Annoying, right?
This week has seen the end of two television shows I followed from beginning to end, a rarity for me thanks to getting old and having 4 kids. I was a middling fan of both "Lost" and "24" over their runs, and of course I had to tune in and tune out Sunday and Monday nights.
First, a bit o' the personal history. I've watched plenty of TV. So have you, I'm betting. I was a fan of "Batman" and "The Banana Splits" and lots of other cartoons as a kid. When I was in my teens, I got caught up in "Miami Vice" ( I recall having whitish pants, too, owned the 2 soundtracks...creepy). I followed "Vice" from the pilot episode clear through its' finale in the Spring of 1989. I remember when the last episode aired (it was titled "Freefall") feeling like I was losing part of my life. It was a little sad, but ultimately just another "Vice" episode....the cops found a way to ride off into the sunset, literally.
There were other series endings that I recall...."Seinfeld" and "Friends", both shows I generally disliked. The end of "Cheers" managed to be poignant, like saying goodbye to old friends. The final episode of Ricky Gervais' "Office" was excellent - and I do enjoy sappy happy endings.
Am I a nut, here? [yes] There's an emotional discomfort I sense within myself when a show blinks out of existence. Is it my own mortality? Or am I so friggin' vacuous that I just don't know what I'm gonna do Mondays and Tuesdays next Fall?
With that in mind, I thought "Lost" got it right and "24" disappointed.
"Lost" had alot of mystery and intrigue but at its' heart was about connecting to the audience through the characters in the show. Yeah, there were great action sequences and terse dialogue and f-d up things going on, but it managed to make you care about the castaways stranded in parts unknown.
OK, I admit it, the finale' got to me. The "sideways" reality where they bump into each other and, in a flash, remember all that had come before, was an almost beautiful mechanism. It allowed the characters to re-unite in a somewhat believable setting and allowed the audience to re-live and remember the relationships that existed between the characters. The guy-gal flashbacks got to me the most, obviously this makes me a raging douchebag. Sun and Jin. Sayid and Shannon. Charlie and Claire. Sawyer and Juliette. Ye gods, I'm getting sappy as I age.
Anyway, it summarized all that had come before and then took us to the end of all things. OK. Well done. No, every plot hole was not filled. I think it would've required another year of exposition to fill in all of those holes, so....well done.
"24" was always a different animal. All joyriding in a Ferrari compared to "Lost" and it's exposition. "24" was always about the "oh shit!" moment where something unbelievable happens and yet - though we all couldn't believe it- we did because it was 24.
Last night's finale' was more of the same, but whimpered out. Good ole' Jack goes into exile as he did in season 3 or 4. I was personally rooting for a plot twist that saw Jack become 100% evil...that 10 seasons of being beaten down and used by his country finally broke him and he would defect to the bad guys....y'know, the whole Darth Vader thing.
No such luck. No twists. Nothing crazy. Just another episode where some bad acting occurs between the gals playing the presidents of the US and a fictional Middle Eastern nation. I mean, really bad.
But I watched, lemming that I am. I'll miss Jack Bauer and his crazy shit. I'll kind-of miss being angry at the ambiguous endings of "Lost" episodes.
Who knows? Perhaps I'll read more, now?
Right....douchey. Why is Said's love in the pre-heaven Shannon and not Nadia? Remember him killing people??
ReplyDeleteNadia wasn't on the island. Dumbass
ReplyDeleteWe know they were "moving on" but who said that they were moving on to a good place. Could it be that they were in fact in a pre-hell like state? If so, who cares how many people he killed.
ReplyDelete