All Good Things... Episode 06: Red Dwarf

[Dogg Thang]

Yep. I guess it mostly stuck with me not because I didn't like it but because I loved the pilot and some of the early episodes so much that it was this creeping disillusionment, a slow disappointment. Might sound overdramatic but it's easier to just think a show is rubbish than to start loving it and then, bit by bit, realise it's not what you hoped it would be.

[wakka]

It would've been a great 10 episode series.

[Neon Ignition]

The hatch was one of the most earliest signs that the show was spinning its wheels, you don't get any real outcome to that till the seasons end and they broadly quickly move on from it. It's late Season 03 when the showrunners agreed an end date that it lurches forward.

Locke's storyline was just brilliant. His overall arc is littered with tales of hope and tragedy and they all tie in in some way to his ending and what comes afterward including why he's on the island and why he can walk again. It's one of the things that shows why Lost as a character show is much stronger than Lost as a mystery show and also why a one off short run wouldn't work. Five seasons of 10 eps and it'd probably be somewhere around the right length.

[Atticus]

rather than stretch out a story with lots of pointless flashback episodes.

That's why we stopped watching (around halfway through S2) ... it went sideways way more than it moved forward.

[charlesr]

Knowing the ending, there's no way I'd recommend it to anyone. The whole thing is pointless. None of it mattered at any point.

[QualityChimp]

Knowing the ending, there's no way I'd recommend it to anyone. The whole thing is pointless. None of it mattered at any point.

Mate, it's not always about the destination, it's the journey.

It's sad I doubt I'll recreate that sense of excitement waiting each episode and the hope for answers, but also new puzzles to think about whilst you wait another week for the next episode.

Definitely a flawed and bloated show with a tepid ending, but I definitely don't regret the excitement the show managed to generate during its time.

[Dogg Thang]

Mate, it's not always about the destination, it's the journey.

This is very true and I imagine we'll see quite a few shows in this thread that had poor endings but were still superb shows. I think Lost is a tricky one because it was a show that felt built on questions and then more questions and then more questions. And I'm not sure you can claim that the destination isn't important when that's the case.

That's not to say that all questions require answers. One of the things I adored about Homicide Life on the Street is that one of the first cases was never solved and it comes up again and again all the way to the very end of the show. The fact that it is never solved pretty much defines one of the characters and it's brilliant.

But Lost was different. Lost just chucked in questions as a hook to keep you watching and when one question lost its sparkle, it just threw in more questions. At the time, I called it a show of first acts and, while I can only speak for the first season and a bit of the second, that fits. It was all setup. So I think the destination in the case of Lost might actually be more important than in most shows. When you spend so long setting stuff up and adding more and more setup, there really better be a payoff somewhere.

[wakka]

Out of interest I googled the shark with the logo (that I found immensely intriguing at the time and set my mind reeling with theories about what might be going on).

The official explanation? It was an 'easter egg for the fans'. Right, OK, lol.

[kryss]

Ha! Yep, that series of Twin Peaks is like that. There is one episode you haven’t reached yet and I honestly think it’s the best TV I’ve ever watched even though I had zero idea what was going on in the first watch. And then other parts of other episodes I just thought were so painfully dull or self-indulgent to the point of annoyance. But it’s certainly interesting and ultimately rewarding.

I couldn't get over the gap between season 3 and season 4. The rest of it was really good.
Dark was on par with the twists and turns, but stayed solid and ended really well.

I just wrapped Parks and Rec, and The Good Place on the same day - which was great timing given who was in the last ep of The Good Place! (little cameo, not a spoiler)

[Neon Ignition]

The shark was done purely as an early easter egg, something for first time eagle eyed viewers to spot back when Dharma was fairly new and unexplained. They do later explain though that the animals come from the Zoology base and are genetically altered as part of that bases experiments to affect the ecosystem of the island (I think this is supposed to be the base Jack, Kate and Sawyer are locked up in during Season 03)

[wakka]

Yeah, it's that kind of thing that drove me away from it. I would tune in filled with anticipation to find out why Jack's dad's coffin was empty, or why the shark had a logo, and so on, and watch episode after episode after episode and they'd never go back to it. Just tee'd me off in the end, and for them to hand wave that sort of incredibly tantalising mystery as an Easter egg seems fairly conclusive that it wasn't well planned.

I recognise that I'm grumbling and more power to any fans like yourself NI! It's a very long time since I've seen it now but like Dogg Thang, the disappointment is kind of seared into my memory.

I loved it SO MUCH initially, I was obsessed, and then I ended up feeling let down by it. Which makes it much more memorable than something that was simply bad right out of the gate.

[Dogg Thang]

The shark was done purely as an early easter egg

In a show built on secrets and mysteries with an audience desperate to work it all out, to put in a detail like that and call it an "easter egg" is really just a dick move. The truth feels simpler - the creative team had zero idea what they were doing.

Edit: What's funny is how apparent it is from the original show document. Like the show itself, it just chucks in ideas with absolutely no idea or suggestion of any resolution to anything. For example -

The castaways find the FLIGHT DATA RECORDER from the cockpit. After undergoing a massive technological journey just to listen to it, what they ultimately redefines everything they thought they knew about what caused the crash.

Or...

Hope flickers when a small plane flies over the island - but moments later it bursts into flames.
Before it crashes into a mountainside, a SINGLE PARACHUTER leaps from the plane. ·Despite
vast distance and impending nightfall, a rescue party immediately organizes .. , but what they find
when they reach this new visitor is the last thing anyone expects.

There are something like six pages of these, all like these.

[Neon Ignition]

I think that's why one of the shows biggest enemies was also its length. Spinning things on for months for viewers but that long form structure was the norm at the time it aired so I can see why they did it at first but also why they decided to shorten the episode counts for Season 04 onward.

[wakka]

Edit: What's funny is how apparent it is from the original show document. Like the show itself, it just chucks in ideas with absolutely no idea or suggestion of any resolution to anything. For example -

The castaways find the FLIGHT DATA RECORDER from the cockpit. After undergoing a massive technological journey just to listen to it, what they ultimately redefines everything they thought they knew about what caused the crash.

Or...

Hope flickers when a small plane flies over the island - but moments later it bursts into flames.
Before it crashes into a mountainside, a SINGLE PARACHUTER leaps from the plane. ·Despite
vast distance and impending nightfall, a rescue party immediately organizes .. , but what they find
when they reach this new visitor is the last thing anyone expects.

There are something like six pages of these, all like these.

That is bloody hilarious

Just all setups and zero resolutions. Man did that come across in the finished product.

[QualityChimp]

"How do you keep an idiot in suspense?

Find out next week on LOST."