MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > The show Lost started a horrible trend ....

The show Lost started a horrible trend ...

posted 3 years ago by Socklaybleu (34)
29 replies | jump to latest

It's when you can write a story and make it up as you go along and it doesn't have to end or make any sense as long as it's interesting. Basically Lost is a bunch of interesting Shorts and character studies and vignettes that are all supposed to connect somehow. Some of the stories are good some not so good but you can tell the quality sort of drops off as the show goes on and they run out of ideas and they are trying to play catch up. It's just lazy storytelling and unfinished thought which passes for a profound and deep when it isn't at all.

[–] Solastine (1104) 3 years ago

Lost is a soap opera, lots of nonsense about characters and their feelings but nothing ever really happens.

[–] Socklaybleu (34) 3 years ago

That's a fair assessment I never thought of it that way

[–] cyberbob (3488) 3 years ago

Damon Lindelof is a joke

[–] Keelai (34148) 3 years ago

Perfect critique of that horrible show. I bailed when many of the mysteries went unsolved.

Abrams admitted on the Howard Stern radio show that he believed the show would be cancelled during the first season so he never had any plan to solve the mysteries which he created. His same haphazard writing-style ruined the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 3 years ago

How did you know they were unsolved when you "bailed?" Did you bail at the very end? That's not bailing.

[–] Keelai (34148) 3 years ago

I think I bailed around season 3. There were mysteries from the first episode which were still unsolved and they were introducing more. Abrams is a hack!

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 3 years ago

Weren't those mysteries also "unsolved" during season 2?

" I bailed when many of the mysteries went unsolved." I think what you really meant is that you bailed when some mysteries were not solved fast enough or exactly when you wanted. It was only in the very end that we discovered that 70% of the mysteries were never to be solved and that is not when you quit.

[–] Keelai (34148) 3 years ago

LOL! It obviously takes you longer to recognize crappy writing.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 3 years ago

You quit before the mysteries were resolved. It was only later that they were unsolved. So you didn't "bail when many of the mysteries went unsolved." You are applying your knowledge of the outcome after the fact and pretending that you knew they would never get resolved. The mysteries could have been resolved right after you quit. You quit for other reasons but you don't know how to properly express it or you are merely surfing the popular complaints for the cheap. easy prestige.

[–] Keelai (34148) 3 years ago

What nonsense!

Abrams already admitted he was making it up as he went along. You like bad writing. I don't.

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 3 years ago

He bailed because it took too long to solve the mysteries and he ran out of interest or patience?

I wonder if any tv developers have ever researched exactly how long an audience can be strung along for with a mystery before they don't care any more. I feel strongly that it's less than three seasons. I think by mid-season 3, you need to start providing some answers, or at least signaling to the audience that there ARE answers, and that you, the show creators, know what those answers are.

[–] BillySlater (4196) 3 years ago

Lindelof admitted they were treading water in season 3 because the network wouldn´t give them an end date. When they finally got one, they were able to plan for the end. I don´t completely blame Lindelof because he wanted Lost to be a 3 season show while NBC wanted it to go 10 seasons. lol

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 3 years ago

Ten seasons seems like a lot to me. I mean, that's the difference between starting college and finishing grad school. On the other hand, by three seasons, I feel like I'm just getting to know a set of characters. I feel like 5 to 7 years is a good balance. Grey's Anatomy is on, what, like 15 years? But it's more of a soap opera than a story, it seems to me. What do you think?

[–] BillySlater (4196) 3 years ago

Thanks for the reply. I think like you said, it depends on the genre. Lost being on an island was confined which I feel is why they devoted half the time to flashbacks/forwards since there is only so much they could do on the island. As for getting to know the characters, I think by season 3, we knew them well enough without having to recycle old stories, (Kate running away, Sawyer pulling another con etc) and Jack getting a tattoo is kind of a clear example of how stale the flashbacks had become. Think there are no hard and fast rules on how long or short a show should be but being a network show meant Lost had to be dragged out (20ish episodes a season). Obv on a cable channel, 10-13 episodes makes the story much tighter.

I think soap operas can get away with going longer because people in some ways accept the same storylines get recycled with different characters but with a show like Lost, people expect something new and interesting and the weight of expectation hurt it because it started off so great.

I think that´s why you see so much criticism towards it as well. People really were invested but were upset with the payoff or lack thereof. I know that for a fact because my wife said exactly the same thing even though she watched 6 seasons being glued to the screen, (maybe not so much in S6). She was so unhappy with how it ended, she said she hated the show because of it. lol

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 3 years ago

I think you are right. I think, too, that on soap operas, you kinda expect that you are just watching the characters' regular lives. You expect someone's regular life to go on indefinitely, so you don't expect a specific "end" because that's not how our regular lives are. But in a show that's based on mystery, or adventure, things like that, you expect that one day there will be a final outcome: the mystery will be solved, the people will finish their adventure and go back to normal life, or die, or whatever. Because the whole idea is that during the adventure or mystery, life is NOT normal. So if you raise all those questions (how did we come to be here, what is this place, etc) then we expect to get answers, that's why we're watching. It's the whole point.

[–] Keelai (34148) 3 years ago

Perfect critique of that horrible show. I finally bailed after none of the mysteries were being solved.

Abrams admitted on the Howard Stern radio show that he thought "Lost" was going to be cancelled during the first season. He never intended to solve anything. His haphazard writing-style ruined the Star Wars sequel trilogy, too.

[–] TexasJack (12516) 3 years ago

Yes, his famous "mystery box" technique. I was really into Lost for the first couple of seasons but also bailed out, and never saw the last seasons.

The Star Wars sequels were horrible.

[–] Keelai (34148) 3 years ago

I watched the last episode to see how it wrapped up. More Abrams nonsense.

[–] Bateman (587) 3 years ago

Ah, Lost...

I remember first hearing about it and going "oh, so it's a Robinson Crusoe kinda deal? Pass." Then it premiered, and I ended up somehow watching the first episode, with the whole "trees shaking" bit, and going, "oh, ok, so it's not Robinson Crusoe, it's Land of the Lost? Pass."

So I basically ignored the entire first season. Then around halfway through the second I started hearing about all this weird stuff going on, and I thought, hey, what the hell... and I was actually hooked.

By the time the third ended, though, I'd already kinda lost interest. The occasional glimpses I got from 4 and 5 only made me think I'd made the right choice to drop it, and when I finally heard about the finale, I was really glad I did.

Good times.

[–] jriley555 (7897) 3 years ago

I'm happy to report that Jack the mouth breather turned me off at the start, so I wasted very little time on the soggy mess.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

i am glad i never watch this series. everyone says it was frustrating.

[–] 102000 (6208) 3 years ago

I loved the first couple of seasons and then it went south and I bailed. IMO, shows like that should only last 3 seasons, 4 at the very most regardless of the ratings.

[–] diezman (1983) 3 years ago

I tried to like this show. I barely made it through the first episode.

[–] tcrum (31113) 3 years ago

I respect Lost, at least they tried, succeeded, and then failed. If everyone is afraid to try something new, we're stuck with the same old shows. I'd rather see something really different, with an epic fail, then the same thing again.

[–] BillySlater (4196) 3 years ago

I agree. Being a network show was a double edged sword, it had the budget that made it spectacular but at the same time, the network held the writers to ransom on how long they wanted the show to go for, which ended up somewhat ruining it.

[–] Solastine (1104) 3 years ago

That doesn't excuse bad writing. Good writing can plan for years, Lost chose to adopt the soap opera format because it is cheap and requires no thinking.