Sky has every episode of
Lost available for free HD download without adverts, so I've been gorging myself on the show like a tiger shark in a pool full of car number plates.
Currently up to 3/4s of the way through season 2. Thoughts:
-The show is
gorgeous in HD. Spectacular views, high contrast and high saturation camerawork.
-Sound design is intelligently thought out, and combined with the music, the soundscape adds a
huge amount to the show. By turns nerve-jangling and moving in a way that just wouldn't exist if the show relied on the writing alone.
-It's a totally different show when you re-watch it. Some elements (such as the Others) lose their fear-factor entirely, but there's a lot more intrigue in terms of foreshadowing, and little references to events and concepts that don't pop up until later. I'd originally thought the writers of Lost just made shit up as they went along - now I'm wondering how much they had planned in advance, because it's clearly a lot more than I'd realised.
-When you're watching it without advert breaks or disc changes, you can fly through the show, making the pace seem much more rapid than it did on the original TV broadcast. With that said, season 2 still feels fairly glacial - I think the problem is that it's lacking in motivation. Season 1 had a series of goal-focused arcs, leaving you needing to see what would happen next - this is rarely the case now. The problem is compounded by several episodes showing the same events from multiple perspectives, or not advancing the story or characters in a meaningful way.
-The use of flashbacks to explore the characters has also become unwelcome - although it's still genuinely revealing significant details about the characters (which I remember it not doing later on), by this second season it feels like we have a good
enough understanding of the characters, and spending so much time to convey bite-size nuggets of backstory adds to the feeling of slowness.
Spoiler
-Really feels like they've dropped the ball on a few elements. The Others were initially conveyed in a terrifying manner - Ethan's post-unmasking interactions in the first season were all ultra-malevolent and bizarrely portrayed, the mysterious column of smoke before Aaron's abduction, the radar blip detected by the raft, the revelation that most of the tail-end survivors had been wiped out by the Others, that sight of them slipping silently barefooted through the jungle as Jin and Eko look on, and having them closely connected to the whispers in the jungle.
Really, these were people who needed to be de-humanised as much as possible. They were just as monstrous as the monster, and set you on edge. However, there's an increasing process of humanisation starting this season which stops them being scary, and it feels like something's been lost. Apologies for the punning.
-The smoke monster's big reveal happened midway through this season, and I think it should have been more spectacular. It looks pretty small in this initial scene, not nearly powerful enough to cause the devastation that tends to accompany it. I don't have a problem with the monster being a cloud of smoke - just that maybe it needed to be a bigger cloud of smoke. Can't remember if later sights of it are more impressive...
-Very dispiriting knowing how many of these characters are going to be killed off. I know Eko was written out because the actor didn't like life in Hawaii (presenting a MASSIVE loss to the show), and I think Boone's death had been planned for story reasons. Charlie's death felt natural to the story, too. But does anybody know why Shannon, Michael, Ana-Lucia, Claire and Libby were written out?
Seems like such a waste of time getting to know these people only to know it's going to be meaningless in the long run.
