facebook_pixel Press "Enter" to skip to content

Looking to start your TV writing journey?

Posts tagged as “Lost”

Put down the remote (Emmys 2009)

The Emmys still fail.
There, I said it.
Despite Neil Patrick Harris doing an incredible job (obviously way superior to last year’s abysmal opening), most of the results did suck.

Obviously, there were no major surprises regarding who won the major awards.
Overhyped much?

On a completely random subject, I was surprised to see Elisabeth Moss kissing Fred Armisen.

Turns out, they’re engaged.
(Yeah, I’m not one to peruse the E! Online pages)

And was that a dig from Glenn Close at the poor writing from Damages’ Second Season?
Said Close:

I wanna begin by thanking Todd, Glenn and Daniel for giving me, probably, maybe, the character of my lifetime — depending on what they do this season. (awkward laugh)

Anyways, Little Dorrit garnered the most Emmy wins of the night with a total of seven, closely followed by Grey Gardens.
I was pretty disappointed that Generation Kill didn’t win best mini-series. Poor Flight of the Conchords never had a chance either.
30 Rock is at five, one more than…Pushing Daisies, the second TV show on the list!
Kristin Chenoweth winning was both surprising and well-deserved.
HBO dominated the Emmys with 21 awards (NBC comes in second with 16, ABC third with 11, and FOX fifth with 10).

It’s funny seeing how the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences categorizes the web-based wins.
For instance, the network (yes) for Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog (which won “Outstanding Special Class – Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program”) is actually drhorrible.com.
For you Lost fans out there, in case you didn’t know, the show did win something else: “Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media (Fiction)”, thanks to the latest Dharma Initiative ARG.
As you might have guessed, the same thing applies here; dharmawantsyou.com is listed instead of ABC or some other studio.
Ironically, this was the worst received of all Lost ARGs.
That, and the website is now dead.

Even the NBC web-based content (such as The Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Digital Experience) is not filed under NBC but NBC.com.
It’s certainly an interesting shift to note, especially given the fact that this year’s broadcast seemed to be under the theme of network failure.

Moving on to the other wins, I was very happy for both Bryan Cranston and Michael Emerson and was even more ecstatic to see Kristin Chenoweth win.
Cherry Jones is a great actress but her 24 material was pretty weak compared to the extraordinary In Treatment.
Sadly, Colbert didn’t win anything. I’m awaiting the fallout next Tuesday.
There was a bit of an emphasis this year on Battlestar Galactica (probably since it was its last season).
First, a few clips were shown in the “One Year of Drama” section. Pretty late in the game for that, especially given the quality of the final season.
Also, Bear McCreary’s fantastic score for the series was used for the same section.
Pretty neat.

However, perhaps the most talked-about moment from last night’s show was the “surprise” appearance of Dr. Horrible.

Now that was great.

On the polar opposite, we have CBS advertising in the middle of an acceptance speech the In Memoriam!

What the hell?!

Despite this little mishap, and a few skits that bombed (like that “greatest TV fan badly seated” one), these 61st Primetime Emmy Awards were definitely enjoyable, if only for Neil Patrick Harris.
Certainly not for their results though.

Why Mad Men is the anti-soap

Why Mad Men is the anti-soap

So, around a month ago, Lex posted a blog giving all the reasons why “Mad Men” is way overrated by the critics. While the show will, without a doubt, walk away with a lot of Emmys on Sunday, and the critic gushing will continue for a few years, I would like to make a few points regarding the show’s own merits. Those points, in my opinion, haven’t been made enough in the mainstream press, and really, who could blame them.


This week, we learned that Oprah Winfrey would host a 60s-themed show next week, in honor of “Mad Men”, with the Drapers on her couch, or rather, Jon Hamm and January Jones. It’s really cute of her, and any publicity is good publicity. As Lex would probably say, it continues to “crown” endlessly a show that has been marketed as “the little show that could, so it’s cool to root for it”. But by doing this stunt, Oprah misses the point of the show completely.


The show is meant to surgically deconstruct any good memories we may have had, or our parents may have had, of the swinging sixties. While “American Dreams”, a network show that was chronicling the same period-to be fair, the pilot episode of the show picks up after the Kennedy assassination, while Season 3 of “Mad Men” will probably end there-was perpetuating the myth of a solid family, through the Pryors, without omitting social issues and rampant segregation, “Mad Men” still portrays a corporate, sexist world full of cynicism, which may change too fast for the advertising employees that work there. But, most importantly, it chronicles the slow downfall of a marriage, those of the Drapers. Each season, the viewer anticipates the moment where Betty will walk away from Don, and sign divorce papers, only to be disappointed-last season, with the pregnancy, was seen as the final straw that can keep the household together.


And that leads me to the main point I want to make: “Mad Men” is not a soap opera. Nevermind the attractive cast, it takes great pleasure in making them the most unlikable characters on TV. There’s barely any love or interaction in the Draper household, no matter how effectively they try to keep it together. It’s reminiscent of the Tony/Carmela relationship in the final seasons of “The Sopranos”: the marriage was seen more as a business partnership than anything else. Don is still an unrepentant cheater, now stuck with Betty’s dad. The show is about keeping appearances, it has been said many times by many people. But it’s funny to see people gushing about these characters like they were on “Grey’s Anatomy”. Maybe because the media loves the glamour and extra-clean atmosphere of the 60s of “Mad Men”. But to me, this clean atmosphere hides a deep discomfort, almost in the manner of “American Psycho” if it makes sense.


The show has often been accused to be dull, since it doesn’t even stay on the topic of the “Client of The Week”. But to me, this dullness is on purpose: there are not that much displays of love or affection in the show, if you look closely, not really physical violence. The moral values are strongly implied in the show, so any outburst, like the fired advertising guy at the beginning of the season, or reprehensible behaviour, like Roger Sterling in blackface, is noticed, but barely mentioned. The show is more about fleeting frustration, lost “accounts” and lack of good ideas for their campaign. To me, every week, “Mad Men” gets more oppressing in its depiction of characters rotting from the inside, characteristically unhappy. That a show still manages to attract viewers despite the depressing content is, to me, an amazing feat.

Why mythological shows are often idolized

Why mythological shows are often idolized

I’ve been recently thinking about why some people seem to love Battlestar Galactica’s latter two seasons even though they’re tragically awful. I dare say the same thing about Lost’s latest season.
I’ll be here mostly using those two series as primary examples because they’re so popular, and are still held to very high standards.

Fans have widely criticized Lost’s fifth season. However, if you’ve just very recently watched for the first time the first four seasons, you probably disagree, or, if you agree, you’re probably not seeing how big of a slap the season is towards everything that came before it.

I should point out now, since this will come into play later, that I’ve found the common link (save for some flukes) between the people who like BSG’s third (possibly fourth) season, and Lost’s fifth.They were peeps who, in the span of days, or weeks, saw the whole show for the first time from A to Z in a few sittings only (or at least are not the people who have been following the shows since the first or second season).Why is this important? Well marathon-like screenings do not really allow the spectator to “think things through” so to speak.

Mythological shows such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica have overarching storylines, supposedly thought-out, complex, and well-developed. In the case of BSG for instance, that would mainly be the twelve Cylon plotline. Now, I’ve already exposed in previous posts to what extent both Lost and Battlestar Galactica have had more than disappointing revelations exposing their poorly-planned mythologies, so I’m not going to talk about that again.This post is more about the way their mythology is being perceived and how in the long run, more often than not, such shows are idolized with all flaws removed.

In marathon-like screenings, the mind is somewhat submissive to the story told and the episode. The brain is passive, not active. You don’t have time to really think about the many twists and turns since you’re watching them unfold. You’re “eating” away the episodes, not “digesting” them. Everything will probably seem to blend into a unified storyline instead of finite stories broadcast every week or so with hiatus lasting months in-between seasons. Watching the first three seasons of Battlestar back-to-back won’t be the same thing as having been there since 2003.

For one thing, you didn’t theorize during Season One or Season Two. That might not seem all that important, but not being able to think for several months or years (or even only days in the case of a marathon) about who the twelve Cylons are won’t make you aware of how preposterous the introduction of the Final Five during the show’s third Season is. If you care a little bit about a show, you’ll surely think about it, start asking yourself questions. Let’s be honest, we all have way too much time on our hands and we love to theorize. Shows such as BSG or Lost work because you can theorize about them all day long… Until you can’t due to a faulty mythology.Turns out, when watching episodes back-to-back you don’t have months to think about “what’s in the Hatch” or anything else that deserves theorizing. You’re not expecting special answers either, so you rarely end up disappointed either.The poor planning of Lost’s mytho was shown with such glaring plot holes and atrocious revelations (or rather pseudo-revelations out of the blue) as featured in its fifth season finale. Despite this, to what extent it nullifies the preceding four seasons would be hard to tell without hindsight, an asset nonexistent with a marathon since there’s no time to look at the big picture.
You’re also head first in the story itself, not what goes on outside the series. By that I mean that at the end of, let’s say, watching Battlestar’s first season, you’re not going to look for news article dating back 5 years. The same goes for Lost with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s various contradictory interviews between when the show started (2004) and now (2009), especially regarding questions/mythological plot points that would get answered (or not). You’d be surprised at how antinomic some of their remarks are (same goes for Ronald D. Moore). They’re also very hard to track down.

The bottom line here is that, in the end, you need to be able to take a step back. You need to have time to think things through to really enjoy in a more objective fashion a show and its mythology.
It will be interesting to see how all of this will play out with FlashForward, given that not only has the “FF date” been stopped (April 20th), but flash-forwards are already being shown in the pilot.
The X-Files is considered to be a great mytho show. Ironically, it only has a fourth of such episodes. And, if you really take a look at them, you’ll see how many plot holes there are. Despite those, The X-Files is idolized and remembered as one of the greatest mythological show in TV history.Battlestar Galactica is already branded as the greatest sci-fi show ever.In five-year time, Lost will probably join the ranks of such cult show as Twin Peaks, regardless of its “objective” lack of mythological planning.

But, hey, it’s the thought that counts, not its execution. Right?