I received much criticism last week for attacking the Lost writer/creators' flash sideways material. Well, with "Dr. Linus", I have to retract my complaint -this sideways gimmick is turning out to be fun. Unlike most contemporary entertainment, you don't have to check your brain at the door, but I have learned that you have to loosen up to accept Lost on its own premises, namely that every coincidence no matter how obviously far-fetched is meaningful. If J. J. and crew were right-wingers, this show would be titled "Intelligent Design", with Jacob and/or Smokey cast as the creator.
{SPOILERS Ahead:}
Basically, the big bang explosion set off by Juliet (who has not had a new segment assigned to her as yet) allowed the Lost team to create an entirely new "bible" for the series, giving each major character, and dozens of the minor ones, brand-new back stories dating back to the '70s when "everything changed". I have not interviewed any of the writers, but I bet that much if not all of the new material is newly conceived, and was not part of the play book created six seasons ago.
With Ben Linus as the central figure this week, the writers had a great deal of fun, some of it extremely tongue-in-cheek, in playing with his character. Seeing him taking care of his ill dad in L. A. (instead of cold-bloodedly killing him back in the original Lost storyline), and having dad ironically lamenting the fact that they had not stuck it out and stayed on the island, is a cute, nudge-nudge surprise.
Linus served as Alex's foster dad back on the island, and whether biological or not it is poignant how her murder by Keamy, which he failed to prevent, affected him. In the Sideways segment, she is instead his prize pupil, and his father-figure affection for her is a wonderful invention by the writers. Fortunately Lost is a broadcast TV series, because if it had been made for HBO or Showtime I'm certain we would have a softcore sex scene between Ben and Alex, just to take advantage of the fans' thinking of her as his daughter from past episodes. At any rate, this making Ben a really good guy, even resisting his impulses to manipulate and stomp on people (the rival principal played by former heart-throb William Atherton), was a humorous switch on the man we love to hate.
The Us vs. Them thrust of the ongoing Island story was somewhat overshadowed here, especially in the rather contrived Ilana behavior putting Ben in jeopardy and then letting him off the hook conveniently. Cliffhanger of deus ex machina villain Widmore popping up in his trusty submarine was injected almost comically. Clearly the writers are being facetious a lot of the time in the Final Season, but that's better than taking their hit show too seriously. Unless they muff the 2-hour finale (and there's mucho precedent for doing so, even Patrick McGoohan having stumbled at the end of "The Prisoner"), they know that fans will be debating the minutiae of the series' themes and contents for years to come.
One trick here that I'm already debating with myself about is the surprise dredging up of the series' most notorious "one-off" segment, "Exposé" (#3.14). I thought that self-contained show was good & buried with its stars Nikki & Paulo. But Miles refers to them by name when standing near their graves and later has one of their buried diamonds in his possession. Miles arrived on the scene after they died, but of course he can commune (within limits) with the dead, so he is a natural to pick up on their story & illegal booty. But this is yet another example of how the writers stretch "suspension of disbelief" to its outer limits, so once again I'm ambivalent: can they go too far, or is a fan merely stuck with whatever plot twist is invented: like it or else!
Upcoming IMDb has announced that Faraday & mom, plus Charlie, Penelope and dad Widmore will be featured in the "Happily Ever After" episode April 6th -that should be a crucial one in tying up loose ends. The database teaser leaves Desmond out of that one, stating "credit only" next to his name, but I hope they're wrong and that he returns in a major way.
{SPOILERS Ahead:}
Basically, the big bang explosion set off by Juliet (who has not had a new segment assigned to her as yet) allowed the Lost team to create an entirely new "bible" for the series, giving each major character, and dozens of the minor ones, brand-new back stories dating back to the '70s when "everything changed". I have not interviewed any of the writers, but I bet that much if not all of the new material is newly conceived, and was not part of the play book created six seasons ago.
With Ben Linus as the central figure this week, the writers had a great deal of fun, some of it extremely tongue-in-cheek, in playing with his character. Seeing him taking care of his ill dad in L. A. (instead of cold-bloodedly killing him back in the original Lost storyline), and having dad ironically lamenting the fact that they had not stuck it out and stayed on the island, is a cute, nudge-nudge surprise.
Linus served as Alex's foster dad back on the island, and whether biological or not it is poignant how her murder by Keamy, which he failed to prevent, affected him. In the Sideways segment, she is instead his prize pupil, and his father-figure affection for her is a wonderful invention by the writers. Fortunately Lost is a broadcast TV series, because if it had been made for HBO or Showtime I'm certain we would have a softcore sex scene between Ben and Alex, just to take advantage of the fans' thinking of her as his daughter from past episodes. At any rate, this making Ben a really good guy, even resisting his impulses to manipulate and stomp on people (the rival principal played by former heart-throb William Atherton), was a humorous switch on the man we love to hate.
The Us vs. Them thrust of the ongoing Island story was somewhat overshadowed here, especially in the rather contrived Ilana behavior putting Ben in jeopardy and then letting him off the hook conveniently. Cliffhanger of deus ex machina villain Widmore popping up in his trusty submarine was injected almost comically. Clearly the writers are being facetious a lot of the time in the Final Season, but that's better than taking their hit show too seriously. Unless they muff the 2-hour finale (and there's mucho precedent for doing so, even Patrick McGoohan having stumbled at the end of "The Prisoner"), they know that fans will be debating the minutiae of the series' themes and contents for years to come.
One trick here that I'm already debating with myself about is the surprise dredging up of the series' most notorious "one-off" segment, "Exposé" (#3.14). I thought that self-contained show was good & buried with its stars Nikki & Paulo. But Miles refers to them by name when standing near their graves and later has one of their buried diamonds in his possession. Miles arrived on the scene after they died, but of course he can commune (within limits) with the dead, so he is a natural to pick up on their story & illegal booty. But this is yet another example of how the writers stretch "suspension of disbelief" to its outer limits, so once again I'm ambivalent: can they go too far, or is a fan merely stuck with whatever plot twist is invented: like it or else!
Upcoming IMDb has announced that Faraday & mom, plus Charlie, Penelope and dad Widmore will be featured in the "Happily Ever After" episode April 6th -that should be a crucial one in tying up loose ends. The database teaser leaves Desmond out of that one, stating "credit only" next to his name, but I hope they're wrong and that he returns in a major way.