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shadowkat[Warning - much snark below, had a long tough day, back is killing me and slept horridly. This brings out snark. I had to kept deleting emails at work - because sending snarky email to engineer who is driving me bonkers could come back and bite me in the ass.]
Sort of watching this week's The Big Bang Theory in the background. It's interesting - half the time I'm torn between deleting the thing and never watching it again and laughing my ass off. "pre-evening" - LOL! It seems to veer alternately between offensive sexist male fantasy piece and an often side-splittingly hilarious comedy about a bunch of lovable yet annoying nerds. How it does that, I'm not sure. Actually all sitcoms tend to do this - one moment they offend and make me cringe and want to flip them off to never be seen again, the next, I'm laughing my ass off. Sigh. You know what I miss? The comedies about something other than sex - such as Cheers, Fraiser, Murphy Brown, MASH, News Radio (I loved News Radio), Barney Miller, WKRP in Cincinatti (a true classic and amongst the best of the breed), and Cybil. Big Bang is at its funniest when it is focusing on Sheldon and Leonard, and Penny is nowhere to be seen or playing straight woman as opposed tosex objectLeonard's love interest.
Best thing about last night's LOST was...well, okay that would be a spoiler. Never mind. Just read the post below this one, which is more positive about the episode. This bit is after pondering it last night and is, a lot more negative and a lot snarkier in nature. So if you LOVED the finale, which is your choice - this is subjective well to a degree, after-all, you might want to skip the below - just saying.
I'm oddly ambivalent about it. I enjoyed it for what it was. And the plot is head-ache inducing, because it doesn't quite work. The BSG series finale made more sense, was a lot tighter and better written, and more or less said the same things without the heavy-handed cliches. So if you did not like the BSG finale, I'm guessing you'd hate the LOST finale. Actually, come to think of it, the Angel TELEVISION (not the comics) finale worked better. Considering the writers had decided two years ago to end the series on their terms and plotted out what the ending would be ahead of time - you'd think it would have been better than series, which are canceled without warning and the writers had no time to come up with a clear-cut ending, like you know, Angel the Series?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I couldn't figure out what was happening, I could and did - although friends have kindly posted commentary explaining it to me in the comments to the post below this one just in case I didn't. [Just explained it all to Momster, who read reviews that apparently thought the Island was purgatory run by Jacob (no, that makes no sense - because how did they get off and come back?) and that the Sideways/Alt!Verse was a better version of purgatory run by Hugo. I told her that no, the island was real, the limbo verse was what we all thought was the alt!verse established this season, possibly by the bomb, or it existed before the bomb and we just didn't know it. Doesn't make sense that it was caused by the bomb. So, it clearly existed before the bomb and we didn't know about it until now. After I explained it all - Momster remarked, okay it's like those mystery novels or jigsaw puzzles with pieces that just don't fit or add up, you track back and go...uhm no, that makes no sense. And it also sounds like they got way too convoluted with what was in reality a fairly simplistic story line. Yep, pretty much. That. In a nutshell.] In short the plot does not work. And the whole thing feels a bit like a bad what-if fanfic. Sure the metaphor was fun on a certain level. I mean, who besides a grinch is going to object to the idea that God=love and there's a place where we can find all our loved ones and be reunited with them before we die and work out our issues in the process? But I thought BSG in some respects played that game better philosophically and metaphorically, with a lot less harp-strings. BSG was a better series all the way around, but being on the sci-fi channel and a space opera, it didn't get the mainstream attention LOST did. Shame. Better written and better acted in my opinion. With a lot more interesting female characters and a far less sexist message. In BSG - we got a broad and interesting range of female characters, not so much on LOST. Let's face it Lost was a lot of things, but feminist wasn't exactly amongst them. It failed the Bechdel Test quite badly.
What was wrong with the plot? Well they set the whole season up as if blowing up the bomb changes things. Juliet says it worked. We are lead to believe it set up two verses. Desmond even sees the second verse and feels relieved. Then at the end, we find out, no, not two verses. Sideways is a fantasy verse or limbo that they set up as a pre-afterlife thing. A place to meetup with their island friends, resolve old issues, before going on. It's a what-if universe - what-if the plane never crashed - what if there was no island. So they all get play out their lives as if they were never on the island prior to going on to the afterlife. Note - they still end up interacting with the folks on the island, but this round it is a sort of fantasy of what it would be like if they met these people off the island, what would it be like?
The limbo verse feels a bit like a fanfic. Actually this whole season feels like a fanfic - you know a what-if tale - where the action takes place in a world where the island does not exist. Except this world is in actuality a limbo place. Personally? I think it worked better as an alternate universe set up by the bomb, as opposed to a metaphysical what-if place that exists for people who crashed on the island before they move on into the afterlife. But that's just me.
Now, just in case you think this was an earth-shatteringly new and innovative concept, you probably should go check out Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars, which more or less deal with exact same idea, except Life on Mars went there first and did it better - not to mention in fewer episodes. In Life on Mars - a cop dies, ends up back in time, and deals with his issues until he's ready to move on. Except it is a bit more surreal, and less clear cut. Also a cop show, which tend to bore me. The US version of Life on Mars ended up with them all astronauts and the cop bit was a dream/fantasy for their cryogenic sleep.
So, at the moment, HOUSE is winning the season finale sweepstakes for me. With Vampire Diaries and Grey's Anatomy and Supernatural in a three-way tie for second place. And no, I don't watch Ashes to Ashes for the simple reason that I burned out on cop shows a while ago, that and Homicide Life on the Street sort of ruined me for the entire genre. Best cop show EVER! Everything else feels a bit like Starsky and Hutch with bad hair in comparison.
Okay, off to watch Glee - which I've been enjoying more than LOST lately. Actually enjoying The Good Wife and Glee more than LOST. Both have, gasp, strong and interesting female characters of various races, ages, and body types - who are, gasp, lead characters and protagonists. And talk about things that don't, wait for it, involve men or kids. Yes, shocking! Isn't it?
Sort of watching this week's The Big Bang Theory in the background. It's interesting - half the time I'm torn between deleting the thing and never watching it again and laughing my ass off. "pre-evening" - LOL! It seems to veer alternately between offensive sexist male fantasy piece and an often side-splittingly hilarious comedy about a bunch of lovable yet annoying nerds. How it does that, I'm not sure. Actually all sitcoms tend to do this - one moment they offend and make me cringe and want to flip them off to never be seen again, the next, I'm laughing my ass off. Sigh. You know what I miss? The comedies about something other than sex - such as Cheers, Fraiser, Murphy Brown, MASH, News Radio (I loved News Radio), Barney Miller, WKRP in Cincinatti (a true classic and amongst the best of the breed), and Cybil. Big Bang is at its funniest when it is focusing on Sheldon and Leonard, and Penny is nowhere to be seen or playing straight woman as opposed to
Best thing about last night's LOST was...well, okay that would be a spoiler. Never mind. Just read the post below this one, which is more positive about the episode. This bit is after pondering it last night and is, a lot more negative and a lot snarkier in nature. So if you LOVED the finale, which is your choice - this is subjective well to a degree, after-all, you might want to skip the below - just saying.
I'm oddly ambivalent about it. I enjoyed it for what it was. And the plot is head-ache inducing, because it doesn't quite work. The BSG series finale made more sense, was a lot tighter and better written, and more or less said the same things without the heavy-handed cliches. So if you did not like the BSG finale, I'm guessing you'd hate the LOST finale. Actually, come to think of it, the Angel TELEVISION (not the comics) finale worked better. Considering the writers had decided two years ago to end the series on their terms and plotted out what the ending would be ahead of time - you'd think it would have been better than series, which are canceled without warning and the writers had no time to come up with a clear-cut ending, like you know, Angel the Series?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I couldn't figure out what was happening, I could and did - although friends have kindly posted commentary explaining it to me in the comments to the post below this one just in case I didn't. [Just explained it all to Momster, who read reviews that apparently thought the Island was purgatory run by Jacob (no, that makes no sense - because how did they get off and come back?) and that the Sideways/Alt!Verse was a better version of purgatory run by Hugo. I told her that no, the island was real, the limbo verse was what we all thought was the alt!verse established this season, possibly by the bomb, or it existed before the bomb and we just didn't know it. Doesn't make sense that it was caused by the bomb. So, it clearly existed before the bomb and we didn't know about it until now. After I explained it all - Momster remarked, okay it's like those mystery novels or jigsaw puzzles with pieces that just don't fit or add up, you track back and go...uhm no, that makes no sense. And it also sounds like they got way too convoluted with what was in reality a fairly simplistic story line. Yep, pretty much. That. In a nutshell.] In short the plot does not work. And the whole thing feels a bit like a bad what-if fanfic. Sure the metaphor was fun on a certain level. I mean, who besides a grinch is going to object to the idea that God=love and there's a place where we can find all our loved ones and be reunited with them before we die and work out our issues in the process? But I thought BSG in some respects played that game better philosophically and metaphorically, with a lot less harp-strings. BSG was a better series all the way around, but being on the sci-fi channel and a space opera, it didn't get the mainstream attention LOST did. Shame. Better written and better acted in my opinion. With a lot more interesting female characters and a far less sexist message. In BSG - we got a broad and interesting range of female characters, not so much on LOST. Let's face it Lost was a lot of things, but feminist wasn't exactly amongst them. It failed the Bechdel Test quite badly.
What was wrong with the plot? Well they set the whole season up as if blowing up the bomb changes things. Juliet says it worked. We are lead to believe it set up two verses. Desmond even sees the second verse and feels relieved. Then at the end, we find out, no, not two verses. Sideways is a fantasy verse or limbo that they set up as a pre-afterlife thing. A place to meetup with their island friends, resolve old issues, before going on. It's a what-if universe - what-if the plane never crashed - what if there was no island. So they all get play out their lives as if they were never on the island prior to going on to the afterlife. Note - they still end up interacting with the folks on the island, but this round it is a sort of fantasy of what it would be like if they met these people off the island, what would it be like?
The limbo verse feels a bit like a fanfic. Actually this whole season feels like a fanfic - you know a what-if tale - where the action takes place in a world where the island does not exist. Except this world is in actuality a limbo place. Personally? I think it worked better as an alternate universe set up by the bomb, as opposed to a metaphysical what-if place that exists for people who crashed on the island before they move on into the afterlife. But that's just me.
Now, just in case you think this was an earth-shatteringly new and innovative concept, you probably should go check out Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars, which more or less deal with exact same idea, except Life on Mars went there first and did it better - not to mention in fewer episodes. In Life on Mars - a cop dies, ends up back in time, and deals with his issues until he's ready to move on. Except it is a bit more surreal, and less clear cut. Also a cop show, which tend to bore me. The US version of Life on Mars ended up with them all astronauts and the cop bit was a dream/fantasy for their cryogenic sleep.
So, at the moment, HOUSE is winning the season finale sweepstakes for me. With Vampire Diaries and Grey's Anatomy and Supernatural in a three-way tie for second place. And no, I don't watch Ashes to Ashes for the simple reason that I burned out on cop shows a while ago, that and Homicide Life on the Street sort of ruined me for the entire genre. Best cop show EVER! Everything else feels a bit like Starsky and Hutch with bad hair in comparison.
Okay, off to watch Glee - which I've been enjoying more than LOST lately. Actually enjoying The Good Wife and Glee more than LOST. Both have, gasp, strong and interesting female characters of various races, ages, and body types - who are, gasp, lead characters and protagonists. And talk about things that don't, wait for it, involve men or kids. Yes, shocking! Isn't it?
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 02:54 am (UTC)Not just you. About 3/4s of the way through the finale, and I actually thought that this is where they were going, and I was pleased because a number of people were already speculating on the religious aspects and expecting a conclusion along those lines.
What I thought was going to happen is that as each castaway "remembered" the island that they were leaving the island behind and the alt- or sidewaysverse was then real for them-- they were no longer divided between the two realities.
Then once the last person remembered, the original reality would disappear, leaving Smokey alone on the island (or dead, with it as the bottom of the sea as depicted in the season opener). Plus, a big bonus if someone finally said the ilands properties were either alien or pre-human, like in the Atlantean stories.
Nope. Bummer.
I don't dislike the ending, as I mentioned on the night of the finale, but it renders the series far more ordinary for me, and it started out so extraordinary. So it's OK, just meh. Credit is due, however, for helping a mass audience to become involved in a Buffy-like, long-story-arc viewing experience. The networks may be a little less reluctant to try this genre again in future.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 04:41 pm (UTC)Do I think it was worth it?
Short answer? Yes. But...
It's probably worth noting that I never was that invested in all the things that did not work - ie. plot, philosophy, and science. If I had been, I'd have given up on the show probably in the second season. Also, I've seen worse season finales, as a co-worker at work stated, at least, it wasn't all a dream (unless you go by some people's interpretation that Jack was dreaming...but that doesn't play, the purgatory explanation works a whole lot better.) (ST. Elsewhere and Dallas did the dream things. As did the American version of Life on Mars).
It worked for me emotionally - the characters that I cared about got a resolution that more or less made sense with their respective arcs and tracked. Also, it probably helped a great deal that I liked Jack and Kate this season. Never really hated Kate or Jack, was more or less ambivalent - which is why I liked the show. People who hated those characters probably struggled with it more.
And...I got my Sawyer/Juliet, Ben/Locke moments - which were pretty much all I cared about at that point. In some respects Sawyer/Juliet's reunion was a lot better than Spike and Buffy's scene in Chosen.
Plus? I wasn't that suprised by the finale. It was better than the one I dreaded - Jack and Lock being the new Jacob and MIB.
And it wasn't as good as the one I hoped for - which atpo_omn describes below. (But I more or less figured out that one was a long shot - because it made the most logical sense and LOST hasn't made logical sense from Day One.)
Would you have spent six years watching it if you knew this was what it would come to?
I was watching it for the characters and to see what crazy thing they would do with the narrative arc next. So yeah, I'd have watched it.
The finale could have been a lot worse.
I don't think I'll ever bother purchasing the DVDs or wast time re-watching it like I have with Buffy, Angel and Farscape. But I rarely re-watch tv shows or buy DVDs of tv shows. No time.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 04:56 am (UTC)Close. I did not like the BSG finale. And I thought that the LOST finale was worse. But I was much more invested emotionally in BSG than I was in LOST, and thus felt more personally disappointed.
You're right of course--the alt!verse having nothing to do with Jughead the bomb renders a season's worth of speculating meaningless; the details were clearly constructed to suggest that it was because Jughead went off, Daniel had a speech about how it was because Jughead went off, and that was all just an attempt to convince us that the alt!verse had meaning when, in fact, it could have been any scenario in which people's lives were different from on the island. And now various details from this season which were mysterious--Jack had his appendix removed as a child instead of as an adult on the island!--are, um, because they're in purgatory where funky stuff happens. Thanks guys.
One could I suppose fanwank that Jughead going off somehow allowed this purgatory plane to be created--that this flash of light is what created the island's crazy electromagnetic forces which allowed "good guys" to go to this land where they worked through their issues. Then Juliet might have been the one to "construct" the reality, while she was dying, and so the constructed reality then takes the shape of a what if scenario where Juliet et al. succeeded. Somehow this bounces back through time (or at least forward from 1977, even though Juliet died in the present) and affects people who died on the island. This of course is ridiculous, tortured logic--but hey, it's sort of what we have to do at this juncture to make sense of things.