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[GendoIkari]

So I've started watching Lost. It's pretty addicting.

I watched it through for the 4th time a few months ago. Great stuff.

[Qvist]

I don't think this is a spoiler, but just to make sure in response to the "terrible ending": The terrible ending didn't make the whole season suck, just half of the 6th (last) season, its side storyline. Even in the finale the rest of the main storyline was amazing and tense throughout.

[GendoIkari]

I made sure to avoid spoilers, but I'll capitulate.

"after they were rescued" is a pretty huge spoiler.

[silverspawn]

Yeah, and                            Moat                  is an even bigger spoiler, I think.

[pacovf]

I don't think this is a spoiler, but just to make sure in response to the "terrible ending": The terrible ending didn't make the whole season suck, just half of the 6th (last) season, its side storyline. Even in the finale the rest of the main storyline was amazing and tense throughout.

The problem isn't just that ending that pretty much invalidates most of the last season. It's that all the time spent over that storyline is time not spent resolving the thousands of dangling plot points from previous seasons. Though it slowly became apparent a few seasons before the end that the series wasn't interesting in those, so it's not like it came like a huge surprise by then. Still, that's why I felt like I would have preferred never starting the show.

[Kuildeous]

is a pretty huge spoiler.

You really think so? It's like Chekov's gun. You have people stranded on an island. That's kind of a foregone conclusion. I know it's not like that for classic shows like Gilligan's Island and Lost in Space, but those shows don't rely on an overarching plotline. In fact, those shows only work because they don't point in a specific direction. Lost did.

But in any case, I'll relent. Perhaps my definition of what is spoilerific is part of the minority.

Though if anything, I think the kinda is a bigger spoiler.

[Donald X.]

I liked Lost. For a while they were good at coming up with surprises that would perk your interest. That was their big strength although they didn't always play to it. Season 4 is weak, season 5 is better, and then they wrapped it up in season 6 in a not-so-great way. It's interesting to try to consider, what do you do to fix up the ending, based on how far back you can change things. What if you can only change the last episode; what if you can change the last 4 or so; what if you can replace the last season.

[Witherweaver]

I just started Season 3. I thought Season 2 was great. I especially like the overarching them of people observing the same thing and taking different meaning from it, which is played on a lot of levels throughout.

[GendoIkari]

I think in terms of raw quality, seasons 1 and 2 were the best. But I'm super entertained by the storylines of season 5. I was a little disappointed by the way the start of season 2 answered so many things. Season 1 had a large number of questions (Who had been on the island before? Why was there a polar bear? How are there man-made things like giant hatches in the ground?) which were all answered at the same time with "scientists once used this island as a place to run their programs and conduct experiments". It just felt like a lot of the initial mystery was gone (though quickly replaced with new mystery).

[Jimmmmm]

I made sure to avoid spoilers, but I'll capitulate.

I feel like saying "Then they changed it up and showed what happened to people after they were rescued" is a pretty big spoiler. I think one of the biggest surprises in the series is the revelation that what appears to be a flashback is actually a flashforward. There is plenty of room in the early seasons to speculate that they are actually dead, or that it's not possible to leave the island etc.

I also think it's a shame to tell someone who just started the series that the ending is disappointing. Others might disagree with me.

(For the record, I was really enjoying the flashsideways in S6 and excited for where they were going, and then the fact that they were just dead was a bit disappointing to me. But I would definitely still recommend the series as a whole.)

[pacovf]

I think in terms of raw quality, seasons 1 and 2 were the best. But I'm super entertained by the storylines of season 5. I was a little disappointed by the way the start of season 2 answered so many things. Season 1 had a large number of questions (Who had been on the island before? Why was there a polar bear? How are there man-made things like giant hatches in the ground?) which were all answered at the same time with "scientists once used this island as a place to run their programs and conduct experiments". It just felt like a lot of the initial mystery was gone (though quickly replaced with new mystery).

I don’t think the polar bear was ever explained. “Scientists!” Is not an explanation. It might explain a colony of monkeys or some other lab animal, but not a polar bear in a tropical climate, years after the scientists left, especially if they don’t explain what experiment would require a friggin’ polar bear in the first place!

[Kuildeous]

I didn't say Lost's ending was disappointing. In fact, I said the opposite. But you can't help how people feel about the ending. Does it taint a newbie's experience? Likely. After all, I haven't started Dexter yet, and part of the reason is because people generally feel that one of the seasons is particularly stinky. Maybe someday I'll watch it, but I have plenty in my queue, so Dexter is perpetually falling down the ladder for me.

One reason I wasn't disappointed with the ending of Lost was that I didn't interpret them as being dead this whole time. I took the events as literal.

As I said before, I forgot the specifics of that season to lead me to that conclusion, so I'm not in a good position to be able to defend my stance. I can only tell you how I felt after watching that episode, and that feeling doesn't jive with the general consensus. And I'm okay with that because my takeaway is more satisfying to me.

Though honestly, even if I do follow the general consensus, I don't think that would've bothered me either. Being disappointed with this would be like being disappointed with (different movie spoiler time) Jacob's Ladder's ending, which I highly regarded. Or any other story which happens as people are dying/dead. That just doesn't bother me as much.

Peer-reviewed movies and shows are how we sort out which entertainment we want to go with. I've followed up on some good suggestions on here and other groups of like-minded people. And even if a show has a disappointing ending (*cough* Seinfeld), the journey is still pretty damn fun. I'd sit through another finale of Lost that's as disappointing as most people make it out to be in order to sit through everything else.

[Kuildeous]

I finished up the current season of Better Call Saul. Wow, Michael's story at the end was a goddamn punch to the face. Really well done. Now I regret removing it from my DVR because I think it may be worthwhile to compare that scene to the scene in Breaking Bad where Walter is pleading for his life and is placed on the phone to Jesse. And while there's an inclination to root for Michael to let Werner go, you know that he won't because you know his role in Breaking Bad.

And Jimmy's story was good too. You got to see how he's willing to use his brother's memory to get what he wants, and Kim is seeing that dark side of him. You know that Kim leaves the picture at some point since she's not in Breaking Bad, and it seems likely to be the result of greatly disagreeing with Jimmy's ethics. I originally thought she'd get too wrapped up in his schemes and take a huge fall for it, but this finale looks to me like she's more likely to get sick of his shit.

In a sense, it's a blessing and curse that Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad. There are some characters you know are invincible, so you have some spoilers there, yet it doesn't diminish the tension because part of the thrill is watching how those characters get to where they are.

There's great potential for a prequel to fail to live up to the source material (*cough* Star Wars, not including Rogue One), but Better Call Saul is handling this masterfully.

[GendoIkari]

I think in terms of raw quality, seasons 1 and 2 were the best. But I'm super entertained by the storylines of season 5. I was a little disappointed by the way the start of season 2 answered so many things. Season 1 had a large number of questions (Who had been on the island before? Why was there a polar bear? How are there man-made things like giant hatches in the ground?) which were all answered at the same time with "scientists once used this island as a place to run their programs and conduct experiments". It just felt like a lot of the initial mystery was gone (though quickly replaced with new mystery).

I don’t think the polar bear was ever explained. “Scientists!” Is not an explanation. It might explain a colony of monkeys or some other lab animal, but not a polar bear in a tropical climate, years after the scientists left, especially if they don’t explain what experiment would require a friggin’ polar bear in the first place!

They may have left a lot of specifics out, but the video mentioned doing experiments on animals, and showed that polar bears were among those animals. I don't think the question of why the scientists chose to use polar bears would matter. If it's not realistic that polar bears could survive in the wild in a tropical climate after the scientists were no longer caring for them, then I see that more of a plot hole than a mystery.

[pacovf]

Let’s just say I disagree and leave it at that.

[Robz888]

I am, as most know, a huge Lost defender. For me, the final season was not great, but the finale itself was a satisfactory emotional resolution to the characters' journeys.

[michaeljb]

I finished up the current season of Better Call Saul. Wow, Michael's story at the end was a goddamn punch to the face. Really well done. Now I regret removing it from my DVR because I think it may be worthwhile to compare that scene to the scene in Breaking Bad where Walter is pleading for his life and is placed on the phone to Jesse. And while there's an inclination to root for Michael to let Werner go, you know that he won't because you know his role in Breaking Bad.

I felt that early on they played up Kai being the problem a bit too much; I was never convinced he was going to cause any real trouble. Still, l definitely didn't anticipate things with Werner going the way they did. Werner's phone call reminded me of a different Breaking Bad phone call scene--Walt's call to Skyler at the end of Ozymandias. I would be interested to watch it to compare with the scene you're talking about too.

And Jimmy's story was good too. You got to see how he's willing to use his brother's memory to get what he wants, and Kim is seeing that dark side of him. You know that Kim leaves the picture at some point since she's not in Breaking Bad, and it seems likely to be the result of greatly disagreeing with Jimmy's ethics. I originally thought she'd get too wrapped up in his schemes and take a huge fall for it, but this finale looks to me like she's more likely to get sick of his shit.

As I saw in some Reddit discussion, Kim's not necessarily out of Jimmy's life during Breaking Bad. Jimmy/Saul is only shown there as far as he is relevant to Walt and Jesse, so it's not totally unreasonable that Kim could still be in his life. It was heartbreaking to see her realize she had been taken in by Jimmy's charade the same way the bar was.

I continue to love this show and think it's great, but I was really disappointed by how little Jimmy and Mike interacted this season. It almost felt like two different shows stitched together.

In a sense, it's a blessing and curse that Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad. There are some characters you know are invincible, so you have some spoilers there, yet it doesn't diminish the tension because part of the thrill is watching how those characters get to where they are.

There's great potential for a prequel to fail to live up to the source material (*cough* Star Wars, not including Rogue One), but Better Call Saul is handling this masterfully.

Still looking forward to seeing what exactly Jimmy and Nacho get up to that Saul thought could get him killed in Breaking Bad. Maybe it's still too early for that to happen--are we down to like 4 years before the start of Breaking Bad?--but right now the only idea I've got is getting rid of Lalo. Given his apparent position in the Salamanca family and absence from Breaking Bad, there's no way he survives all of Better Call Saul.

Edit: completely forgot that Saul references Lalo in that BB scene, guess he will be around for a while.

[Witherweaver]

I had a question about "The Long Con". I don't think this is a big spoiler, but just in case it's only season 2.

In the flashbacks, Sawyer is playing Cassidy (Madison from FTWD) for a large amount of money she was holding by getting her interested in conning and having her front the money for a fictional "long con". (She is the true long con.)  We have a scene between Sawyer and his partner where Sawyer says he wants to back out of the con, and his partner threatens him. The next flashback has Sawyer admitting to Cassidy that she was the target and their deal was fake, only to end up taking the money while he tells her to escape (switching the bags).

But why was the last "twist" necessary? If Sawyer had already decided to go through with the con, why not just go through with the fake deal? It seems like the extra twist was only for the viewers to think that Sawyer had actually decided to come clean, only to find out he's still a scoundrel.

The plan could have been to do the con this way from the beginning, but it seems unnecessary since an exchange is already set up, so again it seems like the extra step is just for the viewer to question Sawyer.

Is the idea here that Sawyer is actually splitting on his partner as well to keep the cash for himself, so he wanted to skip the exchange for the fake deal?

Also, something in Season 3 episode 7/8, Kate breaks the lock on Sawyer's cage and they end up staying together in the cage instead of escaping. Then when they do escape after a fight with the two captives, they close the cage door and Kate grabs a lock from the ground to lock the cage. But the lock could not have come from her cage as she escaped through the bars, and it's unlikely there just happened to be one lying around. So it was likely the one she broke off the cage in the first place. If you force open a lock like she did (with a rock or rod or something), wouldn't it break the locking mechanism?

[GendoIkari]

I had a question about "The Long Con". I don't think this is a big spoiler, but just in case it's only season 2.



But why was the last "twist" necessary? If Sawyer had already decided to go through with the con, why not just go through with the fake deal? It seems like the extra twist was only for the viewers to think that Sawyer had actually decided to come clean, only to find out he's still a scoundrel.

The plan could have been to do the con this way from the beginning, but it seems unnecessary since an exchange is already set up, so again it seems like the extra step is just for the viewer to question Sawyer.

Having seen this 4 times now, this exact same thing bugged me every time. I think it very likely is just a case of writing for the audience's benefit as you suggest, rather than following a consistent logic.

[Witherweaver]

I continue to love this show and think it's great, but I was really disappointed by how little Jimmy and Mike interacted this season. It almost felt like two different shows stitched together.

It's pretty clear in Breaking Bad, though, that Mike works for Gus and isn't that close to Saul. When Mike threatens Saul to give up Jessie, we need to believe that Mike is willing to hurt and kill Saul if needed. Mike and Gus also talk of Saul as "the lawyer", not as someone involved. The more they interact in Better Call Saul (even if just for business), the more difficult viewing the BB scenes, and Saul's fear of Mike, in the original context would be. Also, in Breaking Bad, Saul has never met Gus, so their plotlines here need to be somewhat separate, which necessitates some degree of separation between Jimmy and Mike.

[pingpongsam]

I continue to love this show and think it's great, but I was really disappointed by how little Jimmy and Mike interacted this season. It almost felt like two different shows stitched together.

It's pretty clear in Breaking Bad, though, that Mike works for Gus and isn't that close to Saul. When Mike threatens Saul to give up Jessie, we need to believe that Mike is willing to hurt and kill Saul if needed. Mike and Gus also talk of Saul as "the lawyer", not as someone involved. The more they interact in Better Call Saul (even if just for business), the more difficult viewing the BB scenes, and Saul's fear of Mike, in the original context would be. Also, in Breaking Bad, Saul has never met Gus, so their plotlines here need to be somewhat separate, which necessitates some degree of separation between Jimmy and Mike.

Right, I thought that Hummel heist was sufficient breakdown in the Mike/Jimmy relationship to further this end.

[scott_pilgrim]

Is anyone watching the new season of Daredevil? Did anyone notice (episode 4, not really a spoiler) an 11-minute scene with no cuts? That has to be the most impressive scene out of any TV show ever.

[Kuildeous]

Is anyone watching the new season of Daredevil? Did anyone notice (episode 4, not really a spoiler) an 11-minute scene with no cuts? That has to be the most impressive scene out of any TV show ever.

I haven't gotten that far yet, but I remember Season 1 had an impressive scene like that, though not like that. Wow!

I kind of enjoy seeing directors taking such risks. While I wasn't a huge fan of Irreversible, I really appreciated the risks the director took.

[jonts26]

Just finished Daredevil season 3. It's thoroughly excellent and probably my favorite season of any of the marvel netflix shows.

[pingpongsam]

Just finished Daredevil season 3. It's thoroughly excellent and probably my favorite season of any of the marvel netflix shows.

Thanks for the heads up. I really enjoyed the previous seasons but had this one pretty far back I. The queue. Will be out of town next week away from the home server so Netflix will be the primary entertainment source and I think I’ll watch Daredevil now.