If you have not yet watched the show please refer to my spoiler-free review here.This post will be filled with spoilers. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
SPOILERS AHEAD
In my opinion the first season of LOST and even the second is an example of quality television. There were many elements present at the start, like excellent characterization, a little diversity, and the right balance between mystery and action, that made the show great. It also had a lot of potential to keep being awesome, but it never lived up to this potential and instead saw a steady decline. Here's where I think it went wrong:
1) Charlie's dreams. This is one of the first "mysteries" they never bothered to explain. The viewer knew for a fact that Charlie had not been taking drugs again when he had those dreams about Aaron dying, so why was he having the dreams? No one ever bothered to address this and that really annoyed me because they used this to create a pointless conflict between Charlie and Claire that lasted for many, many episodes.
2) Locke went quickly from being a confident hunter who knew what the Island was and what it wanted to some weak, confused psycho who changed his mind and his alliances a zillion times a minute. None of his decisions after the stupid button made any logical sense or went with his character.
3) The Others' motivations and their purpose make no sense. Their whole society and the way it's structured, the reason they want to stay on the Island, their motivations for kidnapping babies and children, the disconnect between the Others that include Ben and Juliet and the Others who guard the temple from season 6 - none of this makes any sense or fits together and none of it is explained.
4) Michael's betrayal. After being a very reasonable person for two seasons Michael suddenly shot and killed two people that he liked just because the people who kidnapped his son said they would give him his son back. Michael had no reason to trust that the Others would keep their word. He also had no reason not to tell the rest of his friends so they could help him out. And finally, he had no reason to shoot anyone. All he had to do was let Henry go and lead Jack and co into the trap. It made no sense and, together with some of the other things we saw Michael do afterwards, it smacked a little bit of racism.
5) Kate the wonder-girl. Kate's flashbacks have to be the worst, but it's not just hers that suffered this problem. In order to keep up the formula of using flashbacks in each and every episode the authors started to just have the most random things happen to characters so that by the end of the series we've seen the main characters Jack, Kate, Locke, etc, do pretty much everything and have every conceivable problem in their past. It was overkill and ruined the characterization.
6) Killing off Ana Lucia, Libby, Mr Eko. What's the point of introducing the tailies if every single one of them (except for Bernard, that is) will just be killed off within 4 or 5 episodes? Combined with the loss of Michael and Charlie, Rose's sidelining, and Hurley's change into one of the in-crowd, this meant that the show became much less diverse than it had started off.
7) Stereotypical portrayals. Sun's Korean father is a cold, heartless criminal overlord, every single episode that Sayid features in serves to highlight his torturer past, Mr Eko can't seem to get away from his drug gang past, Ana Lucia is a bad cop who abuses her control, Michael is an incompetent father, etc. In contrast all the white characters have very varied experiences and they aren't stuck doing just one thing or having just one image in their flashbacks. (see #5)
8) Benjamin Linus. This character in general made no sense. We saw the world from his eyes a couple of times and saw WAY too much of him, but we never really got to see his motivations. We were never really shown why he did any of what he was doing. He also started to suffer from Locke syndrome in season 6 when his alliances started to fluctuate every 5 seconds to serve some random plot point or other. The actor was amazing, but this doesn't make up for the fact that the characterization was horrible.
9) Nonexistent World-Building follow through. The world building and the mysteries were very well set up in seasons 1 and 2 and we were given hints that some awesome stuff was there waiting to be discovered, but we never got to see any of this unfold. Instead... magic. And I only wish the whole "mythology" angle from season 6 was actually done well. No, it was even more sloppy than the sci fi stuff in earlier seasons.
10) How did the others become the "good guys" and how exactly is Jacob better than his brother smokey? The episode focusing on their backstory left me feeling for smokey much more than Jacob. After all, that crazy woman murdered their mother and wasn't letting them off the Island AND she tried to kill smokey... and all he wanted to do was get off the Island where as Jacob wanted.... well, we're not sure, but he wanted something.
11) Morality is about actions and purpose/intention matters. They tried to sell us this line that protecting the Island is the right thing and that Ben Linus was actually one of the good guys/an ok guy or something. Have we forgotten how many Dharma folk he murdered? Have we forgotten that he ordered the kidnap of many of the survivors? Or that he let random innocents - including his own (kidnapped) daughter - die in a "feud" with Charles Widmore that we never understood or had any justification for? Also, forget Ben, why does Ana Lucia have to suffer mental and emotional unrest for killing someone by accident while the Others are suddenly good guys after all they've done? I could go on, but it just doesn't make any sense.
12) Claire joins the dark side. This is just as ridiculous as it sounds and I don't think I need to go into too much detail. It was neither adequately justified nor convincing. Also, you're trying to tell me she's gone crazy because she wants her baby when she WILLINGLY walked away from him and left him in the middle of the jungle? Right.
So there you have it. I'm sure I could squeeze my brain for more, but these are the main issues I had with the way LOST went after the excellent and promising start. agree or disagree? Either way, comment below.
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