I watched Smallville and LOST last night. The latter was more read dialogue off and on as I spoke to Erin over the last half of the season finale while she was driving home. If you’ve not caught LOST this season I am not sure if you are losing out or wise not to continue with the addiction; regardless, the show, at least the episodes I caught, has proved to be rather interesting.
This season was a series of what people were calling flash forwards where we learn that six of the inhabitants of the island finally got off and returned to the real world. The problem that I have with this assessment is that people are assuming the story was told in a series of flash forwards; when in reality I think the writers and producers, in order to remain somewhat with the times and styles, moved the story forward to today and then did what they’ve always done, told the story in flash backs with a single central character for each episode.
The characters that finally escaped the island are: Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, Aaron, and Jinn. Jinn is pregnant, still; Jack and Kate had a thing going and now don’t; Hurley has decided he is crazy and, pretty much, lives in an asylum, Aaron was Claire’s baby; and the only thing I caught of Sayid was that he was paranoid, killed someone, and broke Hurley out of the asylum for some strange reason that seems unclear to me. At the very end of the season finale, we see Jack in a funeral home, that he broke into, with a beard that does not look good on him, talking to Ben, the leader of the Others, who tells Jack that he has to take everyone back, which includes John Locke who is dead and in a casket.
Since I read news stories, rumors, and such… one of the critiques about this season finale was that instead of piquing the audiences attention with a lot more questions, it actually offered a whole series of answers, on right after another. And, since I’ve not really been a big watcher of the show, I can’t say that is true or false; but I can say that the end, where we see John Locke in a casket, is one of the biggest questions that need some kind of answering – AND Ben telling Jack that because he left a lot of VERY bad things happened on the island and Jack was responsible for them… or did someone else tell Jack that?
Regardless, it was all a part of the dialogue between Jack and Ben.
One would think that with twists and turns and changes such as been happening pretty consistently in this show that the audience would give up and go away. That is somewhat true, since viewership of the show has waned a little since the first season. The producers are not allowing enough actual answers to warrant viewers to want to continue following the show.
With all that said, J.J. Abrams, the mad producer and mastermind behind LOST had a pilot series picked up by FOX that follows in the veins of The X-Files where a couple of FBI agents go around trying to solve mysteries that appear to defy science. Sounds a lot like The X-Files to me, which is probably what FOX was wanting as the show was highly successful, is still popular, can be found on reruns, and has spawned two movies and possibly more now that Chris Carter and 20th Century FOX has settled their lawsuits… especially given that there is a second X-Files movie in the works to be released later this year carrying the stories of Mulder and Scully and showing where they ended up after the nine year hiatus.
The point, though, is that J.J. Abrams and his crew of misfit writers and producers have had a great time learning how to keep secrets secret, especially on the tale of ALIAS with Jennifer Garner, and by confusing viewers in just that special way that makes them talk about the show and complain about the frustrating developments, but still come back next week to watch the next episode… pant-pant-pant….
As for Smallville, I always thought creating the character of Chloe was a bad idea. There are several reasons for this, one of which is that she never falls into Superman cannon and explaining how this constant and important presence in Clark’s life suddenly disappears and does not show up in the movies, e.g. Superman The Movie or more recently Superman Returns, makes for some harry story telling. Not that people who are or were a part of our lives years ago still have to be now; more specifically, Chloe is cousins with Lois Lane and as such, that family connection is necessary to the show. That is, eventually, how Lois is introduced to the show.
With that said, Lois, last night, was offered a job working for the Daily Planet by a VERY young managing editor. Which, in itself, is unbelievable; but in the way that you just role your eyes and groan some about the network insisting on young and attractive actors playing roles that, in real life, would be left for older and FAR MORE EXPERIENCED individuals. Perry White, in Superman cannon, is the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet, and yes, he made a stop through Smallville trying to figure out what made Clark Kent special…
You know, you just have to wonder why it is people insist on rewriting something.
And as I write that, I read the other day about Japan and how it quickly, after WWII, became an economic power and since then has developed into an automotive and industrial powerhouse through a simple expectation: that every employee from the CEO down to the lowliest lineworker is expected to figure out how to improve the way in which they do their job; thereby, improving the way in which business is done.
Now, what the article failed to illustrate was that the U.S. paid for Japan to rebuild, and brought our technology over to them; moreover, that Japanese companies are great at making something better, but they lack the ability to actually develop something new. As a result, to use Japan as a hallmark of what every industrialized nation should be doing to improve what they are doing is… nice, but since Japan does not create new anything, their ability to improve is just that, they can improve something that already exists.
The reason I bring this up is that I expect that Superman can be improved upon. I don’t expect that the current writer’s-slash-producers-slash-studio area doing that very well in this series. The series began with a simple edict, for Clark: No Tights, No Flights. Which I found to be interesting. What we are not dealing with is Superman, but rather Superman in embryo.
One of the immediate problems that I have with this, though, is that Clark is set up to be afraid of heights. How does someone go from being mild-mannered Clark Kent, can’t stand heights, to the Man of Steel who flies at dizzying heights.
Well, it would appear that there is an intentional shift in this focus as they introduced, this past season, Kara, Clark’s cousin from Krypton, who was in suspended animation under a lake after the meteor shower for nearly 18 years. She meets Clark. Realizes he can’t fly, and then says stuff. True to the “if we can’t put doubt into the viewers mind, we aren’t doing our jobs” mentality of writing for television, we now have to deal with the possibility that Clark’s cousin, like Lex and Lana and Chloe and every other character that has come and gone, is possibly evil and out to destroy Superman before he becomes Superman.
Truth told, suspense like this is interesting as we all know, in advance, that Clark survives and becomes Superman; but, how he gets there is the journey and creating the mythos through serialization makes for… interesting story telling.
Okay, I am not sure why I ever watched that show, I don’t honestly find it that intriguing now.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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