Lost Thoughts

Well, 3 and a half seasons of "Lost" are now in the books. I hate repeats and all, but I'd gladly watch a repeat next week to see a new episode the week after. We waited 4 months for the new season, and now we have to wait 3 more months for another. How very Sopranos-ian.

Some people are down on "Lost" this year. I understand that. But let's not go overboard. I feel like the first 2 seasons were the best thing on TV (besides last season's "The Bachelor, of course), and I'm not abandoning the show just because the last 7 weren't up to that level.

The people who make the show have earned a little leeway at this point, and it's not like there has been an "Oliver" moment yet (by the way, can I coin this phrase? Can "Oliver" officially replace "jump the shark"? Or is me claiming this similar to Magic Johnson claiming he invented the high five or David Spade claiming he invented the "1985 called..." joke? I don't know). We gave "The OC" two years of shit before finally giving up (at least I did, some of you bastards are still TiVo-ing it), so I think we should give "Lost" more than 7 shows.

True, it hasn't been great, though there have been bright spots - the Jack/Sawyer/Kate vs. The Others storyline has been enjoyable. But the definite low point was last week's Mr. Eko episode. We all loved Mr. Eko, and his death served no purpose and neither did the episode. That character had nothing going on in these first 7, so why center a whole episode around him and then kill him off? It was a mistake. Which brings me to:

The 2 major problems this season:

The first is that the characters are all split up. Jack/Sawyer/Kate have their thing and the rest of the people have nothing to do. So we really just want to focus on that but we still have to see what the other people are up to, which has been basically nothing. This is where the Eko thing came in. As soon as I saw it was about him, I was bummed - and not just because the teaser made it obvious to assume he was going to kick the bucket. I want Jack to escape! I want to know how the Others have access to the real world! I want to know how Henry can have a spine tumor but Rose (and Locke) are magically healed! I want to know what the Greenland guys are doing! I don't want to see more of Eko with nothing to do but have bad dreams. You're driving towards an end, let's stay on that road!

The second problem are the backstories. First of all, there are three things you have to keep track of when you watch the show. 1) The storylines going on amongst the people on the island. 2) The storylines going on in each character's backstory. And 3) the various island mysteries, aka, what the fuck is this place?!

That's a lot to keep track of, but I'm okay with that. The issue I have though is that the second time they show a character's backstory, they usually go before we originally saw the backstory. So if they show Kate's boyfriend getting killed the first time we saw her backstory, the second time we seem them meeting. And then I have to remember if that was the same dude I saw get killed a freaking year ago! This show would literally be impossible to follow if we were in the pre-internet days.

Nevertheless, I liked the "finale". Of course I did - it focused on Jack/Sawyer/Kate. And now I have to wait 4 months to see what happens. So basically I eagerly awaited to see what would happen with those Greenland guys and never got an answer, and now I have to wait 3 months to see what will happen with the Jack and the Others. If the pattern follows, then they'll probably focus the next half of the season on what Rose and Bernard are up to.

That's a lot of watching just to eagerly await more watching.

Sopranos-ian indeed.