The ‘Lost’ weekend: Jacob on the wine-dark sea
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Hey, guys.
I’m out this evening at a family event, but I thought I’d throw together a quick “Lost” weekend to get you through until Tuesday, when the next “Lost” 10 will go live. And don’t forget that we’ve got another live chat coming up that evening at 5 p.m. Pacific, as well. We had a great time in the last live chat, and we’d love to see you there this week. Don’t think that you have to be a “Lost” super-fan either. We take all kinds, and we just want to have a little interesting conversation about the show and what we think of it. I’m sure we’ll have an interesting discussion with “Across the Sea” being the most recent episode.
This week’s big “Lost” news was the “Lost” Live event held in Los Angeles on Thursday night. If nothing else, surely you heard about the letter the producers got from George Lucas. As my colleague Maria Elena Fernandez points out, the program and ticket (pictured above) were both very cool, with the ticket aping Oceanic Airlines materials. And if you want to know what happened but don’t want to be horribly spoiled for Tuesday’s episode (which aired at the event), check out these reports from Jeff Jensen and Maggie Furlong. Both feature mild spoilers, but you should be able to go into the episode mostly unscathed, unless you really don’t like knowing ANYthing.
Meanwhile, I think blogger Marjorie Sweeney is on the right track with this latest episode, which she compares to the sorts of epic poems written by the Greeks. Sweeney writes:
“All the web hate for last night’s episode really got me thinking - what exactly are people so upset about? It seems clear to me that ‘LOST’ has never been a tightly-scripted contemporary sci-fi narrative -- it’s much more like the sprawling epics composed by ancient bards riffing by the firelight as they swigged from their wineskins. Like classic poetry passed down through oral tradition, there are all kinds of detours and dead ends, stand-alone stories and evolving mythic themes that ebb and flow through the episodes - as well as the ongoing stories of our heroes and heroines. Maybe there’s no way it can all add up, but so what? Personally, in a corporatized entertainment culture of predictable plots and formulaic storytelling, this sort of far-out, anything-goes, kitchen-sink inclusive narrative works for me. It may be the secret ingredient to the show’s cult appeal as well - which is why it is so damn hard to duplicate.”
There’s (slightly) more at the link.
And have you heard about this 815 sentences about “Lost” project? I hadn’t until this week, and I feel bad for not promoting it sooner. It gathers a lot of people who’ve spent a lot of time thinking about “Lost,” and it turns them loose to see what they might come up with to say about the show. In particular, I like what Mike Vitullo has to say in defense of the underrated Season 3:
“Many people don’t give season 3 of ‘LOST’ enough credit for how great it was. Yes, it definitely had a collection of the weakest episodes due to working out scheduling issues with ABC and also hitting the overarching story’s ‘middle ground’ with no end date in sight. But season 3 also had great stories to tell with the introductions of both Juliet and Ben’s back stories, meeting the ageless Richard, and also Desmond’s flashes of Charlie’s impending death (RIP Charlie) as well as a stint where he relived a part of his life over again in ‘Flashes Before Your Eyes’ (seems all too relevant in this final season). I think people forget all of the answers that started coming our way in the 2nd half of season 3. Confirming our suspicious from season 1, we finally connected Sawyer and Locke through Anthony Cooper and had a gut-wrenching scene with Sawyer strangling him to death. And, who can forget when Naomi parachuted onto the Island from ‘Not Penny’s Boat’ and providing the hope of rescue. With a clear end-date defined by the season’s final episodes, we saw the writers put into motion some of the most brilliant storytelling ever seen on TV. When everything seemed to be marching towards a conclusion, the finale’s awesome twist showed us that some of the survivors are OFF of the Island and want to get back! Most people look past these awesome moments from season 3 and choose to remember Polar Bear Cages, Nikki & Paulo, and Bai Ling. Yes, they all happened, but I stress to look at the achievements in storytelling and end-game planning that Team Darlton accomplished and re-assess season 3’s awesomeness!”
On a related note, check out what Ryan McGee had to say about how Bai Ling saved the show, back before this season even began.
And with that, I’m going to take off. I’m writing this to you from the business center of a hotel in Huron, S.D., and the computer is so ancient I doubt I could get much of anything else to load. Check in again on Tuesday, and make sure to drop by for that live chat. We’ll see you then!
--Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)
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