Lost is back.
And it's still just as awesomely confusing as ever, except now instead of flashing back they're flashing forward. I have no idea what the hell is going on! Yay!
ABC did something interesting the night before they aired the season premiere. They showed the previous season's finale with a Popup Video style ticker running notes about the show to explain why characters were doing certain things.
I think it was a clever idea. ABC has an opportunity here. Lots of people have wanted to get into Lost but were afraid of starting in the middle and not understanding what's going on. But with the strike on there's not much to choose from and ABC will probably get a lot of new people checking Lost to see what all the fuss is about.
So they provide notes to get the newbies acquainted.
A good idea. But it was poorly executed. Of course, with the writers strike on they had to resort to some executive's office assistant or something to write the notes. And it really felt like they'd chosen Big Gay Al.
In addition to the occasional explanation, the person running the ticker also gave you commentary. "Big Papa's mad!" it said at one point when a character was clearly angry. "The love triangle gets more complicated!" it said when the love triangle got more complicated.
A writer would have known that you don't point out the obvious to people. You let them figure it out, because most people aren't as dumb as most people think.
Isn't that interesting? How we think everyone else but us is dumber than we are?
The whole Lost ticker thing reminded me of the commentary on the Dead Zone DVDs. Whenever Anthony Michael Hall is the one recording the commentary he gives you no useful information whatsoever. His character walks into the kitchen. "Here I am, walking into the kitchen," he says in the commentary. "You can see that I use a cane."
Well duh, dude. Can you please tell me something I can't see with my own eyes as I watch the show?
The average viewer is capable of putting two and two together. Sometimes you have to have a little faith in the intelligence of man.
Author J. Wood's got an excellent blog going about Lost. Warning: he gets crazy in-depth.
ReplyDeleteHe's a little off the charts on a few parts of the episode, but at least he's looking in-depth. Just a little too in-depth, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteOh, and you guys can ask whatever Lost-related questions that you have at my blog.
You've hit one of my DVD commentary peeves right on the head.
ReplyDeleteWhen I listen to a commentary, I want to hear why something was done... or how, in the case of special effects (either practical or digital).
Or, failing that, at least some interesting anecdotes about the production.
I'm sure ABC's IT guy got that job. He went in to fix a computer, came out with a writing cred
ReplyDelete