I'm a new watcher to Lost, I started watching it just when the show entered the 3rd season and within a couple weeks, I had spent 4 days staging a Season 1 & 2 marathon, 24 episodes each, an hour per episode, you do the math. Yes, it's that good(and I'm that much of a couch papaya)! However, this season has been mildly disappointing, so while I wait for the fun and games to start, I thought I would make an admirable attempt to increase the content of MS's databases and review it here.
Background: The show has the central premise - have you ever wondered who the person sitting next to you on the plane was? The characters on Lost find out the hard way.
Season 1(The Island)
The season pitches you right into the action with the plane crash and the survivors finding out that rescue is not forthcoming. All that’s left is to get to know each other and hope for the best. Season 1 introduces us to the island with it limited beauty and unlimited mysteries, and the survivor’s struggles to come to terms with it. The season ends with the survivors building a raft and a couple of them leaving the island to find help.
Season 2(The Hatch)*
After 45 days on an unpredictable island, it rudely dawns upon the survivors that an island hitherto thought uninhabited is packed like a veritable can of sardines - of the weird, wild, wacko and hostile variety. The other people on the island are called quite simply'The Others'. The season also finds them trying to unravel the mysteries of a hatch in the jungle, a research project the Dharma initiative and of a seemingly random set of numbers. It all ends with the Others kidnapping Jack, Kate and Sawyer.
Season 3(The Others)*
The current season begins with Jack, Kate and Sawyer finding out more about the Others and about themselves. More later!
Characters:
Jack(Matthew Fox): A doctor, a natural at taking charge in an emergency, he emerges as the leader for the survivors. Jack, a man of contradictions, is morally upright, protective, tormented with his demons and embodies the conscience of the show.
Kate(Evangeline Lilly): A disturbed, restless woman with a past which she is constantly running away from, Jack and the rest of the survivors are first taken in by her innocent face until the layers start peeling. Kate has her own reasons for wanting to get away from the island.
Sawyer(Josh Holloway): A Southern con-man, Sawyer's religion is money. A bit out of his natural depth on the island, he quickly establishes that controlling the supplies from the plane is the currency on the island. Sawyer is manipulative and mean, but all to protect himself.
Sayid(Naveen Andrews): A member of the Iraqi Republican Guard, Sayid's natural talents - communications and torture are put to good use on the island. Sayid is himself tormented with memories of things he has done during the Gulf War, but his motives are generally straight forward unlike most of the other survivors.
John Locke: A hunter and survival expert, he is responsible for providing the meat supply for the survivors, along with Jin. Locke has an unshakeable belief in the island's powers and doesnt want to get off it.
Some other characters are the loveable Hurley, a unlucky lottery winner, Sun and Jin, a Korean couple with marital problems, Claire a pregnant Australian, Boone and Shannon, rich siblings, and Charlie a rock group has-been and drug addict.
Thank You, Namaste and Good Luck!*
There's many things I love about the show, not least of which are the breathtaking locations and production values which are much better then any current show on TV, the impressive writing of the characters and episodes and the incredibly talented ensemble cast. And with such a large cast the writers have less of a capacity to write themselves into a corner. With 40 survivors, the focus till now has only been upon a small group of people, which irritated me before since I couldnt understand why the rest of the people were content to live on the island. But, the writers cleverly offset this by dedicating a couple of episodes each season to some of the Sideshow Bob's, each with their own reasons for remaining on the island. And there's a running gag in season 3 with a couple who was suddenly introduced and Sawyer keeps asking them'Who the hell are you?' almost echoing what the viewer feels. A bit irritating, but quite clever.
I'm always biased towards shows that dont take the viewers and fans for granted. With Lost if there is a plot element introduced in, say, the first season, a reference to it is made in the third season, something which I believe accounts for the loyalty of their fan base. And for a show with so many inherent red herrings, there's again immense satisfaction to be found when a close watcher of the show predicts that the red herring will develop into a .(what do red herrings develop into anyway?) . and here it does!
Each storyline is told with flashbacks of the characters' lives before they got on the plane, their past generally influencing their decisions on the island. The other interesting thing about the people is that almost all of them are liars, thieves, scoundrels or just plain pathetic, people who are literally and figuratively'Lost'. Most of them that is, except the Doc(which makes me wonder what deep, dark secret Jack is hiding)! I like that these are flawed characters, all out of their depths and coming to terms with the hopeless situation they find themselves in. And perhaps the best thing, there are many strong women characters written in here. Probably, the only stereotypes are the Iraqi and the South Korean couple and credit has to be given to the actors for rounding out these characters and making them so interesting that they are all integral to the show now.
The characters themselves are all interconnected like the strands of a large, intricately woven, fine mesh, and unbeknownst have known one or another of the people on the island before crashing there. This freaky reality really adds to the tension and mysterious(there's that word again) atmosphere of the show. I feel that there's one character here that's integral to unraveling the mesh and a hunch tells me it's Jack's father. The writers have always maintained that there's a logical explanation for every single thing that happens on the island, and while incredulous, I'm quite willing to be blindsided, however I just hope it doesn’t go the way of a government experiment gone horribly wrong.
This is all true and more for the first 2 seasons. Season 3 started off a bit unimpressive, familiarity with the Others bred contempt and all that. It did get better, but still seems to be struggling with a lack of direction. Currently, the characters are involved in a game of cross and double-cross and it's difficult to see where it's heading. Lost managed to keep a continuous storyline fresh for 2 seasons and while I'm hoping there's still some wonderful things to come out of the show I cant help but feel we're going to be facing regurgitation or some truly out-there ideas quite soon. I hope this season, which feels like it's in hibernation, wakes up SOON!
After all, how will I wean my Wed night addiction if the unthinkable happens!
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