This Moment Was Always Looking For Me.
A couple of people mentioned Lost while I was watching Person of Interest, as another show produced by JJ Abrams and starring Michael Emerson. I've vaguely wondered whether I should watch Lost for a long time; I've got a weakness for stories in which a group of strangers are thrown into strange circumstances and forced to bond under high pressure.
Plus, hey, maybe it would distract me from how much I miss my murder boyfriend John Reese!
I started up the first episode.
Lost: Hey, we heard you like guys in suits who are around forty, have close-cropped dark hair and are desperately trying to save everyone!
It did not distract me from how much I miss my murder boyfriend John Reese.
A few thoughts on the first three episodes, written while watching:
I feel that Lost goes all in on Jack/Kate too hard and too early. The very first episode is crammed so full of significant looks and instant closeness that their dynamic doesn't really have room to breathe and work out what it actually wants to be. There's so much obvious determination in the writing to make this a romance that I feel like the characters are being held at gunpoint. Honestly, Kate and Charlie instantly feel more shippable just by virtue of interacting without the narrative trying to force them together.
The pilot of Lost feels like it has relatively little dialogue; it's far from silent, but there are a lot of stretches without much talking. I wonder if that's more to do with the show itself (they had a lot of cool scenery; maybe they wanted to show it off!) or the time it was made. Nowadays, when a lot of people watch things with half an eye on their phone, it's harder to have long stretches of largely visual storytelling.
Okay, I'm more willing to give Jack/Kate a fair shake as of episode three, now that she's gone 'I think you should murder this guy' and he's gone 'what, no.' Murder remains the key to enhancing any fictional romance.
The marshal tells Jack 'no matter how she makes you feel, don't trust a word she says' and then asks 'she got to you too, huh?', and I am fascinated by the implications that the marshal fell for Kate. I am fully in favour of how quickly the show goes the Jack/Kate route if the explanation is 'Kate is intentionally seducing Jack for her own ends'.
The marshal asks Kate to kill him? Sorry, Jack/Kate, but Nameless Marshal/Kate is where it's at; it's got higher-stakes conflict and higher-quality murder content.
(Apparently the marshal has a name; it's Edward Mars! I looked this up mainly so I could check whether there was any Kate/Mars fanfiction on AO3. No, alas, although Lost's heyday was pre-AO3, so I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean I'm the sole person who's interested in their dynamic.)
As with The X-Files, it's interesting to watch an influential show for the first time long after it's left its mark on television (and launched various actors' careers!). I could see Supernatural in The X-Files, and now I can see The 100 in Lost.
I haven't yet decided whether I'll stick with Lost; the concept seems interesting, but none of the characters have really grabbed me yet, and right now it's hard not to resent anything I try to watch for not being Person of Interest. But I thought I might as well record my early thoughts, either way!
Plus, hey, maybe it would distract me from how much I miss my murder boyfriend John Reese!
I started up the first episode.
Lost: Hey, we heard you like guys in suits who are around forty, have close-cropped dark hair and are desperately trying to save everyone!
It did not distract me from how much I miss my murder boyfriend John Reese.
A few thoughts on the first three episodes, written while watching:
I feel that Lost goes all in on Jack/Kate too hard and too early. The very first episode is crammed so full of significant looks and instant closeness that their dynamic doesn't really have room to breathe and work out what it actually wants to be. There's so much obvious determination in the writing to make this a romance that I feel like the characters are being held at gunpoint. Honestly, Kate and Charlie instantly feel more shippable just by virtue of interacting without the narrative trying to force them together.
The pilot of Lost feels like it has relatively little dialogue; it's far from silent, but there are a lot of stretches without much talking. I wonder if that's more to do with the show itself (they had a lot of cool scenery; maybe they wanted to show it off!) or the time it was made. Nowadays, when a lot of people watch things with half an eye on their phone, it's harder to have long stretches of largely visual storytelling.
Okay, I'm more willing to give Jack/Kate a fair shake as of episode three, now that she's gone 'I think you should murder this guy' and he's gone 'what, no.' Murder remains the key to enhancing any fictional romance.
The marshal tells Jack 'no matter how she makes you feel, don't trust a word she says' and then asks 'she got to you too, huh?', and I am fascinated by the implications that the marshal fell for Kate. I am fully in favour of how quickly the show goes the Jack/Kate route if the explanation is 'Kate is intentionally seducing Jack for her own ends'.
The marshal asks Kate to kill him? Sorry, Jack/Kate, but Nameless Marshal/Kate is where it's at; it's got higher-stakes conflict and higher-quality murder content.
(Apparently the marshal has a name; it's Edward Mars! I looked this up mainly so I could check whether there was any Kate/Mars fanfiction on AO3. No, alas, although Lost's heyday was pre-AO3, so I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean I'm the sole person who's interested in their dynamic.)
As with The X-Files, it's interesting to watch an influential show for the first time long after it's left its mark on television (and launched various actors' careers!). I could see Supernatural in The X-Files, and now I can see The 100 in Lost.
I haven't yet decided whether I'll stick with Lost; the concept seems interesting, but none of the characters have really grabbed me yet, and right now it's hard not to resent anything I try to watch for not being Person of Interest. But I thought I might as well record my early thoughts, either way!