Pilot, Part 1
American television makes crap and lots of it. Fortunately here in Australia we are safe from most of it,[ftn] so any shows I hear about are usually top notch. There’s been a couple of interesting series made recently: The 4400 and Lost. They have a common mysterious theme which I like. I think I prefer Lost more at this stage. Although only having seen one episode, the idea of being stranded on a tropical island appeals to me more. Hopefully one day I will be lucky enough to be stranded on island with only my wits to survive and a bunch of nutters and maniacs to keep me company. While many movies about survival strike me as trite and contain many factual errors,[ftn] the subject as a whole fascinates me. I loved the conversation in The Day After Tomorrow about which books to save and which books to burn for warmth.[ftn]
It would make my day to have my plane crash although I’m concerned that I might be one of the ones who’ll die. I’d hate to be killed and miss the exciting survival part. No, I hear you say, you’re clearly the main character and the action would be centered around you. Well, I thank you for those kind words. Still I must be careful where in the plane I sit. The tail of the plane is always ripped off so it would have to be somewhere in the middle. The people in first class didn’t make it in Lost so I’m glad I never travel that way. I’m also concerned about being prepared. You may know that the scout motto is be prepared. It always struck me as being odd because you can’t possibly be prepared for everything; how would you prepare for the streets of New York flooding and freezing over?[ftn] What equipment should one have to deal with emergencies like zombie attacks? There’s a limit to the amount of ammunition one person can carry. The main character in Lost has a mini bottle of vodka which turns out to be handy for sterilising wounds. It’s easy in a computer game. If you can pick it up, you should. You’ll need it at some point and as most games have unlimited inventories you can pick up everything. Mind you, MacGuyver makes do with a pocket knife. I guess a knife is all you really need. Except you can’t bring one on a plane. So I don’t know.
Enough of my survival concerns, back to the show. Lost is about a group of people whose plane has crashed on a tropical island. It’s no ordinary tropical island however. There’s something mysterious going on. Their plane was off-course when it crashed so they won’t be rescued soon. The plot so far makes sense. They’re on a tropical island so they’ve been able to sit around for the first two days without shelter and they’re eating airplane food.
I like all the characters at the moment. I try to resist spotting the expendable characters to keep the surprise in the show but it can’t be helped sometimes. When one of the plane’s engines is still running after the crash, someone is going to be sucked in. There’s no surprise there.[ftn] This looks like it will be a very interesting show. It doesn’t look like the kind of show where they’ll be sitting around waiting for a boat to come past. I’m sure they’ll have many dramas and problems to overcome.
Footnotes
- and ice ages and zombie attacks but not reality tv.
- or have idiotic characters. I’d rather the nutters and maniacs.
- I would be arguing for the valuable books and against warmth. I’d die to save the library of Alexandria. Is this normal?
- The Day After Tomorrow again
- I do like a warning before people died sometimes. While horror movies predictably kill from least important to most important character, Band of Brothers was hard to watch because any character could be killed by a stray bullet at any time. I had no time to detach from the character.
Shannon
October 29th, 2004 at 10:42 pm
So far at ep 5 they haven’t had many dramas.. well, thats not true. They have, they just haven’t seemed very BIG. For example, when pregnant lady goes into labour (which I am expecting to be any episode now). And when drug-addict dude runs out of stash.
I really quite like all the characters so far, too. The lead guy is awfully similar to his character on Party of Five it seems, but maybe that just bad luck and not poor acting. Cos he seems to be doing fine.
What does slightly tick me off about the show is how similar it is to Alias. I know, I like Alias so why would similarity be bad? Well, its not bad as such, just irritating. The way its written, the way the cliffhangers are placed, the pace and flow, and the title flashing up at the end of the episode (and a useless title sequence merely showing the title logo for an extended period of time), its all very much of a muchness. Its very clear it made by the same people.
Oh, and Director Devlin packed a suitcase full of hunting knives. Handy, that. So long as he doesnt give anyone over to the FBI, he can stay.
Tom
October 30th, 2004 at 1:35 am
“how similar it is to Alias”“a useless title sequence merely showing the title logo for an extended period of time”
And yet you bagged me when I bagged it.
Anyhow, is it true that Dominic Monaghan — Merry — is in this show? Because I might have to watch it.
Jack
October 30th, 2004 at 1:52 am
You have to watch it anyway, because it has that asian dude from Crusade in it!! Or more commonly known as Gavin from Angel. At least I think I say him in the promo picture.
Anyway given this shows setting, I’d expect a lot more character pieces than drama as such. Good review Andy, look forward to reading more so I can decide whether to commit to it. I need a new show to start watching.
Andy
October 30th, 2004 at 12:26 pm
Gavin is indeed in it and he’s looking creepy – more on that next episode.
Merry is also in it and he’s upto something too – also in the next episode.
I don’t mind the style of the title sequence so much. It’s more the “Previously on Lost” I don’t like when I’ve downloaded the episodes and I watch several in a row. I don’t understand why television networks don’t cater more for their internet fan base.
Shannon
October 30th, 2004 at 6:15 pm
I know Thomas, I know, I remember. Thats why I put it in the brackets. I actually really quite like the lost title sequence (and the Alias one, for that matter) – I think it fits really well with the colour of the show, nice and creepy and full of question mark… ness. I just figured it would the the main similarity you noticed =)
There is so much character stuff its almost frustrating. I think its about time a character-centric show came along (although you wouldn’t guess it was from the 10 million dollar most expensive pilot ever made), the thing is my bratty television watching persona can’t handle it sometimes… I keep waiting for stuff to happen. Things to explode, main characters to die.. And so far they just.. be characters with issues. Good, but odd, given the setting.
Anyway what ep are you up to Andy? The Jin and Sun story is cool, I am excited by this revelation/where this is going.
And can I just note how weird it feels to have teh aussie girl Shannon being my favourite character so far? Icky.
Shannon
October 30th, 2004 at 6:25 pm
Ooooo wait no, Shannon is the really annoying one. Ahem.
Claire is the one I like. Tsk, there are so many I keep getting all their names confused.
Tom
October 30th, 2004 at 6:36 pm
You’re so open there. But I’m not going to do it. It’s too easy.
Tom
February 4th, 2005 at 10:37 am
Watched this today. I hadn’t realised that the silver lining to crashing is that you get to loot dead bodies. It’ll be hard next time I’m on a plane not to eye off everyone’s posessions just in case.
A lot of the characters seem very irritating. I may start to get annoyed if it’s only Jack and Kate who actually instigate things.
Shannon IS annoying. I saw that wobbling plant monster in Doctor Who once.
Andy
February 6th, 2005 at 2:26 am
So someone else has seen it. When I get on planes, I’m always checking out what other people have. Some people seem to think that looting is morally wrong though. Just ignore them.
Most of them are irritating and they fight each other a lot. Sayid and Locke instigate stuff more in later episodes.
Shannon is annoying and so it the one on Lost. She doesn’t look like a wobbling plant monster.
Shannon
February 6th, 2005 at 6:32 am
This joke was old in October. Moving on.
Sayid and Locke also get irritating. Shannon and Boone have the nastiest little secret going around.
And what’s up with the mysterious labrador, I wonder?