Magari più tardi... | And now it's dinner time and I wish at least to jot down some LOST thoughts before Mommy RAI crams some 3 or 4 eps down our throat. (Since it's only four eps to the end of Season 3, I hope it will be 2 tonight and 2 next week.) Season 1 was great. I remember little of it but I'm almost thinking of getting the DVDs, if I weren't sure I'd never have time to watch them. It was an original theme, and I formulated at once a theory... they are all already dead, and somehow fixing what they did wrong in life. Which was eerily echoed by the final words of ep 3.18, "Date of Conception". Anyway, back to Season 1. There were massive plot holes and just plain idiocies (turning the fuselage into a crematorium when it could have been useful as a refuge???) but I loved the continuous surprises, even the flashback gimmick that allowed us to learn the characters' backstories, little by little, and how they were tied to each other. Back then my fave was Sayid. I've always loved the inherent sanity of poor Hurley who believes he's crazy but is a rock of reliableness on the island. Jack? Nope. I really tried to like Kate, but her whininess in a character that was supposed to be strong just turned me off. I can't relate to people whose solution to everything is murder - she never seems desperate enough to be justified, especially over a toy plane. Season 2 started going downhill with the intro of the Others. Now I'm glad about that and I know that the Others serve some purpose (though it's still murky), but for a while during season 2 they dragged the "mysterious enemy force" theme a bit too long. Surprises kept coming with the discovery of the Dharma stations, but we had the nagging feeling that the writers were just throwing stuff in without knowing where they were headed. Also, the relationships between the characters began to deteriorate. I had rooted for the show to be a celebration of how people stick together, and instead we got to the phase where everybody hates each other, secrets are kept, Ana-Lucia glares and pouts, Michael decides he's doing it for himself and WAAAAAAAALT (thus losing any roundedness of character). On the plus side, we're introduced to Eko (hot) and Desmond (hot hot hot). My personal jury is still out on Locke and Henry/Ben, but I have to say they are interesting, complex characters. Season 3 proved to be the death knoll for many viewers (my mother and aunt included). Splitting the group was bad enough, but the quadrangle Kate-Sawyer-Jack-Juliet was just barf-inducing. I'm afraid my Sayid-Danielle 'ship is unfounded. Even the Jin and Sun story, till then very well wrought - a web of misunderstandings between people who genuinely love each other - began to turn soapy. They killed off Eko - bad, bad writers! However, by the end, I had a feeling that things were looking up. Maybe they got new writers, or the old writers got better. I'm not so fanatical to look it up, but I started really liking it again. The hardest moment was probably 3.9, "Stranger in a Strange Land", a Jack-centric episode where our passive-aggressive leader treats like dirt a Thai girl, Juliet and his father (it might have been not all the same ep, but it happened anyway in quick succession - and Christian was NOT Jack's wife's lover, and was seriously trying to stop drinking when his dear son assaulted him at the AA meeting.) I almost threw down the towel... luckily, by that time, I had really discovered the awesomeness of Desmond. Sawyer, too, is rising in my consideration, especially seeing how he reacted somewhat chivalrously after Kate treating him like a boy toy - and I had hoped that they could make a honest man-woman of each other, but not anymore after Kate's tantrums during their trip back, and her stubborn disregarding of Jack's explicit order to leave him with the Others. Still, I feel Sawyer is developing well; I don't want him to become a goody-goody, but the ep when Hurley tricks him into behaving decently was great. I loved him as reluctant leader and troubled "good" guy. Yeah, the Others. By the end we got to know more about them and it almost begins to make sense. I hope this is not a spoiler for anyone, but basically they are a team of scientists carrying out secret experiments. They are not immoral, they are amoral: they cure cancer (maybe) but kidnap, manipulate and kill to reach their goals. They, too, are aware of maybe the greatest mystery of the series: the dark thing that could be the Island's "soul", that healed and spared Locke and killed Eko and did nothing for Ben's cancer. I LOVED some of the recent eps. 3.14, "Exposé": Paulo and Nikki were annoying, but the ep was delightfully creepy. 3.17, "Catch-22": I was wrapped up in the tension, knowing in my heart that Des would not let Charlie die, but also fearing that my fave char would be ruined. Also, discovering he's an ex-monk made me think a lot of Aelfwine. Pity he's short, I think, and Aelf should not be a Celt, but that'a the vibe I get. And now we know why he calls everyone "Brother". Des as Ulysses (waiting for Penelope...) is an injection of mythology that intrigues me totally. Best line of the entire show: "We have to play ping pong every 108 minutes, or the island will explode." I like when they make fun of themselves, when they have been so serious for ages. It's still very muddled, but I'm beginning to get back my hope that there's an explanation somewhere. The characters are beginning to ask questions and actually getting some answers. I understand the viewers who dropped out: you have to remember a stunning quantity of details to appreciate certain references or just make sense of what happens. But that's something that intrigues me, like a game. It's a challenge to my intelligence. And as long as there are hot guys around and Jack doesn't hog all the screen, I'll keep watching. |