Lost Again

The Lost season opener was last night. I liked many aspects of it, although I was not thrilled that I will apparently have to wait until episode 3 or later to find out what's been going on back at camp.

Lost is a very difficult show to write, because it has so many main characters (14 in the first season - I haven't really tried to count what it'll be this season ), but each episode focuses on one or two in particular. A typical episode = A-plot (character on island deals with problem), flashbacks (same character goes through crisis in his past that somehow relates to present problem) and B-plot (meanwhile other characters do something silly like play golf or eat imaginary peanut butter).

So that keeps four or five of the characters busy. What do you do with all those other cast members? You either a: find an excuse for them to have a walk-on or b: isolate them and bring them back when they're needed. The situation at the end of Season 2 had the characters split up into basically four groups: Prisoners of the Others (Jack, Kate, Sawyer), the Elizabeth group (Sayid, Jin, Sun), the Swan gang (Locke, Eko, Desmond), and the main camp (everybody else). Five, if you count Hurley hiking all by his lonesome.

The opener was all Prisoners. Next week's episode brings in the Elizabeth group. The third week might go to the Swan, or they may continue with the Prisoners storyline for a while.

Man, what I really wanted was a two hour opener that gave a little of everything. It's only right, since that's the way they left us at the end of last season.

On the good news side, Lost is at least a show that commits to its changes. Season 2 was completely different from Season 1, and it looks as if Season 3 will be even more different. Unlike, say, Smallville, which seems to bring on major changes at the end of every season, only to retcon stuff by the end of one or episodes in the new season.