Whatcha Bleedin' Watchin'?

[Avaitor]

I suppose that's an unpopular opinion on this site, by far.

Yeah, it really is.

[talonmalon333]

I suppose that's an unpopular opinion on this site, by far.

Yeah, it really is.

And I will never change it. Unless something incredible just connects with me the same way that Lost did.

[gunswordfist]

I suppose that's an unpopular opinion on this site, by far.

Yeah, it really is.

And I will never change it. Unless something incredible just connects with me the same way that Lost did.

[talonmalon333]

I suppose that's an unpopular opinion on this site, by far.

Yeah, it really is.

And I will never change it. Unless something incredible just connects with me the same way that Lost did.

What's up, GSF?

[gunswordfist]

I was agreeing with you not worrying about sharing everyone else's opinion.

[Avaitor]

I suppose that's an unpopular opinion on this site, by far.

Yeah, it really is.

And I will never change it. Unless something incredible just connects with me the same way that Lost did.

Have ya seen The Wire?

[Nel_Annette]

First three seasons of Lost, minus Nikki and Paulo? Yeah, best show ever. Seasons 4-6? Lost me completely. Just disappointment after disappointment. Except for Keamy (awesome antagonist, even if just for one season) and Jacob's season 5 episode.

[GregX]

Just finished rewatching Lost. No matter what anyone says, to me, this is still the greatest show ever made.

I suppose that's an unpopular opinion on this site, by far.

Breaking Bad, dude.

[talonmalon333]

I was agreeing with you not worrying about sharing everyone else's opinion.

Have ya seen The Wire?

I have not. So I can't say much for it. But I really do mean that it would take a lot for something to top Lost for me. Mainly because I can't think of a central cast of any show that I cared about on the same level as the characters of Lost.

First three seasons of Lost, minus Nikki and Paulo? Yeah, best show ever. Seasons 4-6? Lost me completely. Just disappointment after disappointment. Except for Keamy (awesome antagonist, even if just for one season) and Jacob's season 5 episode.

This might be better for me to say in the unpopular opinions thread, but I'll just do it here since we're already on the topic. Prepare for major Lost fanboying in this post. Here I go...

To start, I don't actually think Nikki and Paulo are that bad. I mean, they aren't good characters, and I'd call them the weakest characters on the show. But they didn't necessarily hurt the show for me. The reaction they got from fans was so bad that the writers scrapped their original ideas and just killed off the characters quickly, which ironically is what kept them from damaging the storyline to me.

Next, and I know I'm in the minority on this when it comes to Lost fans, but overall, I actually like the second half of the show more. Season 3 is the best in my mind, with the season 3 finale being the best episode of the series and ending with one of my favorite plot twists in any show ever. But I would say that, despite being great, season 1 is easily the weakest season of the show. I can get why people love it, and I might say it's the least flawed season (and on the flip side, I think season 3 is arguably the most flawed despite being the best in my mind). Season 1 certainly had a grip to it, a simple and primal feel to it, that brought in so many people. When the series began to get "convoluted", Lost dropped in ratings. But I actually think the craziness of season 3 onward is when Lost really got its own identity. I actually preferred that to the simple survival that the first season was all about. Not to mention, season 1 also starred some of the weaker characters (Shannon, Walt, etc.) and some of the show's absolute best characters (namely Ben, Juliet, and Desmond) weren't yet introduced). It had the rest of the great characters, of course, but they hadn't yet gotten extremely developed. When comparing the two simple, survival-based seasons that started the show, I greatly prefer season 2 to season 1. It cut out most of the weaker characters, introduced some of the best characters, developed the cast further, started the shift into the show Lost would ultimately become, and then there is the matter of the Others, man. In the first season, they were just the faceless, mysterious danger of the Island, and that was effective. But in season 2, man, they really got scary (though to be specific, I'd say this was the season 1 finale onward). They were still shrouded greatly in mystery, but the bits and pieces we knew of them made them really intimidating as the show's antagonist for a while (the bearded sea captain, the Others being the masters of the jungle, "This is our Island", and of course the eventual revelation that their primitive appearance was merely a facade). Also, season 2 was when the classic and well loved "Jack versus Locke, man of science versus man of faith" conflict took the center stage.

Now the reason I prefer the later seasons (or rather, seasons 3-6 over seasons 1-2) is because of many reasons. To start, and, ironically, I liked knowing more about the Others. Admittedly Tom, the sea captain who wore the fake beard, did feel a bit softened up once we saw more of the Others to the point where he was sometimes a pushover. But I gladly welcome replacing him with Ben, who is a phenomenal character. I thought it was cool seeing that the Others are an advanced civilization of people with ties all over the world. And I thought it was cool when we came to realize that, in theory, the Others are truly an organization for the good of mankind, and that like many things, whether they appear to be good or evil depends on who their leader is. The Others exist to protect the Island under Jacob, and to prevent the black smoke from ever escaping. But Ben used them for personal reasons, and for other things that, in the grand scheme of things, didn't really matter, such as pregnancy issues on the island. It's like the Church. The Church lives under the word of God, but they are also to blame for much bloodshed all across history.

But the main reason I like the later seasons is because, over time, my investment in the characters just grew. I really cared about everything they had to overcome on the Island. I loved seeing everything they had to go through in season 4 to finally escape the Island, and I liked the flash-forwards more than the flashbacks in general. As you said, Keamy was also a good villain and a terrible human being (probably the 3rd most terrible person on the show, after Locke's father and Jacob's black smoke brother). I also liked the characters introduced in this season. And the moment Ben allowed Keamy to murder Alex is a phenomenal moment of the show (way better than the incredibly anticlimactic and disappointing death of Danielle). Overall though, season 4 is my least favorite of the later seasons. But it still has some phenomenal moments, such as the phone call between Desmond and Penny (that moment, man), and Alex's death as I mentioned earlier.

Then there is season 5, which I could imagine being one of the lower tier seasons for most fans. To start, I really liked the romance between Sawyer and Juliet. Sawyer was my favorite character on the show, and Juliet was probably up there in my top 5. I just loved seeing them together, and it was nice knowing that they spent three years living happily together on the Island, probably the happiest three years of their lives. I'd say Sawyer and Juliet was my 2nd favorite pairing of the show, 2nd only to the obligatory Desmond and Penny romance. And it's funny because, for many years of the show, when the whole Jack, Kate, and Sawyer love triangle was happening, I always thought Kate and Sawyer made more sense together. Then when Juliet was introduced and we saw her grow close to Jack, I saw her as being the perfect companion for Jack, since I of course figured Kate was better off with Sawer. But after seasons 4 and 5, which firmly established Jack and Kate together, and then Sawyer and Juliet together, it was the complete opposite of what I imagine. And yet it ended up being perfect, I wouldn't have it any other way. And I also liked the time travel element of this season, with the characters going back in time to the Dharma and ultimately causing "the Incident" that lead to the creation of the Swan hatch, despite all their intent to stop that exact thing. The whole Jack and Kate dynamic was also solid, seeing them in love in season 4, and then having this figurative wall between them in season 5. Admittedly, season 5 does have what might be my least favorite episode of the show (the episode that details Locke's final days, which is well made but it just makes me depressed for so many reasons) but I love everything else about it, and even that episode was incredibly necessary for what came next. It also led to Jack becoming Locke's spiritual successor as the person who believed in the Island, which was such a fulfilling piece of character development. And then of course there's the "present day" world, of the black smoke impersonating Locke and manipulating Ben into killing Jacob. I liked that more than both the flashbacks of early episodes, as well as the flash-forwards of season 4.

Then you have season 6. And I know many people thought this was an underwhelming finale. I suppose there's somethin strange about the plot of Jacob and his brother. Maybe it was strange to take everything that had ever happened in the history of this show and narrow it down to two individuals. But I thought it was an interesting way to scale everything back to being smaller, and almost taking the show back to its roots by exploring the concept of good and evil and personifying them in two individuals, which was actually the original intent of the show. Perhaps Jacob and his brother weren't the most interesting characters, and this season didn't explain every mystery. But I didn't want every mystery to be explained. The mythology just served to enrich the setting and drive the story of the characters (even though I didn't expect or care to know why Walt was so special, I do have to admit it was probably bad planning for them to build up this child character who was obviously going to age at a faster rate than the adults, which is what ultimately led to them writing Walt out of the show). That's what Lost was about. It wasn't a show about mysteries. It was about the lives of these people who had been brought together. That's why I fell in love with it, and why I stated above that Lost has by far my favorite main cast in any show. To me, season 6 was a wonderful way to bring them all back together in the end. That's what season 6 was to me, and why I love it. And the mythology of it (such as the history of Jacob and his brother, and the revelation that the smoke monster was truly behind everything in the show despite appearing as a minor threat in seasons 1-4. In fact I have a feeling he planned on appearing as an unimportant entity who was always in the background before he could finally put into motion his plan of killing Jacob, all the while secretly driving the events of the story until that exact moment where Ben murdered Jacob. Sure, I know this wasn't the original plan for the writers as the smoke monster was intended as the Island's security system for the majority of the show, but I think this is a retcon that really works. It all goes back to that cloud of black smoke that terrified the survivors and the audience in the very first episode), and the whole system of the Island being the "light" and essentially the most important place in the entire world, just served to enrich that character experience.

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Okay, so I really fanboy'd above, didn't I? Like... to the point where I started rambling on things that you didn't even begin to address (that whole comparison between season 1 and season 2 was completely unnecessary, I admit ). Well, like I said above, I just really love this show, which is a fact that I don't think was even particularly known by you guys until today. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to babble about Lost. You don't even have to read that if you don't want to. If you did, hopefully the overall point I was trying to make was hidden somewhere in there. When it comes to Lost, I get so mushy, but I guess that's just proof of how by how much it's my favorite show.

tl;dr version: I like the later seasons of Lost more than the earlier ones because I enjoy the character struggles of them more than the more survival-based dangers of the early seasons. And I wasn't disappointed by seasons 4-6. I also like the insane mythology over the more simple, "sort of" realistic island of the first season. From favorite to least favorite, I rank the seasons like this:
Season 3 >/= Season 5 > Season 6 > Season 2 > Season 4 > Season 1

But in my mind, all six seasons are great and mean something special to me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

The Wire, Talon. Watch that.

[talonmalon333]

I was hoping that the post following my wall of text would be a single line. You didn't disappoint, good sir.

[gunswordfist]

Prison Break, Dr. Watch that.

[Foggle]

Thirding The Wire.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Prison Break, Dr. Watch that.

But I tried it. It was interesting, but then they broke out of the prison and it got weird after that.

[gunswordfist]

Sounds like a true story.