Radiation: Geek, annoyed
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Claire having a baby in two minutes annoyed me too.
I'd suggest that Claire having the baby over the two hours would have annoyed you more. Two minutes of that woman whining about her baby is more than I can take.
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I'd suggest that Claire having the baby over the two hours would have annoyed you more. Two minutes of that woman whining about her baby is more than I can take.
Well true. But they could have time compressed it a bit so that it at least looked like it took more than 5 minutes.
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For fans who stuck with he whole run and didn't like the ending, surely they only wasted 15 minutes of their lives and were entertained by the rest?
Well, may I commit tele-blasphemy here and suggest even The Wire had its longueurs, none of which invalidate a remarkable achievement.
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The polar bears were escapees of Dharma experiments, I thought. Explained by the the big cages and fish biscuits on hydra island. One showed up fossilised in Tunisia to be found by Charlotte - this is the exit point for people who mess with the Orchid station and move the island - Locke and Ben both went there.
There is a reasonably good explanation of the purpose of the polar bear experiments I saw somewhere online:
The polar bears were being experimented on to enhance their intelligence so they could be used to move the island via the wheel. This is supported by [edit]3 [/edit] observations:
1 - it's cold in the wheel house
2 - polar bear remains were found in Tunisia near the exit point
3 - it would be good to have a way of moving the island that didn't end up with being kicked offThis is one of the mysteries of the island that WAS explained in a consistent way, and is what raised my hope that there were going to be some equally interesting explanations of the other remaining questions.
That weren't found in the final, or indeed the last series.
My outrage over the final was somewhat muted by the earlier and tangentially related Battlestar Galactica "Touched by a frakking angel" ending.
I reckon that was one motif that worked particularly badly in a irreligious country like New Zealand.
Could have been written about BSG in my opinion.
Anyway, once you've had one series retrospectively redefined for you, you go pre-emptively numb as you see the warning signs approaching.
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For fans who stuck with he whole run and didn't like the ending, surely they only wasted 15 minutes of their lives and were entertained by the rest?
It's the way the explanation retrospectively updates your feelings about the series.
Like getting to the end of a shaggy dog story only to find the punchline reveals the teller as deeply and uncomfortably racist.
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My outrage over the final was somewhat muted by the earlier and tangentially related Battlestar Galactica "Touched by a frakking angel" ending.
What I find amusing is the way every damn thread about the Lost finale I've come across eventually morphs into relitigating 'Daybreak'. Hey, would anyone have been happier if Ron Moore had thrown in some fan-wank about Head-Six, Head-Baltar and Kara 2.0 being POXY "BEINGS OF LIGHT" IN A FLYING CHANDELIER! (And to be honest, folks, you're calling bullshit on the finale when the Rag Tag Fleet just happened to trip over Kobol, the legendary lost home of humanity, three seasons back -- where Laura Roslin's drug-trips turn out to be surprisingly accurate?)
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Touched by a frakking angel
mawkish christianity, as Amerikan as that orange cheese
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(And to be honest, folks, you're calling bullshit on the finale when the Rag Tag Fleet just happened to trip over Kobol, the legendary lost home of humanity, three seasons back -- where Laura Roslin's drug-trips turn out to be surprisingly accurate?)
My problem with the BSG ending was actually the reverse of my issue with the Lost ending.
Having raised the questions of divine intervention (either mono- or poly-) vs chance as a constant thread, i felt that was the one thing they could have left ambiguous, rather than nailing it down to the fucking floor (and in particular using the visiting angel trope so beloved of bad american tv).
Apparently I am both tough to please, and inconsistent.
Meh.
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Hey, would anyone have been happier if Ron Moore had thrown in some fan-wank about Head-Six, Head-Baltar and Kara 2.0 being POXY "BEINGS OF LIGHT" IN A FLYING CHANDELIER!
And I call False Dichotomy.
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mawkish christianity, as Amerikan as that orange cheese
Well, I find that a rather odd snap-down to lay on a show whose head writer is an atheist, our heroes come from a society of polytheists and the Cylons -- most of whom are convinced the genocide of the human race is the will of the One True God -- end up on the verge of extinction.
I'd also note that when Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar, in their ways, use religion as a tool of politics it comes back to bite them in the arse quite spectacularly.
If that's "mawkish Christianity", then I respectfully suggest it's evangelical propaganda of astounding ineptitude.
Having raised the questions of divine intervention (either mono- or poly-) vs chance as a constant thread, i felt that was the one thing they could have left ambiguous, rather than nailing it down to the fucking floor (and in particular using the visiting angel trope so beloved of bad american tv).
As far I'm concerned, it is more ambiguous than the bad SF TV trope of omnipotent aliens who become slightly less omni- when they're fulfilled their plot function as dei ex machina who have a very important lesson to impart. (Yes, I am looking at Star Trek which rapidly turned Q into a cocktail party bore and The Borg into the universe's most annoying leather queens.) Which is why I'm profoundly thankful that Ron Moore stayed the hell away from "beings of light."
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The sideways universe was an overly long setup for a feel-good cast photo op at the end.
But none of had anything at all to do with the story on-island and with the previous seasons, so I don't see how it detracted from what people've put into/taken from the show, except to take screen time away from the on-island activities in the final season.
The real story ended with MIB being killed, Jack sacrificing himself for the island, Hurley becoming the new guardian, Ben becoming his #2. Rose & Bernard and maybe a few other people staying on the island and 6 of the Losties escaping in the aeroplane.
Pretty good ending, even if we (and the characters) didn't learn the reason behind every crazy thing that they'd experienced.
The sidetime was just an extended epilogue and was pretty meaningless. No harm done though, as far as I'm concerned.
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The sideways universe was an overly long setup for a feel-good cast photo op at the end.
That nails it. A photo op that had bugger all to do with the earlier seasons.
The ARC in story arc implies coming back to a place that you could have got to from where you started by a slightly more direct route.
Otherwise it's no longer an arc it's a just a wiggly line. Which is fine in shows where the characters really are the focus - I'm thinking Treme, and to a lesser or greater extent The Wire - but doesn't work so well in a show like Lost, where let's face it, the characters are primarily involved in moving the plot along, no matter what the producers say they intended.
As to actual harm, I'll accept that there's none. As to audience satsifaction, this focus group of one remains unsatisfied. Again, hard to please.
I'll get my coat.
PS. (hope I've used that right)
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Craig, I was really connecting the bastardised popculture form of the religion with Lost more than making an in-depth analysis of BG (which I agree approached religion in a much more sophisticated manner, overall).
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Craig, I was really connecting the bastardised popculture form of the religion with Lost more than making an in-depth analysis of BG (which I agree approached religion in a much more sophisticated manner, overall).
Fair enough, but I still can't bring myself to credit Lost with enough spiritual/religious nous to even qualify as "mawkish Christianity." If anything, it's the kind of warm fuzzy not-at-all challenging New Age-y "I'm not OK, you're not OK (but I feel fine)" drivel that has helped make Oprah a very wealthy woman.
So, we're going to die eventually -- no person is an island (see what I did there) -- so you might as well get the fuck over it and move on to wherever? Not exactly the most penetrating or novel insight into the human condition I've ever come across. :)
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Battlestar Galactica.
To channel my inner comic book guy for a minute: Worst. Ending. Ever.
I suspect the rash of bad endings to long-running shows (BSG, Lost, The Sopranos, and so on) has more to do with the constraints of the business model than anything else.
The series-creators will never be given more than around half a series as a guaranteed future timeline, and if their cherished baby does turn out to be a success, it'll be milked for all it's worth. Which generally means adding more and more stuff to a framework which was never meant to support that much crap.
BSG, as an example, was probably meant at the most to last two-three seasons. The creators probably hadn't even thought out an overall story arc longer than that. So in the original arc, Laura Roslin gets cancer, leads them all to some planet. Dies. Ends. But wait! The show is a success! We need more seasons! Quick! a script re-write! She gets better! So two more series worth of arc gets loaded onto a framework not intended to carry it. And inevitably tying all that extra crap up in a nice bow is more or less impossible. You've used up all your creative juices keeping the show staggering along for three years longer than it was intended.
With that in mind, my cap is doffed to the creators of 'the wire' for managing to keep everything more or less consistent and running smoothly right up until the end of season five. Where, admittedly, it became clear that the creative engine was down to fumes. But still running, nonetheless.
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It does seem a bit wrong to point out the absurdity of Claire's super fast labour and not mention the crazy scenario of fixing a crashed jet airliner with gaffer tape and taking off on a beach. Through those last few episodes I kept wishing they'd stop wasting their time with the plane because it just wouldn't work.
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Well it wasn't a beach, it was an island runway typical of those built in the second world war. Packed earth mostly. I missed how it magically appeared.
But yes, a cesna could have taken off from that. A jet airliner? Meh.
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Most stupid series I have ever had the misfortune of watching.
I saw the first few episodes and the infuriating plot holes wide enough to fly planes through drove me off - what interested me was the promise that they would resolve it all.
I watched the final episode, and it turns out they didn't. It was nonsense from the get go.
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here is a reasonably good explanation of the purpose of the polar bear experiments I saw somewhere online:
Because when training an animal to perform a task that involves pulling a heavy weight on command, the polar bear is the natural choice. And they have the added advantage of blending right into their new Tunisian home . . .
I don't buy the 'it's all about the characters' thing either. It might have been about the characters for the first three or four seasons, but the characters turned into bodies perpetually running away from flaming arrows and mortar shells some time in season five.
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Sawyer and Kate were on runway building duty as part of being prisoners of the Others back in Season 3. The runway was apparently built on Jacobs instructions.
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Aha. Thanks David.
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Friends of O, R'lyeh...
I was still punting for a massive special effect in the finale, depicting the two worlds spilling into each other. Pah.
I was thinking when Desmond pulled the "plug" that maybe we'd get a waking Cthulhu... after all R'lyeh is midway between Sydney and LA
they're making The Hobbit into two films?
The Hob* and The Bit**
either way we're probably screwed...
* a machine tool used for cutting gears or screw threads
** a tool or piece for boring -
a tool or piece for boring
I think you're being prophetic there.
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the purpose of the polar bear
the show could've morphed into The Golden Compass reality, as a failsafe...?
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I saw the first few episodes and the infuriating plot holes wide enough to fly planes through drove me off - what interested me was the promise that they would resolve it all.
I watched the final episode, and it turns out they didn't. It was nonsense from the get go.
A lot of the questions the show posed (especially in the first few episodes) were resolved/explained long before the final.
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