Small screen in, big screen out

Singapore Airlines has run out of movies for me to see. The last film I saw on the plane was Fever Pitch, and I'm not going to bother panning that bit of crap. Jimmy Fallon may get the big bucks, but he's not fit to carry the muddy boots of Tom Hanks, John Cusack,or even Hugh Grant. When you don't even like the lead in a romantic comedy, that's trouble.

Anyway, home viewing of films has ground to a halt. Let me introduce the culprit:



This show had a lot of hype, which was what prompted me to pick up the season 1 DVDs. It's amazingly lived up to the hype for the most part. I enjoy the writing and editing, which violates almost every rule in the book. There are too many characters, too many storylines, too many plot mechanisms, a huge number of flashbacks and generally too much going on. When this is the heart of your show, you risk diffusing interest over too many characters and issues and run into the danger of no one caring about any of them. LOST is able to avoid this pitfall with nicely-textured characters, a speedy pace and brilliant editing.

The danger remains that as the relationships of the characters develop, and as the main storyline unravels, that the whole thing will devolve into an overly-complicated mess. In fact, I'd bet on that eventually happening. After all, they're all stuck on an island. As soon as we all know who they are and how they got there, much of the story might be expected to center on the island and its mysteries.

Despite that risk, I'm happy with the journey and am in no hurry for the show to get to the point. At least not for the moment.