this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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I hope they go back to the original source material and come up with something that actually makes sense this time. Maybe take a few details from the newer version that "worked", but otherwise discard it and try again from scratch. Do something new with it.
And if you're going to put "they have a plan" in the tagline for a series, actually have a frickin' plan in mind.
BSG and Lost were both going on around the same time and they both had a lot of intriguing puzzles and twists that never ended up actually paying off.
But hey, good to know that Asimo was the beginning of the robot revolution and the new Cylon 2.0 (or... 3.0?) uprising.
"Mystery box" storytelling is the name for it and, yeah, Lost, especially, is the poster child for not executing on it particularly well. It can be exciting, and it does a good job of making following a story feel like a communal experience that everyone can participate in - speculating on where things will go next, for instance - but it also often feels like shows using it end up over-promising and under-delivering (and often leaves viewers feeling a little soured at the end).
I feel like Dark was a good example of it being well-executed, and proves it certainly can be done well. But yeah, BSG definitely didn't end up paying off for me either.
The big problem with "Lost" is that many in the writer's room (and the showrunners themselves) were raging racist assholes who decided to steer the show toward all the white characters, which meant changing a lot of their early plans.
You know what the ultimate payoff for Lost would have been for me? If at the very end of the show, you just panned across the island and you see the dad from the beginning that they dropped from the show for daring to be black and he yells, "WALT!" It would have made as much sense as everything else and at least it would have been funny.
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