LOST

Hunger. Anger. LOST.

Update: Sam is incredibly hungry at the moment because he ingeniously decided to only have one meal the entire day. He is thus writing this post while munching on chips (in case you were wondering).

Update #2: Sam is mad due to the Emmy’s the other night.

Update #3: Due to the previously mentioned extreme hunger, Sam’s anger has been increased 100 fold regarding this.

IMPORTANT: For your convenience, parts of this post have been written in the 3rd person. And here commences the post:

First off, what the heck? No, seriously! What the heck!?

What is Sam talking about here? Get caught up on the info about the Emmy’s over here and here. Note: this ends the 3rd-person portion of the post.

How did LOST not win? Not only how did they not win everything, but how did the most anticipated television season/series finale of the last decade not win a single award? Not even Terry O’Quinn?? I mean, Aaron Paul? Seriously? Bryan Cranston I can totally understand beating Matthew Fox (though I love him) for lead actor in a drama, cause Bryan Cranston is a pretty incredible actor. But Aaron Paul beating BOTH Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson? That’s just… *choose your expletive combo*. While I am in awe of both Terry and Michael, Terry was the clear winner. He essentially played three separate characters in the sixth season alone (pre-Island Locke, post-Island Locke, and the Man in Black), and in such a way that I was taken aback multiple times.

I’m almost tempted to say Aaron Paul won because both Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson have won in previous years, but that excuse is crap, cause Mad Men has beat LOST in best drama for the past few years in a row. And yet again Mad Men beat LOST in the Best Drama department. That. Is. Crap. Sorry, had to say it. LOST has something no other series on the list has, an ending. It’s done. The LOST team ended LOST, and just how it should have ended. The finale did what the perfect finale should: it tied up every important character thread since the season, and finished answering nearly all the questions we posed in the first two seasons. It brought the series literally around full-circle, ending right where it began, in the same way the great epics of literature do. It was an immensely symbolic action, and for me more than anything finalized LOST’s place in television history. It began with an eye opening, it ended years later with that same eye closing in the same location. It was beautiful. It made everything in the last six seasons worth it. And it deserves recognition.

Yet here comes Mad Men. And what is Man Men anyways? Most people seem to make the same statements every year: “Oh, well Mad Men beat out LOST for Best Drama again. I mean, I don’t watch Mad Men, but I guess it’s good or something.” Nobody watches the show.

I have seen an episode of Mad Men, and honestly I didn’t like it that much. I’m sure there’s something good hidden there, but it didn’t soak me in, it didn’t make me feel invested in anything or make me want to keep watching. As my friend Will puts it, “From the first episode of LOST I watched, I was sucked in. I just realized these were pretty amazing characters.”

And HOW did LOST not win for cinematography for “The End”? As a photography enthusiast myself, my mind was blown after seeing the series finale. Some of the lighting, the mood, and the shots were beautiful. LOST should have won for just the shot of Locke staring out at the boat in the ocean with the storm rolling in. It was moody, crazy, and exactly what it should have been.
And how did “The End” not win for writing? I mean I’m sure the Mad Men episode “Shut The Door. Have A Seat.” had great writing, too. But Damon and Carlton did the impossible: they ended LOST. Correctly. They deserve an award all of their own for that! I figured the fact there was a whole thing where the Emmy’s allowed the “too-long” series finale to be accepted anyways was a pretty sure sign LOST was going to win.

I feel like Mad Men and Dexter beat out LOST for the same reason the academy award for picture of the year is always given out to a R-rated film which deals with what some self-proclaimed intellectuals would like to call “more serious, adult scenarios.” Nothing frivolous like time-traveling bunnies, island deities, and love after death.

Of course, after complaining about LOST I could go on to the other categories, such as how the heck did Jim Parsons (from Big Bang Theory, which you prob also didn’t know) beat out Steve Carell, Alec Baldwin, and the great Tony Shalhoub for best comedy actor? Tony Shalhoub deserved it for his great final season of Monk in my opinion.

And going back to the best supporting actors in a drama, where oh WHERE was the mention for John Noble as Walter Bishop?? Besides Terry O’Quinn he deserved it most of all. All of you should go watch the Fringe episode entitled “Peter” for yourselves. He is a truly brilliant actor, who is not getting the recognition he deserves. And once again, I can only think it’s cause Fringe is a sci-fi show. As such, the actors and drama cannot be treated seriously. That’s dumb, and shows a serious flaw in the award-system. Cry all you want. It’s flawed.

Basically I’ve LOST (haha, get the pun?) all faith in the Emmy’s, and it’s going to be very hard to get it back. However, even so, this doesn’t change my opinion of LOST in the least. LOST changed the way television can be approached, and that’ll always keep it special.

Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

PS – Post-rage, I realize some of my comments about Mad Men being unworthy and the Emmy’s being “dumb”, “incredibly flawed”, etc. were probably a bit harsh…. ah well!

LOST: thoughts on “The End”

This is the end. LOST is over. For good.

I just got back from a post-finale IHOP trip with some friends/fellow fans, which included a lot of good discussions about this episode. So while I’m currently too emotional, breathless, and blown away to write a full post about it, I figured I had to write a little something.

Ohhh where to start…

What an AMAZING episode. Everything has come to this point. Every thought, every theory, every tangent, every second of LOST has led to this episode. I’m putting this fact out there now: the LOST series finale is the greatest two and a half hours of anything ever. And that is no exaggeration. Writing: AMAZING. Acting: FANTASTIC. Special effects: INCREDIBLE. Cinematography: BREATHTAKING. Music: HEARTBREAKING. And on and on it goes…

I’ll admit the fact they didn’t answer a whole lot in terms of the nagging questions. But you know what? Who cares. I certainly don’t. And the fact that a huge fan like myself has come to the point where the ending was so good I don’t even want to know the full answer(s) is saying something. Every emotion since the first episode has culminated into this last fight, and this last goodbye. And the show took our feelings and threw them all around. Every single commercial break I was overjoyed, teary-eyed, or flat-out in awe.

Wow. The photography of the show was mind-blowing. LOST has always been the most beautiful show on television, but this episode blew even itself out of the water. The shot of Locke standing at the edge of the cliff with the storm coming in, the boat coming towards him, literally left me jaw-dropped. And then the sweeping, spinning camera angles of the incredible Jack/Flocke fight, combined with the dark and moody weather added up to be one of the most astoundingly epic scenes in television history. And of course, we can’t forget Jack’s huge Super Smash Bros. downward-punch before the commercial break (credit Mel Kobran for saying it was “Smash Bros. like”).

They even showed us the inside of the cave, which I never thought we would see. A strange symbol-covered stone in a pool of seemingly electromagnetic water. The stone seemed almost like it was a cork of some type. When the cork was removed, the Island began fall apart and sink. Now what could that remind us of? That reminds me of a certain conversation Jacob had with Richard in Ab Aeterno, in which he described the Island as a sort of “cork” to keep the evil from destroying the world. Of course it’s also interesting that the water from in the pool disappeared once the cork was removed. The only place I could think it would go would be into the hole from which Desmond pulled the cork from. Someone pulling a cork and water rushing into it, causing something catastrophic? Sound familiar? It sounds to me like when Ben went into his secret room to call Smokie. He reached into a puddle of water, pulled some sort of cork, watched the water disappear, then waited for the monster to show and destroy Widmore’s men. Maybe these two examples are just coincidence, or maybe they were meant to foreshadow what was to come.

The producers have said since the beginning they knew what the last frame of LOST was going to be, and I believe them. How poetic, how symbolic, how amazing that the show would begin with the opening of Jack’s eye, only to end with him slowly closing it. In the same position of the bamboo forest, no less.

This is The End. Nothing has ever felt more right in this television show, and I never thought I would say that. Here’s to LOST. And here’s to the most amazing, meta-physical/spiritual ending to any television show ever.

Well I’m tired, and emotionally drained. Time to go watch the Jimmy Kimmel after-show and then sleep, happy that God didn’t end the world at 8:59 PM like we all feared he might. More to come, OF COURSE…

Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

LOST Ends in One Hour

UPDATE: LOST begins to end in one hour. EXACTLY. And I’m watching it. You should, too.

A sort-of farewell note to those LOST

“Across the Sea” was AMAZING, and I hope by the end of this post you will all agree with me. As such, let’s get the problems I had with it out of the way. I can find only two things to fault this episode on. The first would be some of the acting by the children playing Jacob and his brother. However, this is forgivable in terms of the story being told. Also the fact the producers always seem to find the perfect-looking child actors helps.

The other fault is the language of the show. No, I don’t mean profanity, I mean literal language being spoken during the show. Or am I the only one confused as to why literally one second everyone is speaking Latin and the next everyone is speaking perfect English. Was this done just to help the audience understand what was going on? What are we to imply about the time period, or either mothers’ descents. It’s not like LOST to do something like this simply for the audience’s benefit. Heck, they had Sun and Jin speak solely Korean for nearly five seasons!

Despite this, I’m not sure I could ask more from an hour of television. From a purely film making perspective, the cinematography was great; lighting was very moody and atmospheric; editing was fast (in a good way) between all the different shots; acting (forgetting the aforementioned) was great; and the score by Michael Giacchino was superb. From an entertainment standpoint, I thought the story was tight, well-told, epicly vast, yet very quick; the graphics were perfectly minimalistic; and the action was compelling and emotional. From a LOST fanatic view, I watched it in awe and thought the episode answered some of the biggest and most pressing questions I’ve had about the show since the very first episode.

I’ve given up theorizing. There. I said it. I’m done reading Wikipedia late into the night, scouring the internet for clues. I’m done hanging on Darlton’s every word during the ABC Official LOST Podcast and watching the numerous theory videos on YouTube. I’m done reloading my page for new theories on DarkUFO and on my iPod Touch. I’m done waiting for Lostpedia to put up the info on the latest episode, and scrolling down to the “Trivia” section to see what facts I may have missed. Oh whoops… I just did that anyway. But you get the point. If you’re like me, you’ve been devoting your time to this show for the past six years, and you’ve realized this is the end. On Sunday, May 23, 2010 LOST ends. And I’m ready. I’m just in for the ride.

And maybe that explains my reaction to this episode. I’ve already talked to multiple people who said they either didn’t understand or else didn’t like the answers this episode gave. There was also one person who said the episode didn’t answer anything, but that’s clearly wrong, so we’re going to forget this person. The people who didn’t understand, I would urge you to watch it again, wait for our Dark Territory Podcast later this week, or else read the Lostpedia page on it. I suppose this is more of a response to those who “don’t like” the answers.

The number one reason people didn’t like the answers is because they seemed “too mystical.” I understand this from a certain perspective, but at the same time you have to think about what kind of show LOST is. So… what kind of show is it? Well LOST is a little bit of everything. It never claimed to be a realistic show or have a tangibly discernible answer. It never claimed to be a faith-driven show about morality and fate. It never claimed to be a temple-raiding, hieroglyphic-filled adventure show. In fact it never even claimed to be a sci-fi show. The only things it ever claimed to be was a drama and mystery show. And it is those two things which it has done masterfully throughout every storyline, genre, and character. It was also these two things which caused LOST to change the industry’s view of what a television show could be.

My point here is that while there are more realistic and sci-fi elements to the show, there is also a very important mythical element. As dharma_smokie so aptly put it, this story has necessary mythical elements and is in some ways even infinite. That’s just something we need to accept, and I feel like we should have a long time ago. Honestly, did you think they could explain a gigantic, animate, shape-shifting, cabin-dwelling, murderous, pillar of black smoke in terms of hard logic or rigorous science? I thought the explanation of Jacob throwing his brother down the waterfall into something his mother called “worse than death” was, while very fantastical, still more than acceptable. The entire Jacob/MIB story is epic and fantastical, and thus deserves such an explanation.

That doesn’t mean I accept this episode provided the entire answer, or that I wouldn’t welcome more explanation/specifics should the show choose to reveal them. However, it is an explanation, and one that (whether or not you “like” it) does make sense of things. Here’s a question: at what point did we start getting annoyed at what few answers LOST DOES give? How spoiled are we that we’re trying to pick-and-choose what answers are acceptable in the greatest mystery show of all time? What kind of backwards, screwed up system have we thought up? We’ve been asking for the past six years, and now we have the answer. As fans we tend to over-think things, especially if you’re the type of fan who blogs and reads about LOST all the time. We get caught up in little details that end up being little more than nothing, or create vast networks of theories to explain all of the perceived intricacies. Then we complain when the show goes in a completely different direction than we felt it would or feel it should.

Those of you who have been following our podcasts for a while may recall how mad Will and I were with the explanation for the time flashes in Season Five. We had thought up an entire explanation linking the events to electromagnetic stability, Christian Shepherd, previous Island events, and more. The real explanation ended up being “the wheel was off it’s axis.” I realize now that I was just caught up in little nuances. See? Even I, the smartest LOST fan ever (sarcasm) can get mad when the show does things I don’t expect.

And that’s why I’m done, and you all should be, too. Quit getting annoyed about what LOST does explain, and keep watching it for what it will explain. They’ve done it. I applaud Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Jack Bender, JJ Abrams, and everyone else who has brought this vision to life. You’ve changed the industry in ways we can’t yet imagine. You’ve brought fans together, and helped form relationships that have certainly affected our lives. You have done the impossible, and we all love you for it.

We have three and a half hours left of the greatest show to ever grace my television. And then it’s over. I wonder if they’ll show a big “The End” after the final episode. I’ll tell ya one thing: I can’t wait.

Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

Back up and running!

Things are finally back to normal here at the Chasing Lilly organization (AKA my head). It took me way longer than it should have, but everything is now moved over to the new web host and working properly… at least as far as I can tell. I was having trouble with links to posts and the RSS feed, mainly that they apparently didn’t exist. That’s also the reason you haven’t been seeing any new LOST Podcasts the last three weeks. The RSS feed disappeared for it, so I figured posting a dead link on the blog here would be pretty useless. Don’t worry, though, I’ll upload the ones we missed and continue on until the series premiere in two weeks, Sunday, May 23rd.

I’m currently writing a big LOST note to the entire fan community and everyone who has helped make the show over the years. You can consider it my early LOST farewell letter.

I have many other posts in the mix to put up as well. But I figured I’d give you all a quick update as to what’s going on and that I do indeed still exist in the land of the living!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

TDT LOST Podcast – Recap Episode 6.11 Happily Ever After

Listen above or download from here (right-click, save as). The podcast is up on iTunes, so be sure to subscribe! PLEASE!

In this week’s episode we talk about:

Review of “Happily Ever After” (A Desmond episode )

Also:

Desmond episodes ROCK!
Mikhail
Jacob’s list
Seeing old characters
Everyone loves Daniel
Extreme emotions and the two timelines
Hearing things…
Hawking? HAWKING!? WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON??
How this will all end
Wrapping up the ALT Timeline… uh, yeah, how?
Desmond’s “sacrifice”
(yeah… we kinda talk about A LOT this episode!)
Taking sides, the final battle is coming
Eloise Hawking: The ethereal, multi-dimensional, time-travelling, knowledge dictionary
LIBBY NEXT EPISODE!
And MORE!!!

Yes, this is a longer episode, but in our opinion it’s our best, most thought-filled podcast we’ve done this whole season! Enjoy!
Happy Trails,
Sam.

PS — We forgot to mention this picture from the episode, which is REALLLYYY interesting. It’s of a painting in Widmore’s office:

Interesting, the two scales are balanced here, instead of constantly one way or the other as it seems to be in the original timeline… Perhaps it is this fact which created this ALT timeline? The scales being even is the cause of this timeline. But then how could the scales be evened? Just an idea from Sam here, but what if the two scales are evened because they are both dead. What if in the ALT both are dead, and this is the cause, a world without men wearing greyscale clothing. Just Hawking wanting to keep it that way.

As always: Watch LOST tomorrow night!

TDT LOST Podcast – Recap Episode 6.10 The Package

Listen above or download from here (right-click, save as). The podcast is up on iTunes, so be sure to subscribe! PLEASE!

In this week’s episode we talk about:

Review of the “The Package”

Also:

Talk about many theories
Actually exciting Sun and Jin episode??
Loving the old characters! Yeah, we’re talking about Keamy, Mikhail, and more.
Mikhail thoughts
LOST FANS: START WATCHING FRINGE NAO!
Flocke can’t float on water?
And MORE!!!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

PS — Watch LOST tonight!

Digital Story: Important Info

The following is important information for you all dealing with my digital story. Seriously, read this or you might get confused:

As most of you know, I had originally chosen to do my mandatory digital story this semester based off the best show in all of ever, LOST. I had two great ideas, unfortunately both of these ideas have fallen through. While I hinted at this in an earlier post, it is now official. Not to worry, though, because I already am in production of a different non-LOST-related story for my blog. Though admittedly the way I want to tell to story is very LOST-esque, including hiding clues within the videos, and great foreshadowing (which LOST excels at!)

You need to know: a post which is part of the digital story will have a title starting with “Samuel Michaels …”. You can also view only posts relating to the story by keeping an eye on this page (link: http://chasinglilly.net/blog/tag/samuel-michaels/) The first part will be up before 11 tonight. I can’t reveal too much, though I can tell you that it’s a drama series composed mainly of videos.

As you will be able to tell from the first video, an unidentified person will be uploading a series of videos to their account over the next few weeks. The videos are from a video blog series by “Samuel Michaels” (aka user newfoundmemories122) which was originally posted in early March 2009. These videos are only copies of the originals which “The Uploader” managed to saved before they were taken down. “The Uploader” is also somehow in possession of Michaels’s personal dv camcorder, and will be uploading videos from it as well.

These videos start off normal. But there is something weird about them, not the least of which being that the originals were taken down by direct request from a company named “Burke Pharmaceuticals”. Why would they take them down? What is it about Michaels which makes him so important? But I have already said too much…

More to come,

Sam.

TDT LOST Podcast – Recap Episode 6.09 Ab Aeterno

Listen above or download from here (right-click, save as). The podcast is up on iTunes, so be sure to subscribe! PLEASE!

In this week’s episode we talk about:

Review of the episode

Also:

Talk about many theories
Richard (or rather Ricardo)
The MIB’s known history
Not caring about Illana
References to Hell
The remaining mysteries
And MORE!!!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

PS — Been having some major problems with uploading from the network in my dorm, especially to YouTube. Stay tuned!

Recording, editing, hosting, and syndicating a podcast… for FREE!

This post is a few days late, but it is here none the less! With such a specific title, there’s not much to explain in this post other than that I did another screencast tutorial. Although a few things have already been shown in class, it is worth going over again. Pretty much what you will learn is the basics of how I record audio from Skype, edit it in Audacity, and host it, all for our weekly LOST podcast.

I do have to apologize for the seeming quickness of the tutorial, YouTube now only allows 10 minute videos so I had to be fast. Also for the general annoyingness of my voice in a few segments. Enjoy, though! Rate it, leave some comments, etc!