What is the last Television series you watched?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

"The Incident" trumps anything that came before it.

I don't like plot holes.

Okay? What does that have to do with "The Incident?"

[Brónach 1,302]

Everything.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

You do that.

[KK 3,307]

KK you're completely off base about Big Bang Theory, but keep up the insipid snide remarks, clearly you've jumped the shark.

I know I'm the minority (and a very small one at that) when it comes to BBT. I liked the show at the time, but I lost interest going into the 4th season. It just stopped being funny for me. Clearly that's not the case with the rest of you folks. It's simply a matter of opinion, that's all. I never intended to be snide in my comments, so I apologize if I came off as so.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Brónach 1,302]

Everything time travel-related is bound to have plot holes.

I disagree!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Brónach 1,302]

It's perfectly possible to have stories about that without plot holes.

Lost isn't one of them, because it lacks any sort of internal coherence.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

I agree that seasons 5-6 are much stronger than seasons 1-3 on the whole. The music especially is sublime.

Oh, I always considered season 1 one of the best. Back then, the show was 100% about the characters, before the plot got in the way, more or less. Season by season, the plot took over more and more. It was still a great show, but perhaps not quite as well crafted as it was in the first season. Still, I always liked it, and that includes the dry spell during S3. But S5 was the first time I thought the now plot heavy narrative actually lived up, for more than in between highlights, to the consistent level of S1.

[Brónach 1,302]

Please develop.

You have to decide on an interpretation of time travel and be consistent. How it happens, why it happens, what are the consequences, etc. There are many ideas and models to choose. I like closed timelike curves, personally. You have to expose carefully what is the nature of your rules to the viewer, so the viewer can understand the internal logic of your fantasy elements that will create tension in the plot. Actually, this is the thing about anything including fantasy elements, not only time travel.

[Admiral Holdo 16]

Due to some unfortunate sickness, I'm been at home going through Doctor Who's second series. I take back every single "meh, it's overrated" comment I've ever made.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Brónach 1,302]

My point is this:

"In fantasy, anything is possible. That's what makes it fantasy.

There's a problem with that. It makes it too easy. If absolutely anything is possible, then the hero can simply wave his hand in the air at the appropriate moment and turn all his enemies into rocks.

That would be fantasy, all right, but it wouldn't be good fantasy. A good fantasy story, while including at least one or two outright impossibilities, sets down rules for itself and abides by them. It has logic to it, though not necessarily exactly the logic we use in our own everyday lives.

If a story doesn't have internal logic and consistency, it isn't any fun to read. Where everything is possible, everything is boring, because the reader knows that the hero can always just turn the bad guys into fungus. There's no chance to build up any sort of interest or suspense when anything can happen."

Fantasy isn't something that defies logic, it's something that defies reality. Although I would argue that it might just be something that defies the small, particular reality than any viewer or reader is aware of, because a lot of reality will be received by the viewer as if it was fantasy.

Prometheus is another example of total lack of internal coherence.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I agree that seasons 5-6 are much stronger than seasons 1-3 on the whole. The music especially is sublime.

Oh, I always considered season 1 one of the best. Back then, the show was 100% about the characters, before the plot got in the way, more or less. Season by season, the plot took over more and more. It was still a great show, but perhaps not quite as well crafted as it was in the first season. Still, I always liked it, and that includes the dry spell during S3. But S5 was the first time I thought the now plot heavy narrative actually lived up, for more than in between highlights, to the consistent level of S1.

That's a natural progression of the show. It already told everything there was to be told about its characters. You wanted more flashbacks after Season 3?

Please develop.

You have to decide on an interpretation of time travel and be consistent. How it happens, why it happens, what are the consequences, etc. There are many ideas and models to choose. I like closed timelike curves, personally. You have to expose carefully what is the nature of your rules to the viewer, so the viewer can understand the internal logic of your fantasy elements that will create tension in the plot. Actually, this is

the thing about anything including fantasy elements, not only time travel.

Spoilers dude.

LOST explains its rules quite blatantly. I saw no plot holes regarding that element of the show.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Well yeah, I agree with you on that, but nothing was glaring to me. Y'know, to a point that it took away from the show. Except for the long boat shooting and the flaming arrows things. They said they had a great arc to close that up but ran out of time to answer it. LOST had bigger plot holes from when before time travel was even introduced.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jay 37,374]

What were your biggest problems with the last two seasons?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

[Red 75]

Agreed.

To be honest, plot holes were not my main problem with the last two seasons.

As far as time travel goes LOST utilized it in a way that included less plot holes than usually come up because

of whatever happened, happened.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jay 37,374]

All your complaints make sense!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jay 37,374]

But they didn't ruin the show for me.

And by the way your first complaint (new characters) is the one I most agree with.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

Oh, I always considered season 1 one of the best. Back then, the show was 100% about the characters, before the plot got in the way, more or less. Season by season, the plot took over more and more. It was still a great show, but perhaps not quite as well crafted as it was in the first season. Still, I always liked it, and that includes the dry spell during S3. But S5 was the first time I thought the now plot heavy narrative actually lived up, for more than in between highlights, to the consistent level of S1.

That's a natural progression of the show. It already told everything there was to be told about its characters. You wanted more flashbacks after Season 3?

I'm not necessarily saying that, especially at that late stage. I was a bit dismayed at first when S2 already started focusing much more heavily on plot rather than characters, simply because S1 had trained me to see (and recommend) the series as a purely 100% character based show. I don't know if it would have been feasible to continue in that mode (and it certainly would have resulted in a very different series - without all the island mysteries), I'm just saying that when the change came along, it did seem to cheapen the show a bit, regardless of the new possibilities it brought along.

[Brónach 1,302]

I have like four episodes left of The IT Crowd. This is the first thing I've seen in quite a while that has managed to make me laugh hysterically.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

What were your biggest problems with the last two seasons?

Well, first, the introduction of useless and uninteresting new characters. This trend already started with season 4, but I feel like it intensified in season 5 & 6. A lot of characters were introduced, served no purpose whatsoever, then died a few episodes after their first apparition. Take Dogen, for example. Who was he? Do we care? He just died before even becoming slightly interesting.

In my opinion, knowing that season 5 & 6 would be the last seasons of the show, the writers should have focused on the characters we knew and cared about since season 1 & 2 and not bother introducing new characters, make them look like they're interesting, and kill them off a few episodes afterwards.

Another problem is related to what Red Rabbit said in his post just above this one. I found the whole time travel thing to be badly handled. It only served as a purpose to give informations to the viewer about the Dharma Initiative, and show some events from the past (like Rousseau's story, for example) while it could have been done without sending the characters to the past. The "Whatever happened, happened" idea was quite original, in itself, but ultimately, it kind of ruined the whole time travel arc in season 5, because all the things the characters did in this season had no impact whatsoever on the main story, when they went back to the future (cue in Silvestri's theme). Seriously, you could watch season 6 right after season 4, and you wouldn't have missed much. Just keep perhaps a few episodes from the beginning and the finale of season 5, and you wouldn't feel lost.

And to go back to Rousseau's story for a few seconds: that episode was as useless as one can be. All they showed was things we already knew happened. This episode added absolutely nothing to her story. There was no little detail that could have been interesting to see. It was exactly as she described it in season 1. Don't see the point of that.

And finally, another major problem I had (related to the first one), was when the writers started some interesting subplots here and there, but never really developped them, and just left them there to die. For example, the Temple "arc story" (if we can call it that). It would have been cool to learn more about the people living here, when it was built, etc... But instead, the characters just went there, then Smokey wreaked havoc, and then they left the place. What was the point of that? Just don't lead them here if you're not gonna do something interesting with this place!

Same for the whole "War" that was supposed to happen between Jacob's followers and Smokey Locke's peasants. They were like: "There is a war coming. It's coming, I can feel it. Dude, it's gonna be huge, there'll be lots of death. Trust me, be prepared because it's coming", and then... There was nothing. Lame.

There were a few other problems I had with those seasons, but these are the three major ones.

I can understand your first point to a certain degree, but completely disagree with your other two.

The introduction of several characters, to me, felt like a narrative device to showcase the relentless MIB. At this point in the show, we were used to characters being introduced and heavily developed, so when they did it, the audience was getting into them, wanting to know more, and right when we started to learn a bit about them, the MIB would come in and fucking wipe them all out. I loved the way Terry O'Quinn played Locke/MIB in these seasons. The greatest television performance I've ever seen. The amount of death he brought with him was crazy, and I feel like that's how they went about heightening his menace.

As for the time travel, it being used as a device to just explain certain things is completely untrue. It all builds up to "The Incident." The entire season. Without any of it, you wouldn't be able to explain the entire show.

Regarding the subplots, they were just that, little bits of mythology about the island. The show was never about the Egyptians or the people before Oceanic 815. It's about these characters.

[Admiral Holdo 16]

Done with the second season of Doctor Who. And of course the library's going to take a few days to get the third season in. Ah well, I'm patient.

I stopped watching Lost around the start of season 5; flirting with continuing on, but I don't have the "OMG, gotta watch more" drive that I used to.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I simply don't understand how someone can stop that far into it. An old friend from high school and I would always talk about it every week back then. A couple years after graduation we met up with some other friends and I asked him what he thought of the ending and he said he stopped after the finale of 5. It boggled my mind, you have 17 more hours to watch after devoting 100+. It's like walking out of the theater 15 minutes before the movie ends.

[Admiral Holdo 16]

If movies were scripted, shot and released in 15-minute chunks, I'd probably do that.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

What were your biggest problems with the last two seasons?

Well, first, the introduction of useless and uninteresting new characters. This trend already started with season 4, but I feel like it intensified in season 5 & 6. A lot of characters were introduced, served no purpose whatsoever, then died a few episodes after their first apparition. Take Dogen, for example. Who was he? Do we care? He just died before even becoming slightly interesting.

In my opinion, knowing that season 5 & 6 would be the last seasons of the show, the writers should have focused on the characters we knew and cared about since season 1 & 2 and not bother introducing new characters, make them look like they're interesting, and kill them off a few episodes afterwards.

Another problem is related to what Red Rabbit said in his post just above this one. I found the whole time travel thing to be badly handled. It only served as a purpose to give informations to the viewer about the Dharma Initiative, and show some events from the past (like Rousseau's story, for example) while it could have been done without sending the characters to the past. The "Whatever happened, happened" idea was quite original, in itself, but ultimately, it kind of ruined the whole time travel arc in season 5, because all the things the characters did in this season had no impact whatsoever on the main story, when they went back to the future (cue in Silvestri's theme). Seriously, you could watch season 6 right after season 4, and you wouldn't have missed much. Just keep perhaps a few episodes from the beginning and the finale of season 5, and you wouldn't feel lost.

And to go back to Rousseau's story for a few seconds: that episode was as useless as one can be. All they showed was things we already knew happened. This episode added absolutely nothing to her story. There was no little detail that could have been interesting to see. It was exactly as she described it in season 1. Don't see the point of that.

And finally, another major problem I had (related to the first one), was when the writers started some interesting subplots here and there, but never really developped them, and just left them there to die. For example, the Temple "arc story" (if we can call it that). It would have been cool to learn more about the people living here, when it was built, etc... But instead, the characters just went there, then Smokey wreaked havoc, and then they left the place. What was the point of that? Just don't lead them here if you're not gonna do something interesting with this place!

Same for the whole "War" that was supposed to happen between Jacob's followers and Smokey Locke's peasants. They were like: "There is a war coming. It's coming, I can feel it. Dude, it's gonna be huge, there'll be lots of death. Trust me, be prepared because it's coming", and then... There was nothing. Lame.

There were a few other problems I had with those seasons, but these are the three major ones.

I can understand your first point to a certain degree, but completely disagree with your other two.

The introduction of several characters, to me, felt like a narrative device to showcase the relentless MIB. At this point in the show, we were used to characters being introduced and heavily developed, so when they did it, the audience was getting into them, wanting to know more, and right when we started to learn a bit about them, the MIB would come in and fucking wipe them all out. I loved the way Terry O'Quinn played Locke/MIB in these seasons. The greatest television performance I've ever seen. The amount of death he brought with him was crazy, and I feel like that's how they went about heightening his menace.

As for the time travel, it being used as a device to just explain certain things is completely untrue. It all builds up to "The Incident." The entire season. Without any of it, you wouldn't be able to explain the entire show.

Regarding the subplots, they were just that, little bits of mythology about the island. The show was never about the Egyptians or the people before Oceanic 815. It's about these characters.

About the new characters and MIB: I don't get your point. So, what, they introduced new characters in order for MIB to kill them, and for him to look more threatening? That's fucking stupid. I'm not gonna care about a character I know nothing about being killed. In fact, I think it had the opposite effect: basically, every time a new character was introduced, you ended up being like: "Don't care. I'm sure he's gonna die in two episodes from now. Maybe sooner. Next!". And using these characters to heigthen the MIB's menace didn't work either, because it made you feel like he wouldn't kill any of the main characters, the only ones who really were in danger were those secondary characters...

Agreed about O'Quinn's performance, though.

About time travel: you said it yourself, it all builds up to The Incident. But that's the problem. The only really relevant part of the whole time travel journey was this episode. The rest was pretty much useless. You could have reduced the number of episodes they spend in the Dharma Initiative (or even travelling through time) by half, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

As for subplots: I didn't say I wanted everything to be explained or anything. What I wanted was plot points that were introduced to be developped. There is no point to introduce a new plot point if you're not gonna offer anything interesting with it. Don't use the "it's all about the characters" thing as an excuse for every idea they've abandoned in the show. I agree this show is about the characters, first and foremost. But that doesn't mean that because of this, you can introduce a new idea in every episode and just leave it here without going any further with it. That's just wasting potentially good storyline.

It's like if in LOTR, at one point, it was revealed that Sauron may have another failsafe (other than the One Ring), but then never mentioned again, because... You know, it's all about the characters...

[Brónach 1,302]

I might not have payed enough attention, but I don't understand why

detonating a nuke doesn't affect the island at all and sends the convenient characters back to the future anyway.

Either a) they make it that they're unable to detonate the nuke because the nuke never exploded and they go back to the future by other means, or b) the timeline changes like in Terminator, the island is destroyed in the 70's with everyone on it and in the future they don't crash there. The way it happens in the show, it doesn't work for me.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

What were your biggest problems with the last two seasons?

Well, first, the introduction of useless and uninteresting new characters. This trend already started with season 4, but I feel like it intensified in season 5 & 6. A lot of characters were introduced, served no purpose whatsoever, then died a few episodes after their first apparition. Take Dogen, for example. Who was he? Do we care? He just died before even becoming slightly interesting.

In my opinion, knowing that season 5 & 6 would be the last seasons of the show, the writers should have focused on the characters we knew and cared about since season 1 & 2 and not bother introducing new characters, make them look like they're interesting, and kill them off a few episodes afterwards.

Another problem is related to what Red Rabbit said in his post just above this one. I found the whole time travel thing to be badly handled. It only served as a purpose to give informations to the viewer about the Dharma Initiative, and show some events from the past (like Rousseau's story, for example) while it could have been done without sending the characters to the past. The "Whatever happened, happened" idea was quite original, in itself, but ultimately, it kind of ruined the whole time travel arc in season 5, because all the things the characters did in this season had no impact whatsoever on the main story, when they went back to the future (cue in Silvestri's theme). Seriously, you could watch season 6 right after season 4, and you wouldn't have missed much. Just keep perhaps a few episodes from the beginning and the finale of season 5, and you wouldn't feel lost.

And to go back to Rousseau's story for a few seconds: that episode was as useless as one can be. All they showed was things we already knew happened. This episode added absolutely nothing to her story. There was no little detail that could have been interesting to see. It was exactly as she described it in season 1. Don't see the point of that.

And finally, another major problem I had (related to the first one), was when the writers started some interesting subplots here and there, but never really developped them, and just left them there to die. For example, the Temple "arc story" (if we can call it that). It would have been cool to learn more about the people living here, when it was built, etc... But instead, the characters just went there, then Smokey wreaked havoc, and then they left the place. What was the point of that? Just don't lead them here if you're not gonna do something interesting with this place!

Same for the whole "War" that was supposed to happen between Jacob's followers and Smokey Locke's peasants. They were like: "There is a war coming. It's coming, I can feel it. Dude, it's gonna be huge, there'll be lots of death. Trust me, be prepared because it's coming", and then... There was nothing. Lame.

There were a few other problems I had with those seasons, but these are the three major ones.

I can understand your first point to a certain degree, but completely disagree with your other two.

The introduction of several characters, to me, felt like a narrative device to showcase the relentless MIB. At this point in the show, we were used to characters being introduced and heavily developed, so when they did it, the audience was getting into them, wanting to know more, and right when we started to learn a bit about them, the MIB would come in and fucking wipe them all out. I loved the way Terry O'Quinn played Locke/MIB in these seasons. The greatest television performance I've ever seen. The amount of death he brought with him was crazy, and I feel like that's how they went about heightening his menace.

As for the time travel, it being used as a device to just explain certain things is completely untrue. It all builds up to "The Incident." The entire season. Without any of it, you wouldn't be able to explain the entire show.

Regarding the subplots, they were just that, little bits of mythology about the island. The show was never about the Egyptians or the people before Oceanic 815. It's about these characters.

About the new characters and MIB: I don't get your point. So, what, they introduced new characters in order for MIB to kill them, and for him to look more threatening? That's fucking stupid. I'm not gonna care about a character I know nothing about being killed. In fact, I think it had the opposite effect: basically, every time a new character was introduced, you ended up being like: "Don't care. I'm sure he's gonna die in two episodes from now. Maybe sooner. Next!". And using these characters to heigthen the MIB's menace didn't work either, because it made you feel like he wouldn't kill any of the main characters, the only ones who really were in danger were those secondary characters...

Agreed about O'Quinn's performance, though.

About time travel: you said it yourself, it all builds up to The Incident. But that's the problem. The only really relevant part of the whole time travel journey was this episode. The rest was pretty much useless. You could have reduced the number of episodes they spend in the Dharma Initiative (or even travelling through time) by half, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

As for subplots: I didn't say I wanted everything to be explained or anything. What I wanted was plot points that were introduced to be developped. There is no point to introduce a new plot point if you're not gonna offer anything interesting with it. Don't use the "it's all about the characters" thing as an excuse for every idea they've abandoned in the show. I agree this show is about the characters, first and foremost. But that doesn't mean that because of this, you can introduce a new idea in every episode and just leave it here without going any further with it. That's just wasting potentially good storyline.

It's like if in LOTR, at one point, it was revealed that Sauron may have another failsafe (other than the One Ring), but then never mentioned again, because... You know, it's all about the characters...

Valid responses to the first two points but it didn't affect the show for me.

I would agree with your subplots issue but what are some examples that weren't as developed as you would have liked them to be? Dogen and the Temple fall into that category I mentioned, small bits of mythology. Regarding the "war." It came and went. Locke fucking killed everyone. Widmore was no match. You could saying it was disappointing, but it was definitely a complete idea.

I might not have payed enough attention, but I don't understand why

detonating a nuke doesn't affect the island at all and sends the convenient characters back to the future anyway.

Either a) they make it that they're unable to detonate the nuke because the nuke never exploded and they go back to the future by other means, or b) the timeline changes like in Terminator, the island is destroyed in the 70's with everyone on it and in the future they don't crash there. The way it happens in the show, it doesn't work for me.

Did you not watch Season 6?

The whole sideways timeline is what spawned from the The Incident, with the island at the bottom of the ocean.

[Brónach 1,302]

But the sideways timeline isn't a sideways timeline. That was the twist at the end.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

But the sideways timeline isn't a sideways timeline. That was the twist at the end.

Correct, it was a sort of purgatory, but that was still sparked by the Jughead detonation. On the island, the blast may have been negated by it ripping into the electromagnetic pocket, thus creating the need for the Swan station and setting forth the events that eventually lead to 815 crashing. Something similar had to have happened because everyone else survived as our characters were replaced into the current timeline.

More thought really shouldn't be put into this. The island itself moves through time and has ancient temples that cork off massive amounts of time shifting energy that creates smoke monsters that can assume the lives of dead people.

I absolutely love the Season 6 opening. Wish the TV version of the cue was on the album.

I don't know why we keep discussing this here with spoiler tags when we can just move to the Lost thread

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Lost is like having sex and finishing without the orgasm, basically a build up to nothing.

The Walking Dead season premiere,

Oh My God, in my best Janice.

[A24 4,346]

Even if something builds up to nothing, Joey, the journey is always the best part of the journey itself. For me, the problem with Lost and the reason why I could no longer watch it was that it's always the same formula, always the same dramatic trick to keep the audience interested. Cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after ......

The journey of Lost got too repetitive.

Alex

[Quintus 5,399]

The Walking Dead season premiere,

Oh My God, in my best Janice.

It's started? Quick - to the the torrent sites!

Season 2 was brilliant after the wobbly first and I'm now hooked again.

[Ren 75]

Haven't had a moment to torrent that or twin peaks unfortunately

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

If you dont want Alex to give you a hard time about stealing, I would avoid the use of the word Torrent

[Brónach 1,302]

[Wojo 2,453]

Cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after ......

That was the same formula that 24 used to great success, at least for the first few seasons before they jumped the shark with Jack Bauer's evil family. You could miss the entire heart of the episode because the main action only happened in the last five minutes to set up the ticking countdown at the end of each hours installment.

[Jay 37,374]

Alias always ended with a cliffhanger as well, at least for the first season and a half

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Even if something builds up to nothing, Joey, the journey is always the best part of the journey itself. For me, the problem with Lost and the reason why I could no longer watch it was that it's always the same formula, always the same dramatic trick to keep the audience interested. Cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after ......

The journey of Lost got too repetitive.

Alex

Every single show has a formula.

[Jay 37,374]

Even if something builds up to nothing, Joey, the journey is always the best part of the journey itself. For me, the problem with Lost and the reason why I could no longer watch it was that it's always the same formula, always the same dramatic trick to keep the audience interested. Cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger after ......

The journey of Lost got too repetitive.

Alex

Every single show has a formula.

Definitely not a true statement. Breaking Bad comes first to mind

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Never seen it. Mad Men was a show I said didn't have a set formula, which is why I think I was so interested in it, but that's not true.

[Jay 37,374]

I think you'd like Breaking Bad

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I think I would too. I'm waiting for a complete series set.