Episode 1 - A Tale of Two Cities
3 January 2009
Review
Present: Jack, Sawyer and Kate are all in various forms of captivity around a Dharma station called the Hydra. Jack is quizzed by Juliet and when he attacks her and escapes he discovers he is being held under water. Sawyer is in a polar bear cage and is helped to escape by a young man. He is soon back in his cage and works out how to get food from devices in the cage. Kate is given an elegant breakfast with Ben (Henry Gale) who tells her the next two weeks will be unpleasant.
Flashback: We discover that the Others live in a small “town” in the middle of the jungle on the island complete with houses, CDs and ovens. We see this from Juliet’s perspective; she seems to have friction with Ben. Back in the more distant past Jack is desperate to find out who Sarah left him for. His paranoia leads him to suspect it was Christian, who he attacks. Sarah gets him out of jail after Christian hit the bottle again.
The Good: The opening scene is not shocking because last season’s opening was so shocking that we were expecting this. However the pan out from the Others’ town to its position on the island is a wonderful piece of cinematography and sets the season up as our chance to learn about their lives.
Jack remains an interesting character who gets explored a lot better than the average television character does. His refusal to let go of his wife is consistent with what we know about him but it is the darker side of that that comes out here. He becomes paranoid and vicious and in the end is responsible for his father relapsing into alcoholism. That is a pretty big revelation because it implies that Jack may have more negative reasons to hold himself responsible for his father’s death. Obviously we know his morality cost his father his job (111) but now it seems his obsession may have ruined Christian’s chance of becoming clean. It certainly adds another layer to our understanding of Jack and his behaviour on the island. And credit the producers for making their lead character far from perfect.
Sawyer shows us his best side in his scenes. He is difficult not to like when he is so affectionate to Kate and fun to watch. The cage he is in seems to imply that Polar bears (102) were brought to the island by the Dharma Initiative and now roam free which is a logical explanation. Jack’s aquarium also explains the shark (202) which attacked Michael.
The Bad: This is not a good beginning to season three in many ways.
First the pace is not very exciting. I am not an advocate of drama for drama’s sake but a season premiere is a chance to grab new viewers and this is plodding. Its downbeat and it doesn’t feel like an interesting direction has been taken.
The Others seem pretty neutered by this episode, though I am willing to be proven wrong. One of Lost’s great strengths has been its restraint in just hinting at what sort of strange society the mysterious Others operate in. Their twisted sense of morality and creepy disappearing acts have kept viewers intrigued until now. Here they seem far too normal and far too incompetent. The appearance of middle aged Americans enjoying a book club implies that the Others are normal people, connected to the outside world and not at all what they might have been. Then they let Jack and Sawyer escape within hours of them waking up. That makes them look sloppy and not at all deadly as they appeared when terrorising Ana Lucia and company (207).
It seems like they are trying to play mind games with the survivors but again they don’t appear competent at that. Juliet questions Jack as if she doesn’t know anything about his plane but soon has to abandon that and admit that they know everything about him. The revelation that they have files on the survivors make the Others seem like a modern, bureaucratic organisation and it would seem that the former Henry Gale is the regional office manager. None of it points to why they have been abducting and killing, so let’s hope the writers are weaving a delicate web around these revelations.
There are some poor moments of direction here too. The scene where Juliet asks Jack to lean against the wall is oddly produced. The camera angle prevents us from seeing the door that she is referring to. So when Jack sits down and she walks away we get the false impression that she has made Jack do her bidding and now he won’t get any food. It is an intriguing moment which implies they are psychologically torturing him until you realise in the next scene that he is outwitting her. It’s a bit of a let down. And then Jack gets warned twice that if he opens the door they will all die. He of course doesn’t believe them and opens it only to be flooded with water. Why didn’t Ben or Juliet scream that they were underwater? The reason is that it would have spoilt the dramatic visual of water flooding in. But when characters don’t say the obvious it weakens the show’s credibility.
Ben tells Goodwin that he can be at the tail section in an hour and get a list to him in three days. This is completely at odds with what happened in The Other 48 Days (207). Then Goodwin arrived a few minutes after the crash and the Others came that night to drag away some survivors. That is some poor, lazy writing.
The Unknown: Did Jack really hear Christian’s voice through the intercom? What did the Others do to Kate which made her wrists chafe so much and make her look so miserable?
Best Moment: The opening scene, the pan out is a great shot.
The Bottom Line: Comparisons with last season’s opening episode are not flattering. There was a good deal of speculation about how Lost would structure season three. We wondered if we would see Jack and Kate for a little while. We wondered what on earth the Others might have planned for them. Sadly this slow and poorly written episode doesn’t feed the imagination. Instead it makes the Others seem a lot less interesting than they were. Considering how good Lost has been this feels like a big misstep in the show’s development. Let’s hope the writers have something up their sleeves.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
’)