Lost - Left Behind

This is a very tight episode, there is a lot going on but it has the feel of an episode where not a single shot is wasted. It's another episode where the action is spread over multiple locations; the flashback, the Others Barracks and the beach camp. The flashback bearing in mind the subject matter is the weakest part of the episode - plus it seems to mix up the Left Behind metaphor the episode is based around with Never Go Back. In order for this episode to work we need to see more of what Kate left behind. We get two good guest actors on show in the shape of Kim Dickens off of Deadwood and Elizabeth Broderick of Teenage Witchery fame - other shows may apply. They should have been given better material.

The stuff at the Barracks is brilliant, everything is from Kate's point of view - not from a camera Peep Show sense but it's certainly from her lens. Juliet is viewed as suspicious and Jack as some kind of end of level trophy that she has her aim on. There's a good scene with Locke early on which perfectly sums up his character, he's trying to be judgemental, aloof, looking for a moment where he gets to say goodbye and "ascend" but like Kate we don't care - we want to know where Jack is. We get a good set piece with Kate and Juliet handcuffed and encountering the smoke monster - we find out The Others don't know a lot about it and that the Pylon fence is designed to keep it out. The theme of this section is that The Others have gone and left behind everyone they (or Ben?) don't want - including Juliet.

The stuff at the camp with Sawyer and Hurley is lovely character stuff. Hurley manipulates Sawyer to be the leader they need in a series of comical set pieces and at this point we're getting the double act we didn't know we needed as the two characters bond.

It's a strong 8/10 from me and with a stronger flashback this could have been something special.

Lost - Expose

When I review something I like to review what is given to us viewers on the screen, however that is not going to be possible for this episode. The meat of this review is what happened backstage and due to the nature of the show it's going to centre on the production team's continued path to distrust. First of all a quick sum up of the episode, it's a good bit of fluff and gives the camp something to do while we take an episode away from the rescue attempt, ordinarily this would get a fun fluffy 6/10.

I fully believe that the production team let down Kiele Sanchez & Rodrigo Santoro the actors who play Nikki & Paulo and threw them to the wolves. From day one the producers of Lost were clear that they had a plan, as a viewer I was cool with that liked what I saw and decided I was in this for the long haul. And then season two happened, on my watch through (which started before these reviews) the season was better than I remembered but then it did spend half the season introducing "the tailies" a group of five character's (two main, two supporting and an occasional guest character) who were then killed off, or thrown into the background or given an average of one scene a season. But then again they did introduce Ben so we got a bit of goodness and a lot of dead end story that went nowhere.

We reach season three and we're repeating the start of the previous season in that it's a very slow start and the show has never been good at pacing the use of characters. If you take every regular and put them in the category of overused, underused or just right very few will be in the third category. Due to the pacing fandom of the show was at a low ebb as season three got going and the wrath of fandom was taken out on Nikki and Paulo who started cropping up in the background of scenes and like most of the cast based at the camp didn't do a lot. The producers to appease fans announced they had a plan for the show and it would be a six season run, then to appease us short term killed off Nikki and Paulo.

This is just abject cowardness imo and shows a lack of production management, also it takes away a little trust as a viewer. From this point there would always be a bit of suspicion between myself and the producers. As an episode it's fine, it even has a lot of fannish touches for viewers in bringing back characters from the dead for some flashbacks. Everything I've read about the initial plans for the characters sound brilliant and going through with those storylines would have been a good way to get the show on track. As such from a character point of view we have Nikki and Paulo playing their endgame characters for this episode and are not recognisable to the characters we've seen for the entire run up to now. It's like watching episode one of Robot seeing Tom Baker making his debut as The Doctor and not tuning in again until episode four as Logopolis the performances are unrecognisable from each other but in Tom's case we saw the character change. As such this episode gets two marks 6/10 for what we got on screen and 0/10 for the spineless producers.

Deep Space Nine - Captive Pursuit

A fun little episode which sees Chief O'Brien takes centre stage and also the first time someone comes through the worm hole from the Gamma quadrant. We get a nice little bit of culture as we see Tosk through the eyes of O'Brien and the first few acts of the episode are us getting to know Tosk while trying to figure whats up with him. With the final act we get answers and also a mini invasion of the station which is quite fun.

Avery Brooks does a good low level performance as Sisko as he quickly realises what O'Brien is up to and slow rolls any attempt to stop him. Odo trying to resist racing after O'Brien after Sisko's orders is a fun moment. Colm Meaney & Scott Macdonald as Tosk are the main ingredients to this episode working as they give excellent performances. A good fun episode with interesting things to say about the Prime Directive, 8/10.

Lost - The Man From Tallahassee

I had forgot how brilliant this episode is, we've been building up to this one for some time as the rescue party has been moving closer to The Others camp. It's not the all action affair that "Not in Portland" was earlier in the season but that's ok - we get something we weren't expecting. We get a character episode where Ben and Locke are pushed to the for-front and we get so many good scenes with them both. All centred around the fact that one of them is in a wheelchair and the other isn't.

The rescue is over quite quickly - so quick it's easy to assume viewers would have been disappointed. Kate, Sayid, Rousseau and Locke against The Others to rescue Jack is an event that sells itself. After being overwhelmed they all get their moments but going into this episode I was expecting more. Jack's plan to escape is quite frankly a good one and there's a brilliant low level telegraph that this rescue attempt is going to lead to it failing.

We finally see how John lost the use of his legs and it's a good reveal. It's the conclusion of his flashbacks going back to season 1 and it's a case of a long standing plot line ending well. The placement of Lockes flashback in this episode is perfect as we see him with his private agenda of seeking to keep the use of his legs - he cares about no-one or nothing else. It feels at first that we're going to see a Locke episode where he isn't manipulated but them Ben enters onto the stage and we get a battle of wits between the two of them with each getting the upper hand at different stages.

Again it's a 10/10 episode which is mainly due to the level of performance of Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn. As with most highly regarded episodes we get a fantastic finale/cliff hanger and of note we get one of the main differences between Season 2 and 3. In the previous season we had endless scenes with Jack & Locke however as Locke blows up the submarine and Jacks way off the island we have the first time their paths cross this season. We're left in a wilder place than when we started the episode and I can't wait for the next one.