Thursday, May 14, 2009

In this one I talk about "Lost" and "Ghost Hunters". So there.

Leaguers, I hope your week has found you well.

Apparently there's a good deal going on in the sports world right now. Basketball playoffs, Brett Favre causing trouble, baseball steroid scandals, and probably something with Dancing with the Stars. But I'm blissfully unaware.

I did watch every episode of "Lost" this season.

Spoilers below

I'm still enjoying the show. My complaint today is the same complaint I had with the show when it started. Somehow the writers have a very hard time getting the pieces of their show to flow organically from a character standpoint, and so, a bit like on a soap opera, characters tend to simply move about the playing board to create new and different conflicts instead of making rational decisions. Someone explain to me why Kate wanted to save people on the island? Aside from that it made a vehicle for the trio to return to the island? I know the show needs to be heavy on plot just to wrap up, but sometimes I wind up feeling that its all plot and they kind of fake the character bits unless it comes to Locke and Linus.

Also: I am deeply concerned that the season spent so much time on Time Travel issues this season, and not once did a single character point out that they couldn't actually be successful in resetting the clock, or none of them would be there to try, which would mean that, hey... this isn't going to work. Too often, time travel is a narrative dead end.

And no Juliet next season? Do not approve.

End spoilers.

I also think I'm... sigh... giving up on Ghost Hunters.

After five years or so of watching these guys scare themselves in other people's homes, businesses, and now THEIR OWN BUSINESS (they inspected the inn Jay and Grant's wives are now, apparently running), I think I'm going to have to say its been fun, but I'm checking out.

The show seems to increasingly ignore their own investigative techniques and use stuff like "I think I saw..." and questionable audio blips as evidence. I'd think that with as many hours as they've logged and as many of these investigations as they've undertaken, there'd be something of a payoff, but they seem to be moving in the opposite direction. And why they think a single night in any location is sufficient to gather enough evidence suggests some vestigal past from a lower budget operation, that I assume they no longer are.

I don't personally buy into the paranormal, but it doesn't mean I didn't want to see something amazing and inexplicable on TV. But at this point... well, alert me when and if it actually occurs.

I guess I'll just return to watching Mythbusters blow up cars and whatnot.

5 comments:

Nathan said...

I think that most of the "good guy" characters mostly have been behaving out of a strong sense of morals. Why did Kate go back to the island to save those people? Because it's the right thing to do. And because she gave up her son to his blood family. She had nothing back in the real world.

Same thing with Ben. Why save his life by taking him to the others? He is a child. As humans, we feel it is wrong to let a child suffer or die, even if we know what they will become. Perhaps they felt they could change Ben's future outcome, I don't know.

Oh, and I will also miss the fetching Elizabeth Mitchell.

The League said...

I'd just reiterate: Jack had a nuclear weapon. She suddenly decides this is an issue after how long? I might be getting my stuff mixed up, but... that didn't make any sense to me. Why go back to the village, etc...? she knew exactly what he was doing. Why not tell the Dharma people? It just didn't hold up very well for me.

Fantomenos said...

I knew you'd wanna talk about Juliet! I was bummed too. I'm willing to give the writers some credit on time travel, since Miles basically made your objection in the ep, and I was so troubled about the compass loop and the finale totally resolved it. I'm psyched about next season, and given what show we're talking about, I'm not clear that Juliet dying means we won't see her again.

J.S. said...

Yeah. I don't think the characters act very consistently either, and sometimes even irrationally. Why did Sawyer, Juliet, and the others insist upon wanting to go and live with the Darma Initiative when they knew they were all going to get slaughtered at some point? Why didn't Farraday's mother try to just take his place when he returned to the island instead of allowing him to get shot? (her younger self could have shot her older self and never realized who she had killed)
Anyway, it's not a huge problem, but I kind of agree with The League when he says that sometimes it feels like the characters are doing things mostly just for the sake of advancing the plot.

Michael Corley said...

A year or so ago, when we had DVR it was filled with 1: Monk (Jennifer watched every one) 2: Spongebob (for the lil'un) and 3: Ghosthunters.

I'm getting close to being done with it too. Some EVP's are pretty darn neat. Most are not.