Lost re-watch! (Spoilers)

[RumHam]

So I loved Lost for most of it's run, less and less towards the end and then I was really annoyed at the finale. I didn't even re-watch the final season I told myself I'd watch the whole thing again in five years or so. Well it's been six (!!) now so I was thinking of giving it another go. I'm curious how it will hold up, and if the ending will be more palatable when you know it's coming. So I just figured I'd ask before I started if anyone else was interested in doing one of those re-watch threads. 

[All-for-Joffrey]

I kind of want to but like you said....I just can't bring myself to invest the time given the series's last season and finale.

[Werthead]

Odd timing. I'll probably be starting this again from the pilot episode at the weekend or maybe next week.

[red snow]

Every now and then I do recall how much I loved the show. I think I could probably watch it up until the end of season 5 but I don't think I could handle the final season given how it ended. It's not that season 6 was bad but knowing what the "sideways" elements were and knowing how several things on the island were just messy I don't think i could.

I'd be happy to think it ended with the paradox created at the end of season 5. Some of the solutions to the mysteries actually work fine unsolved in hindsight.

I think I'd have to watch with someone who'd never seen it before too. I think their enthusiasm could make it more bearable - although I'd probably see an element of sadness in how their dreams for the show will eventually be crushed. Again I'd insist they stop at season 5. I know they'll continue to watch Season 6 but it'd be a noble attempt to try.

[RumHam]

26 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Odd timing. I'll probably be starting this again from the pilot episode at the weekend or maybe next week.

Well if you feel like posting your thoughts as you go know that at least one person will enjoy reading them. 

[Cas Stark]

I predict:  it does not hold up at all.  Since it couldn't even hold up during it's first run and end on any kind of reasonable note.  

[Joe Pesci]

I did a rewatch a few years ago, the disappointment of the later seasons is still there somewhat, but it wasn't as bad for me the second time around. Granted, I don't put shows on pedestals and expect perfection from them all the time either but that's just me 

[Wendel Shoemaker]

I did a re-watch of Lost last year. It was still good, the characters were still great and the moments still hit.

I always liked the 6th season and the ending, weird to see such distaste for it here. The best parts of the show were the backstory of all the characters and seeing them hit their lows and their highs. I thought the 6th season was very reminiscent of season one with its sideways arc, very character focused. I read a blog after rewatching that explained almost everything about the show. There are lots of answers there, but they are hidden. I wouldn't call it subtle, because it's less than subtle really, but they are there.

[Criston of House Shapper]

I did a really weird re-watch about 1.5 years ago, which is called "chronologically LOST".

It orders all of the scenes from all of the episodes chronologically and then splits them up into about 100 episodes. So you start with the Jacob and Man in Black stuff in episode 1, then you get the whole back-story until the plane crashes at around episode 25, and then it's on-island stuff for most of the way. The flash-sideway-stuff is in an epilogue (which I skipped, because that stuff is stupid). It was really fun and weird, especially with the time travelling.

[Werthead]

Quote

I predict:  it does not hold up at all.  Since it couldn't even hold up during it's first run and end on any kind of reasonable note.  

 

Having just finished BSG and seen it stand up better than expected (I'll be doing a rewatch of that as well in the near future, I wanted to watch it all first to refresh my memory and it's short enough to make that viable) when it was far more incoherent, far less pre-planned and had a much dodgier ending than Lost, I think Lost will be just fine.

The biggest problem is the flash-sideways in Season 6, which are total bollocks but fortunately do not impinge on the rest of the series at all. I'm strongly thinking of using a fan-edit of S6 which removes them (there are several out there) or simply skipping the flash-sideways scenes in Season 6.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I did a really weird re-watch about 1.5 years ago, which is called "chronologically LOST".

It orders all of the scenes from all of the episodes chronologically and then splits them up into about 100 episodes. So you start with the Jacob and Man in Black stuff in episode 1, then you get the whole back-story until the plane crashes at around episode 25, and then it's on-island stuff for most of the way. The flash-sideway-stuff is in an epilogue (which I skipped, because that stuff is stupid). It was really fun and weird, especially with the time travelling.

That's a brave task for the whole series Of course, you miss out on all the parallels between past/present/future within individual episodes which were often very powerful.

29 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

Having just finished BSG and seen it stand up better than expected (I'll be doing a rewatch of that as well in the near future, I wanted to watch it all first to refresh my memory and it's short enough to make that viable) when it was far more incoherent, far less pre-planned and had a much dodgier ending than Lost, I think Lost will be just fine.

The biggest problem is the flash-sideways in Season 6, which are total bollocks but fortunately do not impinge on the rest of the series at all. I'm strongly thinking of using a fan-edit of S6 which removes them (there are several out there) or simply skipping the flash-sideways scenes in Season 6.

It probably helps knowing the disappointment will come.

The flash sideways stuff was fine when it seemed to be an alt time-line but utter bollocks as some form of heaven. I'm still bitter because the showrunners lied and said prior to season 6 that it was an alt time-line. I think it was revenge for everyone immediately accusing the show of being set in purgatory and that's probably what it was. They knew they couldn't entirely end like that but still worked it in as a "fuck you". Not that I think the creators grew to hate the audience but they seemed insistent in getting some afterlife into the show.

Should I be spoilering plot elements? It does say re-watch not watch through?

[Criston of House Shapper]

49 minutes ago, red snow said:

That's a brave task for the whole series Of course, you miss out on all the parallels between past/present/future within individual episodes which were often very powerful.

It's a good point, I would not recomend this if you've never watched the show, it'll just confuse you way too much. But, because you watch all the flashbacks first, you can sort of place them once the island-stuff happens. For example, you probably won't forget that all of the Walkabout-stuff will happen in the Walkabout-episode.

I would recomend it to people who know the show well and want to experience it in a different way. And as I said, all of the flash-sideways-bs is cut out and appended at the end. It is very interesting to watch all of the on-island-plot unfold uninterrupted.

[Werthead]

101/102: Pilot

Written by J.J. Abrams & Damon Lindelof, Directed by J.J. Abrams

Survivor Count: 48

Days on the Island: 1-2 (22-23 September, 2004)

Flashback Characters: Jack, Charlie, Kate

Now: Oceanic Airways Flight 815 is on a transpacific flight from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles. Six hours into the flight the plane loses communications. The pilot changes course for Fiji, planning to make an emergency landing. Two hours later, with the plane over a thousand miles off its original course, it starts suffering serious turbulence. The plane suddenly plummets out of the sky, breaking into three sections. The fuselage crashes onto the beach of a tropical island, the cockpit lands in the jungle nearby and the tail section's fate is unknown.

There are 48 survivors of the crash in the fuselage section (initially 49, until Gary Troup gets sucked into a still-active engine, which then explodes). Most prominent amongst these is Dr. Jack Shephard, whose medical expertise and quick thinking immediately saves four other survivors (Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, pregnant Claire Littleton, Rose Nadler and some random dude). He also helps another survivor who has shrapnel embedded in his stomach. Initially to his own disquiet, Jack finds himself elected as an unofficial leader in the group. Other prominent members include Sayid Jarrah, Kate Austen, James "Sawyer" Ford, married couple Jin-Soo and Sun-Hwa Kwon, Charlie Pace, Boone Carlyle and his stepsister Shannon Rutherford, Michael Dawson and his son, Walt Lloyd. Another survivor, John Locke, initially keeps to the background but proves to have some survival skills that help the other survivors in quiet, modest ways.

After the initial shock of the crash, the survivors regroup. Jack, who once took some flying lessons, thinks that there should be a radio transceiver in the survival gear in the cockpit of the plane. At dawn, he, Kate and Charlie set out to find the cockpit section. However, during the night the survivors hear unusual sounds in the jungle and see trees moving. As the trio head into the woods Charlie reveals that he is the bassist in rock band Drive Shaft, who have had one successful, worldwide hit song but have been struggling to achieve further success.

The group finds the cockpit and, more luckily, that the pilot, Seth Norris, has survived. They retrieve the transceiver but Seth tells them that they are far off-course. Rescue efforts will be focused on the flight path between Australia and California, and will likely miss them. They hear the sounds in the jungle again, this time right on top of them, and Seth is dragged out of the plane and bloodily killed. Jack, Kate and Charlie scatter into the woods.

Whilst the trio have been away, Walt (who is searching for his dog, Vincent) finds some handcuffs in the jungle. He gives them to his dad, Michael. Michael shows them to the rest of the group, who conclude that a criminal was on the plane in custody. Sawyer accuses Sayid, on account of the man next to him on the plane being killed and Sayid's hands being covered for the flight. The two fight, but Jack breaks up the fight. Sayid was an electronics communication officer in the Iraqi Army (which hardly endears him to Sawyer more) and manages to get the transceiver working, but they are blocked from picking up any communications by nearby mountains. Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Shannon, Boone and Charlie decide to mount a second hike to higher ground. During this hike they are attacked by a bear which Sawyer shoots dead with a gun he retrieved from the US Marshal, who is the shrapnel-embedded guy. The bear, weirdly, turns out to be a polar bear, to the party's befuddlement.

Back on the beach Jack manages to stabilise the US Marshal, but he wakes up and demands to know, "Where is she?" Meanwhile, John Locke plays backgammon by himself and agrees to teach Walt how to play. He tells him that backgammon is an interesting game as it pits two equal but opposite forces against one another, one light and one dark. Walt tells Locke that he was living in Australia with his mother, but she died recently. He hardly knows his dad.

Reaching high ground they discover that their signal can't get out because another signal is already active. Tuning in, they hear a repeated distress call from a woman speaking in French. Shannon, who has a basic understanding of the language, says she is in distress, reporting the deaths of everyone who was with her. The message repeats with an iteration counter and Sayid works out that the message has been repeating constantly for over sixteen years. Charlie asks, "Guys, where are we?"

Flashbacks: On the plane Jack has a stiff drink courtesy of flight stewardess Cindy. He reassures a neighbouring passenger, Rose, who is a poor flyer. Charlie rushes past, trying to get away from the flight attendants who have noticed him acting oddly. He snorts heroin in the toilet before trying to flush the bag away. It is revealed that Kate was the marshal's prisoner. They exchanged words on the plane before it went into a crash dive. Unlike Jack and Charlie, Kate remained conscious during the crash and was aware of the tail section of the plane detaching and falling into the Pacific Ocean.

Major WTFery: Polar bear, the Monster, the French SOS beacon, the backgammon allusion.

Hindsight: Why is the Man in Black going apeshit in the forest for no reason before eating the pilot? And how does Cindy get from the front of the plane (where Charlie is hiding) to right at the back in time to join the tail section survivors? On the plus side of things, Locke's explanation of two equal forces of light and dark battling one another does actually kind of sum up the entire series, if you squint a bit.

Review: Well, that's how you launch a TV series, with the most expensive pilot in network history ($15 million, a record still unmatched, I believe) and one of the more impressive action sequences used to launch a show. Today it'd be much cheaper and mostly done in CGI, but there's a real sense of physicality to having a real aircraft smashed up, dumped on a beach in Hawaii and then blowing it up. The location shooting is also beautiful (especially watching the show in full HD on Blu-Ray for the first time), even if after six years of watching the show you do start being able to identify the same copse of trees being used for the 37th time.

The pacing of the pilot is excellent, with the show landing on its feet and then just moving constantly. Considering the show has to introduce no less than fifteen regular characters this is some feat, but the lean and economical script does just enough to bring in each character, give them an identifiable trait or tic or two and then develops them through their dialogue and how they handle the crash: Sayid takes charge in a military fashion, Sawyer starts looting and Shannon gives herself a pedicure. There is the sense here that each character is hiding things and has a lot of baggage going on, which the flashback structure begins to allow them to explore.

On the negative side of things, the extremely limited time they had for script development and pre-production is rather telling. There are a few wince-inducing lines and the feeling that the producers don't quite know what the hell they're going to do with half the characters at this point. But overall, if you want to land your series with a bang and keep going, this is how you do it. (****)

 

103: Tabula Rasa

Written by Damon Lindelof, Directed by Jack Bender

Survivor Count: 48

Days on the Island: 2-4 (23-25 September, 2004)

Flashback Characters: Kate

Flashbacks: Kate is making her own way across Australia. 100km outside Melbourne she runs out of money and sleeps in a farm outhouse. The next day the farmer, Ray, wakes her up. He lost his wife eight months earlier and is finding running the farm a chore, especially since he only has one arm. He asks Kate - using the alias "Annie" - to stay on and help him. She agrees. Three months later she decides it's time to go and accept Ray's offer of a lift to the station. However, Ray had spotted her wanted poster in the local town and already called the cops to claim the $23,000 reward, citing the crippling mortagage on the property. They are intercepted outside town by the Marshal in his car. Kate runs the car off the road. Ray is seriously injured. Kate could leave him and escape, but instead pulls him clear before the car can catch fire. The Marshal takes her into custody.

On the Island: Jack continues to treat the Marshal, who is distressed because Kate is free. Jack and Hurley both see a wanted poster of Kate the Marshal is carrying, but Jack declines to ask what she did, saying it doesn't matter at the moment. The other party camps overnight before they return to the crash site and decide not to tell the other survivors about the SOS, as it may demoralise them. Boone tries to take Sawyer's gun to stand guard, but Shannon notes that he doesn't even know how to use it. The group unanimously votes to give Kate the gun instead. Returning to the beach camp, Sayid starts organising water collecting parties. Kate tells Jack about the French SOS signal, but declines to tell him anything else.

The rest of the survivors attend to survival matters. Michael is unhappy that Walt has been talking to Locke, a stranger, and asks him to stay away. Michael stumbles across Sun whilst she is washing, to their mutual embarrassment. Michael is happy to hear from Jack that Walt's dog, Vincent, survived the crash and is in the jungle somewhere. Locke is working on carving a whistle. Jack ransacks the plane for antibiotics to treat the Marshal and is disgusted to see Sawyer looting the plane for food drinks and cigarettes. Sawyer suggests they put the Marshal out of his misery but Jack refuses. Jin, aware that he and Sun risk being alienated from the group because they can't speak English, makes some Korean-style seafood for the rest of the group but finds his efforts rejected by Hurley but enthusiastically received by Claire, who is also happy to feel her baby moving.

Kate tries to talk to the Marshal, but he comes enraged and attacks her, despite his agony. Jack is annoyed and tells Kate he knows that she was the prisoner. Jack reluctantly confirms that the Marshal is going to die, they just don't have the medical equipment or antibiotics needed to save him. Kate and the Marshal have a final conversation in which she says her only concern was that Ray got his reward. The Marshal confirms he did. Ray then asks Sawyer to finish him off with his gun. Sawyer agrees. Unfortunately, he misses the Marshal's heart and nicks his lung, ensuring a long and agonising death. Jack, incredulous at Sawyer's stupidity, is forced to kill the Marshal himself. Kate later offers to tell Jack what she did to get arrested, but Jack tells her he's not interested in finding out.

The next morning Locke blows his whistle. Hearing the sound, the dog Vincent returns to the beach. Locke ties him up and lets Michael know about it, so Michael can pretend he found the dog instead and help his growing relationship with his son.

Major WTFery: What did Kate do?

Hindsight: Actually, Kate's backstory, although a little more long-winded and elaborate than strictly necessary (remember when she dated Nathan Fillion?), is one of the more cohesive storylines in Lost that actually makes sense. Kate's affection for Ray also makes sense once you know what happened with her stepfather. On the negative side, given what we learn later about Locke's backstory, I'm not sure if I entirely buy him being able to carve a whistle precisely so he can blow it at a frequency to attract dogs. I do like the fan suggestion that Lock's whistling also attracted the boars which turn up next episode to cause mayhem.

Review: This is less of a cohesive episode and more Part 3 of the pilot, but it's well-made enough that it works. Damon Lindelof takes over as solo writer (it'll be a short while before Carlton Cuse shows up to help him) and long-running director Jack Bender delivers his first episode and both make a good fist of it. It's a notable episode in that, like many of Lost, not necessarily a huge amount happens of dynamic forward plot movement, but it delivers on character development, humour and atmosphere. One of the better things about Lost is that the writers feel like they can do quite subtle characterisation where required (or possilby because they don't have time to be overt, but let's be charitable). Another show might have had Ray give a whole speech about how Kate reminds him of his dead wife or has become the daughter he never had, but here they have to rely on the actors simply giving good performances. (****)

[DaveSumm]

I think a lot of people forget how great it was, it just got so much pressure for its mysteries that it was never gonna end satisfactorily. But I mean, that summer between S1 and 2 where you didn't know what was down the Hatch? That was probably the most I've ever wanted to know anything, ever. It was utterly incredible how much it sucked you in, and for network television as Wert noted, some quite subtle character work. 

It's just such a shame how close it was to being great throughout, if Lindelof could just email himself back in time from S6 to S1 I think he could've landed it (I have a bunch of these but just of the top of my head; imagine if Smokey actually needed to inhabit the corpses of the people ......Jack's Dad? Much more sense. Empty coffin? Much more sense. His need to get Ben to get Locke's corpse? Much more sense).

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

9 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I think a lot of people forget how great it was, it just got so much pressure for its mysteries that it was never gonna end satisfactorily. But I mean, that summer between S1 and 2 where you didn't know what was down the Hatch? That was probably the most I've ever wanted to know anything, ever. It was utterly incredible how much it sucked you in, and for network television as Wert noted, some quite subtle character work. 

It's just such a shame how close it was to being great throughout, if Lindelof could just email himself back in time from S6 to S1 I think he could've landed it (I have a bunch of these but just of the top of my head; imagine if Smokey actually needed to inhabit the corpses of the people ......Jack's Dad? Much more sense. Empty coffin? Much more sense. His need to get Ben to get Locke's corpse? Much more sense).

Part of the reason I loved Lost so much at the time was that I was making massive assumptions about what the programme was about and the level of intellectual wizardry behind it.

I remember after season one being shown some online theories about what was going on, surrounding advanced mathmatical theories and some seriously heavyweight thinking. This was all reinforced by quite a brilliant advertising campaign online, remembers those websites where you puzzled your way through, the way they hinted at information behind the scenes of the show. 

The problems really began when I realised it was all gumpf, none of it really added up to very much. That it turned out to be about some magical brothers guarding a pool.. well.. that was a bit of a disappointment, especially considering the low level way it was presented. 

The show had a host of other issues, most of which occurred from about season 3 onwards, and stemmed from the show being extended out without having enough material to keep it interesting. Many don't like the final episode, but I think it was totally fine, the show had already hit bottom before then and the ending was actually a bit of a high point.

I really cannot imagine going through a rewatch of it now, I couldn't deal with that level of frustration again.

[Floke]

Odd, I was thinking of doing a rewatch just the other day. I think it'd be interesting to go through the mystery and all the weird things knowing where they come from. Maybe find unexpected links and stuff I didn't notice the first time.

Although I must say this is still the best season 5 summary for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxoGGh5ZZG8

[Werthead]

Going through the stats for the series, I was surprised by a few things.

The biggest is how brutal the series is. There are 49 survivors of Oceanic 815 in the fuselage, 23 survivors in the tail section and 1 in the cockpit, for 73 survivors total. By the end of the series there are only 12 survivors from the flight, and only three (Sawyer, Kate and Claire) escape permanently from the Island and live full lives afterwards (four if you count Aaron). The bloodiest episodes are The Other 48 Days in Season 2, where 16 survivors in the tail section are killed or taken by the Others (apart from Cindy, Zach and Emma, all of those captured by the Others are later killed, by the Others themselves or their enemies), and The Lie, where 17 of the random 815 survivors are killed by the Others with flaming arrows. And the last 2 unnamed survivors get blown up in the very next episode, Jughead.

It always felt rather harsh that only the "special" main characters got survive the series and everyone else was reduced to redshirt status.

[DaveSumm]

What made it especially weird is they didn't really mention it when a lot of people died. End of Season 3, they were still talking about saving 'the survivors' as if there were loads of them, then one day they were just like 'nah, we're all that's left now'. I remember having to check the wiki in S6 just to find out what happened to everyone.

[Jaxom 1974]

On ‎4‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 5:45 AM, red snow said:

 

The flash sideways stuff was fine when it seemed to be an alt time-line but utter bollocks as some form of heaven. I'm still bitter because the showrunners lied and said prior to season 6 that it was an alt time-line. I think it was revenge for everyone immediately accusing the show of being set in purgatory and that's probably what it was. They knew they couldn't entirely end like that but still worked it in as a "fuck you". Not that I think the creators grew to hate the audience but they seemed insistent in getting some afterlife into the show.

 

Is Lost the first show to REALLY be impacted by the internet?  I mean significantly.  That most people essentially figured out that the island was essentially purgatory so early in the process had to effect the writers some, right? 

[DaveSumm]

Can't believe I'm still spending my time telling people this on the Internet all these years later, but.....

Wasn't purgatory. Not even nearly.