tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post7525327382875682402..comments2024-03-28T02:21:05.851-07:00Comments on VINYL IS HEAVY: Last Lost: "The End"Ryland Walker Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post-60276389750040498402010-05-24T15:23:42.977-07:002010-05-24T15:23:42.977-07:00Thanks for the comment, JF. One of the things I ch...Thanks for the comment, JF. One of the things I chatted about with a friend earlier today was the idea that people don't necessarily understand why they're watching certain tv shows, or what tv can really offer. I honestly think _Lost_ is/was popular because it's got _just_ enough pointing at other stuff, including the audience, that it placates curiosity as much as sparks it.<br /><br />I've definitely heard praises sung for both those shows. Dunno if I'll get around to them but maybe. I'm more interested in exhausting _30 Rock_ right now.Ryland Walker Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post-29979465225377514662010-05-24T15:10:22.691-07:002010-05-24T15:10:22.691-07:00I didn't actively dislike "The End,"...I didn't actively dislike "The End," but I think that may have been because my opinion of the show dropped quite a lot as this season progressed*, so my bar wasn't set very high. It's definitely unsatisfactory on a whole bunch of levels. I'm OK with leaving threads dangling to spark debate (in fact I'm beyond OK with it, as most of my favorite finales (Twin Peaks, The Prisoner) tend to make things even more confusing) but I can't imagine anybody having an interesting discussion or even thinking an interesting thought about anything this show left up in the air. It's a very hackish conception of ambiguity, that it's artistically valid, and a surefire means to attain cult immortality, to withhold answers without bothering to make the withholding resonate (ditto all the crude symmetry). <br /><br />What really torpedoed the endgame was the idea that it had always been about the characters. Another show (with which LOST shared an almost unseemly amount of plot points), Battlestar Galactica, ended by taking a similar route out, and with an equal degree of religiosity. But there, the characters weren't just plot puppets. That show at its best was about how all the mindgames and wartime trauma affected the characters. Its ending was clunky and earned some of all the fanboy ire it got, but the writers at least had the right idea. LOST at its best was about What, not Who.<br /><br />*Not just because this season wasn't very good, but also because I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which either Cuse or Lindelof claim as a major inspiration, and which shames LOST in every category except FX and production values. There's a show that ran the whole tonal gamut, embodied rather than merely talked about its themes, knew the difference between pathos and bathos, and evinced a real love for and (sometimes over-)attention to language.JFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07577343800808499897noreply@blogger.com