Lost – Season 5, Episode 4: “The Little Prince”

You have spoken and now I shall answer.

 Longtime reader and Lost fan Ivar asks: “What do you think about the now central role of time-traveling? With this new construction, it is hard to keep up with everything. The Island is moving through time, and the 8-1-5 people on it are too, + the three ’scientists’. The Others aren’t.  But, as we learned from the Episode where Desmond is having flashes, it is the conciousness what is moving through time…right?  What I’ve always loved about Lost is the mysterious character of the show. Everything seemed to be mystic, but in fact, not much was. Now this has changed. I think this is a little bit over the top. What do you think?”

Well Ivar, and Faraz (another reader who asked for my opinion), here’s what I think.  I think I am equal parts happy and unhappy with how this season has been going so far.  Let’s break it up and we’ll discuss the pros and the cons.

PROS:

New groupings — I’m digging the split camps.  We’ve got the Ocean 6 + Ben in one world, the 6 stranded homies chillin on the island, Desmond and Penny (and young Charlie) on their boat, Bernard and Rose (remember them?  yeah, we’ll get to that in second), Jin and the Rosseau-led Frenchies, and the Richard Alpert-led Others.  That’s A LOT of groupings, and I think that’s a good thing.  As the season progress, we’ll no doubt see these widespread posses start converging, which, along with the escalating plot, will really heighten the level of excitement.  Ahh it’s going to be sweet.

Information – For maybe the first time ever, Lost seems to be answering more questions than its asking.  This is a beautiful, wonderful, marvelous change.  At the very least, we’re given answers to questions immediately after they rise.  Instead of feeling like a fish being jerked around on a reel, we’re given the near-instant gratification of having our “What’s going on?!” anxiety assuaged.  People are talking about things, exchanging information, feelings, thoughts.  Last night we had one mano a mano conversation after the other — Why does Kate feel such a connection to Aaron?  Boom, because she lost so many other she cared about.  What’s happening to Charlotte?  Boom, aneurism on the way.  How will John get the Ocean Six back?  Boom, he has to die.  Pam, you failed art school.  Boom, roasted.  

Time travel (the good) – Time travel is a very delicate, tricky device to use on any tv series.  Some shows use it willy nilly, without any sense of continuity or logic (cough…Heroes…cough), while other shows employ it with only the strictest of guidelines (i.e. Journeyman).  Lost falls somewhere in between.  On the plus side, the time travel has allowed for some very cool discoveries and moments.  A few examples: the reveal of Farraday working in the past for the Dharma Initiative; Locke’s awesome conversation with Richard where Richard explained all this future stuff; Locke’s meeting a young Charles Widmore; Jin ending up with the Frenchies, etc.  All of these moments have enriched the plot, heightened the reality, and added new information and new mysteries (what’s the significance of the hydrogen bomb?  Whose canoes were those? )  Also, they’ve dodged a very dangerous bullet by having Farraday explain that you cannot change anything in the present/future by doing something different in the past (unless it involves Desmond, who is, for some reason, a timeline anomaly).  Thus, when Locke discouraged the homies from interacting with their past selves, it was already a moot point, as they wouldn’t have been able to anyway.

To answer Ivar’s question about conciousness, no, it is not just the consciousness of the people moving — remember, the whole reason they’re time traveling at all is because Ben unleashed the time travel powers in order to move the island.  The island itself has moved.  Which brings me to..

CONS:

Time Travel (the bad) – What the hell is going on?  Why do some people move and some don’t?  If Juliet is an Other, why doesn’t she jump where they jump (or don’t jump, to be precise)?  Why don’t Bernard and Rose end up where the other Oceanic 815′ers are?  How did Jin end up in the time travel radius if he a) was on the boat and b) blew up?  How does moving through time move the island itself?  How does moving the island ensure that Widmore won’t be able to find it?  There are still a LOT of questions to be answered.  If they’re all adequately answered in due time, we can feel free to remove this item from the Cons list.

Also, the enormous dependance on time-travel has officially and inexorably moved Lost into sci-fi territory.  While it’s always a been cultish series, time travel is a whole new level of weird (dare I say “nerdy?”), a move the series can never undo.  What’s next, super powers?  Reincarnation (hint hint, Jeremy Bentham).

Jin – Really?  You’re still alive?  There better be a badass explanation for this.  If there isn’t, I’ll live, but really?  A huge boat explosion that no one else survives?

The Final Reveal – Guess what, Jin.  YOU’RE TIME TRAVELING!  Thanks for telling us something that’s known to everyone in the universe except for Jin.  Maybe Jin can come sit on the couch and watch with me and then at least one of us would’ve enjoyed the ending.

So, am I happy with Lost?  Hell ya, I am.  It’s one of a select view shows these days that have me thirsting for the next installment (24, the upcoming Eastbound and Down, Chuck, Damages and Top Chef are pretty much the only other ones.  Mondays and Wednesdays are killin it!).  It’s super smart, super engaging and I firmly believe the writers know where they’re taking it.  I feel we’re all in good hands, and that each episode is a well-thought out, well-executed step towards an amazing endgame that will blow our minds fifty times over before its all said and done.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know!

Grade: B+