April 12th, 2007 purgatory? nah…
Recently, I have been obsessed with the ABC TV show Lost. The amount of intricacies and complexities in the plot is something that, I don’ think, has ever been attempted before on TV. And inevitably, the ratings for the show will fall downward because it is hard to pick up new audience in the middle of season 3 – there is too much back story at this point. And indeed, the rating has fallen for Lost this season. But the show has been getting better and better from my standpoint. I am entirely amazed at the ability of this show to stay fresh AND well-written at this point in the series. One only has to look to shows like 24 to see that a good show can suffer from bad writing in later seasons. (That’s not to say that Lost has had its share of bad lines.)
The recent episode, Expose, was a testament to the genius of the writers. They clearly tried something different. The look and feel of the episode was completely different from any previous ones. As far as I can tell, it was an hommage to old pulp-TV, like Baywatch and Charlie’s Angels. The fact that a show, with a well-established style and history, is willing to be even remotely creative at this stage in the game is unheard-of.
When I compare how this season is going right now to how the previous ones went, it is obvious that the plot is advancing at a much faster rate. First, we have really exciting new developments like the possibility of time travel and leadership change at the beach camp. Then there are the monumental series questions that have been being answered left and right this season- How did Locked get in the wheelchair? Are Jack and Claire really related? Does Sawyer have a baby? Why are The Others taking the kids? It is obvious, if you actually watch the show carefully, that the writers are not making it up as they go along. It would be impossible to accomplish what they have done with the story at this point without carefully planning.
I am excited as ever for this season’s finale. More curious is where the show will go next season. There are rumors floating around that by the end of this season, most of the mysteries surrounding The Others will have been solved and Dharma Initiative at least partially explained. If they introduce a whole new element to the island’s mythology that we have not seen before, I think that might be the jumping the shark moment for Lost. I hope they stick to the mysteries that’s been established so far.
