I love the first season of that show. Seeing the survivors of the plane crash figure out how to live on the island was fascinating. I loved the first season of Jericho for the same reason. What would they eat? Where would they sleep? What kind of society would form?
The fact that all those questions were hung on a larger framework about the struggle between faith and reason and fate and free will made it even more delicious. The survivors decisions and choices had more riding on them than just survival. Those decisions meant something.
Still even with those grand themes, Lost was always about the people struggling within that framework. Jack and Kate and Locke and Sawyer and Sayid and Hurley and Sun and Jin and all the rest. I cared about them and how they resolved their dilemmas.
Smokey versus Jacob? Not so much. Richard? Hmm. Not really, especially when they give him stringy dirty hair for the entire episode thus removing the pleasure of looking at Nestor Carbonell's beautiful eyelashes.
Don't get me wrong. I love me some theme. Without an organizing principal like theme, books, movies and television shows become random happenings without meaning. For, me, however, there has to be a balance.
The first season of Lost hit that balance with the sure-footed confidence of an Olympic gymnast. This last season, however, totally hasn't stuck the landing.
