"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.
"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.