BSG and Lost
Mood: happy
Posted on 2009-03-19 10:00:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 595
(spoilers abound if you haven't seen the most recent episode of either!)
Lost is awesome.
Season 4 was pretty good - we learned a lot of interesting things about the island and the Oceanic 6's life after they left. The whole flash-forward structure was pretty neat at first, but eventually it seemed to rob the show of its stakes. We know Jack isn't going to die on the island because we can see him in the future! And there were certainly unanswered questions, like what happened to all the people who weren't in the Oceanic 6, but that wasn't enough for me to stay fully engaged. I thought the season finale in particular tied together some loose ends, but just wasn't that compelling. Interesting, sure, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat. And the whole dramatic tension of having to lie is something that is probably stronger in real life than it is to watch. After all, we're used to watching people lie on TV...
I had the same sort of problem with the beginning of Season 5 - we had a pretty good idea the Oceanic 6 were going to end up back on the island, so just showing why they arrived at that conclusion wasn't really that interesting to me. But the last two episodes of Season 5 have really kicked it up a notch. I feel like we're back in the heyday of Seasons 1 and 2 (which I watched on DVD and so didn't have the delayed gratification of waiting weeks between episodes) where we have no idea what's going to happen. Yeah, "Namaste" (the episode that aired last night) was kinda about resolving a bunch of loose ends about the Oceanic 6 arriving back on the island, but it did it in a very compelling way. I was on the edge of my seat watching LaFleur come up with a plan for Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid to integrate them into the Dharma Initiative. Even though the Purge is coming at some point we don't know what's going to happen to our folks.
And now a quick Battlestar Galactica rant, which you may have heard if you've been around me since last Friday:
I cannot believe they're at literally the second to last episode (bolding makes me sound angry!) and doing flashbacks back to before the series began...and these flashbacks kinda suck. So Roslin was happy go lucky! And had sisters! And then they and her father were randomly killed in a car crash, but she's stoic, see! Nevermind the fact that they would have all probably died when the Cylons attacked anyway...what is this supposed to tell us about her? We already know she's a tough person. I suppose the whole car crash was supposed to be shocking but I couldn't help but think the writers were just using a cheap device to make me feel sorry for her. Also, so help me if the person she's about to see on this blind date is the person who was driving the other car I'm going to jump up and down and scream "I don't care!" because I really really don't.
In other news, Baltar is still a jerk in the past. Two problems:
- I get that he's a jerk and I'm supposed to hate him. This has been emphasized basically any time he opens his mouth. Not news!
- There are three (now two) hours left to show the fate of humanity and I really really really don't care about Baltar compared to that.
TL;DR version: Lost good, BSG bad.
2 comments
Comment from anonymous:
2011-04-22T11:22:30+00:00
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Comment from spchampion:
2009-03-20T09:22:47+00:00
I actually liked the BSG episode. I thought the flashbacks were a thoughtful recapitulation of the mournful exposition of the very beginning.
By the way, supposedly the finale is..intense:
http://galacticasitrep.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-want-answers-well-okay.html
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