September 10, 2005

Lost Season 2 review, ABC

Lost season 2, ABC, Josh Holloway

ABC

Oh my God, they kidnapped Walt. The lousy bastards. How could they? He’s just a kid. And Sawyer‘s been shot and then dumped in the ocean just to rub salt water into the wound. The rest of the guys have got into the hatch and there’s still a crazy French chick roaming around looking for her baby.

"This is genre TV – if you want closure I suggest you see a psychotherapist or visit an unproductive coalmine."

That’s how they left us at the end of Season One. It had been one hell of a ride. Many complained about the cliffhanger but Aerial Telly was not among them. This is genre TV – if you want closure I suggest you see a psychotherapist or visit an unproductive coalmine.

Lost season 2 started out promisingly. The hatch, it transpired, contained a strange Scotsman who briefly encountered Jack earlier in life. I think he played Ferdie’s gay lover in This Life so he’s nothing if not versatile.

Inside the hatch, they discover film footage revealing The Dharma Initiative a wacko scientific project based on the island incorporating meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, and electromagnetism. Wierdy MacJockski tells them to enter the Hurley numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) into the computer every 108 minutes or something TERRIBLE WILL HAPPEN. But we don’t know what.

“A diet of regular shoeings from The Others and shape up or ship out speeches from Ana Lucia has made the front half passengers experience look like one big holiday”

And early on Michael, Sawyer and Jin encounter the survivors of the tail of the plane – led by a big pain in the ass ex-cop called Ana Lucia who you may recognise from sharing gin-and-tonics with Jack in a flashback episode. The tail people have had a tougher time of it than our heroes – a diet of regular shoeings from The Others and shape-up-or-ship-out speeches from Ana Lucia has made the front-half experience look like one big holiday.

We’re halfway through the season now and I’m starting to worry. Take episode 12 – a Charliecentric episode. It’s one of the worst episodes of anything I’ve watched in a long time. The Driveshaft flashbacks are always excruciating but the sickly baptism/redemption storyline was just horrible.

Clare, totally out of character, gets herself and her baby baptised because a smackhead hobbit tells her to and why? Because it makes for a neat montage at the end when the writers can’t figure out another way to end things.

And episode 13, just aired, was similarly confused. The writers are increasingly filling out the characters on the hoof – they have no clue what they’re going to do next or why.

"Charlie kidnapping Sun to ‘humiliate’ Locke was a simply abysmal piece of plotting."

Sawyer hatches a plan to steal all the guns to increase his standing in the group. Sawyer’s motivation ("you stole my medicine, man!" to Jack ) was lame and Charlie kidnapping Sun to "humiliate" Locke was a simply abysmal piece of plotting. He abducts an innocent woman causing her to knock herself unconscious in an attempt to escape because it might make Locke look silly in front of the others? Huh?

“Nonetheless, I hope Jin finds out and beats him like a ginger stepchild.”

There is not a single thing in his character to suggest he’d do that. Nonetheless, I hope Jin finds out and beats him like a ginger stepchild. Charlie is a useless character he’s also fucking the divine Evangeline Lilly in real life which is obviously some kind of evolutionary sign to tell her to stop breeding.

Sayid and Hurley hook up a short-wave radio and hear the sounds of fellow planecrash veteran Glenn Miller. I imagine there’s an episode coming up where they discover Buddy Holly and Richie Valens in the jungle playing "La Bamba" on coconut shells.

The thing is that the Lost writers are skilful enough and have enough narrative flair to pull off an enjoyable flashback each week in a different genre – the conman falling for his mark this week, the fat boy who wins the lottery but pays a terrible price the next. But it’s going to feel cheap if you don’t buy the characters’ actions in the present on Craphole Island. In season one I did but they are treading water now.