Lost season five premieres tonight and I'm pretty excited. I picked up season four on Blu-Ray via a holiday Amazon gift card and re-watched it over the last couple of weeks. Wow, season four was just really good. Watching it a second time just emphasizes that. Last year I posted that I didn't like the flash-forwards and I stand by that analysis but season four works despite that issue. I'm a little worried that moving forward the "guess the chronology" game is going to spread but maybe it won't. (Minor spoiler alert I suppose: Damon Lindelof has said in several places that this season the viewers are asking "Where is the island?" and hopefully following that with "WHEN is the island?" I like the idea of the question, but I'm afraid it's going to turn into a series of "What year did that cell-phone come out?" or "Wait, which year is the year of the Dragon?" games.)
One "blog nubbin" I have in my file is an announcement that seasons one and two are coming out in Blu-Ray during 2009 which isn't worth an entire blog post, but I'll combine into other Lost talk.
Rewatching season four made me really want to watch the first two seasons because I got quite a bit out of the second viewing of seasons three and four. I'm especially curious if I can identify the point where it seems to shift from "Are they just making this up as they go along?" to "No, I really think they have a plan. At least now they do." Personally I think that point comes somewhere during the second season, but I watched the second season in quite the hurry (catching up on DVD to watch season three), and I wasn't always paying as much attention as I'd like. Having said all that there was no way I'd want to *buy* them on DVD, and renting them from Netflix is a pain because some times I want to go back and review a particular part of a particular episode. (I'm seriously considering keeping season five on my DVR in it's entirety for that reason.)
I have to say I was a little disappointed with the commentary and extras for the season four Blu-Rays. There's a commentary on The Constant (the episode where Desmond becomes "unstuck" in time) and I was really looking forward to insight with the writers. Unfortunately it's also a commentary with the editor and so most of the discussion is about the editing of the episode. Now, I need to be crystal clear here: I actually found the commentary very interesting in its own right and you don't usually hear much about the process of editing a TV show. I guess I just wish that episode had two commentary tracks because I really want to hear more about the writing of it and the story of it. The only other commentary from Lindelof and Cuse is the season finale and they are obviously still completely exhausted from the race from the strike to the end of that episode. The extras on S4 aren't bad, but they are nowhere near as extensive as what came with S3. I guess if the actors strike during S5 maybe we'll get a LOT of writer's extras on the eventual Blu-Rays.
One I did quite like is you can watch the flash-forwards in chronological order, with snippets from the scripts shown as well. It's interesting to realize that A ) the Lost writers use foul language in the scripts for emphasis (I've read that before, but this really brings it home) and B ) how they tell the story in script form. It's an interesting balance between normal prose (where you carry everything via the words on the page) and giving directions to the actors, camera operators, and directors about how things should be played. I realized I'd buy the Lost scripts in book form. Especially in hopes that there's clues in there.
Anyway, set your DVR's! Tonight! Huzzah! There's a recap episode and the two episodes back to back so that's quite a bit of Lost.
One "blog nubbin" I have in my file is an announcement that seasons one and two are coming out in Blu-Ray during 2009 which isn't worth an entire blog post, but I'll combine into other Lost talk.
Rewatching season four made me really want to watch the first two seasons because I got quite a bit out of the second viewing of seasons three and four. I'm especially curious if I can identify the point where it seems to shift from "Are they just making this up as they go along?" to "No, I really think they have a plan. At least now they do." Personally I think that point comes somewhere during the second season, but I watched the second season in quite the hurry (catching up on DVD to watch season three), and I wasn't always paying as much attention as I'd like. Having said all that there was no way I'd want to *buy* them on DVD, and renting them from Netflix is a pain because some times I want to go back and review a particular part of a particular episode. (I'm seriously considering keeping season five on my DVR in it's entirety for that reason.)
I have to say I was a little disappointed with the commentary and extras for the season four Blu-Rays. There's a commentary on The Constant (the episode where Desmond becomes "unstuck" in time) and I was really looking forward to insight with the writers. Unfortunately it's also a commentary with the editor and so most of the discussion is about the editing of the episode. Now, I need to be crystal clear here: I actually found the commentary very interesting in its own right and you don't usually hear much about the process of editing a TV show. I guess I just wish that episode had two commentary tracks because I really want to hear more about the writing of it and the story of it. The only other commentary from Lindelof and Cuse is the season finale and they are obviously still completely exhausted from the race from the strike to the end of that episode. The extras on S4 aren't bad, but they are nowhere near as extensive as what came with S3. I guess if the actors strike during S5 maybe we'll get a LOT of writer's extras on the eventual Blu-Rays.
One I did quite like is you can watch the flash-forwards in chronological order, with snippets from the scripts shown as well. It's interesting to realize that A ) the Lost writers use foul language in the scripts for emphasis (I've read that before, but this really brings it home) and B ) how they tell the story in script form. It's an interesting balance between normal prose (where you carry everything via the words on the page) and giving directions to the actors, camera operators, and directors about how things should be played. I realized I'd buy the Lost scripts in book form. Especially in hopes that there's clues in there.
Anyway, set your DVR's! Tonight! Huzzah! There's a recap episode and the two episodes back to back so that's quite a bit of Lost.