Lost Season 04: 09-13
I felt a little ambivalent watching these episodes – mainly because I had to watch them before the new season aired, and I kind of already had some idea of where it was going to end up.
In some ways, that’s fitting, because inevitability and impatience is what really marked this season for me.
It’s been interesting seeing how this show has changed approach to episode structure with each season.
The first season stuck strictly to character specific flashbacks till the finale.
The second season dealt, to almost widespread criticism, mainly with establishing past histories for newer or previously unseen characters, though it started the season trying to reconcile the fact that the series regulars aren’t together any more.
The third brings in The Others, and though there are still flashbacks for our original survivors, this is where the focus starts to shift, from the past to the future, with predictions, plans, and an eye to what might be happening off the island, with the final episode of the season making this focus literal with a flash-forward to how badly things have gone wrong – or at least seem to have – once the survivors – at least some of them – make it off the island.
Season four was pretty much all flash-forwards. And catching up on these episodes all at once, I realised what the basic problem I had with that was, and why I wasn’t really in any hurry to watch them when they broadcast – once it became apparent that this was how the season was going to run, that made the whole season about treading water until it caught up with itself – like those first few odd episodes of season two.
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