Since we seem to be on the same page on a lot of aspects of Lost—Elizabeth Mitchell's hotness, for example—and speculating about the sixth season at this point doesn't seem especially fruitful—as usual, the fifth-season finale raised at least three new questions for every answer it provided—I'll spend most of this post addressing a particular issue, the balance between characterization and mythology in the show in general and in the fourth and fifth seasons in particular.
One of this show's greatest strengths has always been the attention given to its large cast of characters. Moreover, we were essentially told from the beginning that it would be a very character-driven show by the fact of the flashbacks, often dealing with matters little related to the events on the Island but nevertheless giving us better insight into what makes them tick. While there's always been a lot going on plot-wise, the show's rhythm has generally been such that there was time for new plot developments to sink in, for the characters to react to them and consider what it means for them. For example, Michael's two rafts in the first season weren't just plot devices for getting off the Island, but also opportunities for delving into Michael and Walt's relationship and exploring questions of the survivors' place on the Island.
I think that the fact that the fourth and fifth seasons were several episodes shorter than the first, second, and third couldn't help but negatively impact this. You said that the writers were at fault for this. (I presume you mean in how they wrote the show, not by going on strike.) It's true that greater economy of storytelling could've been made, to try to cover the same amount of story in less time. But it's also true that television is a zero-sum game to a great extent; they only have about forty minutes per episode, so spending more time with one thing will generally mean spending less time with something else. This is especially the case with Lost's format; since each episode focuses on a single character, exploring a character through flashbacks, etc., is typically a significant time commitment, and more so since the seasons became shorter and there were fewer episodes to go around.
Also, the switch from flashbacks to flashforwards—though terrific in most respects—has limited the show's opportunities to explore new characters like the freighter folk. If they'd still been doing flashbacks in the fourth and fifth seasons, they could easily have replaced flashbacks for characters we've already seen a lot of (seriously, I think we've seen enough of Jack's and Kate's backstories at this point) with flashbacks for the new characters. As it is, the flashforwards have given the show a lot of new and fresh material on the old characters to explore, but there's been that much less time for basic background information about Faraday or Charlotte (and we still don't know squat about Lapidus except that he was supposed to pilot Oceanic 815). Basically, the choice before the writers wasn't between info on one of the new characters and the umpteenth boring Jack flashback, it was between info on one of the new characters and an interesting Jack flashforward, which is a tough call to make. In this respect, the switch to flashforwards has been a bit of a double-edged sword, giving interesting new perspectives on established characters but leaving less opportunity for finding out about the newcomers.
Now, I agree that the depiction of some characters, particularly the freighter folk, has suffered; my point—I do have one, honest!—is that I don't really feel I can criticize the writers for this very much, since, as I wrote in my last Lost post, I think it's mostly due to factors outside their control, e.g. the shorter seasons, the story's broadening scope, and the switch from flashbacks to flashforwards. Regardless of who or what's to blame, or whether or not it was inevitable given the show's format and the course of the story, for the last couple seasons my reaction has been similar to the "detachment" you mentioned. Intellectually, it's just as fascinating, challenging, and confusing (in a good way) as ever, if not more so; emotionally, it hasn't clicked as consistently as the first three seasons. I wasn't sure whether this might have been due to how I watched the different seasons: I watched the first, second, and third seasons on DVD, and the fourth and fifth on TV. Watching those two seasons the last two years and not connecting with them emotionally quite as much as I did with the first three, I thought that perhaps watching the show only forty minutes per week (if we're lucky), instead of (as was often the case) hours at a stretch, hampered my ability to get as emotionally involved.
That may be a part of it, but I think it's more to do with characterization taking more of a backseat to plot, especially with the newer characters. A good example of this, which you mentioned, is Charlotte; when she died (fifth season, episode 5) all we'd seen of her were her doings on the Island and a brief flashback of her digging up polar bear fossils in Tunisia, and the only insight we had into her motivations was her claim to have been to the Island before. So when she died, it didn't register nearly as much as, say, the death of Eko, like her a secondary character who'd been on the show for a little more than a season (according to Lostpedia, Eko appeared in 21 episodes, Charlotte in 18); what emotions I did have during her death scene had more to do with Faraday than with her. I guess you could say the same about Shannon (whom I never really cared for) or Libby (whose backstory we never saw other than briefly showing up in other people's flashbacks), but in both of those cases their respective relationships with people I really did care about—Sayid and Hurley—had been given enough time for me to get more emotionally invested. Charlotte's "relationship" with Faraday, on the other hand, just consisted of his following her around and constantly asking her if she was OK.
So I agree that the fifth season succeeded in the end, but, except for certain character elements (first and foremost Sawyer and Juliet's Dharmaville romance), it succeeded due to its plot rather than its people. As I said above, one of the reasons I fell in love with Lost was its focus on realistic, interesting characters amidst all the strange plotlines, mysteries, and mythology. They've obviously got a lot of work to do plot-wise next season, but I really hope that they're able to make character development a central aspect of the show again.
To address some of your other points (and hopefully to inject a bit more controversy into what's kinda been a big agree-fest), I'm not as sure as you that Jacob and Loophole are a couple of puppet masters in control of everything we've been seeing on the show. It's not really that I have an alternative theory, but more that I just don't think we know nearly enough to say. Sure, they may seem all-knowing and all-powerful now, but this show's given us so many red herrings and false positives that I wouldn't be surprised if they end up being just as misguided or incompetent as most everyone else. After all, fearless-leader Jack's leadership was generally a failure, the Machiavellian Ben is just a needy patsy whom the Island used and abandoned, and Prophet of the Island Locke's life was just one manipulation and defeat after another until he was strangled on the floor of a cheap hotel room after Ben tricked him into telling him what he needed to know. While Jacob knew that several of the survivors would become important in one way or another (maybe), he also was tricked into letting Loophole into his Foot of Solitude and getting killed by one of his own followers (maybe).
One last thing. I'm curious as to what this "ongoing battle" between you and your co-worker about Ben is all about. What do you mean that he "will have his ends if not his means vindicated"? Do you mean "vindicated" practically (as in, he'll win) or morally (as in, he'll turn out truly to be one of the "good guys")?
No comments:
Post a Comment