Lost

[poliphilo]

The problem with American TV is that successful shows are allowed (no, required) to run and run until every last drop of vital existence has been squeezed out of them. Until there's nothing left but rind and pips. It's a terrible shame.

Most of the shows I have loved in recent years have died the death long before they were finally put out of their misery.

Deep Space Nine
The X Files
Xena
Buffy.

I fear for the Simpsons. There have been some really ropey, unfunny episodes recently. And then there's Deadwood- which is showing alarming signs of being all washed up after a single season.

And here comes Lost, which seems expressly designed to be so open ended it can run forever. I watched the first double episode and fidgeted. The whole point of it is delay- deferred gratification. Do I have the stamina to stick with it for seven, eight years until all becomes clear? I doubt it. I know from sad experience that by the time we get there the whole concept will have become so jaded, the plotlines so tangled and far-fetched, that I will long since have ceased to care.

Comments

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

Having watched the whole first season of Lost, the thing is like a thesis on the concept of delay.

I wish Australian TV would model itself more on British TV than American TV. We tend to make 22+ ep/season dramas and stuff and they spread themselves so so thin.

And it's like... British TV is so pithy and dense, and I've watched some of my favourite British shows over and over and gotten more out of them each time. American TV tends to be throw-away.

But, I must say, I really liked some of the stuff that came out of the last couple of seasons of Buffy, and thought some of it really transcended the earlier stuff. As crap as the last few eps were.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I never gave up on Buffy. The penultimate season was excellent, but the final season sagged. The villain(s) were underwhelming, the resolution was perfunctory. Joss, I believe, was off doing something else.

It never descended into complete naffness. The story arc was completed. But I wish they'd decided to quit while they were really on top of the game.