I watched the first season of Lost. Thought it was garbage. And gave it up. Once a month I thank myself for having the sense to stop watching it. - leesjshez
Each to his or her own. You didn't offer any reasons for why you thought
Lost was garbage, though, so yours is just another unsubstantiated internet opinion.
Lost is in my list of top ten "desert island" television series, as is
The Prisoner.
Lost was pretty ballsy first in its parsing out of detail, so that at the end of an episode you have a much different perception of what is going on than you did at the beginning. Then came the realization by degrees of what forces, factors, situations, etc., were lurking behind what at first seemed to be a mere plane crash. That realization encompassed physical, metaphysical, philosophical, and spiritual realities, and for a television series to embrace such a broad palette in such a jaded, cynical age is pretty audacious.
True,
Lost did wind up getting pretty far out there, and by the fourth season I was convinced that they were making it up as they were going along. But in a sense,
Lost was the first interactive TV show as it soon became the focus of intense internet speculation about what was happening and what would happen, and the showrunners seemed intent on staying a step ahead of the show's audience. In the last analysis, it was worth my time to watch it. Part of the reason for that is seeing the influence of previous television series in
Lost, from
Gilligan's Island to
The Prisoner to
The X Files. As a continuation of storytelling innovation,
Lost was pretty impressive.
J.J. Abrams is probably the most overrated guy working in Hollywood.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree. I suspect that his cohorts--including Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and Roberto Orci--hold a pretty big piece of what makes their collaborative projects so effective, but I don't think any of them, individually or collectively, have an automatic golden touch; Lindelof and Orci helped with the script for
Prometheus, which was very disappointing. Abrams himself was tepid with
Super 8, which succumbed to sub-Spielberg suburban sentiment.
Why does No. 6 need to offer reasons for resigning? It would take away one of the points of the show - His captors trying to find out why.
Now this is a fascinating question. It lurks beneath the surface of Number Six's incarceration and interrogation, and yet it is never really explored.
Why were his captors, or his former employers--and we do not know for certain that they are one and the same--so anxious to know this? Did he have sensitive specific information that led to his resignation that could be threatening, over and above the generally sensitive information he holds? Is it the embarrassment he could cause by revealing why he resigned--could that reflect poorly on his former agency? Is it simply a burning curiosity to know what caused his decision? He was presumably highly placed in whichever agency he was in*, and to have such a figure resign is an embarrassment, or a loss of prestige or confidence, to that agency.
* If the assignment of numbers is an accurate general indicator of rank or prestige--Number Two is the Village administrator, and as Number Six puts it, "Number One is the boss"--then Number Six must be a very highly placed operative. Thus, the details of his resignation are not trivial.
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"If life's for living, what's living for?" - Ray Davies
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Owlwise
10 years ago
The first Number 2 that Number 6 encounters in "Arrival" comments almost offhandedly that he accepts Number 6's "personal reasons" for resigning, which would indicate a matter of conscience more than anything else, it seems to me. But of course the specific reason doesn't matter so much in itself as it does as McGuffin. The real point isn't what Number 6 knows, it's that he insists on it remaining a private, personal matter. He doesn't see any reason to explain or justify himself; this is the choice he has made, it's his own business, and that's all there is to it. In short, is there such a thing a privacy, or a right to privacy? Does an individual require the approval of society for his innermost thoughts & beliefs, especially if they have no effect on anyone but himself? How much of a man's soul does Authority have a right to know? To control? To use?
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darryl-tahirali
10 years ago
But of course the specific reason doesn't matter so much in itself as it does as McGuffin. The real point isn't what Number 6 knows, it's that he insists on it remaining a private, personal matter. - Owlwise
Owlwise, you're right in that the literal aspects are subordinate to the abstract exploration that Patrick McGoohan and his collaborators were trying to convey, those being the examination of the individual's freedom even within a "free" society, let alone a controlled one; questions of perceptions of identity, memory, and reality; and so on. So, as you note, it's not necessarily Number Six's actual reasons for resigning that are critical but that authority should have access to those reasons.
And, surprisingly,
The Prisoner seems to have dated very little, not counting a few technical details, because it did not rely on actual references and examples but only broad, general suggestions of such. By illustrating the concept and not the mechanism, the series has kept fresh even a near-half century after its production.
On the other hand, though, it was the sense of realism in the show that made the larger theoretical and philosophical explorations that much more powerful. Thus, I think that it walked a fine line between a naturalist, realistic presentation of circumstances and persuading viewers to look beyond those circumstances to see the "real point," as you put it.
It all boils down to a matter of degree, with that degree being the extent to which abstraction affects presentation. For example, I've never had a problem with "Rover," whether it was supposed to be a literal device that hunted down potential escapees even if it looked like a downed weather balloon (which of course it was) or was supposed to be a metaphorical shorthand for a larger containment/restraint mechanism limited by technical (or even creative) considerations. But Rover was merely a tool, not integral to the storytelling, even if that storytelling did have a strong appearance of realism.
It's that last, though, that makes for me "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" my least-favorite episode. The central element in that episode is the mind-switching device that puts Number Six's mind into another man's body and having that man be Number Six for the episode. It may have been necessary from a production standpoint--McGoohan was largely unavailable as he was filming
Ice Station Zebra--but it always struck me as a cheap science-fiction trick that detracted from the show's inherent plausibility. (And having a similar device used in an episode of
Gilligan's Island the previous year didn't help.) So, even though there may have been a larger, more abstract point to be made, the vehicle to get to that abstraction lacked the plausibility that had informed the series to that point.
Even if you think that in a show purportedly about the spy business, nothing should be taken at (ahem) "face" value.
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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca
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