Lost the Plot
I know that a certain suspension of disbelief is required in order to watch and enjoy most television shows/movies. Unfortunately I think some producers/directors want us to suspend a little too much disbelief.
LOST (do you have to spell it in all capitals?) is an example of this. As far as I can ascertain (I haven’t actually watched much of it) a plane crashed and the survivors were left to fend for themselves. Ok, cool, not a great plot, but there’s a little to work with there. Not much, but enough. I was expecting something akin to:
- People crash on island
- People have to work with each other to try and get along
- Some of the people try and go for help and do/don’t make it
- Depending on the outcome of 3, they either get saved or form a community on the island
- If they form a community, it either fails miserably and they all turn into cannibals, or they all live happily ever after
The End
I for one would have been more than happy with that. There’s certain suspensions in disbelief required even for this scenario, but what happens on LOST is just absurd. They crashed on an island, cool, then they tried to go and get help, fine - still sticking to the formula, then the help attempt fails and they are stuck on the island. This is all believable and great, but then there was something about a hatch. And then when I watched a snapshot of it recently, there was someone doing surgery in a fully decked-out hospital, talking to someone else on a walkie-talkie. On a remote uninhabited island.
Did I miss something?
Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical. Of course I’ve missed something, I don’t watch the farcical show. But I think it’s a relatively long bow to draw, especially when you include the Mysterious Beast that lives in the jungle, and the conveniently placed survivors that the islanders run across periodically.
In my opinion it is just a result of lazy writing. It takes very good writers to create a show/movie that has believable characters and reasonable plot lines. LOST is just a badly written soap opera masquerading as a wonderfully original and amazingly action-packed television drama revolution. I say forsake this terrible series, and make the networks put decent shows on TV. Like MacGyver.
March 25th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Although I’ve never watched Lost, here is what I think happened. Someone thought, “hey, I’d like to make a truckload of money…. I know! I’ll make a TV show. Hmm, what can it be about. Ummm, maybe a deserted island. Yeah that’ll do.” Then they came up with a plot, something like this:
1) people arrive on a deserted island. Plot for the first 1-2 seasons is probably well hashed out and fairly tight and gripping.
2) ??? (doesn’t really matter, so long as it keeps people watching, e.g. violent, dramatic, and/or sexy)
3) profit. and when it stops profiting and people are sick of it cos the plot made no sense, stop making it.
They did much the same with The O.C. The first 1 and a half seasons were good. Then they got complacent and were happy just making money. People lost interest, and so they discontinued in half way through the 4th season. and by the looks, the production people had no warning that it was going to be discontinued, considering that the last episode packs in about 2 seasons worth of plot line.
Lost will be discontinued soon, and there won’t be any nice succinct end of the plot (e.g. everyone goes home or whatever). It’ll just stop when people stop watching it and it stops making money.
And yes, they should bring back MacGuyver, and The Pretender too!
March 25th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Jarod is the coolest …
March 25th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Now, whilst I do love a bit of The Pretender myself (I have in fact watched every episode ever aired, and the two TV movies) I must say that the script writers were struggling to create new plots by the end of the last season. They were still as gripping as all hell, but they started to become a little far-fetched…
It really was amazing how much they managed to cram into the last episode of the OC. It was one of those shows that actually tied everything up nicely, not leaving any room for spin-offs (like the show Joey that was a spin-off from Friends).
March 26th, 2007 at 1:49 am
he… OC and Lost… such crap… like watch gilligan’s isle and thinking “i bet you he gets off the isle in season 5″
he never does
March 27th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
I love McDreamy
March 27th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
me too… such a perfect chin
March 28th, 2007 at 11:43 am
wtf is a McDreamy??
March 28th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I think it’s a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy…with a nice chin…
March 29th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
McDreamy and McSteamy, yep, i’ll pay that.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
they have too different collectables inside the happy meal? do we pay extra?
March 31st, 2007 at 12:23 am
I wouldn’t eat the food, but I would buy it just for the toys.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Direct quote from William, what a hard life he has having to look after people AND think!!
“I wasn’t too drunk actually, had to look after people and things for most of it!” Will