Lost (Episode 5, "White Rabbit")



Now five episodes in it's becoming more obvious what the formula of Lost is going to be. Each episode covers around two days on the island (in this episode Jack says they crashed six days ago), and a large chunk of every episode is devoted to flashbacks that flesh out one particular character. In this episode we found out about what drove Jack to become a doctor, and the rather strange reason Jack was in Australia. This episode also shed some light on why Jack found it so easy to disregard the other people's concerns about how the bodies of those who died should be disposed of.


"Where did we find the bleach to keep our clothes so white, anyway?"

"White Rabbit" was pretty straight forward, so instead of discussing the episode in specific I've got a few general observations about the series.

I've noticed that every character driven flashback we've gotten so far has included a "hook" that will allow another flashback to be built off it. We still don't know what Kate did to get in trouble with law, we don't know what accident crippled Locke, and in Jack's flashback his mother made a statement that alluded to something that Jack did that hurt his father.

One problem that is going to come up relatively soon is Walt's age. I believe the actor is 9, but if the show keeps progressing as it has by the beginning of the next season two months will have passes and Walt will appear to be a year older. Of course this will be true of all the actors, but it will be far more noticeable on young Malcolm David Kelley. It's possible they're planning on getting rid of his character, but I think a more elegant solution would be to use Walt's quick aging as a plot point, caused by Walt's apparent power of wish fulfillment. We'll see what happens.

According to Entertainment Weekly the ratings success of Lost has all the other networks looking for the "their own Lost." I wonder what element the average network executive looking at Lost thinks is the reason for its success. Of course, the reason the show is doing so well is because it's well written and not quite like anything else on TV. I fear that networks will instead produce a bunch of clones featuring groups of people cut off from society for various reasons, as if that simplistic premise is what makes Lost work. Considering that other well written series recently have been canceled very quickly (most notably Wonderfalls and Firefly), I'm not going to get my hopes up that the networks will begin valuing good writing above all else, but it would be nice.

Posted: Sun - October 24, 2004 at      

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