#1 Lost
The 2004-05 TV season was one of the best in a long time. There were several great new series (LOST, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, VERONICA MARS, KEVIN HILL, BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA), strong holdovers from last season (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, DEADWOOD, THE L WORD), and some veteran shows that put together their finest seasons in a while (GILMORE GIRLS, SIX FEET UNDER, ER).
Picking my #1 show was therefore very difficult. In the end, it came down to DEADWOOD and LOST. While DEADWOOD is one of the most beautifully written shows on television, with it's elegant mixture of elegant prose and colorful vulgarity, LOST was the show that truly got my heart racing on a weekly basis.
The pilot episode of LOST was an incredibly tense and fast paced tale of desperation and survival. Depite the strong start, the show still needed to develop characters to succeed in the long run. Abrams made the smart decision to use a flashback technique in each episode to let us get to know the various characters. The 2nd episode, focusing on the character of Kate, was a nice way to get that going. However, it was the third episode, entitled "Walkabout" that made me fully confident that LOST was gonna be a wonderful show.
"Walkabout" focused on the show's best character, John Locke (brilliantly played by Terry O' Quinn). It was an extremely well written piece of character development, showing us how sad Locke's life was before the plane crash and introducing us to a striking dilemma: the plane crash is the best thing that ever happened to Locke. Why would he want to leave? That dilemma makes his character far more suspicious and complex than we get from major characters on any other show. After this, the show did have a couple rough spots, but there were more great episodes to come, including "..In Translation" which finally provided some strong development for Sun and Jin's characters, and "Do No Harm" which had the tragic death of Boone.
What makes LOST such a great show is not only the acting (which I haven't given enough justice to, unless you read my awards) and the technical production, but the open ended storyline. The constant mysteries surrounding the island, the beast, the numbers, the hatch and I'm sure many more to come, provide constant interest in even the weakest episodes. When the writers rise to the challenge of taking this concept to a new level, LOST reaches a spellbinding originality that you'll never find in a DA's office.
Picking my #1 show was therefore very difficult. In the end, it came down to DEADWOOD and LOST. While DEADWOOD is one of the most beautifully written shows on television, with it's elegant mixture of elegant prose and colorful vulgarity, LOST was the show that truly got my heart racing on a weekly basis.
The pilot episode of LOST was an incredibly tense and fast paced tale of desperation and survival. Depite the strong start, the show still needed to develop characters to succeed in the long run. Abrams made the smart decision to use a flashback technique in each episode to let us get to know the various characters. The 2nd episode, focusing on the character of Kate, was a nice way to get that going. However, it was the third episode, entitled "Walkabout" that made me fully confident that LOST was gonna be a wonderful show.
"Walkabout" focused on the show's best character, John Locke (brilliantly played by Terry O' Quinn). It was an extremely well written piece of character development, showing us how sad Locke's life was before the plane crash and introducing us to a striking dilemma: the plane crash is the best thing that ever happened to Locke. Why would he want to leave? That dilemma makes his character far more suspicious and complex than we get from major characters on any other show. After this, the show did have a couple rough spots, but there were more great episodes to come, including "..In Translation" which finally provided some strong development for Sun and Jin's characters, and "Do No Harm" which had the tragic death of Boone.
What makes LOST such a great show is not only the acting (which I haven't given enough justice to, unless you read my awards) and the technical production, but the open ended storyline. The constant mysteries surrounding the island, the beast, the numbers, the hatch and I'm sure many more to come, provide constant interest in even the weakest episodes. When the writers rise to the challenge of taking this concept to a new level, LOST reaches a spellbinding originality that you'll never find in a DA's office.
posted by Larry McGillicuddy at
2:23 AM
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