"I think about this a lot in my current professional trajectory, but I also just think about it as a critic and writer and person who loves watching long form stories like Lost. How do you account for the fact that life doesn’t offer you answers?"
The issue that I have with a show like LOST and Damon Lindelof in particular is that the idea that 'life doesn't give answers' can easily be used as an excuse to not actually deliver on narrative setups. I didn't mind that the show didn't always provide 'answers' for certain big questions or mysteries (lord knows, the Fine brothers video where they try to 'explain' everything with Hurley being in a mental hospital is a great example of just how bad the show would be if it tried catering to fan demand all the time) but it's also pretty evident that the writers would occasionally drop seemingly important plot threads or not deliver payoffs to narrative setups and then excuse the lack of resolution or instance of incoherence in the same way.
To put it another way, there is a difference between raising questions without giving definitive answers and failing to deliver resolutions to clear narrative setups and enigmas. It is the latter approach I found particularly egregious, as it would string the viewer along only to ultimately go nowhere. (Eg. the show sets up stories with and questions about a character only to then unceremoniously kill them off without having them do anything.)
It didn't help also that Lindelof really became over-reliant on what I call 'the art of timely interruption,' where one character is about to deliver a crucial piece of information to another only to get interrupted partway, which simply teases some sort of reveal but doesn't really deliver.
The whole recap thing has always seemed strange to me. When I look for criticism, it's because I want to read someone else's opinion and analysis, written in an engaging way - either a particular critic I like, or a 'brand' I trust like the old AV Club. The main reason I'm here is because Donna Bowman's coverage of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul was an important part of my experience watching those shows. Whether it's that sort of in depth post-game analysis or more of a "should I watch this?" kind of review, the value I'm getting is the unique voice of the critic who wrote it.
Although LOST was the show that helped me find, understand, and care about critical discourse about TV, I do think I was probably only seriously jumping into that in 2009 - so when I said last week that this kind of criticism helped shaped my politics, it was very much also the kind of criticism that had something to say about race, gender, sexuality; really, just Feminist-oriented criticism. It's interesting to hear y'all reflect that this wasn't a big part of LOST coverage, which helps me understand that I did come in 'at the end.' To me, it already felt like a big part of the discourse ecosystem by 2010 (or at least by 2011 and game of thrones). Or maybe those values were there, just a lot more implicit.
"I think about this a lot in my current professional trajectory, but I also just think about it as a critic and writer and person who loves watching long form stories like Lost. How do you account for the fact that life doesn’t offer you answers?"
The issue that I have with a show like LOST and Damon Lindelof in particular is that the idea that 'life doesn't give answers' can easily be used as an excuse to not actually deliver on narrative setups. I didn't mind that the show didn't always provide 'answers' for certain big questions or mysteries (lord knows, the Fine brothers video where they try to 'explain' everything with Hurley being in a mental hospital is a great example of just how bad the show would be if it tried catering to fan demand all the time) but it's also pretty evident that the writers would occasionally drop seemingly important plot threads or not deliver payoffs to narrative setups and then excuse the lack of resolution or instance of incoherence in the same way.
To put it another way, there is a difference between raising questions without giving definitive answers and failing to deliver resolutions to clear narrative setups and enigmas. It is the latter approach I found particularly egregious, as it would string the viewer along only to ultimately go nowhere. (Eg. the show sets up stories with and questions about a character only to then unceremoniously kill them off without having them do anything.)
It didn't help also that Lindelof really became over-reliant on what I call 'the art of timely interruption,' where one character is about to deliver a crucial piece of information to another only to get interrupted partway, which simply teases some sort of reveal but doesn't really deliver.
The whole recap thing has always seemed strange to me. When I look for criticism, it's because I want to read someone else's opinion and analysis, written in an engaging way - either a particular critic I like, or a 'brand' I trust like the old AV Club. The main reason I'm here is because Donna Bowman's coverage of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul was an important part of my experience watching those shows. Whether it's that sort of in depth post-game analysis or more of a "should I watch this?" kind of review, the value I'm getting is the unique voice of the critic who wrote it.
Although LOST was the show that helped me find, understand, and care about critical discourse about TV, I do think I was probably only seriously jumping into that in 2009 - so when I said last week that this kind of criticism helped shaped my politics, it was very much also the kind of criticism that had something to say about race, gender, sexuality; really, just Feminist-oriented criticism. It's interesting to hear y'all reflect that this wasn't a big part of LOST coverage, which helps me understand that I did come in 'at the end.' To me, it already felt like a big part of the discourse ecosystem by 2010 (or at least by 2011 and game of thrones). Or maybe those values were there, just a lot more implicit.