TV Seen: Lost (1.12) and Alias (4.1-2)
Jan. 7th, 2005 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI've now seen the new eps of Lost & Alias which were TiVoed Wednesday night. Funny how the geek television genre has switched so swiftly from Joss Whedon to J.J. Abrams.
Some speculation, thoughts, spoilers up to the current episodes, and complaints.
Lost continues to impress me. No, nothing has been as good as the first four episodes or so, but it does continue to be very good TV.
At first, I really didn't understand how they were going to sustain the show. I mean, you have a group of people stranded on an island; where's the long-term drama there, other than a fight for survival?
The fact that the show has instead (largely) been about the slow revelation of the pasts of all the characters is fairly brilliant. I've seen some people complain about why time is being wasted on these flashbacks instead of more island drama, and I just shake my head. They just don't get the core that the show is built on.
The one thing that frustrated me a bit in this episode is the amount of teasing that was done (something that Abrams really seems to enjoy). We never got a good answer for the importance of the model plane, we didn't get more than a minute spent on the apparent underground bunker discovered by Boone & Locke in the last episode, and we didn't get a good explanation of the song that Shannon had translated (though it's more clear if you know what the song is; the US version is Beyond the Sea--read the lyrics). Let alone that we were left hanging (no disrespect to Charlie) on the whole issue of Ethan & Claire for another episode. You can only have so many unfulfilled promises from episode to episode before the whole thing gets a little ridiculous (and I'm expecting that Lost is going to watch better on DVD as a result, just as I'm guessing the last season of Buffy will).
The next ep is #13, the end of the original order for the show (now expanded to #22), and I'm expecting a climatic cliffhanger as a result. My best guess: Claire comes stumbling out of the jungle, no longer pregnant.
We'll see.
Meanwhile, over in Alias land, we've got a huge shake-up for season 4, as all the characters we love (except for Weiss, apparently) have ended up in a black-ops unit. It wasn't really apparent how bad it was having all the characters separated in season 3 (particularly Dixon & Sloane), until you saw them back together here. Good for Abrams figuring that out.
As usual, the show was fun & interesting in the moment, but leaves something to be desired in the long-term plotting.
Season 1 was great in the long-term plotting. From about a third of the way through the season, I could see what the last scene in the season was going to be, including the last word ("Mom?"), and that speaks a lot for how well & cohesive the season was plotted.
Since then, however, the shows wavered a lot. The take-down of SD-6 in season 2 was brilliant, but very abrupt. Likewise season 3 seemed to take a really abrupt turn when Syndney was info-dumped her memories (by Locke), about halfway in.
And that's to say nothing of the meandering Rambaldi plot. Where we had every Rambaldi artifact in existance combined into a mega-machine in season 2, then in season 3 we learned that that machine had spit out the anticlimatic message, "Peace" (and a bunch of "blank" paper) and that there were actually other artifacts still around. Where we had Sloane and his daughter looking for an important Rambaldi artifact at the end of season 3, then in season 4 we learned that they'd found it, but given it to the US gov't. Where we had this big setup with The Carrier (or whatever it was) at the end of season 3, with the strong implication that it was Syndney or her sister, but then it abruptly became someone else, who just led the way to Syndney's sister (if I remember it right; it never made sense). Argh.
And then there's organizations like the Covenant in season 3 who seem to have come to nothing.
Now, we've had the big cliffhanger of season 3 totally subverted. In season 3, Syndney discovered a file about her, that according to Lauren showed how she was being controlled, and apparently had something to do with her father. (Some speculate that it showed that he was ultimately behind the Covenant and her missing years.) In season 4, that file actually revealed that Jack had killed Sydney's mom. Why there was a file on this, why it was in a bank vault, why Lauren knew about it, and why it was labeled with Syndey's name, we don't know. And, probably, it just doesn't make sense.
Like I said, I enjoyed Alias in the moment, and I have continued to do so throughout the run, but it's this long-term plotting that keeps getting to me. It's Chris Carter syndrome.
Some speculation, thoughts, spoilers up to the current episodes, and complaints.
Lost continues to impress me. No, nothing has been as good as the first four episodes or so, but it does continue to be very good TV.
At first, I really didn't understand how they were going to sustain the show. I mean, you have a group of people stranded on an island; where's the long-term drama there, other than a fight for survival?
The fact that the show has instead (largely) been about the slow revelation of the pasts of all the characters is fairly brilliant. I've seen some people complain about why time is being wasted on these flashbacks instead of more island drama, and I just shake my head. They just don't get the core that the show is built on.
The one thing that frustrated me a bit in this episode is the amount of teasing that was done (something that Abrams really seems to enjoy). We never got a good answer for the importance of the model plane, we didn't get more than a minute spent on the apparent underground bunker discovered by Boone & Locke in the last episode, and we didn't get a good explanation of the song that Shannon had translated (though it's more clear if you know what the song is; the US version is Beyond the Sea--read the lyrics). Let alone that we were left hanging (no disrespect to Charlie) on the whole issue of Ethan & Claire for another episode. You can only have so many unfulfilled promises from episode to episode before the whole thing gets a little ridiculous (and I'm expecting that Lost is going to watch better on DVD as a result, just as I'm guessing the last season of Buffy will).
The next ep is #13, the end of the original order for the show (now expanded to #22), and I'm expecting a climatic cliffhanger as a result. My best guess: Claire comes stumbling out of the jungle, no longer pregnant.
We'll see.
Meanwhile, over in Alias land, we've got a huge shake-up for season 4, as all the characters we love (except for Weiss, apparently) have ended up in a black-ops unit. It wasn't really apparent how bad it was having all the characters separated in season 3 (particularly Dixon & Sloane), until you saw them back together here. Good for Abrams figuring that out.
As usual, the show was fun & interesting in the moment, but leaves something to be desired in the long-term plotting.
Season 1 was great in the long-term plotting. From about a third of the way through the season, I could see what the last scene in the season was going to be, including the last word ("Mom?"), and that speaks a lot for how well & cohesive the season was plotted.
Since then, however, the shows wavered a lot. The take-down of SD-6 in season 2 was brilliant, but very abrupt. Likewise season 3 seemed to take a really abrupt turn when Syndney was info-dumped her memories (by Locke), about halfway in.
And that's to say nothing of the meandering Rambaldi plot. Where we had every Rambaldi artifact in existance combined into a mega-machine in season 2, then in season 3 we learned that that machine had spit out the anticlimatic message, "Peace" (and a bunch of "blank" paper) and that there were actually other artifacts still around. Where we had Sloane and his daughter looking for an important Rambaldi artifact at the end of season 3, then in season 4 we learned that they'd found it, but given it to the US gov't. Where we had this big setup with The Carrier (or whatever it was) at the end of season 3, with the strong implication that it was Syndney or her sister, but then it abruptly became someone else, who just led the way to Syndney's sister (if I remember it right; it never made sense). Argh.
And then there's organizations like the Covenant in season 3 who seem to have come to nothing.
Now, we've had the big cliffhanger of season 3 totally subverted. In season 3, Syndney discovered a file about her, that according to Lauren showed how she was being controlled, and apparently had something to do with her father. (Some speculate that it showed that he was ultimately behind the Covenant and her missing years.) In season 4, that file actually revealed that Jack had killed Sydney's mom. Why there was a file on this, why it was in a bank vault, why Lauren knew about it, and why it was labeled with Syndey's name, we don't know. And, probably, it just doesn't make sense.
Like I said, I enjoyed Alias in the moment, and I have continued to do so throughout the run, but it's this long-term plotting that keeps getting to me. It's Chris Carter syndrome.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 08:55 pm (UTC)As for Alias, I haven't watched the opener yet (maybe Sunday), but I wanted to say that the whole Rambaldi plot has me pretty pissed off as well. We've seen the artifacts doing great and strange things (the water from teh end of season 1 for example), but they seem mroe like dues ex machina than a coherent thread. They get dangled around to make the characters act, but don't have to, in themselves, add up to anything. Definite worry of Chris Carter style falling apart as the seasons advance. Of course, I'll still watch the show, but that doesn't mean I won't want it to improve.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 09:04 pm (UTC)The whole "rising tide" thing was very eerie, though.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-07 09:11 pm (UTC)Yep.
Apparently the reason was to get the fuselage off the beach, so that they didn't have to haul it out to Hawaii every time they filmed.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 02:12 am (UTC)my episode of Lost was a listen mostly watch a bit, as the vcr seemed to think it was a great idea to be unable to hold on to any tracking while recording.
I know I know, Tivo :P someday, when I get a raise.
So while I HEARD the episode, I wasn't able to see some details....
plane? from the bank? model plane?
*begs for clarification*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 04:38 am (UTC)Kate's crime was apparently robbing a bank, then going soft when her boyfriend was going to murder one of the bank execs, and shooting both him and his two accomplices (him in the leg, the other two in the chest, it appears).
It turns out that the whole bank robbery was a setup, however, masterminded by Kate because she wanted to get something from a safe deposit box, but wasn't on the signatory card.
That's all flashback.
Cut back to the island, where Kate discovers the air marshall's suitcase. Once she and Jack get it open, they pull out the guns, but also an envelope marked personal effects (hers, one would guess). She takes out a teeny metal airplane. Due to the way the episode is cut we presume this is what she got out of the safety deposit box.
When Jack confronts her about the plane she first says it belonged to someone she loved, then that it belonged to someone she killed.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 04:52 am (UTC)You also pick up on more than I might have... I'm a bit passive when it comes to tv viewing and picking apart plots, so your critiques are quite insightful and remind my intellect to wake up when it comes to tv.
Missed who shot whom at the bank as well as linking the fact SHE picked it. No clue why she was suddenly at the safe deposit box (I can see images if I pause tape but not when playing. yay?). Still a very peculiar thing! I mean.. argh. Dead bodies galore. Glad I couldn't really see much, actually. To go through all THAT to get.. a plane? They better flesh out such desire for an object a bit later.
thank you! :)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 05:58 am (UTC)And I'm quite looking forward to the first Drew Goddard Alias, which is ep 4 or 5. I considered him the best writer of season 7 of Buffy.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 03:44 pm (UTC)And they're surprised when he gets recognized?
The sudden deconstruction in the middle of Season 2 was what really hooked me into the show. Just when I thought it was going to be a neverending series of missions and frustration, everything radically changed. But I do wish they would wrap up a couple of dead ends. Like, Sloane was supposed to be the big bad guy behind the scenes, but suddenly he was completely surpassed by the Covenant. What the?
The continually shifting sands of who's good and who's evil make the show interesting, but it can go a little overboard, too. And the file being about Sydney's mom was totally a letdown.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 05:59 am (UTC)Yep, it was daring and really exciting to see them change things up. Just a bit sudden & probably would have been improved with some foreshadowing--nothing like the suddenness of the roll-up of the "missing years" plot in season 3 though.