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Lost: Raised by Another (2004)
Lost continues its strong first season with solid installment
Lost is such a character driven show and at this stage in particular even all of the mythology is attached to character, so this is why I have started each review mostly talking about the character at the center of the episode and what they are defined by.
For certain characters the problem has been that they are overly defined by one singular quality/concept, in the case of Claire I think you could argue that she is overly defined by her imminent motherhood but actually it might be more on point to say that Claire is really just not that defined.
This isn't to say that she lacks characterization completely and I actually think that Claire episodes tend to be steady, but Claire is certainly less explained as a person than the likes of Sawyer and Locke. This is partially because Claire just hasn't been in it that much at this stage, but also because Claire is maybe a little less essential to Lost on a thematic level.
Where the likes of Sawyer and Kate fit into Lost's main concern, duality and where Locke and Jack act as a linchpin for Lost's discussion about religion, Claire isn't really a piece of any of these jigsaws. Thus why she is kind of always on the character bench, coming in midway through a season.
Nonetheless even at this early stage Lost is a pretty well oiled machine when it comes to story-telling. The Claire flashbacks her are unspectacular but are well constructed and told. Lost is and would continue to be very assured when it came to telling a little vignette across 45 minutes of television.
I don't know about the need for a psychic. I get that the story doesn't work without one, but in a show like Lost, the presence of a psychic seems to be laying it on a bit thick. We kind of get that are these supernatural, mystical overtones to the show without someone coming in for just one episode to help along these aspects of the show.
There is plenty of great stuff on the island though. Hurley and his census, at least initially, shows the lighter side of Lost. It is worth mentioning here how Hurley really provides this meta commentary for the show, particularly at this stage. Not only does he basically just say what the audience are thinking (his exchange with Locke is hilarious) but his referencing of Stan/Steve (a running gag about the nature of red-shirting in these sorts of shows) and his paraphrasing of Sawyer ("Screw Off" here Hurley and the show are making light of network TV standards) builds this nice sense of its not just the audience who thinks this is all a bit mental.
The twist at the end is really the first example of Lost ending on a cliffhanger (technically the pilot ends on one but it is the sort of cliffhanger that isn't resolved in the opening minutes of episode 2) and really is the first instance of them building an arc within a season which will take center stage in the next couple of episodes.
A strong episode, that furthers the season along sufficiently and tells the sort of well designed short story Lost mastered pretty early in its run.
Homeland: New Normal (2015)
It's two steps forward, one step back for Homeland season 5
Last week's episode of Homeland was for the most part a thrilling ride. After several episodes of building (and at times delaying) Saul and Carrie finally teamed up to go after Allison, making for probably the strongest episode since season 4 hit a hit streak mid- way through its run.
So that makes the decision to divert the attention this week all the more perplexing. Okay they had to give some focus to the Quinn side of things but the need for this plot in the first place is questionable. I like Quinn as a character and I think he is well- performed but he is often misused and never more so than this season.
Initially the Quinn plot seemed to be in there just to give Quinn something to do, but now it looks like its gonna take center stage at the back end of the season. The other problem with the Quinn plot is that it is the same plot Homeland has done before and that 24 has really done before. Its just another generic Muslim terrorist group attacking somewhere important, which Homeland has now done a few times to many.
I also think that when Homeland begins to stray from its main cast, into more current affairs time stuff, it always come across as the show pushing its own importance. The reference to the Paris attacks in this week's episode, the frequent mentions of both Assad and ISIS throughout the season just make it seem like the show is insecure about topical-ness.
New Normal isn't awful at the same time. There's some quite good stuff in the episode, particularly at the start before they hit the reset button with Alison. The scene between her and Saul is well performed and any scene shared between Mandy Patinkin and F Murray Abraham are always gonna be fun.
Depending on the way the next few episodes play out my issues with New Normal may subside, but as of now I felt that it sort of epitomized this season, the second Homeland really starts to get going it stands back for an episode or two and slows everything down.
Homeland: The Litvinov Ruse (2015)
Homeland finally ups its game.
I spent much of the last few episodes waiting for the show to explode or at the very least up the tempo a little. Thankfully, for the most part, The Litvinov Ruse delivers on that front.
Let's get the bad out the way first, the stuff with Quinn. Now part of the problem for Quinn this week is just that the other side of the plot is so much more interesting so every time they flick over to him we feel a little disappointed. There are a couple of other big problems as well though.
Firstly have Quinn in this sort of situation is getting repetitive and particularly this season has had a lot of sick/chained up Quinn. The other problem is that the plot feels somewhat beside the point at this stage, or at least in relation to the other side of things which makes weird and horrible torture scenes feel a little bit unearned.
The rest of the episode was really strong though. Straight off the bat the reconciliation between Saul and Carrie is pretty sweet. I have been banging on all season that the show is just better when its leading three characters interact and at times this season hasn't been able to give us this.
The episode then ramps up the tension by doing what Homeland does best, having a bunch of people in suits watch some other people walk around the place, on a 50 inch screen television, while looking anxious. The prolonged Alison chase scene (if you can call it that) is really classic Homeland and the first time this season has upped the suspense.
Quote often the problem with these mole plots is how longer can you have the mole not be known before the audience just gets irritated. Homeland is pretty borderline after having eight episodes of this stuff, but in this sense The Litvinov Ruse does move the plot a fair amount forward, another criticism of episodes this season.
I don't know just how plausible it is to have Alison be able to lie that it was the other way round and get away with it, but nonetheless this was an exciting episode that maybe could have come a little earlier.
Lost: Confidence Man (2004)
An underwhelming hour by Sawyer standards.
Why it is sometimes the case that the best episode of a character is their first is that we get the most significant chunk of their back-story within their first hour. When it comes to Sawyer this really isn't the case, in fact his first flashback is really just one big misdirect for the final twist that was in fact him who wrote the letter.
Although on a cosmetic level Confidence Man feels very different to the episodes that have preceded it, actually it is rather in keeping with the way Lindelof and co have dealt with the characters and flashbacks up till this point. The letter is to Sawyer what disability is to Locke and what drug addiction is to Charlie or daddy issues are to Jack. It is what gives direction to their lives, what both simultaneously gives and takes their agency away from them.
The thing is that it might have been too much to actually introduce us to Sawyer via showing us his parents dying, the events that caused the letter, so instead we are left with a flashback that basically only tells us that Sawyer was a con-man, something we probably didn't need a full episode of to work out.
At the same time a Sawyer episode will never be that bad because Sawyer and Josh Holloway are such compelling screen presences. At the very least a Sawyer episode will be fun and enjoyable on the basis of Holloway, which is something the likes of Kate and Charlie episodes can't fall back on.
The other major issue with the episode is the torture scene. I don't know if it would have worked better after a Sayid episode or not but it just seems a little out of place. At the same time it does establish another important trait of Sawyer's, his death wish.
Particularly in these early stage Sawyer seems to be asking for a fatal blow, but while I think it is an important part of the character I think he improves as a character when he loses this and begins to develop relationships with others on the show.
At this stage the only real relationship Sawyer has on the island is with Kate or at least it is the only one that isn't completely filled with hate. The scene where they kiss though is a little indicative of one of the show's earliest problems. I have mentioned in these reviews how the show pushes Jack and Kate way too much in these early episodes and I think the show somewhat recognized this and the kiss between Kate and Sawyer is them steadily back tracking.
That isn't too say that Kate and Sawyer wasn't something Lindelof and co didn't envisage at the start of the show but it seems like something they felt like deploying eight episode in after a little bit too much of them showing their own hand with Jack and Kate.
Nonetheless Confidence Man is an enjoyable enough episode of Lost even if it doesn't come anywhere near to the heights of the very best Sawyer hours.
Doctor Who: Hell Bent (2015)
Doctor Who closes out an excellent season with a very strong finale.
Hell Bent was never going to match the heights set by Heaven Sent, but nonetheless it represents one of the better finales in recent memory. The thing with Moffat finales is that they tend to be incredibly confused and Hell Bent in general maintains that promise, but it has a very strong core that it can come back to throughout.
At its best Hell Bent is really one of the most personal episodes of Doctor Who ever. The core I'm referring to is that of the Doctor and Clara's relationship and it made for some hugely poignant moments between the two of them.
I think it was no shock that Clara played a big part in this episode, the nature of Jenna Louise Coleman's contract will have allowed for this and the season has been building to this for the last few episodes. In this sense Hell Bent has one over many recent Who finales in the way it really feels like the culmination of hours of storytelling.
I also, for the second week running, must praise Moffat for the cleverness of the script. At various points in the episode I was really worried that either they would keep Clara alive and do a whole Donna memory wipe bit, or that the Doctor's memory would be wiped but that Clara would continue to live anyway. Throughout the episode I was kind of just hoping that she would talk the Doctor out of it and that the scenes at the diner were just like his scenes in the Tardis last week, but Moffat once again came up with something far better.
Not only do I like the subversiveness of the Doctor losing his memory, but they did in a way that allowed for Clara to die and in a way that tightened everything up. It explained why waitress Clara didn't just call the cops on the crazy, old, senile, Glaswegian talking about aliens and why she was a waitress in Nevada in the first place.
In saying that the twist put a nice bow on things the main issue with Hell Bent is the level of redundancy in it. Because at its center Hell Bent is really such a personal episode, whenever it is anything but this the episode suffers. the first ten minutes in Gallifrey feel really unnecessary and ditto for all the stuff about the hybrid.
I understand that the Hybrid helps the plot along, as does Gallifrey, as does Maisie Williams but all of these things feel pointless in and of themselves and I sort of felt like Moffat and co could have found a more economic way of getting from point A to point B whenever they had to use anyone of these things.
Nonetheless Hell Bent was a really excellent closer to a really excellent season (in the most part.) Season 9 has been more ambitious than any that have come before it and it has provided a couple classic hours of modern Who. Not everything worked but more than enough did and as someone who can be very critical of Who and of Moffat, I think the show has hit a bit of a hot streak since the arrival of Capaldi and even if the next assistant isn't very good, the show has had two of its best seasons back to back in this period.
Lost: The Moth (2004)
A solid first flashback for Charlie
Charlie episodes represent the most inconsistent of any Lost characters. When it comes to Kate, here episodes are generally sub- par, with Locke they are in general excellent, with Sayid they tend to B+/A-, but Charlie is responsible for both arguably Lost's worst episode (Fire+Water) and one of its best (Greatest Hits might not be the best episode but if it isn't in your top 10 you're insane.)
The Moth is probably his one and only middle of the road episode. It isn't terrible, but it is probably the weakest of these opening seven episodes and one of the weakest first flashbacks we ever get. Charlie's episode aren't just hit and miss, but the character is.
A couple characters on Lost struggle because they overly defined by one concept (the best example being Michael and his fatherhood), Charlie certainly isn't this. It would be easy for Charlie to be solely defined by his drug addiction and at times the show is at fault of this, but even within The Moth we get to know a lot of other things about him that would come to define just as much as his addiction.
Primarily his savior's complex. Even his relationship with the one pregnant survivor is quite indicative of this and The Moth really hinges on Charlie saving Jack, so in this sense Charlie is by no means a one dimensional character. It is difficult to really get a grasp of Charlie as a hero in his flashbacks, which is maybe why he was never suited to a flashback, because within them he is just defined by his drug addiction and his jealously.
The Moth is a certainly well told episode and its pretty polished but there are some issues. There is a lot of Kate/Jack pushing in this episode and once again it feels like the show showing its hand a little bit too early, meaning an inevitable backtrack.With an emphasis on Jack/Kate comes a dodgy performance by Evangeline Lilly, another reoccurring problem when it came to the early days of Lost.
The Moth is also a prime example of the sort of week to week storytelling that Lost employed in its first season. The Moth has serialized elements, but relies quite heavily on the obstacle of the week element. There is nothing particularly wrong with that, particularly when considering the show would grow out of it, but it does make The Moth a tad forgettable.
Nonetheless The Moth is an enjoyable enough hour of television.
Homeland: All About Allison (2015)
Homeland's mid-season stutter continues
Homeland's mid season lull has been a little bit perplexing and it continues to be through the entirety of All About Alison. It is not as if the plot hasn't been moving along it is just that there have been no scenes of any note and even if the plot hasn't stopped moving the pacing has been lackluster.
The final few minutes of All About Alison certainly push forward the plot but issues still surround them. Firstly Carrie working out that Alison is in cahoots with the Russians is a tad underwhelming, because it was something that was totally and utterly inevitable and although I think this was a decent time to do it, she could have worked it out episodes ago and we might be watching a more exciting show at this point.
The biggest problem though is the cost of this reveal. Namely, that we had to sit through some extended flashbacks to get there. Now I love a bit of chronology messing, but the thing with flashbacks is that they only work when they inform or answer questions about the characters we care about in the present.
The flashbacks here don't. Really there only function is that they work as part of a pretty small puzzle that tells Carrie that Alison is the mole. Now you could argue that this is a quite silly way for Carrie to work out, but Homeland needed to get from point A to point B and this did the trick. The main issue is that we have to spend ages of time with Allison that really do nothing for the character.
The reasons for why she works for the Russians are so dull and predictable that in the most part I could have worked them out myself or at least I didn't need to know why. They fail when it comes to informing Alison's actions (not that they needed much informing) and in this sense weren't worth the admission fee.
Otherwise the episode was perfectly fine. The stuff with Saul at the end seems a bit suspicious and the adventures of Quinn remain dull but at least look like they are hotting up a little.
I guess this is where Homeland is at now, to think that the last time they did a flashback episode it was when we discovered what had happened to Brody (who there was a nod to this week in the form of a picture) when he was being held as a POW, midway through the first season. Different times.
(for more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
Doctor Who: Heaven Sent (2015)
Mofatt's Who hits new heights
What an episode.
I was highly critical of last week's episode, maybe a little overly so but considering it was such a big episode it really disappointed me, but I don't care too much in light of Heaven Sent which is one of the best episodes of Doctor Who in the Mofatt era.
I criticize Mofatt quite frequently for his various tropes, but when it comes down to it Mofatt can pen a quite brilliant script, I mean this is the guy who wrote Blink and Girl In The Fireplace, he is an incredible capable writer when he wants to be and boy did he want to be when he gave us Heaven Sent.
Now okay it has some of the sort of superficial cleverness that Mofatt loves, but superficial cleverness is still a kind of cleverness and when done this well it doesn't feel like Mofatt patting himself on the back for being so clever.
As great as Mofatt's script is, it certainly is not the star of the show, leave that for Peter Capaldi. Heaven Sent is already a pretty strong contender for being the best Doctor Who episode since Capaldi became the Doctor, but what is for sure is that it is Capaldi's best Doctor Who episode.
He basically is on his own for the whole episode, Clara pops up for a full ten seconds, but otherwise it is all Capaldi. At various points of Heaven Sent it occurred to me that although I really quite liked Matt Smith if it had been him rather than Capaldi it would have been an excellent episode of Who but not one of the absolute all-time greats.
Capaldi just brings such a beautiful blend of alien weirdness, charm and utter sadness to this episode and he is just consistently brilliant throughout. However great the script already was his performance elevates that bit more and I think anyone who doubted Capaldi's status as one of the all time greatest Doctor's won't be after this episode.
The single best thing about season 9 of Doctor Who has been its risk taking, the way it has deviated from the old formula of the show. Now at times it hasn't worked perfectly but it has always been interesting and from the opening minutes of Heaven Sent it is clear that Doctor Who had gone one further this year and was going to deliver something totally and utterly unique.
My initial guess was that the Doctor had created this place for himself as some sort of punishment from the guilt he is feeling as a result of Clara's death. I really thought I was on to something when we got things like his clothes being by the fire and I would have been perfectly happy with that being the twist but actually I think Mofatt came up with something that we bit better.
Not only is what he came up with very clever in the way that it ties together the various clues and brings back things like the Doctor's confession disc but it sets up the finale in a way my twist wouldn't have done particularly well.
The episode also shines a more positive light on Face The Raven, not that most of you probably loved it. As earlier mentioned this season has been very different to every other season of Modern Who and killing off the assistant in the third to last episode is unheard of when it comes to Modern Who, but what it means is that we can actually get an episode where we see the Doctor work through his grief and it once again makes Heaven Sent a totally unique episode of Who.
I was also happy with the amount of Clara we got in this episode. I would have been fine if she didn't figure at all, not that might have felt a little bit strange, but just having here there to give a short pep talk of sorts to the Doctor was a good usage of Jenna Louise Coleman and it was just another excellent scene in a long line of them.
I can't really praise Heaven Sent enough, I haven't even mentioned the montage yet which was once again a just fantastic scene or how dark this episode is compared to what we usually get from Saturday prime-time on BBC 1. Ultimately though Heaven Sent is just a perfect episode of Doctor Who and has maybe restored my faith in Mofatt.
(for more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
Lost: White Rabbit (2004)
For its fifth episode Lost gives us another significant and well done character study piece.
Although by this point Lost had already delivered two of its finest episodes White Rabbit feels a hell of a lot like a pilot/co-pilot, mainly because it is the first flashback episode for Jack. There are other reasons as well but they mostly root from the fact that this is the first extend off-island time we have had with our protagonist.
Jack is a character who over the course of the show wore a little thin on the audience. Yet at the same time there are as many great Jack episodes as there are anyone else and while some like to remember a couple of less good ones, Jack was always an interesting, strong and complex protagonist and even if he wasn't my favorite character, at his best he could be really compelling.
White Rabbit is one of the best Jack episodes out there (although it is certainly not the best.) Coming back to why this episode feels a little like a co-pilot, well it introduces us to arguably the central relationship in the show, between Jack and his father.
Now this relationship has far less screen time and in many ways is far less developed than our very favorite Lost duos, but it is the relationship that drives the show's protagonist in most, if not all, of what he does. It is also the first concrete "daddy issues" Lost gives us.
I point this out because Lost is a show obsessed with the parent child dynamic and in particular the often screwed up relationships these characters have with their fathers and in many ways Christian Shepard (yeah his name really is Christian Shepard, at least Lindelof wasn't hitting the religious symbolism too hard) is really the daddy of the all of the daddy issues (not that by any means he is the worst father to have ever been on this show.)
Jack spends more or less the entirety of this episode chasing him through the jungle. This is after the show mirrors Jack not being able to help his friend as a child and Jack not being able to save the drowning woman, strongly hinting at the messiah complex that would also drive much of what Jack does (his name is Shepard and he's a doctor, he is allowed to have a messiah complex.)
He chases his dead father through the island, to no avail, but what he does find is a way for all of the survivors to live together. The speech at the end of the episode would ring through out the show's six year journey, with the season 2 finale being called Live Together, Die Alone, but here is where it is arguably at its most true.
Overall White Rabbit is an excellent episode, with some excellent scenes between Jack and Locke (another reason why this somewhat feels like the first episode as they would be one of the central pairings on Lost) and a lot of great stuff all round.
Lost: House of the Rising Sun (2004)
Lost as the love story it always secretly was
Lost was about lots of things, good and evil, God, bad tattoos but maybe more than any of these things it was about love. House of the Rising Sun is the first episode to shine a light on Lost that reveals that on a certain level Lost was always just a "love story", through Jack and Kate, Charlie and his guitar and in particular through Sun and Jin.
It may not be in my top 5 scenes of Lost but the final Jin/Sun flashback scene at the airport is one that gets me every time. Unlike any other Jin/Sun episode the flashbacks are really just told through the eyes of Sun and throughout the episode the sense of their relationship that we are getting is something quite sour.
Sun almost comes across as a victim of abuse, even if it is not physical it really feels like Jin is neglecting her and that he is being overly possessive. It feels like a marriage that has been severely damaged and one that you are almost routing for Sun to get out of, yet you know she doesn't.
So you're almost anticipating this tragic scene where the constantly undermined wife can't quite go through with leaving her horrible husband, but then he takes out the flower and it all kind of changes. I know it seems as if I'm overstating it, but Lost was a show that always placed huge meaning onto a seemingly insignificant object.
For me Jin taking out the flower is a moment that somewhat subverts what we think of this relationship. It isn't some massive third act twist and it doesn't change all the neglect that we have been shown or at least that we could infer, but it tells us that there is still a lot of love in this relationship even if it is complicated.
Outside of that scene the episode isn't flawless but is still very strong. There is a lot of Kate and Jack in this episode and that can always be a little problematic. In general Evangeline Lilly hasn't really got Kate down yet, but even in later seasons her chemistry with Matthew Fox was always a little bit hit and miss. The writers didn't always help, particularly in these early days, but at the same time I don't detest these scenes and they certainly don't devalue the episode.
The montage at the end of this episode is actually one of the better judged montages that Lost used in its early days. Quite often the issue with these montages is that they are pointless, they have nothing too say and are just there to give the illusion of resolution but the one at the end of this episode is certainly demonstrating the divides within the camp, as well as nicely contrasting the reunion, of sorts, between Jin and Sun at the airport with Jack and Kate being separated.
Overall House of The Rising Sun is just another early classic and one of the most underrated episodes of Lost.
(for more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
Lost: Walkabout (2004)
Lost realizes its full potential in this early classic
I made reference in my review of the pilot that when people discuss the greatness of Lost's first season, what they are often talking about is actually the pilot, but while I stand by this point of view I would argue that the Pilot isn't the best episode of season 1 and I think a lot of Lost fans would agree with me on that one.
Ask any fan of Lost at what point did they realize that this show was something special and a lot of them will answer Walkabout. Because as magnificent as the Pilot is, Walkabout is the episode in which Lost fully realizes its potential as a character study, as a show that could tell stories that were epic, yet personal and always with a mystique that made it totally and utterly different to anything to have ever been made for the small screen.
Walkabout might not be as utterly focused as season 4′s The Constant and it may not have as many incredible moments as the season 3 finale Through The Looking Glass, but I think it is as worthy a candidate as either of them when it comes to being Lost's best episode (FYI The Constant probably just edges it for me, but I do a lot of rotation between those three.)
The story of John Locke is yet to be fully told but those final moments are character defining and are some of the absolute best television I have ever seen.
But let's go back to the very beginning of the episode. I remember when I was first watching it that from those opening images of Locke looking suspiciously at his waggling toe, I guess the twist. I knew something was up with the guy and considering that he had been talking about miracles I guessed the twist (if you can call it that.)
Yet if you didn't guess it there it would be quite easy to forget that opening scene and if you haven't already got that in mind the fact Locke is sitting down would seem rather innocuous. This is where I think Lost was the best show ever at executing twists. Lindelof and co didn't go so out of there way to disguise the show's biggest and best twists, to the extent that when the reveal happen it made no sense but they also didn't advertise the twists which always meant some would guess them and others wouldn't.
I also think that they really don't care if you had fitted the pieces together, because the power of those final moments just can't be diminished. As earlier alluded to the final 7 or 8 minutes of Walkabout are some of the best I have ever seen. Yet, considering that I had already worked out the twist, its tough to say exactly what makes them so great, because not a whole lot happens.
So what makes them so special? Well at a most basic level it is just the result of great acting, Terry O'Quinn was always one of the best performers in a cast of amazing performers, meeting great directing, the hand-held camera-work by Jack Bender as Locke stands up really adds to the scene, meeting great writing, "Don't tell me what I can't do" meeting great composing, the score by Michael Giacchino was always brilliant but it was never better used then here.
It is also the way in which these minutes fit in thematically to the show as a whole. Quite obviously Locke is talking about his destiny when he is being stopped from attending the walkabout, only to then be thrown into a real walkabout.
But it's a lot more than that. We end on a shot of Locke looking at his wheelchair as it is set on fire. These initial flashbacks are so concerned with the baggage these people are bringing to the island. Within this episode we see Jack chasing after a big part of his pre- island life, in the form of the man in the suit, yet Locke is embracing his new life and letting go of his old, encapsulating the differences that would drive the Jack/Locke rivalry.
Looking back now I have a certain amount of sympathy for Lindelof and co, if you look at the first disc of the Lost boxset the episodes on it are the Pilot (parts 1/2), Tabula Rasa and Walkabout. Really the show could never quite live up to Walkabout and Pilot being that close together.
That's not to say the show doesn't have episodes that are as good/better than these two but it certainly doesn't have two such special episodes of TV in such close proximity. Because that is what Walkabout and the Pilot are, they're special episodes of TV, they were (and still are) different to everything else TV had ever seen and are undoubtedly two of the best episodes of TV ever.
(For more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
Lost: Pilot: Part 2 (2004)
The Greatest Pilot Ever Made
On occasion we TV fans might find ourselves in a discussion about what is the greatest TV pilot ever. Someone might pose The Shield as an excellent answer, another might disagree and argue Breaking Bad or Six Feet Under's case, another might say it is certainly The Sopranos but then another will say Lost and everyone will agree with them.
Lost's two parter pilot is the quickest eighty minutes of TV you could ever hope to see. It is one of the finest achievements in the history of television (I might use this phrase at various points when describing some of Lost's greatest hours) and I think that when people talk about the magic of season one of Lost they are in fact talking about the magic of the pilot.
We open in the eye of Jack Shepard, just waking up after blacking out from a plane crash. Straight away it is an incredibly provocative opening as Jack stands up in the middle of the jungle in a suit and with a Labrador running about the place. Jack then runs out on to the beach and all of a sudden we descend into chaos.
There are people screaming, there are massive bits of plane about to fall over. It is just a crazy good opening set piece, as we follow Jack round as he attempts to save everyone. It is impossible not to be fully engrossed in Lost at this stage, even I in the knowledge that I'd be reviewing this episode was right there in the moment.
So let's take a step back and look at Lost as a whole. I'm a big defender of Lost and really love the show, through good and bad. It is certainly flawed, but the vast majority of these flaws I can excuse in the name of ambition.
Probably the most striking thing when coming back to the Lost pilot is just how different a show it and the first are to the later years. This is quite normal, with each season a TV show tends to get that bit removed from its initial premise but with Lost it is pretty extreme.
The premiere is certainly not lacking for mythology but at this point Lost, among other things, is very much a survival show. It is very much rooted in problems that would occur if such an event where to happen (monsters and polar bears aside.) Now I will defend and even love the show it became, but there is an undoubted charm to these earliest days and while I don't mean this as a criticism the later seasons don't really have that.
So what keeps Lost from being some weird quasi anthology series? Its the characters. The mysteries will go in and out of focus but the commitment to Lost as a character study piece would never change. From the first moment to the last Lost was always about its characters above all else. For first time viewers this will maybe become a little more apparent over the next few episodes but it is totally and utterly ingrained into Lost as a show, that week to week it functions as a character study.
The pilot can only give us very brief snippets of the survivors, we see Sawyer looking at a letter, we find out that Kate is a convict and we find out that Locke has a secret. At the same time really the Pilot does as much groundwork on the characters as it does on the mysteries like the Monster and the French message, allowing for the next few episodes to delve deeper into these individuals.
The first half predominantly focuses on Jack, delivering a hero you can route for in this age of the antihero. The second half gives you little bits of Kate and Charlie too, its tough to say that these characters are anything like as fleshed out as they would become, even in the near future, but the show-runners certainly have a good sense of all of the fifteen survivors that the show would be predominantly concerned with.
I mean the introduction to Jin is overly harsh and without giving too much away the Lost does somewhat struggle to reconcile the Jin we are given here with the Jin who is in the majority of the show, but otherwise it is pretty difficult to say anyone does anything out of character in this episode and that is pretty strange and amazing when considering it's a pilot.
Even amongst all the chaos, Lost takes out time for some little character moments, which was probably the thing Lost was best at. Even though we don't know her name yet, when Claire's baby starts kicking and she begins talking to it you develop and instant affinity with this person.
I must also mention those final moments, that simple question delivered by Charlie "Guys where are we?" Would certainly rank as one of the most compelling and engaging questions ever posed on a TV show.
As we go along I'll get into more detail about various themes as well, but for now it is also just worth noting how efficiently this opening hour introduces us to concepts like Good vs Evil and love etc, that would really drive the show alongside these characters.
All in all no matter what you thought of the ending the beginning of Lost is unquestionably brilliant.
(For more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
Lost: Tabula Rasa (2004)
Lost delivers a solid second installment.
When I did a similar project and reviewed all the episodes of Mad Men I mostly avoided talking about episode titles, but I feel it would be amiss of me not to do this for Lost. Not necessarily for every episode but for some the titles are incredibly provocative and in the case of Tabula Rasa the title is very telling.
It is the first Lost episode to employ the one character flashback, over the course of the first season each of the 15 survivors of Oceanic 815 that we are concerned with will get flashback episodes that will demonstrate why they all need clean slates (tabula rasa) and why the island represents this for them.
(For more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
The character in question in this episode is Kate Austen. Now Kate was never the most loved character amongst the Lost fandom and she was certainly a problematic figure, particularly in the early days of the show. I think there were a few reasons for this, while Evangeline Lilly would grow into the character at this stage of the show her performance was a little underwhelming and this meant the writers couldn't maybe give her what they could give Locke or Jack.
I think another issue is the way in which they, the writers, dealt with the mystery introduced in this episode, what exactly did Kate do? While the moment at the end of this episode, where Jack says he doesn't want to know what she did, works well enough it is kind of indicative of the way the writers felt the need to hold out on this part of her backstory.
Now there are other instances where Lindelof and co, do hold out a big piece of backstory and yet manage to deliver several excellent episodes about the character but in the case of Kate there was never quite a enough to fill her episodes without addressing this.
At the same time Kate episodes can get a hard wrap and Tabula Rasa is a perfectly decent hour of Lost. There are issues with it, the montage at the end of this episode, and at the end of several early Lost episodes, seem beneath the show and a little misplaced. Otherwise there is plenty to like about Tabula Rasa.
Jack and Matthew Fox get a lot of good stuff to work with and we get various little exchanges between characters that lay the ground for lots of the great stuff to come. In particular those last moments were the camera focuses onto John Locke, setting up the stunning episode to follow.
Homeland: Oriole (2015)
Homeland's just alright season continues
Oriole was okay
do I need to say anything more?
I guess I probably do, but at this stage Homeland isn't really providing a lot to write and talk about. In its opening season Homeland was this vibrant, water-cooler, event television show. In its second season it remained this but lost some of its quality and by its third season any semblance of consistency had disappeared.
Since then Homeland has steadied the ship and particularly in this fifth season the show has become one of very few highs, but also not many lows. I think this is one of the biggest reasons for why Homeland has totally and utterly lost that water-cooler tag, it isn't about a huge decline in quality but actually about the nature of the show now.
I think Oriole epitomizes this. It is steady and self-assured but also a little dull. I think the main problem with Homeland at the moment is that the big moments aren't hitting hard enough. If we look at this episode the biggest moments are Carrie's friend dying in the cab, Saul being abducted by his Israeli friend, were they big enough climaxes.
I mean the death of Carrie's cabby friend was advertised so far in advance that it could never really be effective (them having that little exchange so he could say that he was about graduate is the equivalent of it being the last day on the job for a cop) and at the moment I'm not really particularly confident about the directions that they are taking both Saul and Quinn.
This isn't to say it was a terrible episode. In fact, as alluded to, I think this episode is really great example of where Homeland is at the moment. In the last few weeks I have talked about anticipating the show hitting its stride but I'm starting to believe that the show will just carry on at this pace.
There isn't anything particularly wrong with this and I'm sure there will be some acceleration but I just don't see the show quite exploding the way it did in its first season, or even its second and third (the last few episodes of season three are what stop me from calling it consistently bad and instead just calling it inconsistent.)
Regardless, I continue to enjoy Homeland while simultaneously finding it kind of boring (I don't know if that is some sort of horrible indictment on me.)
(for more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)
Doctor Who: Face the Raven (2015)
Who would've thought the death of Clara would make for such underwhelming TV?
Sometimes I can be a little harsh on Doctor Who and I accept that, but looking around at the reaction from this episode I really can't believe that people liked it. For me Face The Raven is the weakest episode of the season by a bit and a massively underwhelming send- off for Clara.
I think why people like it, is that people are inclined to like an episode in which a major character dies on any show. Now in general big deaths can make for good TV and quite often the best episodes of shows include major character deaths, because usually a show is at its best when big events are happening and killing off characters tends to represent the biggest of events. But at the same time an episode isn't just good for a big character dying and in the case of Face The Raven so much of the rest of the episode is a complete and utter mess.
More or less each and every episode of Doctor Who consists of characters (in general the Dr and his assistant) narrowly averting death, so when the show does actually kill a character off it is almost quite difficult to sell. Yet at the same time, when assistants have been departing in the past, the show has been able to construct there ends so much better (not that Clara is the first to actually die.)
The way in which Clara dies is really quite silly. Firstly they rely on a character whom I didn't even recognize for being in it before, who Clara must save and secondly her death is based around her not listening very well.
Now okay they don't try to push her death as her sacrificing herself for the love of her life, Rigsy. Yet at the same time couldn't they have found a better reason for her to die I mean even if the show isn't pushing a relationship that we have no investment in, it is still Clara sacrificing herself for a glorified extra.
And while they sort of hint at the idea that Clara kind of wanted this anyway, they don't flesh it out enough to make her death feel like anything but the result of a trivial error. I mean for God's sakes Clara they said that the Raven would get you no matter what.
Then there was the actual death sequence itself, I mean a raven killing someone is pretty tough to dramatize in a cinematic way. Couldn't they have had her fall off a cliff Hannibal style. I mean all the shots of Clara with her arms out looked pretty ridiculous, I guess this is partially the fault of Jenna Louise Coleman, who as an actress has become less and less of a screen presence as her time on the show has gone along, but her performance here was thoroughly underwhelming.
Outside of her death I think the episode is a bit of a mess. The pacing is all over the place, I mean we are thrown into this plot about, as earlier alluded, a character most of us couldn't remember being in it before (just in case you are wondering he appeared in last year's brilliant episode Flatline), where characters are jumping from stupid conclusion to stupid conclusion on the basis of nothing.
Then we are in some knock-off Diagon alley in which Ashildr is the mayor? To a certain degree I don't mind any of this stuff, or at least I can right it off as Doctor Who being Doctor Who but there are other things I find less excusable. Ashildr was the center of one of the best episodes of Doctor Who in the Moffat era, yet her presence her is so besides the point it is questionable why Maisie Williams is in this episode at all.
I also think there is an issue in the number of narrative shifts this episode undergoes. At one point it appears to be a standard story of the week episode, then they start introducing more characters (again what was the point of the two-headed girl disguised as a boy) and then all of a sudden the last ten minutes are totally devoted to Clara and her imminent death.
I'm fine with them devoting the last ten minutes to Clara, but they do in such a way that the previous 35 minutes feel pointless, as the episode was all about getting to this point and everything in the episode that didn't propel us further toward Clara's demise, the writers are not concerned with.
I have been very critical of this episode, maybe overly so but I can't see how or why people are arguing that this was a great episode of Doctor Who.
(for more reviews go to donheisenberg.tumblr.com)