SPOILER WARNING
So, Lost. I know a lot of our regulars like the show, but honestly: at this point it’s like watching a dear old friend get eaten by a shark. A shark with a tattoo. And that tattoo is important.
Yeah, see, once you break it down, Lost isn’t really that good of a show. It turns out that hinting at giant mysteries isn’t the same as actually addressing said mysteries, and that becomes the show’s failing. Want an example? Okay: I could tell you right now that the cast of Ominous Knife has a sixth character.
“That’s cool, there’re dozens of characters who are not considered ‘main’ characters,” you may think. But wait! That sixth person? The one to whom I alluded in the previous paragraph? Yeah, he’s a completely different guy. Like, you’ve never, EVER seen him before. Isn’t it awesome how that adds to the mystery? And then there’s a completely different story that includes that guy, and him alone. Isn’t that AWESOME? It’s almost like everything you’ve read before doesn’t count, but hey, there’s a new guy so that must mean it’s awesome!
Oh, wait. That’s not awesome; that’s just as dumb as it is stupid.
Look, Lost fans. Your show isn’t good just because newcomers don’t understand it. It’s a stupid show that’s roped you into watching it because you’ve invested so much time in it. There are 80-year-olds who’ve invested twice as much time into their show as you have into yours, and yet no one’s declaring The Young and the Restless “The best thing on TV.” You know why? Because it’s a stupid show. You don’t gain seniority just because everyone around you is confused into thinking that your show makes sense. You don’t get bonus points because your show throws red herrings to its target audience every week. In fact, that just makes your show stupid and long-winded.
That’s right, Lost fans. Your show is as dumb as The Young and the Restless. At this point I truly wouldn’t be surprised if the main character is actually an alien who fell in love with a ghost from another dimension.
But hey, if Abrams approved it then it must be great, right?
- Chris
May 19th, 2009 at 12:52 am
So I pretty much disagree with everything in Chris’s post and want to make that clear. This comic was done under protest, like “please, please don’t punch me in the face” sorts of protesting.
I think LOST is a really well written show and the problem is that since it is a show with a very specific begining, middle and end, some of this later stuff can seem like 11th hour additions and changes, but I think when you watch the show straight through you see how sort of interlocked it all is (minus that half season when the three least interesting characters where locked in uninteresting cages dealing with uninteresting issues).
that being said, I totally agree about the naming thing in the comic, all the names are meant to evoke things that usually don’t really go anywhere and make me read a lot more wikipedia then I should. I also agree that they seem to abandon storyline left and right, but I think that’s the nature of the beast where what they want to cover aren’t always within the production realities.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Gladys, NO!!!!
May 19th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Oh, Chris… You will RUE this day! Lost is perfect in every way! I shant have you lambasting it in a comical fashion! To arms, sir! TO ARMS!!!
May 19th, 2009 at 2:45 am
So, in essence, Kevin agrees with everything espoused in the comic but doesn’t want to anger the Abrams machine, lest it churn out a crappy pseudo-ending.
Yay, Jacob!
May 19th, 2009 at 10:10 am
i HATE lost.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Chris should probably stay away from dark alley ways for a while or Abrams might sic’ gladys on him. kevin, I’m with you on everything except the name thing. It’s like the way some people might name their D&D characters… Instead of just going with Bob the Barbarian or trying to make up some mythical sounding name and only coming up with something boring like “stumpy” (:-P) you search through comics and find names that sound familiar but people don’t know why… J.J. just does that with old philosipher names.
And Chris… there is a HUGE difference between LOST and the Young and the Restless… it’s called special effects
May 19th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Yeah, it’s like playing toys with the neighborhood kids and everybody wants to do their own thing and change up the format to suit their needs no matter how ridiculous and far-fecthed the premises are.
I still love LOST, though!
May 19th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Geez, I thought this strip was about the government… but its just about a TV show.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I can’t wait for the series finale. A bunch of random crap will occur, someone who died in the first or second season will be revealed to have been behind ‘it’ all along, and the smoke monster will turn colors for no real reason.
What I love about Lost is that people can’t even answer a simple question;
What’s it about? Usually the answer you get is “it’s complicated”, where the true answer is “I have no idea.” The show is lame, tired, and boring. Kevin mentions interesting characters, but conspicuously lacks examples. This is because there are no interesting characters left, just shells wearing the faces of people we used to care about. Three toed statues, vision quests and some kind of time travel is no substitute for coherent writing and plot development. Lost approaches television the way M. Night Shamalan approaches film. Something crazy happens that no one saw coming! Isn’t that clever? The answer is no.
While it is funny to joke about Abrams stepping up and protecting his beloved child, we must see the truth of the situation. He doesn’t care about Lost. Why would he? He’s directing Star Trek, working on Fringe, and maybe pumping out a sequel to Cloverfield. He made giant monster in New York an interesting, if not headache inducing, experience. He brought a dead franchise back to life, but without it killing people to demonstrate the folly of man messing with nature. And fringe is that replacement for the X-Files that a lot us wanted but wouldn’t say it out loud.
Fringe is a great show mostly because Abrams learned lessons from Lost. The show makes sense. There are mysteries, but they are resolved or developed before introducing more mysteries. The characters have actually grown and developed since the first episode. In addition, they are mostly interesting to watch interact with each other. No overdone and boring love triangles, no melodramatic, incessant power struggles, and an actual bad guy.
The point is, these are things Abrams cares about. Lost is just a game they play. They party in some backroom and bet on how many people will still watch the show after the latest stupid plot twist.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
yet again, another strip with chris just ranting. well, i think there might be another reason why abrams just picks up random philosopher names: b/c the show is basically arguing about fate and free will, something that philosophers have been doing since the dawn of time. it’s just a point in that direction, that’s all. just like the books they reference throughout the show. They showed different books that the characters were reading that pertained to the story in some way.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Re: Shawn
Interesting Characters still alive:
Ben
Miles
Hurley (the only remaining truly “good” (alignment) character left on the island)
Sawyer (this season on, the whole “I was happy” thing is really interesting)
Richard
The fact that you can slam LOST and then celebrate Fringe is the hole in your argument. All the characters on LOST have grown and developed since the beginning (I’d site Sawyer and Hurley the most, Sawyer went from an uninteresting simple character to a complex and interesting one, and Hurley went from Nerd Avatar to sort of this Cursed Regretful innocent)
Complaining about the love triangles is like complaining about commercials, those love triangles are there to get the show through the networks as having “general appeal”, just something you need to keep the show going.
The fact also remains that there are very few complex shows out there that you can’t always guess the endings or twists to, and LOST has that, long-term seeded plot points that we don’t see coming, one-off characters having weight to the larger story and such, I honestly can’t think of many shows like that, maybe Dexter and Pushing Daisies, but historically I can’t think of many (Was Twin Peaks any good? I never watched it).
I think that’s why this show is so polarizing, we’re not used to a show that we have to debate and decode at this level, nobody argued about where MASH was headed, or needed to decode the identity and meaning of a one-off Law and Order character.
My favorite example of this on LOST was (SPOILER WARNING) when we where all discussing the identity of Jacob because the show had trained us so much to discuss these things and then turned out just to be a new character named Jacob.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Re: Chris
SPOILER WARNINGS
I do agree with the ideas in the comic (not the post, especially since I don’t think Jacob was absent from the early episodes, I think he’s the “Live together” or “live together, die alone”)
But I think I agree with the comics ideas for different reasons:
I like the idea of the show being like a puzzle that’s rationed out.
I do agree about the evocative names though, but sometimes they’re great/helpful (Farady)
I think the random things working themselves out as plot developments are cool (and did like the Polar Bear as a hint about Walt)
and I think storylines are frequently abandoned due to production limitations (Libby being uncooperative, Writers Strike, the network etc.)
May 19th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
The only thing that bothers me about all this is that JJ Abrams gets ALL OF THE CREDIT, bad or good.
J.J. Abrams was a co-creator on Lost. He directed the pilot, and maybe a few early episodes. He has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SHOW beyond that. He helped Damon Lindelof create the show, and got all of the money into it. He put the team together that makes the show, but the show isn’t his beast.
The credit good or bad should go to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. They have overseen everything about the show since season 1. They oversee every minute detail of the show. If you hate it, blame them. If you like it thank them. But stop talking about JJ Abrams!
May 19th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Otherwise I couldn’t care less if you like the show or not, because I do and thats all that matters to me =)
May 19th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I’m not sure how liking Fringe is the hole in my argument. Elaborate.
In response to Kevin:
1. Those characters all suck. Hurley stopped being useful when Charlie died, so we made him sad. Sawyer was never interesting, so now we’ve made him edgier. Because that’s what he was missing.
2. Love triangles sell when they go somewhere. The one in Lost went somewhere after other plot developments made them. That does not count as plot resolution. That is just boring. Also, Fringe does not have a love triangle, or even a love interest after the first episode.
3. I like when shows manage to surprise me. A great deal of them are predictable. But predictability can come from two sources; if a show is tired and consisted of rehashed ideas, predictability is bad. On the contrary there is BSG. Many of the popular predictions were true because they made sense. Then there were a ton of surprises that were obviously planned out by the writers, but simply weren’t picked up on by the fans through the hints and plot developments. This is when unpredictability is good. Unpredictability is bad when it isn’t planned out, and you are simply viewing the latest image in the string of random events.
I like discussing characters and where a show is going. I’m not opposed to depth. What I am opposed to is the Lost approach. Throw a ton of random stuff out there and act like it’s meaningful and important. It isn’t. They’re just making it up as they go along and people are finally wising up. Get BSG on DVD. That’s a show with depth. More importantly it has accountability.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Okay, I can see where Shawn and Chris are coming from when they say that they threw out a lot of meaningless stuff with no immediate answers but I think that they don’t realize that’s the point of the show. They have a set number of episodes they want to do and will provide answers along the way. X-File ran into the problem that they asked so many questions and when it came time to answering them they lost the main character (cuz let’s face it, they screwed it up at the end). The point of the show isn’t to just sit down once a week, watch it and then move on cuz you got your answers and you got your fill. The point is to watch it, get invested in it (story and character whom I say all except a small handful) and then use your brain to try and figure out what the crap is going on.
They don’t want ti to be easy to understand. They want you to have to have seen all of it to understand which is why all 4 first season are available on DVD and abc.com to watch and get caught up on. Being able to understand a lot of it is reward for having invested time in it. And, as I said, they want you to have to think about it. I remarked at work the other day how crazy a show it is that in order to understand some things I’m actually on wikipedia reading about the show, the theories of time travel, and ancient egyptian gods and trying to formulate theories (SPOILER: the statue is believed to be Taweret the mistress of the horizon which might indicate that the island was once welcome to travelers and the statue was there to greet them and tell them they were close???) But I digress
As far as fringe goes, I agree that it is an excellent show and has a much differnt feel to it than lost does as it has answers to some questions at the end of each episode.
To sum up… LOST is not a flawed show with bad writing as you say… it is a good show with writing that makes you have to follow it and work to keep up with and thus not for everyone.
Boom
May 20th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Is the secret sixth character Jesus P Kierkegaard? I think he should DEFINITELY become a regular.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:38 am
It seems like LOST is a show that they make up as they go along, but if you view it in its entirety, you’ll find it’s all intricately weaved. The key thing is, you can’t miss any of the episodes. I never watched the first season on TV, but I purchased it on dvd when it came available. I missed seasons 2 and 3, and I had to catch those on dvd also.
I don’t bother watching if I can’t see it all because, I agree, the show is as confusing as hell. I’m waiting for the new season to come out on dvd, so I’ll understand it. The plot twists seem far-fetched, but don’t we all want to watch a show where we can’t predict the outcome? If we knew what was gonna take place, we’d spend just as much energy trashing LOST for its predictability. Now we rip it a new one for its insanity and plausability-stretching. I can live with that.
Love the strip, by the way.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Re: Everyone
You’ll always be able to find connections in a program. The human brain is hardwired to find connections, even when they don’t exist. The show is playing us for chumps by making us think there’s something there when there isn’t, like someone finding the image of the Virgin Mary in a bowl of oatmeal.
See, the comments I’m reading here speak to my larger problem with Lost. Okay, so the show doesn’t WANT me to comprehend it or be able to follow it. That is a DEFECT of the show. There is absolutely no way that you can try to defend that. Southland Tales did it and none of you are touting that movie as being intellectual and awesome. Why not?
Oh, because it’s not about time-travelling pseudo-gods. Or maybe sci-fi aliens. Or maybe simply the fever dream of some new character who’ll be introduced in the last episode. Or maybe everyone’s inside a snow globe.
Oh, wait. Southland Tales has at least two of those elements, and yet it is universally reviled. Look, I just changed my stance twice in the span of two paragraphs! I’m just like Juliet!
How I Met Your Mother has a great mystery at the very heart of the show and yet, somehow, they’ve found a way to not be stupid and pretentious about it. Why don’t you guys defend that show? Are there not enough four-toed statues in it? One episode featured a snake-headed robot giant named ISRAFEL-9, is that not enough?
Meh, whatever. I’m just looking forward to next season when Jack’s dad is revealed to be a T-3000 and Rasputin Nostradamus Tolkien takes over the rebel faction. It turns out that both he and Aesop Calrissian Da Vinci have been there the whole time! HOW CEREBRAL!
May 20th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Also, the smoke monster is named Cerberus. You know, the three-headed hellhound that guards the gates of Tartarus. In GREEK MYTHOLOGY. So of course it totally makes sense that it’s depicted as being the servant (master?) of Anubis, the god of the dead in EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Guess what? That’s not smart. That’s a mistake. A big ol’ sloppy mistake. But of course someone’s going to tell me that this point is irrelevant, since the whole show is about good and evil and the overlapping themes that carry on throughout every culture. That’s a great rebuttal, but it still doesn’t answer the question of why the show feels the need to draw on more than one mythological theme when ONE would have sufficed. There are at least three different beings that could’ve filled Cerberus’ shoes and fit into the Egyptian theme. The problem, of course, is that none of those are evocative, so they had to go with something else.
Also, the statue isn’t Taweret, it’s either Seth or Isis. PROVE ME WRONG.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
EDIT: Cerberus is the guard-dog of the gates of Hades, which became a different concept right under my nose. My bad.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:57 am
Whargarbl much?
May 21st, 2009 at 8:44 am
OKChris:
The production team has confirmed that it’s Taweret, a fertility godess.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:07 am
OR HAVE THEY? See, ’cause that’s how it’s going to happen.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:46 am
Okay, one last thing and then I’ll stop inciting nerd rage. My ultimate problem with Lost is the same problem I have with the Final Fantasy series (up to XII, ’cause that one’s awesome). Essentially the game takes something from everywhere and mashes it all together, and everyone’s supposed to act like it’s a big, cohesive story. This is a series in which Assyrian deities hung out Native American concepts and fought Greek, Roman, and Babylonian bad guys while feeding Hindu gods. It’s a worthless apprpriation of several different concepts and that negates any depth in the message.
Lost does the exact same thing, with its Egyptian gods named after Old Testament characters (Jacob and Esau? Really? REALLY?) that have Greek monsters in their employ. It’s ridiculous and indefensible, and if someone would just admit that we could move on.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:06 pm
so if we just say, “You’re right Chris” you’ll be ok? You’ll stop making 30 something long posted threads about lost where we talk about the same thing. Where several people say, “I hate Lost” while several others say, “I love Lost” in an argument that will never be finished just because we all have different tastes in entertainment? Then fine Chris, I’ll say it so you stop these annoying arguments! “You’re right!”
hahaha, take that! I expect there to be no more posts on this thread…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..unless you say lost is great.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:17 pm
*sits back with a spot of tea*
Well, I for one, am glad I never watched this show to begin with, so I don’t have to jump into this back-and-forth debate. Cheers!
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:08 am
I’m not looking for people to say “You’re right Chris.” I merely hold Lost up to the same standards by which I judge all entertainment and it just gets on my nerves that no one else does. You can like it and feel that it’s a great, well-written/produced show; I can’t rag on someone’s personal tastes. Just don’t pretend that it’s a flawless marvel of puppy and ice cream-dispensing greatness. It’s a TV show that started great, then became very good, then acceptable. In short, it’s a normal TV show.
Coincidentally, in writing this response I satisfied your requirements in order to talk about Lost. The fight’s back on!
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I propose the Lost character generator. Prepare a list of character traits, ranging from ‘tortured soul’ to ’slightly troubled individual’. Another list will provide a name. Inventive, original names such as Kate, Jack, Junior, and Player1 will be thrown in with evocative historical names like Locke, Arthur, Conan, Doyle and Ford. But now we need a backstory! (We do? Yes. Just like in the Sims, we get bored quickly with our little dolls and we create new ones to spice things up!) Beat by his mother? Maybe! From Philadelphia, but hates the Phillies? Sure! Archaeologist with obsessive compulsive disorder and an alcoholic hamster? Bring the drama!
Then throw in some powers or skills! Neurosurgeon/gifted leader with one trait, while another trait is prophet/crazy bald man. Talking to the dead and seeing the future/time traveling for no real reason are also viable choices! What about a man that dreams about being a dog but later we find out the dog is real but also isn’t really a dog it’s really the man BUT FROM THE FUTURE OF AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION! Sounds like a new audience favorite!
Also, the dog is named after Coyote, the Native American god of mischief, despite clearly being a beagle.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
And about the statue and the production team confirmation:
Who. Cares.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Chris I have the answer. Go watch “The Wire” after you watch LOST. Then you will have fully balanced entertainment zen.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
And CG…. Dear LORD! You’ve got room to talk about annoying posts. YOUR POST IS THE ONLY ONE WITH SCROLL BARS IS IT NOT????
Look how annoying this……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….is
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I would like to mention that despite my addiction to the show, I can definitely see where Chris is coming from. In fact, you are the only other individual that I know that has agreed with me on a similar point when it comes to the movie, “Boondock Saints.” Everybody seems to love that movie, but I can’t stand it because it just strikes me as mildly OK writing with characters people can relate/aspire to be like. It’s quotable, and it isn’t inherently a bad movie, but it just drives me nuts that everybody always tells me that it’s such an awesome movie, when I feel like it was a movie that should have been released straight to video at blockbuster a la “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” (Wait a minute) I wont make the argument that Lost is a particularly good show. It really isn’t, but it draws people in emotionally, which a lot of shows don’t seem to even try to do anymore.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Sorry it took me so long to respond…I was in Georgia (which is where the Island is).
Shawn,
YOU DON’T WATCH LOST! How can you even bash it?
Burt
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Oh, and here’s the problem with having mystery shows that give you most of the answers in the first couple of seasons- you get Heroes.
BOOM!
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
You have to catch every episode in order to pretend you understand Lost.
In order to know it’s full of crap, you merely need to watch the first season and check in every few seasons. Your friends will still be discussing the same stupid ‘mysteries’ that they were three years ago. See statue.
Oh, yes, the statue. We showed a piece of it years ago. Now here it is again! Behold! Yet you know nothing more now than the first time you saw it. Don’t act like they developed the plot. Some intern just found it in the past episodes and said, hey guys, what about this? And one of the writers was like, aw, man. Forgot about that. Alright, toss it in next season.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Okay I can explain the statue:
The creators didn’t have any idea of how long the show would run, so each season they’d put in a couple essential pieces: adam and eve, the white and black stones, the statue etc. just in case the next season was their last, so the reason the statue is such a throwback is because it’s essential to the ending and at the time they feared the ending might come sooner than later.
May 24th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Shawn: I wasn’t going to get involved in this, but your logic is so flawed that I honestly can not help myself. If you watch the first season and check in every few seasons, how can you POSSIBLY claim to know anything about the show? It’s quite easy to assume that a show is “full of crap” when you watch one episode out of context every couple of seasons.
I’m sorry that you have to wait longer than one season to have all of the mysteries solved, but if you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Wait, you don’t. Well, now I’m just confused
May 24th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Let’s string them up by their ham strings!
May 25th, 2009 at 12:22 am
First off, I watch a few episodes (in a row!) out of context every few seasons. This is completely different than just watching one episode.
You state that my logic is flawed, but really only complain about how little of the show I’ve watched. It’s a common complaint but notable in that it’s one of the few counterarguments available. My criticisms have largely gone unaddressed. Are you or are you not still debating the same mysteries? Have they really answered any questions without replacing them with two more? Plot development in Lost is like that monster from Hellboy. You kill one but two more rise up. Develop one mystery then replace it with two more that vaguely tie into the ending.
The statue, the black and white stones, Adam and Eve? They all tie into the ending? Okay. Here’s the ending of Lost. I’ll tell you right now how this show will end.
They will reveal that this is the destined location of the final battle between good and evil. The white stones and black stones represent this due to unimaginative writing. People are pulled to the island through space and time because of destiny. Things happen on the island because they were meant to. The statue, and Adam and Eve are present to drive home various religious connotations. The statue will also be used to support the island’s history of traveling through space and time. The island travels because it goes to wherever it needs to be to collect those it needs for this confrontation. The organizations vying from control of the island will demonstrate the battle between good and evil in all of us. People do the wrong thing for the right reasons and etc. The final scene will be a boring conversation, and then an ending that is up to interpretation. My interpretation will be that the show is stupid, and that fanboys are gullible. Your interpretations may vary.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
My interpretations are that you are a big stupid poopy head!
May 26th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I am insulted. Such vulgarity is beneath you and drags this polite conversation down. I bid you good day, sir!