The Television Thread

[Jordan Cole]

Very few TV series have walked that perfect line between the two extremes of being serialized and episodic, as The Wire and The Return did, but when a show does so, it strikes me as the most perfect realization of the form's potential. I'd put The Sopranos, Mad Men and The Leftovers in that category as well.

I just don't think The Wire IS successful at being episodic. It's not a show where I go "ahh, season 3, episode 4, the one where such and such happens...!" It's all a big slow moving story each season and it's all a big blur. I mean I know The Wire episodes have little endings but you could not successfully quiz me (and I've watched the series like 2 and a half times) on which things happen in which episodes. It's almost impossible with that show. That's OKAY, The Wire is it's own thing, and it gets away with it because it's incredible. But all these Netflix and Prestige shows are not incredible, so they feel endless.

The Wire is absolutely brilliant, but it's not The Sopranos, which for the most part told a very, very isolated (and often very simple, by Chase's admission) story each episode with a beginning and end, and a theme also. Season 4 of Sopranos is a bit less episodic but you can still look at episode titles and go oh shit, THAT episode. Almost every episode of Sopranos is a "oh shit, THAT episode."

Then Mad Men kind of took everything about The Sopranos format and continued it.

I write this as we just finished The Boys season 4, and in these terms, what an absolute disaster that was.

 

[Jordan Cole]

I love when a season has mini-arcs, and one of my favorite examples is season 5 of Lost. You have the first few episodes follow a totally new packaging of the standard flash conceit, in that we're flashing from a camp of characters to another camp of characters, on vs. off-island, where the latter are experiencing the flashes in a literalized way, actively time-traveling. Then it hits the breaks and the ensemble nature is paused, and we get a trilogy of episodes that are grounded on just one person each, and each of these episodes perform different expository functions: one immerses us in a journey back to the island, one informs us of the fallout of a time-skip, one fills in the blanks of what happened to everyone at the start of the off-island stretch. Then all the characters are reunited into a more stationary fish-out-of-water time travel premise, and standard flashbacks return to fill out even more of the chronology, as when the plotline restricted itself back to individual characters, gaps were formed in the narrative. It's extremely playful and takes multiple new tacks to the way mystery is invented on an episode by episode basis. It's an astonishing high-wire narrative feat to me.

I will just say it now, I'm not sure any show is as ambitious, intricate, fun, and focused structurally as LOST.

There's an interview with Lindelof where he says he loves Game of Thrones, "but give me a Tyrion episode." I always felt the same way. Game of Thrones is kind of like The Wire, a literal slow moving novel, checking in on everything all the time. But imagine a 60 minute focus episode on one character?? I think the internet would have blown up.

 

[MasterMastermnd]

It's funny to consider the consensus which formed in the 2010s saying Lost was nonsensical hackwork and they made it up as they went along because "the audience guessed the twist," especially in light of rewatching it recently and realizing just how intensely intricate and cohesive it is. The way it so thoroughly throws out the idea of the omniscient narrative is endlessly fascinating to me. Like, if the characters don't see it, neither do you, so very important things can just simply happen offscreen. Sometimes we'll see a scene differently depending on who's perceiving it! The whole back half of of the second season is the characters caught up in a bunch of offscreen maneuvering they're completely unaware of. I had never encountered that style of storytelling before the video game Silent Hill, where all these (mostly shady) characters are having a little power struggle and manipulating the protagonist in ways he's completely in the dark about.

 

[Ekorren]

I love Lost but I very much consider it a hot mess of a show. It ends up making more sense than it has any business to but focused structurally I'd never call it and it's rather unbalanced across some seasons, episodes, and character arcs.

The losties-Others dynamic has so many problems, so much wasted potential there.

But I definitely appreciate that it doesn't spell things out too much and conceptually the plot setup is fucking brilliant.

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

I think that first season of Lost may be the greatest 22-episode season of any network drama ever. While I personally like other seasons of the show more than the first (my favorite is the controversial second, followed closely by the fifth, which @AXX°N N. so eloquently praised a few posts above), there's something incredible about the way the first season is so accessible and well-paced. The stakes are intense and easy to understand, the characters are all compelling. Mostly without the crutch of all the genre stuff that they'd later bring in, it's all about the relationships, and nearly every episode is excellent, shockingly so given the crazy production schedule of those series (and especially given Lindelof's complete inexperience as a showrunner). It's tough to think of any other drama in history that had such broad appeal, and so captured the cultural imagination as Lost did that first year.

EDIT: Actually, that season was 25 episodes, not 22.

 

[Jordan Cole]

I love Lost but I very much consider it a hot mess of a show. It ends up making more sense than it has any business to but focused structurally I'd never call it

You don't think each episode having its own specific format and each season making changes and playing off that format (flash back/forward/sideways), etc, is a focused structural thing to pull off? I have just never even seen a show that puts that much effort into these sort of things before. Lindelof has talked about how challenging the show was in the first seasons. To have an island story, a flashback that hopefully thematically reflects the island story, both stories coming to some sort of conclusion, with a b story too (also possibly reflecting the A story), etc, etc.

I genuinely don't think it's a mess, except for a few small loose ends.

It's funny to consider the consensus which formed in the 2010s saying Lost was nonsensical hackwork and they made it up as they went along because "the audience guessed the twist," especially in light of rewatching it recently and realizing just how intensely intricate and cohesive it is.

I highly recommend this youtube channel:

LOST EXPLAINED

A channel dedicated to creating and sharing a series of videos that explain the mythology and mysteries of seminal television show LOST (2004-2010). From the light beneath the island to the smoke monster and beyond, every mystery will be answered right here. There will always be an element of...

www.youtube.com

And I especially enjoyed these videos about what you're talking about:

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Yeah, that's such a good channel! Probably the best criticism/analysis of the show that's been produced.

Obviously, I could go on about this all day, but one of the things I found so interesting about the show is how slyly exposition is given. Like how the entire end game of the show's mythology is given to us in a season two episode many dismissed as "filler" at the time, or how we receive answers to an early mystery involving Claire through a completely separate episode about Mr. Eko released a year later. She never learns any of this and the truth runs in direct contravention to what the character in question says in the episode, so we really have to pay attention!

Or again how entire plot developments are clearly thought out but happen entirely offscreen, like the whole game of speed chess the Others start frantically devising because their leader stepped in a trap after observing the castaways from a Dharma station which hadn't even been revealed to the audience yet because he was preoccupied over being sick (also not yet revealed!) or how John Locke gets on Ben Linus' radar as a threat by seeming to materialize out of thin air near Ethan and how that whole part of the show gets interpreted by the characters who stumble into it as being almost more important than it was.

Another cool example is that episode with Desmond where we learn he's never really understood what visions he's receiving from the Island because he's insisting on an interpretation which just isn't true and we can see that it isn't. At first it throws our whole conception of his visions out of whack until we realize he wasn't seeing visions of possible futures he could choose to realize, but futures he was fated to avert because he was actually being led to deliver Charlie into the Looking Glass station.

Lost is a bit messy, I think mostly due to the realities of producing TV over six years and the specific nature of the production, where a first time showrunner found himself tasked with creating a show based off an executive's very broad idea instead of his own several weeks behind schedule in Pilot season, but I think it's largely very intricately and elegantly woven. I was really taken aback by just how well, and subtly, it fit together watching it for the first time in a decade.

 

[Jordan Cole]

or how we receive answers to an early mystery involving Claire through a completely separate episode about Mr. Eko released a year later. She never learns any of this and the truth runs in direct contravention to what the character in question says in the episode, so we really have to pay attention!

I was watching that youtube's channel video on this, if I'm understanding you correctly, I don't think what the psychic tells Eko is true, that he's a fraud, and the youtube channel has a good explanation for this, but am I missing something?

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Right, you wonder if he is or isn't a fraud after Raised By Another, and he tells Eko he is a fraud in ?, but we can glean he really isn't a fraud for multiple reasons, just lying now out of fear for what he sensed in Claire (the Island) and now scrutiny from the Vatican.

Something else I really appreciate about Lost is how everything is true to character and emotion first. A lesser show might have had Malkin say "yep, I sure am a psychic," but Lost is never that easy, so he's put in a situation where he might lie (shaken by what he sees and facing an assessor sent by the church) and we have to suss out the truth, all as part of a poignant story about faith and belief for a completely different character than the character for whom Malkin was introduced!

 

[Ekorren]

I like all the "fate" misdirection. People assuming they are special or other people are special due to all the wrong reasons, sometimes being technically correct, but not in the manner they thought. Poor Locke.

You don't think each episode having its own specific format and each season making changes and playing off that format (flash back/forward/sideways), etc, is a focused structural thing to pull off?

I think they did a good job with that aspect.

The "mess" part is more with how some things get modified in tone between seasons in a manner that feels unnatural, to me at least. The entire Aaron plot was clearly meant to go somewhere early on. Ethan doesn't make sense, Ben sending him doesn't make sense. Some characters get so many flashbacks with basically repeating the same thing (recycling stuff is one of the faults of the show IMO) (Charlie, Jin/Sun), and some characters really needed one more flashback or two (Ben, Richard). But that's just my opinion, of course.

Obviously as MasterMastermnd says there are certain realities to producing a TV show and the showrunners had to basically force the powers that be to limit the season count, so considering all that, as I've said above, I'm impressed by Lost's cohesiveness overall and I love my low-exposition shows.

 

[MasterMastermnd]

I can see that about Ethan though I'm pretty ok with Ben sending him as he had some medical training and could be of use if they found some people they needed. I'd say Ben expected Ethan not to get caught and to slink away if he did rather than panicking and messing everything up because of his devotion to solving the pregnancy issue. What makes it work for me is how Ben is shown to be a guy who plans and plans and plans but the quality of those plans is hit or miss. But it is a risky decision even for him, and I would say it's one of the things that doesn't line up totally clean, likely owing to how that first season was produced without any real time to plan. What this fourth full viewing really demonstrated for me was that when things don't totally line up it's usually rooted in something introduced in that first season, before they had time to sit and build out storylines for everyone and chart the history of the Island in what they called "writer's minicamps."

Aaron and Walt I think are two examples of something that works for a season, but wasn't going to work on the show long-term for obvious reasons. Would have liked to see a bit more Walt here and there in the later seasons, though I did appreciate how Malkin's vision of Aaron became more about Claire. Like, she either needed to give the kid up immediately or make sure she was the one to raise him. First she failed at the former, and then failing at the latter led to extreme mental distress for her and worse, with her ability to recover from it still being an open question at the end of the show. I think it's a good save, all things considered.

 

[Jordan Cole]

Yes I think those involved in the show soon realized they do not want to work with children or babies, and shuffled them off to the side. However, on rewatch I actually really like the anti-climactic nature of Walt. It's very withholding. He plays such a large role initially, and you keep wanting him to come back, or to be some big savior in season 6 or something, and he does come back once or twice, and those are eerie moments. I don't think anything was taken back or contradicted: The Others say Walt is special, and he clearly is, and they try to make use of that, and that leads to tons of plot and problems in the show. But then he gets out and goes on to live his life. I wonder if fans expected him to pop up in the season finale to finally take down the Smoke Monster? I think the writers stayed honest with that character. He wasn't ready for something like that yet.

I think the epilogue for the show did a great job of making Walt matter again, and plays the notes just right. He's not Jesus or something but he has a role to play in the Island and helping his father. I think that's wonderful.

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Yeah, what my wife said as we watched, and what stuck out to me as well, is that Locke was the only person to go visit him. Would have been fun to squeeze in a scene of him with Hurley or Sun or someone, but The New Man in Charge is a decent save.

 

[AXX°N N.]

I wonder if fans expected him to pop up in the season finale to finally take down the Smoke Monster?

I was pretty keyed into the greater Lost internet experience, listening to the podcasts and all that, so maybe that had me conditioned to have zero expectations for Walt to stake a greater claim at relevancy, since Lindelof and co were pretty candid about it ... but I never expected him to come back as some kind of grand solution. I don't even remember people theorizing too much in that direction by the time of the last season. Maybe hindsight is 20/20, but I remember feeling particularly sure that Walt was a more or less benched concept.

I do remember people really latching onto Aaron's significance, though, even up to the last season. For instance, when the Man in Black started seeing visions of a young Jacob, a lot of people thought that was somehow Aaron, perhaps time traveling, or something. By that time the Aaron plotline was still pretty central, being the driving force for Kate's return.

By the end of season 6, though, I thought the show did an excellent job setting up precisely what ingredients were at play, what informed the stakes, and what options our main cast had or, perilously, did not have. I for sure wasn't thinking anything about Walt or Aaron once the endgame was in full swing.

As for Walt, I think it's an interesting example of the byproduct of a series that trades in suggestive mystery. His "specialness" could have meant anything, really, when so many of the characters even noting or discussing his specialness didn't have a firm understanding of all its portents, or what it mainly factored into on the grand scheme.

By the end of the show, though, the specialness could only mean one thing--all the traits already demonstrated in Hurley. Sensitivity for the dead and potential Island guardianship material. Even without the epilogue, the dots could have been reasonably connected. What the epilogue did add was an even firmer parallel to Hurley and a way for Walt's arc to tie into his father's, not to mention one of the last dangling dead-ends of "stuck" dead characters, which was a pretty huge and elegant enough narrative beat to fill in at the last second.

 

[Jordan Cole]

not to mention one of the last dangling dead-ends of "stuck" dead characters, which was a pretty huge and elegant enough narrative beat to fill in at the last second.

RIP to my theory at the time about the whispers, which is that they were our time traveling Losties observing themselves beyond the bushes and trees, something that occurs in an early season 5 episode. When that happened I went HOLY SHIT, THEY'RE THE WHISPERS!

Nope!

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Yeah, I was a "reg" on the IMDb Lost board back then and don't remember any of us expecting Aaron or Walt to factor in at that point. Walt just kind of opened the door on the idea that people in the world of Lost can be "special" due to their connection to the inner light, like we saw with Locke, Isaac of Uluru, Miles, etc. That's fine, had to start somewhere!

 

[Jordan Cole]

We have finally started watching Squid Game, way behind the times, and we're like halfway through. It's great!

It has that focus we were talking about. Not a million subplots. The first episode especially plays it perfectly: we're following ONE CHARACTER and learning about him and growing to care about him for an hour. VERY Lindelof-y. More characters and plot threads get introduced but 1) they are pretty awesome (like a cop infiltrating the squid game), and 2) they are all very limited and centered around the one main plot of the show, the Squid Game. And all these character stories all interact, because they are all stuck together in this prison-type place, kind of like LOST, and aren't off in some separate "other tv show" like how The Boys season 4 felt.

It's one of the better new seasons of TV I've seen in a while. My only criticism is CGI blood splatter which I hate, and struggle accepting, but it also uses a lot of real effects too. We've been watching two a night so I imagine we'll be done pretty soon.

Our next shows we want to watch are a mix of things. I want to see Mrs. Davies because of Lindelof of course, and it's only one season. I have been really wanting to watch Alias for more of that "Brought to you by JJ Abrams" TV show feel (I love Fringe.) I want to watch Space: Above and Beyond. One day we may finally start Star Trek: TNG. I can't think of many NEW shows we want to check out though.