A fucking polar bear. In the middle of a rainforest. Now we're talking. For a show like this to work, it needs to be bonkers. Wild, unpredictable, everyone in danger. I'm all for basing things in character-driven plot, but come on. The mythology, so far, is by far the most interesting part. Bears! Crazy marooned French Lady! Sawyer has a gun! The marshall is awake! Oh, wait, no, that last part isn't so hot. It's more of a boring cliche, executed in the most predictable way possible. Yeah, Hurley passing out is funny, but the whole c-plot feels lazy in a way that's unworthy of the rest of the episode. Enough negativity!
The episode is titled "Pilot, part 2," and it certainly looks like the larger budget is carried over. The plane crash, shown from a half-dozen angles so far, is a crisply excellent piece of tv direction. It's a great set, the camera movements are sharp. and every shot is designed as wordless exposition and revealing character beat all at once. I'd much rather watch Charlie scrabble is the restroom than hear paragraphs spat into the air about his addiction. Cutting back and forth to him on the island keeps things interesting, showing that Charlie is still a fundamentally smart, competent person. He's very much the same live-wire, possibly dangerous addict, but there's a refreshing complexity to the character even in this (very, very early) stage of things.
Kate, not so much. Aside from a completely gratutitous shot of her in underwear (Side note; I'd never object to Evangeline Lilly being almost naked on my screen. But, really Abrams? Was that needed? I'm sensing a pattern. Paging Alice Eve…..), there's just not too much purpose to Kate's plot. It'd be nice, just once, if someone was exactly who they appear to be. Skip the tortured backstory / mysterious tragedy / wrongful accusation, and just introduce a personality. Let things evolve from there. I get the impulse, and there's an admirable sense that Kate, and all of her compadres, have arrived here as fully formed people with rich and interesting backstories. This is good (excellent, actually), but I also get the feeling that the writers are too in love with just how complicated they've made everything.
Speaking of complexity….. Where or what is the island? Related question; How did so many people survive a fucking plane crash? Like, really. One can overlook these questions if the show is obviously not taking place in anything resembling our reality. But this is a show about cracks, not canyons. It's close, and the laws of physics are respected. So there's magic here, or technology so good there's no difference. Purgatory? Perhaps. The banality fits, the struggle to maintain everydayness. So does the bending of nature, the cracks we can already see spreading. But… No. Purgatory is pointless, and there's a design to the island. I'm fascinated by precision onscreen, glimpses of plans made far, far before the camera ever began to shed light. Sixteen years is a very long time. The pain in that woman's voice is real. Someone saw the plane coming, awaited it for years. We'll meet them eventually. Unless we already have, of course. I know I asked this last week, buuuuuut what is Terry O'Quinn up to exactly?
So many questions! And we're just getting started. See y'all on Sunday for Twilight, my fellow freaks & geeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment