Good question, really. I liked it, then I read a few messages here and everyone's all "OMG HATE BURN!"

I really enjoyed this episode. Yeah, no questions were answered, but EVERY episode is like that. Every time I turn on the TV Wednesday nights, I expect all my questions to be answered. Then when I turn it off at eight, I'm mad because only a couple questions were answered, and really all the entire episode did was create MORE.

But that's a good thing. I love it. It keeps me interested in the show. And as for not looking for Claire... would you? Think of the situation they're in. Last time they went looking for Claire someone got beat up and another almost died. There's no trail anymore and even if they did find Claire, they'd have no way to protect themselves.

That and, of course, you can't resolve everything in one episode. Lost doesn't work that way.

Of course, now that they have the guns...

Claire is due to have her baby any day now. Would I go looking for Claire? Heck, yeah!! Especially now that I have the 9mms and boxes of ammo, I would say, "Bring Ethan on!" I honestly think it is an enormous ploy incontinuity that everyone on that island is not in some way involved in looking for Claire every minute of the day. LLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEEE the show, but this is a MISS in the writing. IMHO.

A bad episode of Lost is still better than 95% of television. Nonetheless, this was one of the three worst Lost episodes of the season. Reasons why ...

1. Generally we learn one or two things but have more questions than answers. There were NO answers but tons of questions. One step forward and two steps back entices the viewer more than a bunch of steps backward.

2. From Kate's history I episode, we knew that she was a criminal with some heart. From Kate's history II episode, we now know that she is a criminal with a heart. We didn't gain anything in that regard.

3. The toy plane felt like a let down after all the fighting over the briefcase.

4. Kate came across as someone with personality problems. Mostly flirting with Sawyer and lying to Jack. She came across as annoying instead of interesting.

5. Having 4 guns magically appear (almost deus ex machina style) serves only as a upcoming plot device. Meaning this episode was only setting up a future one in a very contrived manner.

6. Claire was largely forgotten, so the momentum built up in November/December was diminished. Kate II should have happened before Jack II.

7. Sayid and Shannon studied maps, formulas and French to arrive at nothing more than the lyrics of a song.

8. Many of the characters felt a bit off as to how they came across to the viewer; notably Charlie, Kate and Sawyer. Sayid and Shannon were the only ones who felt like they were in character.

9. Kate having weapon skills makes her a little too ALIAS for this show.

10. Jack's reason of *I had to bury him* to explain the marshall not being burned felt forced and badly written.

I wasn't thrilled with it after all the previous great ones!! You're right, we all knew about Kate and the fight over the carrying case was so stupid when you saw what was inside. Disappointed but still a great fan. It's the best show on t.v. And even if there is never a resolution to it, it's been fun. What if the writers just keep on writing with no idea of how it's going to end? Do you really think they've figured it all out?

The show's creators had the impossible task of quenching a four weeks long thirst in less than sixty minutes. Personally I thought they did an adequate job. We had plenty of location shots to satisfy the escapism gene, we had our weekly mano y mano conflict, a sprinkling of secrecy with Boone and Locke's boy's club, and a hardy helping of nearly naked women.

The weak moments, and relative global disappointment with the entire episode, stems from the indestructible toy plane dependance of the backstory bits, and the GLARING OMISSION of any tangible Lostaway angst relative to Claire's kidnapping and the knowledge that the island is in fact inhabited...by superpowered kidnappers. Darn the luck!

Finding half a worm with the first bite doesn't spoil the entire apple. Yes they coulda shoulda done more on Claire's abduction than painstakingly pointing out to us that most of her fellow island crashers can't recall her name. The Marshall travels with a small munitions dump on his person, Jin can open a Walgreens with a handful of seeds and manure, and if Kate ever strode into a Kay-Bee toys we'd likely have a massacre to deal with. These are small greivances that get inflated by any and all because the long pause between 'new' episodes was much like a swallowing a 32 ounce cup of tequila with this new epsiode acting as the tiny lime wedge we're handed to wipe away the taste with and...sorry...our breath still smells like Nick Nolte's liver.

Like any book, personal impatience can suck the entertainment out of certain chapters as our "feed me now" indulgences beg us to flip to the last chapter immediately and end all this gunky plot build up. And in the snap of a synapse, not acheiving "greatness" is now regarded as utter failure, instead of being recognized as being simply good.

Imagine for a moment, next week Charlie's pow wow with the big man upstairs enlightens his downtrodden inner rock star and he trades in the striped shirt and dungarees for a pigskin loin cloth, paints his face with Gaelic warior symbols, mounts a live boar and strides out all noble-like in front of the other Lostaways and screams out with all his Irish spring might:

"I am Charlie the Brownstone, and I see a 47...no...46 person strong army of my fellow Lostaways in defiance of Ethan Rom. You have fallen 20,000 feet uninjured to live here as free monster bait. Will you fight for that freedom? Aye, fight and you may die, camp at the beach playing with toy planes and you may live. But then, dying in your hammocks years from now, would you be willing to trade all the coconuts from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell Ethan that he may take our pregnant castmates, but he'd better not take the chicks with small panties!!!! Alba Gu Bra!!! Their after me Lucky Charms!!!!...."

I think we'd all be forgetting our disappointment real quick.

I thought it was a great episode. *I know there are alot of questions as to why they didn't look for Claire, or why they didn't focus on the metal plate Locke & Boone found, etc...but I'm sure our questions will be answered in the next two episodes to come. *Baby steps, people, baby steps ;)

I thought the episode was great, loved the Sawyer/Kate interaction. And hope they don't chicken out on Kate and give her more layers. Kate is good when she's deceiving people, if they drop that because they want her to be a perfect female leed they will be making a mistake IMO.

That was a great read Mr. Tibbs! I wholeheartedly agree with you. I enjoyed the episode just not as much as some of the others. I truly don't think they have given up on Claire. I'm sure most of the LOSTaways think Locke is on the trail, which he really isn't. I don't believe that the writers are going to dismiss Claire that easily. We just need to have patience. I'm betting next weeks show ROCKS!

PEACE!

Mr. Tibbs -- I LOVE YOU!!!!!* Please post more!!!!!

Mr. Tibbs and Balanchine are BRILLIANT!!!!!!

I wasn't crazy about it, but agree with the poster who said that even a sub-par 'Lost' is better than 95% of television. My main complaint, oddly, is with the timing of the episode. I kind of figured that a lot of people who had never seen 'Lost' before would be tuning in to see what all the buzz was about, and they got what probably seemed like a bit of a let down. No weird goings on, no percision rain, no monster, no cables etc. It would have been the perfect time to air a 'Walkabout' kind of episode - somewhat self contained and something that might draw in a bunch of new repeat viewers.

All in all, though, that's really nit-picking. Like I said, I thought the episode was fine. Probably my least favorite, but still really good compared to most of what's out there.

Ditto on the Mr. Tibbs being brilliant! I just LOVE to read his posts! More, More, More the crowd chants!! :D

I think the major dissapointment was that the plane in the envelope made NO sense...if we had gotten at least an inkling of what it could have meant, or maybe if it was a different thing in the envelope people would have liked it better. As for not even mentioning Claire, even something like, "we will go out tomorrow when the weather is better" or "now we have the ammo, we can search"...would have been satisfying. There are way too many elements going on right now for all of them to be featured in each episode...they had to tell the backstory and add a few scenes of the other things (Boone/Locke and Charlie), but I agree that they were not "satisying"...each of the other elements will be fleshed out when we get thier backstory...for example, we will get more of the Boone/Locke element and the Sayid/Claire element when they do the Boone/Claire episode next week...can't wait!!!

Karri Ann

Thinking over my initial reaction, I'd have to say that my strongest objection was to the Kate/case plot. Nothing in it made any logical sense. We could still have been left with the mystery of the airplane without the impossibly convoluted bank robbery plot and the over-elaborate machinations she pulled with Jack and Sawyer about getting it open. At the very least it should have been made clear that she expected something incriminating beside the toy plane to be in the case. Otherwise her conduct regarding getting it open made no sense whatsoever.

It's the complete failure of the eisode in its standalone elements that has everyone concentrating on the problems with continuity as well. If we were coinvinced and engaged by the backstory plot, we'd be less likely to complain about the other loose ends.

Cardie

Finding out the "plane truth" was indeed disappointing, in fact just as disappointing as Locke's "I didn't see anything" response after Michael asked what he'd seen of the pig stomping machine/pseudo monster/eye of the isle thingamajig. The writers have done a good job in the past of lending weight to strange things 'after the fact' and they deserve some leeway here.

We got a fine payoff to the orange wedge smiles and rain worshipping antics of Locke, perhaps the indestructible toy plane will rattle with equal severity. Seems impossible, but impossiblity is no reason to keep from trying something. That's why they sell condoms to grandparents too.


All my guns are packed, I'm ready to go,
I'm sitting here in what's now the last row
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.
But the plane is breakin', it's heading for shore,
The air is blowin', through a new back door.
I'm handcuffed so I can't flap my arms to fly

Chorus
So hug me and hunt boar for me,
Tell me that you'll trust in me,
Hold me like you never let me go.
'Cause I'm lookin for a toy plane,
Don't know when I'll fool Jack again.
Oh babe, I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down,
So many lies I've tossed around,
I'd tell the truth but you'd just think I'm wrong.
Ev'ry place I go I'll think of you
Ev'ry lie I tell I tell for you.
When I take a dip I'll wear my lacy thong.

'Cause I'm lookin for a toy plane,
Don't know when I'll fool Jack again.
Oh babe, this plot is slow

*flicks bic lighter and waves above head*

So hug me and hunt boar for me --

Yeah!!! I love the "Leaving on a LOST Plane" song!! You are my new comic relief Mr. Tibbs!

Peter, Paul and Mr. Tibbs? :walkman:

Mr. TIbbs...GREAT parody......as for the discussion I guess I'm going to take an opposing view on the plane thing for fun....I don't think finding the plane was dissapointing.....I mean honestly what were people expecting?? The key to the whole island?? Of course the writers werent going to lay it all out for you...this IS Lost, lol. And I highly doubt the plane is just some stupid toy that has nothing to do with anything. Kate already said it belonged to the man she loved, the man she killed. The plane gives us a clue as to who that might be....her father perhaps?? A boyfriend? And what makes everyone so sure that the plane was what was in the safety deposit box?? I think theres a lot more to the plane than people think.....yes after all that anticipation it was a bit shocking to just find a toy plane....but when you think about it, its not really dissapointing...it just raises more questions and gives us more clues...which is personally what I like about all of JJ's shows....you have to keep guessing! As for not looking for claire right away in this ep, I think it had to do with everyones fear of not knowing what or who is out there....which is probably why Sayid and Shannon were trying to figure out the maps....just because they dont show people talking about it doesnt mean that talking hasnt gone on...rememeber shannon said it had been four days since boone and locke found the metal....maybe now that they have weapons (the guns) they will all be more gung-ho about venturing off into the forest of hell.....ok well thats my opinion for today!

I think it's simply a matter of people feeling the show is treading water and not progressing its plots at a quick enough pace. Since "Solitary" it's really felt like nothing of major significance has happened (and the one significant thing that did happen--Claire's kidnapping--was done off-camera and then forgotten about in the very next episode). The neat little character development scenes are a nice compliment, but it would mean more if the character interaction happened in the course of advancing the plot instead of just going off on another tangent (re: mystery). The pay-offs also have been very weak (the mid-season cliffhanger and the toy plane in specific). Really, it's that the show has lost its focus and JJ thinks he can string the audience along longer than he really can.

One other bit, is that these returning flashbacks are becoming monotonous. I don't think it's any accident that people were particularly frustrated after the second flashbacks for Kate and Jack. People aren't nearly as interested in these flashbacks as they are with what's actually going on on the island, so it just seems like the writers are wasting, or trying to buy, time. Kate's flashback in particular was annoying. Now people don;t really care what her backstory is. It's too late for the writers to effect us. Two flashbacks were enough. We've stopped caring.

Mr. Tibbs rocks! Nicely done! I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, but I did wish we saw more of an interest in Claire - and I'm still saying the plane thing will be explained adequately. I think we were supposed to say "What, huh? a plane?"

I also thought that everyone assumed Locke and Boone were doing all they could to find Claire, and who better to be traipsing through the jungle than Locke - unfortunately - they weren't!

For me there were two things that make me wonder if I'll keep watching. One thing was that there seems to be more and more cheap/cheesy stuff added in that doesn't advance the *in any meaningful way. Like *Kate stripping near the lagoon while Sawyer swims in his jeans. And that cheesy kiss in the middle of a bank robbery. And the idea that a bank manager would refuse to hand over the money (they are instructed to hand it over right away). And nobody cares about Claire and Kate and Sawyer run carefree in the bush as if nothing has ever happened. And the stereotypical Black Wise Woman type consoling Charlie. Those are just soem examples. The other thing is that with the song and the toy plane added in without any follow-up to other plot lines makes me think there is no point in trying to guess any more at what is going on. It takes the fun out of it. Its like, whatever they are in the mood for, they will throw in next. Not like having a real plot for us to discover.

I'm still saying the plane thing will be explained adequately. I think we were supposed to say "What, huh? a plane?"

I also thought that everyone assumed Locke and Boone were doing all they could to find Claire, and who better to be traipsing through the jungle than Locke - unfortunately - they weren't!


Ditto !! ;)

Sarahleigh, you just hit upon the circle with no center. The threat "I may stop watching" is shallower than pudding skin, and this is what empowers the writing legs that keep treading the plot water. In short: What else are you going to watch? America's Funniest Golf Ball to Crotch Videos?

You personally may indeed wind up frustrated enough to hand Wednesday night off to bill writing and book reading, but the ratings suggest you'd be a microscopic blip on the Neilson radar.

The proverbial hook is in the fish's jaw, the reel is just being reigned in slowly, let out a tad, reigned in slowly....hey Frank grab me a beer out of the cooler. The show is a hit, the creators are living large off of it, so tidying up the final act is probably ranking right up there with "shave testicles with cheese grater" on the to-do list. The more dangling strings to clean up, the longer their employment.

I thought "The Moth" was cheesy enough to put the state of Wisconsin out of business. But...uh...I'm still watching, still enjoying, even if it involves the occasional grimace and wince. It's pulp entertainment. It will be flawed.

If we pressed our noses up to a Monet we'd all be yelling "These dots are meaningless!"

If we pressed our noses up to a Monet we'd all be yelling "These dots are meaningless!"


OMG, that is so true. That's the perfect metaphor for what many people have been saying. This episode was just one part of many. We may have to wait a little before we understand its true significance, but I'm sure it will come.

Mr. Tibbs, if you don't mind, I may adopt this line as my new slogan for patience in the world (and not just with Lost). :D

I hated it primarily because "All the Best Cowboys.." left us in a real cliffhanger situation which was not only not resolved, but not continued at all. It's as if they skipped an entire episode in the story. *The episode itself was okay (although quite cheesy at times), but seemed to be a complete non sequitur in the overall story. I don't at all buy the argument that it is a necessary transitional episode.

How could the first eleven shows be so good and this one be so bad? It's as if they brought in new writers and a new director over the break. The episode has really shaken my confidence that the overall plot will be good.

Mr. Tibbs, we may just need to have a thread that you post in daily so as to keep people like me entertained.* In fact, you better get yourself over to the Linear Board and let Javi have a look at your FANTASTIC writing skills.* *LOL (but seriously)

You are incredibly funny, witty, observant and...* well you get the picture.* Keep on posting!!! ;)

PEACE!

Okay okay okay okay, Mr. Tibbs. You got me. I will watch it. I can't not watch it. Sigh...

Mr. Tibbs-Utterly HILARIOUS parody! :laugh:
And why didn't I like the episode all that much? Well, DUH! Not enough Locke!!!

10.* Jack's reason of *I had to bury him* to explain the marshall not being burned felt forced and badly written.


That was one of the best part of the shows. Jack said the same thing about his father at the airport when he was checking the casket. Jack KILLED the Marshall, and Jack feels responsible for doing what he did to his father which ultimately let to his father's death...Jack feels anyone he's responsible for (as far as their demise), he has to bury them.

I don't see how that's bad writing.

Good point BobbyT882! ;) I have to agree with you on that.

PEACE!

That was one of the best part of the shows. Jack said the same thing about his father at the airport when he was checking the casket. Jack KILLED the Marshall, and Jack feels responsible for doing what he did to his father which ultimately let to his father's death...Jack feels anyone he's responsible for (as far as their demise), he has to bury them.

I don't see how that's bad writing.


I was wondering how long it was going to take for someone to say this. Those that were burned died as a result of the crash. The Marshall was "killed". I'm sure it also has something to do with the "doctor losing a patient" thing. Jack just felt responsible because he couldn't save the Marshall.

We got a fine payoff to the orange wedge smiles and rain worshipping antics of Locke, perhaps the indestructible toy plane will rattle with equal severity.

Ok, I'll "bite". What was the payoff to the orange wedge smile? Must have missed it.

It also seemed odd that no one saw fit to mention the bodies in the lake to others. Of course Sawyer "don't tell nobody nothin" and Kate was too busy trying to "catch a plane".

But you would think it might have come up. Might be other good stuff at the bottom of the lake and I am not sure you really want dead bodies in a potential water source. Not to mention somebody might know one of them and want a little closure...

But then a lot of things they do from a survival standpoint are a bit odd, not that that is really a major focus of the show.

I found the "waves washing the fuselage away" storyline amusing as it seems a convenient way to avoid having to keep using that set on the beach. The wreckage on that beach is of course not left there routinely (was just on that beach a couple of weeks ago on the way to hike out to Kaena point) and it must cost a fortune everytime they have to set it up. A shame as I kinda wanted to see it. Would be curious to know what the number of that old Delta L-1011 was to see if I had ever been on it during "better days". * 8) *

Am I the only one who noticed they *were* looking for Claire? From what I could tell, three or four days have passed. AND at least according to what Jack said to Charlie in the last ep about going into the jungle the very next day to look – they probably did just that! BUT with no trail or resources etc and the fear of The Others walking around the jungle is pretty pointless. So, after three days they all collected themselves and this is what happened:

- Locke and Boone are still going into the jungle and at least saying they are looking for Claire. Even though we know they are goofing around with that bunker they found (which might lead to Claire btw), Boone has told everyone they are looking for Claire so in the minds of many the tearing through the jungle part of the search is covered.

- Jack looks like he hasn’t slept in days (nice touch adding in that nasty bruise from Ethan) and has started thinking about seeing the French woman to ask for help and info about the Others. This is a very smart move, but Sayid won’t help him out. So there is Jack’s idea for finding Claire. Without being able to fix a problem he thinks is his fault it is moody and takes it out on Kate, who deserves a bit of it anyway IMO. So Jack getting obsessed about the case and Kate makes sense if you look at it as an intense guy trying to do something while his hands are tied in other areas, aka finding Claire.

- Sayid is trying to translate the maps with Shannon. That is their contribution.

- Charlie needs some self-confidence and forgiveness for what he thinks he did wrong and when he gets that he will be more pro-active in finding Claire

- A lot of people don’t even know Claire (like Sawyer apparently) so you can’t blame them for not caring too much beyond trying to survive on an unfriendly island that suddenly got a lot unfriendlier. Most of the people are moving stuff off the beach because of the tide. This is an immediate concern that does need taken care of.

- Kate is off picking fruit. Dude, they need to eat. If everyone was bounding around the underbrush looking for Claire there would be no food or anything. They are just being realistic.

So in my opinion they are doing exactly what I would expect them to do after a three to four day mad-frantic search in the jungle without any clues. They are widening their scope as well as getting on with surviving.

We already spent one entire episode running around the island looking for Claire. Did anyone really expect a second episode of that? And if we found her right off the bat wouldn’t we think that Ethan and the Others were pretty weak baddies for being beaten so easily and feel cheated, curse the writers, and get all bent out of shape over that?

The little plane will mean something. Why do people think otherwise? No one questioned Claire’s psychic advice to get on the plane. To me the little plane and the box number connects Kate’s life to the fate of flight 815 just as much as Claire has been connected to its fate. I think that the people on the plane were not there just by chance and we are getting little clues as to what was so important about this event. This excites me but it seems to bore everyone else. Oh well. I am glad I am still enjoying it. :)

The show's creators had the impossible task of quenching a four weeks long thirst in less than sixty minutes. Personally I thought they did an adequate job. We had plenty of location shots to satisfy the escapism gene, we had our weekly mano y mano conflict, a sprinkling of secrecy with Boone and Locke's boy's club, and a hardy helping of nearly naked women.

The weak moments, and relative global disappointment with the entire episode, stems from the indestructible toy plane dependance of the backstory bits, and the GLARING OMISSION of any tangible Lostaway angst relative to Claire's kidnapping and the knowledge that the island is in fact inhabited...by superpowered kidnappers. Darn the luck!

Finding half a worm with the first bite doesn't spoil the entire apple. Yes they coulda shoulda done more on Claire's abduction than painstakingly pointing out to us that most of her fellow island crashers can't recall her name. The Marshall travels with a small munitions dump on his person, Jin can open a Walgreens with a handful of seeds and manure, and if Kate ever strode into a Kay-Bee toys we'd likely have a massacre to deal with. These are small greivances that get inflated by any and all because the long pause between 'new' episodes was much like a swallowing a 32 ounce cup of tequila with this new epsiode acting as the tiny lime wedge we're handed to wipe away the taste with and...sorry...our breath still smells like Nick Nolte's liver.

Like any book, personal impatience can suck the entertainment out of certain chapters as our "feed me now" indulgences beg us to flip to the last chapter immediately and end all this gunky plot build up. And in the snap of a synapse, not acheiving "greatness" is now regarded as utter failure, instead of being recognized as being simply good.

Imagine for a moment, next week Charlie's pow wow with the big man upstairs enlightens his downtrodden inner rock star and he trades in the striped shirt and dungarees for a pigskin loin cloth, paints his face with Gaelic warior symbols, mounts a live boar and strides out all noble-like in front of the other Lostaways and screams out with all his Irish spring might:

"I am Charlie the Brownstone, and I see a 47...no...46 person strong army of my fellow Lostaways in defiance of Ethan Rom. You have fallen 20,000 feet uninjured to live here as free monster bait. Will you fight for that freedom? Aye, fight and you may die, camp at the beach playing with toy planes and you may live. But then, dying in your hammocks years from now, would you be willing to trade all the coconuts from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell Ethan that he may take our pregnant castmates, but he'd better not take the chicks with small panties!!!! Alba Gu Bra!!! Their after me Lucky Charms!!!!...."

I think we'd all be forgetting our disappointment real quick.


this quite simply is the best post i have ever read.

oh thankyou so much for that entertaining read!

but now you have me falsely excited about charlie's potential character growth! i want loin cloth dammit!

LOIN CLOTH!

* "I am Charlie the Brownstone, and I see a 47...no...46 person strong army of my fellow Lostaways in defiance of Ethan Rom. You have fallen 20,000 feet uninjured to live here as free monster bait. Will you fight for that freedom? Aye, fight and you may die, camp at the beach playing with toy planes and you may live. But then, dying in your hammocks years from now, would you be willing to trade all the coconuts from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell Ethan that he may take our pregnant castmates, but he'd better not take the chicks with small panties!!!! Alba Gu Bra!!! Their after me Lucky Charms!!!!...."




I can't wait until next week!

I'd like to hop on the Mr Tibbs love train, he's well on his way to having his own fandom.

I didn't care for this epi mainly because the previews were misleading. Looks like we will have to wait until next week to find out why Shannon is flying through the air, but who knows that epi may not run until Feb for all we know. ???

I've been down on Kate for a while, no fair to have all the guys hot after one chick who clearly needs to *eat something*! Of course, the more nekkid Sawyer gets, the more I love this show. :w00t:

I'd like to hop on the Mr Tibbs love train, he's well on his way to having his own fandom.


Ain't that the truth... his own fandom!! LOL I've been laughing all day reading and re-reading his posts. Work has never been so fun! :jump1:

Honestly, Mr. Tibbs - if you read this, please do consider starting your own thread: "The Mr. Tibbs Love Train" -- or "They Call Me Mr. Tibbs" -- I and many others would check it regularly and continue to fall into hysterics at your feet.

They should have a People's Choice Award for favorite poster -- I would vote for Mr. Tibbs!

How could the first eleven shows be so good and this one be so bad? It's as if they brought in new writers and a new director over the break. The episode has really shaken my confidence that the overall plot will be good.



Actually, the writers swich around from show to show, which may explain the continuity problems in regard to character development and plot speed.

The writers for Whatever the Case May Be were: Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson

Lindelof also contributed to: Pilot 1, Pilot 2, Tabula Rasa and Confidence Man
Johnson also contributed to: The Moth (with Paul Dini)

Director for Case was: Jack Bender
He also directed: Tabula Rasa, Walkabout, and The Moth

Hmmm, maybe I should start a thread that lists the writers and director for each episode. Would anyone be interested in that?? ???

Honestly, Mr. Tibbs - if you read this, please do consider starting your own thread: "The Mr. Tibbs Love Train" -- or "They Call Me Mr. Tibbs" -- I and many others would check it regularly and continue to fall into hysterics at your feet.*

They should have a People's Choice Award for favorite poster -- I would vote for Mr. Tibbs!


Nice mammasays!!

Voter #2 right here!! *bows at Mr. Tibbs* ;)

Yes, please Mr. Tibbs, please start your own thread! I will read it daily!
I love the Lost Plane song. I love Charlie's stirring speech.
Please, more post! :jump1:

Lost in Lou,
I would really appreciate it if you would post the writer/s and director/s of all the epis. I can't seem to read them in the credits.

I wish that more had been said about poor Claire.
I agree that Kate may not have thought that a toy plane was in the safety deposit box when she planned the bank robbery. BUT for goodness sakes, why would she get the case, let Sawyer have it, try to get it back, send Jack after it, lie about the key in the wallet, ALL OVER A TOY. It makes her seem crazy. I really hope for a GREAT explaination of this plot point.
And I like Rose, and I know that life goes on, but did she seem a little harsh on Charlie? Not really mean, but let the poor boy sit on the beach. I know, I know, they all have to work together to survive. They needed his help to drag useless bits of airplane parts off the beach.

Here's hoping for a few answers!
Terry

<<<
Quote
10. Jack's reason of *I had to bury him* to explain the marshall not being burned felt forced and badly written.
EndQuote

That was one of the best part of the shows. Jack said the same thing about his father at the airport when he was checking the casket. Jack KILLED the Marshall, and Jack feels responsible for doing what he did to his father which ultimately let to his father's death...Jack feels anyone he's responsible for (as far as their demise), he has to bury them.

I don't see how that's bad writing.
>>>

I saw it as strange that Jack didn't bother with all the dead from the plane but simply burned them all. But the Marshall was given a special burial. Sure he felt somewhat responsible but to Jack a corpse is just a corpse of someone who didn't make it. His father was different because the body was needed so that his mother would have closure.

I saw it as strange that Jack didn't bother with all the dead from the plane but simply burned them all. But the Marshall was given a special burial. Sure he felt somewhat responsible but to Jack a corpse is just a corpse of someone who didn't make it. His father was different because the body was needed so that his mother would have closure.


Well, Jack had put a lot of sweat and tears into trying to save the Marshall. He really didn't know anyone on the plane as far as we know. That was probably part of it.

I think our problem with this episode and recent episodes is that they storytelling tricks are starting to become a lot more transparent to the more dedicated viewers. For the vast majority of the 16-21 million people watching this show, the plot is resolved / advanced just fine. But for us, we are correctly realizing that we are being fed just tiny scraps of the larger meal each week.
We are realizing that things are being streeeeeeeeeeeetched out now and it is indeed getting frustrating. The things we want to know, they won't tell us. But they have to do that because the story they want to tell has to stretch out for 22-23 episodes. In reality, there is probably only about 10-15 episodes of actual content.


One other observation I want to make is that in light of the tsunami disaster, we are seeing in full detail what people do when faced with a disaster. In most domestic plane crashes, there is a trained rescue crew of firetrucks, ambulances, doctors, etc., to take care of everything. On the Lost island, as in SE Asia, the survivors are largely having to lead the rescue and salvage efforts. The effort displayed by the Lost islanders seems a lot more shallow in light of how the tsunami survivors are handling their situation. If there is even the slightest hope for a survivor, they are putting all their efforts into finding that person. The Lostitutes seem to give up pretty quickly. They also should have put more effort into exploring the island, finding the tail section, looking for Claire, going to visit Danielle, etc.

Yes, it's just a TV show, and I know how episodic TV plotting works and all that, but if they (the writers and producers) are going to bypass logical behavior, they have to come up with something a little better than what they have the last few episodes.

Doc.

>We are realizing that things are being streeeeeeeeeeeetched out now and it is indeed getting >frustrating. The things we want to know, they won't tell us.

And this 'thing' the Where's-Claire-Issue? Did you really think we'd find out so quickly. Because I didn't.

>But they have to do that because the story they want to tell has to stretch out for 22-23 episodes. > In reality, there is probably only about 10-15 episodes of actual content.

Depends on what your pet theory is and desire for the end. If you think the story is all about such-and-such it probably is frustrating. I am happy to see it play out. The only people that understand the time line at this point are the writers. I trust them a heck of a lot more than I trust the people who have been complaining on the boards for the last week.

>If there is even the slightest hope for a survivor, they are putting all their efforts into finding that person. The Lostitutes seem to give up >pretty quickly. They also should have put more effort into exploring the island, finding the tail section, looking for Claire, going to visit >Danielle, etc.

You forget there is Ethan, The Others, The French Lady, and zeh Monstah out there. Plus, the rescuers have to find their own food and gather their own water daily, they can't stop daily living to find Claire. There's only 40 some of them. They are untrained for the most part, and many of them like Rose are probably not suited to climbing about the jungle anyway. They are doing what they can. Just read my posts. I've outlined how they are in fact looking for Claire, although in a way that does not include poking around the darn shrubbery all episode. And Claire was taken, probably intelligently hidden, not simply lost in a natural disaster. There is nothing natural about it. The situation is totally different.

Most of the people I notice who didn't like this episode are ones not talking about the plot points given in the episode, but rather talking about the few they wished happened and didn't - aka finding Claire in some proactive way. They writers wanted us to see what happened in the episode we were given, not what we wished would happened. And for a reason I am sure. I don't think the writers are stretching the story. I think a lot of people are not bothering to look at what they got.

Congrat Dr Ironic for bringing this topic fully circle!* So it's us that DIDN'T like the ep that are too smart to buy it!* See for the longest, those who haughity defend every stroke of the writers' pens have been saying THEY are the smart ones and we are the dumbarses who must have sitcom-like closure every ep!* They just don't get why we don't get that the Omnipotent Writers will dispense what they want when they want and if we don't think each dispensation is gospel we should go watch fear factor.

Me. I'm too dumb for either side, I'm just confused!

And BTW, I don't think "everyone hated this ep so much."* But I do think it has been by far the most widely panned and the most widely considered a let down, for exactly the reasons Dr. Ironic outlined.

When you dispense payoff in slow drips and drabs whilst piling mystery upon mystery upon question, you are always running a risk.* And quite simply, the risk caught up with them this time.* Has to do alot with the great cliffhanger before the hiatus, the long wait, and an underestimation by TPTB of the Claire-love amongst us dumb viewers.* Pair that with the alternative we were given being a character (Kate) that many are, ahem, a bit overloaded on, and a plot that was bit obvious and thin (the robbery/make out session, the case, the anticlimatic toy plane) and you have an ep that while not "hated" will sure not rank amongst the faves.

Not a deal breaker, not shark-jumping, just a letdown that was not nearly as well-received as most of the other eps.

((And this 'thing' the Where's-Claire-Issue?* Did you really think we'd find out so quickly.* Because I didn't.* ))

I don't think finding her and having total resolve this issue was what so many people did not like.* I never expected or wanted it all to be over that quickly, have known for a while they would draw it til Feb Sweeps.

And every logical argument everyone has made for why they should not have looked, why the looking was implied rather than shown, and why the others should have non-reacted in a kind of cold way makes logical sense.

But if you look around, not just this site, but the cyberworld as a whole,* what was shown just did not work for most people.* I guess most viewers reacted to the Claire situation not with logic, but with emotion.* And the fact that the way the ep was written was so disconnected to the way most viewers felt caused a big problem for the whole ep.* Kind of a mismatch of tone.

And the wild thing is, as has been pointed out so frequently, it would have been so easy to fix!* Just a couple of "Oh ain't it awful" lines, a bit of regret that they could NOT actively search, even a selfish concern for what it meant for their own safety would have done it..

Call us a pack of raging, foaming airheads, but that's what I have seen caused the biggest problems for this ep.

Mcguane I think you might be onto something. While I really really want to keep liking this show, I have a bad feeling that we are not going to get conclusions to many of the questions that have been presented. I've read that JJ has a habit of that also (don't know for sure if it's true tho). It wasn't that I really disliked this episode, just that it made me think about alot of the things that were just dropped. One example being the golf game. They make this big deal about whether Jack will sink the put. Everyone's betting on it and standing around watching it. Then what happens? The next week we see no mention of there ever being a golf game and the writers have said it's over, they won't revisit that. Why make it a cliffhanger? I know this is a VERY SMALL example, but indicative of what I'm talking about. Who didn't tune in the next week to see if Jack made the shot? It just seems like there's way too many questions for them to answer at all, much less adequately. And sure, we should give them plenty of time to do it, but if they continue to present the same number of questions compared to the same number of answers, there is no way they will ever answer even half of them.

Maybe the problem for me is that it's not contiguous. They give you these little show cliffhangers (much like a soap opera) and the next time you see them its 2 or 3 days later in their time. They have concluded what you were wondering about and are on to something else. My problem with that is that I wasn't finished with it. What happened? What's been going on for the last few days? I want a resolution for things that are currently happening, not just for the "big picture". They spend so much time and effort getting us involved with these characters and then seem to short-change us on the details.

That's the part that's bothering me and I didn't realize it until this episode. Ok, just my random thoughts. I didn't realize I thought that until I came here reading these posts and tried to type out what I think I thought :)

<b>McGuane and tapt</b> I am NOT a pessimist!! But after seeing the last episode of Lost, which was immediately followed by the opener for Aias, here is what struck me. The big ending of all of the Rimbaldi ruminations on Alias was that Arvin just "sold it" to the CIA. Unless I missed it, we still have no idea what it really was. If you are an Alias fan, remember the episode in which Syd runs into the big warehouse and there was that big red ball thing suspended above the ground? That was COOL, and very thought-provoking. So, that whole Rimbaldi series of clues and plot twists plays out by Arvin just selling it to the CIA?

Oh yeah - and Arvin is now the boss, and meekly asks Syd and Dixon to please just give him a chance -- but are we supposed to forget that he had her fiancee and his wife - murdered?

It makes me nervous for the plot continuity of LOST -- BUT -- before everyone comes on here and bashes me a la what happened on the TB the other day -- I am going to remain a firm believer for now -- I really am. I am still a thinking person all the same.

One example being the golf game.* They make this big deal about whether Jack will sink the put.* Everyone's betting on it and standing around watching it.* Then what happens?* The next week we see no mention of there ever being a golf game and the writers have said it's over, they won't revisit that.* Why make it a cliffhanger?

Regarding the glof game, I don't feel that it was a cliffhanger at all, in fact after that scene had ended, I paid no more thought to the bet, as it was not central to the story of that episode. I thought that ohe whole point of the bet over Jack's shot was to show Sawyer making an effort to interact with the rest of the survivors., and to that end, whether or nat Jack made the shot is largely irrelevant to the story.

well after reading all the posts.....i agree, mr tibbs did a wonderfully entertaining job of summing this show up!

i would not say that i hated the show....as i have mentioned in other posts (contrary to popular belief...i do contribute!), but it was just slower than the other episodes and being a premiere....we automatically expect more! *but i don't want to know everything all at once or this show would be too slow and pointless!

there was a lot explained in this episode:

~such as much of kate's backstory, though we were left hanging. *sure we were expecting something other than a toy plane and a better explination, but then that is kate and i feel we are supposed to have mixed feelings about her. *my thought is that we will continue to find out things we don't like about her and get to hating her until wham! we get hit with the pitiful truth and end up feeling stupid for hating her!

~we find out and understand that jack had to bury the marshall instead of letting him burn with the rest of the bodies...to me that speaks volumes of how ethical he is, he lost his patient (and a lot of that is also not being able to bury his own father=guilt) *and he felt a responsibility towards giving the marshall proper respect. *

~sayid and shannon....who else loves them together?!?!? i think they had an automatic spark in this episode and he seemed to open her up a heck of a lot better than boone has, did anyone else feel that she needs someone to talk to and be on her side? as far as that storyline goes....well we will see wednesday, huh?

~we are left in the dark about that matel thing in the ground, and i am glad we continue to be.....i am dying to know what is going on, but i feel like if we know everything too soon , the show will lose it's sizzle! *i bet we don't even find out nwendesday either....will it be like the monster? *we really never know? i hope not!

~i for one am disappointed in the search party not searching for claire, *but mind you it has been days (on the island) since she was abducted....and i am sure that in due time, we wil get our answers and find out where she is, who she is with, and why they wanted her. *

maybe this is something they will revolve the next season around: claire's whereabouts, the others and the rest of the island. *last season was about getting over the initial shock, this season is about working together and accepting that this very well may be their new home!

overall i was not that disappointed about this episode.........it just left you hanging with more questions than you started out with.

I will probably be roasted for making this comparison, but I also enjoy Desperate Housewives, and it has handled its central mystery in a way that is instructive to the way many are feelling about Lost. (I should mention that I read nothing about DH on the internet, don't go to message boards or read spoilers.)

Its central mystery, akin to what the story is about the island and how they were brought there, is the suicide of Mary Alice Young and what drove her to it. At this point in the season, I have no more idea of the big resolution than I do the mystery of the island, but I do feel that every episode the plotline progresses logically. I know now that she received a blackmail note on the day she killed herself. I know that there was a toy chest buried under their swimming pool that her husband dug up right after she died. I know that her troubled son believes it had something to do with his baby sister Dana and something awful that happened to her over ten years ago. I know who sent the blackmail note and what happened when her identity was discovered. And I now know what was in the toy chest (which was not at all what I expected but wasn't a toy airplane either.)

In all this I have never felt a lack of continuity. The chest has been "tracked" from after it was thrown into the river until the police revealed its contents (unlike the one-shot polar bear.) There was about a three episode arc in which Zack Young mentioned Dana but wouldn't say who that was, Susan Mayer realized that a baby blanket she got at Paul Young's garage sale belonged to Dana, and then Zack soon told the story of what he remembered about Dana, unlike the one visit to Danielle and no follow-up for weeks. It's not that I want instant gratification, and as I said, I'm really no closer to knowing what happened to Mary Alice than I was in September. What I do feel is that this is a continuous storyline that is maintained and advanced while the show at the same time delves into the individual stories of five families and a dozen regular characters.

Cardie

I love the show. Best show on TV, period.

That said, the show seems to be foundering a little under its the weight of all the various storylines. Basic logistics dictates that it's just not possible to give each storyline the attention it deserves each week. If not for the flashback device they seem slaved to, I think the plots would move a lot more smoothly.

hercircumstance says that in some of her posts she lays out exactly how it could be that they are all looking for Claire and such. That's great, but that's not supposed to be OUR job as viewers to make up the in-between stuff that somehow fixes the lapses of logic or continuity. That's the thing that I cannot stand about Star Trek is that the writers of the movies and TV shows happily make something up that has no connection to previously established canon and then the Trekkies faithfully line up and make up the stuff to justify the incongruities.

So far, Lost hasn't done this. So far. But with situations like with Claire, it's edging dangerously close. The choices the writers and producers are having to make aren't always storytelling choices. They've got 43 minutes of airtime to tell their story every week, and each week they have to make choices and sacrifices as to what they show onscreen and what they have to hold off on until another episode. Sometimes the choice is due to knowing they have to wait until a specific person's flashback episode before they can reveal a certain piece of information. At first, it wasn't a problem. But now, with so many balls in the air, and so many stories that have seeming urgency, they are having to wait. A normal show would have had the first scene of last week's episode be the opening of the bunker/metal hatch/whatever. But obviously, it's going to have some sort of paralell to Shannon and Boone's backstory (or someone elses) and they are having to wait to show us that. So in the meantime, they have to try to come up with some excuse as to why they aren't opening it (and in the same vein, why they aren't looking for Claire; why they aren't going to visit Danielle; why they aren't doing more to figure out what the monster is; why they aren't looking for more survivors; etc.) Of late, their plot excuses have become less and less convincing and logical.

I don't think they are stretching things out on purpose, or to increase ratings or whatever. They just have specific episodes they know in advance that will contain key plot points, and until then, they have to try as best they can to sidestep obvious logical questions. It's a balancing act that isn't working as well as they'd like. I'm sure if asked, the writers would concede that writing for a show like this is extremely difficult. I/we have lots of complaints, but I really don't know of a way to fix it without sticking in a bunch of 'tide-us-over' dialogue. "Any luck finding Claire?" "No, not today... any new news about the monster?" "Nope".

It wouldn't be so annoying if they haven't been sticking us with so much fluff lately.

Anyway, that's my latest two cents. (I'm up to $2.42 currently)

DP

First- this episode was not a premire or the start of a new season. The network decided to show reruns for a couple of weeks to "extend the season" and then use Lost as a lead in for the return of Alias. I don't believe there was any intention to create a cliffhanger.

I think a big reason for people feeling let down is that we did wait for three weeks and that builds expectation. To the best of my knowledge JJ and company do not control when or how the network schedules the shows. The timing of the three weeks of reruns was done by ABC, not JJ or Fury. If there had been no interruption and therefore no weeks of anticipation, I don't think people would have reacted the same. Not saying it would have been a favorite, just not such a letdown.

True, it added more mysterys but this is a show about mysteries. It has been only 12 episodes so I am not surprised there are no answers yet.

McGuane- I don't recall anyone calling anybody a dumbarse or stupid for any reason.

Impatient, perhaps... ;)

((McGuane- I don't recall anyone calling anybody a dumbarse or stupid for any reason))

Actually, it has been said both implicitly and outright many times that those who want any question or mystery answered are not mentally equipped enough, mature enough, or savvy enough viewers to "get it". Also that we are sad byproducts of the Instant Gratification society. Wish I had a nickle for every time we have been told to just go back to reality TV.

I think the whole flap over the "Case" ep brings up an interesting question. How many answers are too many? How soon for any answers is too soon? Does giving any resolution at all to any plotline bring Lost dangerously close to "ordinary" TV? Is it EVER OK, or even required, that A follow B in a linear fashion?

There are some posters who are what I call "Gulf of Tonken" blank check viewers. Seems they would be almost disappointed if anything ever got resolved. Would not be cool or edgy. Also, they do not appreciate any criticism of the writing on any count, believing any criticism to be the result of just not "getting it."

It's a constant balancing act for a show like lost to keep itself unpredictable and out of the box, but yet not fall over the "Twin Peaks" cliff. I just think "Case" was a misstep, but I am confident they will retain their balance.

Partyman, you honestly didn't even give it a second thought as to whether Jack made that put or not? Anyway, why not just show that he did or didn't at the end of the show? Again, I KNOW this doesn't have anything to do with the "BIG PICTURE", but it's in the details that the show seems to be getting "lost" as it where :)

I have to agree with darkpirahna. You stated what I was thinking much better than I did. And Cardielost, I don't watch DH, but I did like your analogy. I don't want them to give me everything now on a silver platter. I just want it to progress logically.

Partyman, you honestly didn't even give it a second thought as to whether Jack made that put or not? Anyway, why not just show that he did or didn't at the end of the show? Again, I KNOW this doesn't have anything to do with the "BIG PICTURE", but it's in the details that the show seems to be getting "lost" as it where :)



If you still want to know, I believe the diary on the main site said that he made it.

My reaction immediately following the episode was the same was the majority of viewers. I thought it was a weak episode, not necessarily the 'beginning of the end' or 'jumping the shark', just an episode that wasn't as good as some of the others.

While reading the many posts on the subject, I've realized that a lot of people have put a lot of thought into their opinions and reactions, and I thought I'd add mine to the mix:

-About not getting any answers: to put it bluntly, we're not going to be getting any answers any time soon. I'm fine with it myself, mostly because I have faith in the writers and I think that whenever they decide to tell me something, it will be the right time. It might frustrate the heck out of me, but that's the show. It's the way it's been since the beginning and will probably continue being for the foreseeable future.
It may seem like I'm being totally naive, but I don't think I am. I'm accepting the show as it is (I know it won't be perfect all the time) and seeing where it takes me. Who knows, maybe they'll fail miserably and all that time I invested in the show will be for nothing, or maybe they'll come up with the most amazing ideas ever and totally blow me away. I guess only time will tell. Until then I'm just enjoying the ride as much as I can.

- I've decided to wait on making my final judgement on this episode (or any other for that matter) until the end of the season so that I can see it in context. I know this episode was slow, but it was obviously used to set up plot points for the future and I'd like to see how it fits in with the grand scheme of things.

-Honestly, I don't think the writers are stretching out a 10 episode story into a whole season. They're taking their time with the story, which to me is just fine. I'd rather they take their time and give us a few slow episodes then rush through things and try to pack as much into every episode as possible. If the slow episodes become a trend, though, I might start having a problem, but from the previews it doesn't look like that should be an issue just yet.

-Even though this episode isn't my favorite one so far, I still feel that it was better then about 98% of any episode of any other show on TV right now. (but I think most people agree with me on that)

All that being said, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't criticize the writers or the episode, because constructive criticism is helpful in many ways. I just know that the writers have an idea of where they want to take the show, but hopefully they'll use our comments to help them get us there the best way they can.

I think our problem with this episode and recent episodes is that they storytelling tricks are starting to become a lot more transparent to the more dedicated viewers. For the vast majority of the 16-21 million people watching this show, the plot is resolved / advanced just fine. But for us, we are correctly realizing that we are being fed just tiny scraps of the larger meal each week.


I totally agree. Talking to some of my friends who have just started watching the show and aren't fanatics, last week's episode wasn't that great. But I think all our speculating makes it that much "worse", because we're expecting all our questions to be anwsered. At least subconsciously ;)

I think a problem was also all the spoilers people at this board get into - it's fine for some, but I found myself thinking "okay, duh, it's Kate's case. And they're gonna fight over it. Old news!" even right when they found it.

I liked last episode.
I didn't expect to see that side of Kate. (It sure made me think twice about her true personality)
The search for Claire is still standing, and of course is going to take a little while to see what Locke and Boone found.

I wasn't disapointed at all.
Keep them good episodes coming!

well i didn't realize it wasn't a season premiere...sure thought i heard that somewhere...my apologies about that.!