream. Probably much of it will be hinted at in Season 5, but why these people, why this time, why this place, why that plane? It’s Season 6 territory.
One of the byproducts of moving toward an end point is that we do not need to constantly introduce new characters into the mix of the show to keep it fresh and entertaining. Especially when there are so many questions about Alpert or about Miles or about Charlotte or Faraday or Lapidus. There’s still so much storytelling to do with those guys.
...the thing that sort of kept coming back towards us [from the network] was, "It can’t be like 'Twin Peaks.' Just don’t 'Twin Peaks' us." They were using it as a verb -- "Don’t 'Twin Peaks' us." It was like, "What do you mean by that?" And it was like, "Just don’t lead up to an inevitable, unsatisfying conclusion and then you’ll lose all your viewership." You need to drag people along. But you need to answer your mystery satisfyingly and every time you answer a mystery, there needs to be just enough mysteries in its wake to make them feel satisfied. The thing is, “Twin Peaks” ...[is] in the pantheon of, you know, it’s an icon.
We started the show sitting in my office every morning having breakfast, talking about what we thought was cool. And whatever we both would get excited about would go into the show and that’s how we’ve approached it all along and that’s how we approached it at the end.
The Lost creators have often claimed they know where the show is going and that everything will ultimately add up. Well, the current creators, anyway. "There was absoluetly no master plan on Lost" insists David Fury, a co-executive producer last season who wrote the series's two best episodes and is now a writer-producer on 24. "Anybody who said that was lying. On a show like Lost, it becomes a great big shaggy-dog story," he continues cheerily. "They keep saying there's meaning in everything, and I'm here to tell you no - a lot of things are just arbitrary. What I always tried to do to do was connect these random elements, to create the illusion that it was all adding up to something." Many plot elements were concocted on the fly, Fury says; for example, they didn't know Hurley won the lottery until it came time to write his episode. "I don't like to talk about when we come up with ideas," Lindelof demurs. "It's a magic trick. But we planned that plot: We seeded references to it in earlier episodes." Fury disagrees. He says scenes with those references were filmed much later and inserted into earlier yet-to-air episodes: "it's a brilliant trick to make us look smart. But doing that created a huge budget problem."
There were certain things we knew from the very beginning. Independent of ever knowing when the end was going to be, we knew what it was going to be, and we wanted to start setting it up as early as season 1, or else people would think that we were making it up as we were going along. So the skeletons are the living — or, I guess, slowly decomposing — proof of that. When all is said and done, people are going to point to the skeletons and say, ''That is proof that from the very beginning, they always knew that they were going to do this."
Now, in regards to the idea that some of us have tried to get comfortable with - that this show was always intended to be a web of intrigue and excitement pulling us in, but never really concerned itself with resolving things or making a coherent story, and certainly never had a plan... I'm not sure why the idea makes some of you so mad. I'm being very complimentary of what they've done. I'm calling it high art, entertaining, a great thing, critical award-winning success, and something I've personally enjoyed. In response, I'm being called a troll, and being told that basically I hate the show and want everyone else to hate it. I decided a while ago that it is a waste of time here trying to prove to everyone exactly why I'm so thoroughly convinced of my idea about what the show is and has been. That doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that I think it is something it isn't. And I certainly don't hate it (well, maybe for a while in season 2 - 3) or want anyone else to. I'm going to discuss it from my own confident point of view, though, and rest assured I will do my best to employ reasonable attempts to coddle those who get fanboishly defensive even when I am praising the show and talking about what an interesting success and entertaining ride it has been.
Well. That's pretty much a smoking gun if ever I saw one. Those quotes, especially the last one, combined with things like the skeletons having been only 50 years old and whatnot, seem to illustrate rather clearly that more or less the show was made in order to simply advance the next mystery, and to answer less questions than they asked.
Not that it makes it a bad show, of course. I still like it and have still watched it. I enjoyed the ride. And though the show is a magic trick - I still enjoy magic tricks. It's fun to watch them try and connect the dots, even though we can look at it rationally and say that it was never originally planned like that. It's sort of like watching someone flow or a comedian improvise -- it's impressive to see them make up rhymes and jokes on the fly, and it's impressive to see a show blindly ask all these questions and then six years later go back and try to tie things together.
Posts
How about someone going into the source that was to be protected and a pillar of murderous smoke comming out as a result?
Seems like its at least sort of bad to me.
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Why is Smokey magical? Majick light.
I would judge that to be a poor answer because it asks the exact same question of the 'answer', so I do not feel like I have any firmer grasp on how things work than I did before.
If, on the other hand, they were to say something like 'women cannot give birth on the island because the strong electromagnetic field disrupts how the fetus is forming' I would think that is a significantly better answer because it 'makes sense', whatever that means. If the answer could also address why the adults on the island aren't affected by the electromagnetic field, the answer would be even 'better', I feel.
What do you guys think?
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I went to lunch and don't feel like going through other people's posts, (so I can only speak for my own view) but the thing I was trying to say earlier is that analyzing these questions and answers like you're doing is dumb unless you're actually having fun trying to fill in the blanks. That the point of the show isn't to answer every, or possibly even most of the questions/mysteries posed to your satisfaction. The point is to resolve the conflict that these mysteries have led to.
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Sometimes, when you wanna make an omelete, a few eggs have to be fatally mauled by an intangible monster.
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He can't, because he doesn't watch the show. he hasn't watched the show for about 5 years. Everything he knows about the show he learned from reading wikipedia entries and talking to his friends. He is literally arguing just for the sake of arguing.
I wouldn't say that. I'd say that the quality of the answer doesn't invalidate its definition as an answer. "Smokey became smokey because Jacob pinballed his skull off a rock and he floated into a glowing toilet." That could be a pretty shitty answer for someone watching (it's quite silly, IMO) but it's an answer. You watched it happen on-screen. You saw what changed Smokey into Smokey.
It's one thing to say "I really think that's a shitty answer." But the fights are happening because people who think it's a shitty answer (and people who don't even watch the fucking show say "I heard that's a shitty answer") try to equate "answer I dislike" with "no answer at all."
And then the merry-go-round goes spinnin.
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I used to love this thread. Still love the show.
EDIT: Agh! Look what you have done to me, now here I am, bitching about the bitching. I have become that which I hate! All you Lost haters, stop watching and bitching about the show, and I will stop clicking on this thread that I hate and bitching about the thread. We will all be better for it.
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For the record, I actually liked the episode a lot, but they did answer questions with more questions - that doesn't satisfy the very reason that people started watching in the first place - what is up with the island? I do think we'll find out, I just don't want the answer to be "because." There's a lot more creative ways to answer it.
Backstory seems pretty important to the endgame. Especially knowing a bit more about MiB's origins and motivations.
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Classic Jackface.
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Like theres only a few people here who dislike it. The rest of us just think the mythology is half-assed, sort of lame and would probably rather do without.
Yet then we get told were wrong and that the mythology is well done and that weve gotten good answers and then we all fight.
Sorry but nobody is going to agree, half this thread thinks the show is fun but cheap thrills, the other half apparently thinks its some awesome piece of art.
We can all agree its better then V...V is garbage.
EDIT: Im at work, so I cant give Jack faces...someone post a good pic of Sawyers adorable dimples.
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Alright, so then let's get the bullshit semantics out of the way. Yes, there were indeed answers of some form. Words were spoken during the show and images were shown. I think that arguing with whoever originally stated that giving shitty answers is the same as not giving answers is kind of stupid. It should be fairly clear that by saying 'not answers' he's saying he's quite upset with the quality of what was shown, not implying that there was no show and the screen was just black for an hour.
So now that the stupid bullshit is out of the way, can we address the actual meaningful points of debate?
1. Are the current answers being given good? Do you feel satisfied by them and do you think they help explain the Lost universe? Are the answers better or worse than in prior seasons? Are the answers better or worse than in other shows?
2. Should there be an expectation to even get good answers on this show. Is it reasonable for the audience to expect to be explained things that were major themes for seasons? Or is this not the type of show where an audience should expect to get answers? If not, why not / how does one distinguish between such shows? Also if not, why do you think people are confused and expect answers if this isn't that sort of show?
The sequel should be a show of Desmond just travelling through time fixing stuff with the help of a hologram of a guy from the future with an iphone called ziggy.
First of all, cites. These cover a lot of things we've discussed, take them as you will.
EDIT: Oh yeah, this one:
Now, in regards to the idea that some of us have tried to get comfortable with - that this show was always intended to be a web of intrigue and excitement pulling us in, but never really concerned itself with resolving things or making a coherent story, and certainly never had a plan... I'm not sure why the idea makes some of you so mad. I'm being very complimentary of what they've done. I'm calling it high art, entertaining, a great thing, critical award-winning success, and something I've personally enjoyed. In response, I'm being called a troll, and being told that basically I hate the show and want everyone else to hate it. I decided a while ago that it is a waste of time here trying to prove to everyone exactly why I'm so thoroughly convinced of my idea about what the show is and has been. That doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that I think it is something it isn't. And I certainly don't hate it (well, maybe for a while in season 2 - 3) or want anyone else to. I'm going to discuss it from my own confident point of view, though, and rest assured I will do my best to employ reasonable attempts to coddle those who get fanboishly defensive even when I am praising the show and talking about what an interesting success and entertaining ride it has been.
wat u say???
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This show is about the characters. They are well-drawn, strong, and largely archetypal. They are symbols of mankind as a whole, and that island is essentially the chaotic and largely unknowable universe we find ourselves in. These mysteries are embellished to propel these characters in a way that is both entertaining and useful in allowing the writers to tell a story that is a parable/mythology type story about the nature of man. If you're watching it as a sci-fi show rooted in the quest for answers about the universe itself, you're missing the point. I think it's rooted in the quest for answers about finding our place in the universe.
Hopefully I'm making sense.
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Here's the thing - the guy initially saying "There were no answers" literally DOESN'T WATCH THE SHOW. So there's that. The problem is when that gets picked up and run with. So really, it's not at all fairly clear that the phrase "not answers" means he's upset with the quality of the answers, because two of the most vocal complainers in the last 15-20 pages of this discussion, regarding the plotting of the show, DON'T WATCH IT. They don't know about the quality of the answers because they're not watching them. They're arguing from a vacuum for the argument's sake.
Well, these are pretty abstract/general questions. Are you talking about this last episode specifically? If so - it was a bit of a stumble, for me. Compared to the answers given in previous seasons, it's a little worse, but I wouldn't say it was the worst episode of the series, nor would I say it's The Phantom Menace of LOST. It doesn't fundamentally break what LOST is about for me, but it didn't necessarily push the storytelling forward, either. It just sorta stood there, illuminating stuff I already knew, and shading things that already had depth.
The expectation question is always a tricky one, because yes: You should expect quality from things you try to watch. Quality is a nebulous adjective, though. But nobody should be watching shit, and I try to only spend time with entertainments that I believe have the potential to actually entertain. The big problem with the expectation game is that it's been turned into such a speculative exercise, that whether the storytelling is good or not ends up taking a backseat to whether you GUESSED it or not. Sometimes this is as literal as people ticking a checkbox in their head and keeping score. Sometimes it's more along the lines of vaguely drawing out a storyarc in your head, and getting disappointed when it doesn't follow that arc.
Don't confuse that for an argument that you should just shut off your brain and watch the show and let it throw whatever it wants at you. Bad storytelling is bad storytelling, and LOST has been guilty of it more than a few times in the past. But sometimes it feels less like people are watching the show than they are competing with the showrunners to see who can come up with the better writing.
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I have been watching this show since Season 1.
I have seen every episode and I continue to do so, to see this show finish.
I have enjoyed the show A LOT for the first 3 or 4 seasons, when I was still led to believe that there was a plan behind it all, some brilliant story that was going to come to an ending well thought out in advance and where most(if not all) plot threads would be tied up in a satisfying fashion.
Sadly this has not been the case and the quality of the show has steadily decreased for a while now.
It is really not dumb or "having answers spoon-fed to you" if you expect a coherent universe within the boundaries of the show.
It has to make sense in that universe the lost writers created.
If the writers deliberately break their own rules because it is convenient to do so or if they are pulling flashy ideas out of their ass that is not good writing.
I used to care for most of the characters on the show, now I really wouldn't mind if the island just blew up and killed them all. I really don't care anymore.
Thing is, the writers led us to believe that they had it all scripted out and that they had a very structured approch to the show, they said so since season 1 and then it became clear that they were lying.
Walt used to be the big thing in season 1 and 2. Where is he now? Oops, we kinda got no idea what to do with him and the child actor grew too fast, let's scratch that.
Storylines ended or characters were dropped because actors had to leave the show.
People talking to the dead is one thing, it has been established that people like Miles can do that, this is something I can accept in the setting of the show.
But does anyone remember when the writers swore there was no supernatural explanation behind the story?(Before anyone comes along with "citation needed olol" just google "lost writers no supernatural explanation" and you will find discussion threads from around 2005)
In the beginning everyone was speculating about nanotech as an explanation for smokey because of that.
Now it's a bright light in a tunnel, guarded by Mother.
Where does she come from? Who is Mother? What's the light? Oh, it's like the life source, mhh... ok, smoke monsters are created by throwing dead people into the life light, cool...
And if I question the origin of Mother I am just a dumbass that needs his information spoon fed I guess...
I could give a lot more examples, but the gist is, the show is a very good example of lazy writing and writer's making up crap as they go along.
How big are those gaps we are supposed to fill for ourselves? There are no clues or definite hints we can go by. Of course everyone can find their own reason, wouldn't that be great? If you want to, you can say that baby Jesus made the island.
Name me one GOOD book or movie that expects you to come up with your own explanations, because the writer(s) introduced a ton of stuff and did not bother to follow up on most of it.
If you still enjoy the show, that's cool. I will watch the last few episodes as well and I will remember Lost by it's good moments, and it has had quite a few.
But I don't get the rabid apologists, who seem to think that everyone that does not love this show anymore is dumb.
I don't understand how talking to the dead is okay but glowing holes is beyond the pale. One is way goofier than the other, yeah, but if you've bought into ghosts and spiritual skype sessions, you've bought into supernatural elements being a part of your show.
What I've found, not only with this show but other shows, is that my enjoyment level has always been higher when it hasn't occurred to me to go digging around to see what the creators are saying about their show. The behind the scenes shit is only hurting the viewing, and creators are doing their show a disservice by essentially providing a running commentary on the writer's room before the work itself is finished. Save that shit for the season box-set. Shut up and let your work talk until your work is done, and THEN start "illuminating" people on the process.
The element of "Betrayal" and "lying" that ends up souring so many viewers is so artificially introduced by the creators, and eagerly eaten up by the viewers, and it never actually helps unless you're caught up playing the game of "armchair screenwriter," which almost always serves to ruin the entertainment you're watching. Of course they're lying. They're professional liars. They're literally paid to lie. These are things I forget constantly, and I go and I click these interviews where these people are pretzeling themselves in order to scratch some PT Barnum itch, and it's a bad call, every time. It detracts from the storytelling in one of the worst possible ways.
I used to pooh-pooh LOST because it always seemed to me its most fervent defenders back in season 1 and 2 were people who appreciated the show almost solely for it's puzzle-solving exercises. it seemed less like a show and more like a televised game of plot-tetris. The plotting was always goofy and silly, but I rolled with it because how the plotting advanced the characterization was really interesting for me. The characters weren't anywhere near as deep as a lot of people give credit for, and the emotional highs the show has hit can't hold a candle to shows like The Shield, Battlestar, The Wire, or hell, even Angel, or The Office. At least for me. But it's a propulsive, fun show, and that fun comes from the characterization and the ridiculous, comic-book plotting.
LOST has never been in contention with any of those aforementioned shows, for me. If anything, it seems closer to an idealized version of Heroes.
And now, for something completely different:
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I think a lot of people are paying way too much attention to what the people making the show say about it/analyzing their intentions. What the hell do they know? They're just writing/producing it. I base my opinion on watching the show itself.
Am I in the minority when it comes to approaching TV/Movies/Books in this way?
As for this:
Give me pretty much any story and I can sum it up to make it sound just as stupid as this. Especially sci-fi/fantasy stories.
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And the show isn't about mysteries, it's about the characters. If you can't understand this 6 seasons in, where the vast majority of the episodes are focused on the characters themselves and their stories and their interwoven fates, then there's no helping you. There are mysteries, but they're background to the character element. When the show ends, there will be mysteries that remain, but the character element will have come to an end.
People cite The Constant all the time for instance. And I'd throw in Walkabout and ...In Translation as 2 more of the shows best.
Lost has always been at it's best when it's been about the characters and the plot and mysteries have taken a back seat.
Yes thank you Yar for all the quotes.
...and Fatboy Roberts stop telling me to fuck off because thats basically what you are doing. This is a debate and discourse forum where we discuss things.
Your argument boils down to this "You weren't at the civil war thus you can't argue anything about the civil war ever. READING DOESN'T COUNT." Also, there are numerous people in this thread that agree with me who HAVE watched the entirety of the show.
Also how about you respond to my criticisms of the show which are still valid despite your harping on my credibility. We are talking about a TV show its not like a friken lay person arguing with a climate scientist over global warming.
Also, if we were talking about the Civil War, I'd expect you to have read a fucking book once or twice. One about the civil war, specifically. If a serious discussion about the civil war was happening in another thread, and my knowledge of it was limited to shit I skimmed on wikipedia and my friend Bill having said he watched North and South a couple times, I'd probably just lurk in the thread and read along because I'd recognize I have almost zero to fucking say that wouldn't make me look like an ignorant sap because I'd have to admit I don't actually know what I'm talking about because I never read anything about the civil war.
THAT'S what you're doing. Please stop fuckin doin it, that's all. Or at least explain why, as someone not watching the show, and furthermore not planning to watch the show, you're engaging with viewers of the show on plotting and characterization that you literally have not seen?
You still have yet to do that last one.
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P.S. my criticism of some of the mysteries are STILL VALID despite having only read about the last 3 seasons. Also I said I was going to watch the last few episodes to see if they do answer questions I had, but I doubt they will pull it off.
No, they really aren't.
You are the kid trying to bullshit his way through his book report after reading the cover jacket and skimming the Coles Notes briefly in the book store.
Its kind of a taken-for-granted thing. It goes back to that question you keep not answering: Why the hell, if you don't watch the show, and don't plan on watching the show, would you want to talk about the plotting and characterization? why would you want to talk about the storytelling in a piece of entertainment you will not ever be watching? The assumption is that you're talking about the show BECAUSE you watch it, and you want to share your thoughts with other VIEWERS of the show.
I have been responding to criticisms of the show, and agreeing with some of those criticisms of the show, almost entirely with people who obviously HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE SHOW. I haven't been engaging with you except to ask you why the fuck you're even in here because that's the only real pertinent question for you. You're some sort of half-assed dilettante arguing that buying the cliffs notes should get you full course credit.
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As I've said before, I enjoyed "Across the Sea". What I minded about it, though, was that I've come to care about the 815ers, and they're the ones I want to spend time with. It was interesting enough to have Jacob and Smokey's backstory elaborated on, but so far I don't see that it makes all that much of a difference for the Losties and how I relate to them. The last couple of episodes may change that, though.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Well. That's pretty much a smoking gun if ever I saw one. Those quotes, especially the last one, combined with things like the skeletons having been only 50 years old and whatnot, seem to illustrate rather clearly that more or less the show was made in order to simply advance the next mystery, and to answer less questions than they asked.
Not that it makes it a bad show, of course. I still like it and have still watched it. I enjoyed the ride. And though the show is a magic trick - I still enjoy magic tricks. It's fun to watch them try and connect the dots, even though we can look at it rationally and say that it was never originally planned like that. It's sort of like watching someone flow or a comedian improvise -- it's impressive to see them make up rhymes and jokes on the fly, and it's impressive to see a show blindly ask all these questions and then six years later go back and try to tie things together.
also, an angry jackface: