The first episode of the season focusing on the Lostaway camp, “Further Instructions” opens with this show’s staple directing trick whenever a new season or plot-line is introduced – a close-up of an eyeball. This time, it belongs to Locke, who has apparently been upchucked by the hatch after its implosion at the end of last season. Now that sentence would not make sense if I were referring to any other TV show.
Locke begins the episode mute, switching story lines with Charlie based on what I suggested in my review for the season finale of last season. To get back his voice – and sense of purpose – Locke goes on a hallucinogen-induced vision where we get to see Boone again and the entire cast in our favorite flashback locale, the pre-flight airport.
Hilarity forgets to ensue when Charlie tags along with Locke as they search for Mr. Ecko, who has been abducted by a polar bear and dragged into a cave - which is totally a reference to the Dagobah cave sequence from the beginning of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.”
They save Mr. Ecko and he spouts a predictably ambiguous predilection to Locke before passing out until his flashback episode in episode five. Or Locke was hallucinating it. I don’t know. I was still reeling from the fact that a polar bear was still alive and well on a tropical island after living there for the last three or more months. Logic, you are definitely not friendly with the “Lost” writers.
The flashbacks were easily the lamest the Locke character has received. Locke used to live in a hippie, weed-growing commune, where he gets to work out his daddy issues with Eddie, the incredibly-unmemorable-plot-device-character (the IUPDC? Nah, too long. We’ll just go with Deady-Eddie). We learn nothing new about the character – at least nothing memorable. If flashbacks are going to be lame, “Lost” writers, can we limit them to five minutes an episode? Or fewer, perhaps, like zero minutes?
In one interesting twist, Desmond is apparently precognitive. Nifty.
IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS…
• It looks like this six episode mini-season before 2007 is split up into three story lines: a) Others captivity (Jack, Sawyer and Kate); b) Ethnic rescue team (Sayid, Sun and Jin); and the island-dwelling Losties (everyone else).
• Did we just get introduced to two new “Lost” characters? Nikky and Paulo? Were those their names? It all went by so fast.
• Polar bears rock. So do obscure literary references. “Star Wars” references are cool, too.
New unresolved major plot-lines from “Further Instructions:”
1. What’s up with Desmond’s whole seeing-the-future thing?
Probability of mystery being resolved this season: High
2. Will they finally give the Charlie character some actual importance to this show’s story line this season?
Resolution probability: Very, very low
3. What was that toy truck doing in the polar bear cave?
Resolution probability: Low
Rating: 2 out of 5 polar bears
I liked the David Lynch dream sequence very, very much. Everything else in this episode? Not really. I wanted to know what was going on with the other characters this whole episode, and luckily, it looks like we’ll be seeing that wish fulfilled next week.
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Whoa.
Written by Guest on 2006-10-20 11:34:29
"Further Instructions" was Emmy material. How you could have experienced it as anything else is beyond my apparently "pedestrian" powers of comprehension, but rock on. Meanwhile, this episode is destined for multiple Emmies and critical acclaim. |
Up and down
Written by Guest on 2006-10-23 10:43:09
Lost is such a big production that it's tough to critique one show by itself, in my opinion. I judge entire seasons as a whole, or better yet, the entire run it will have as a whole. If you go by episodes of course it will be up and down. But it's not a sitcom, so I don't look at it that way. |
Conceding
Written by Guest on 2006-10-26 16:10:06
I will agree that yes, it is unfair to judge "Lost" episode-by-episode because it will have its occasional ups and its occasional downs. But, suprisingly, there are some genre shows out there with full 20-episode season runs that can maintain the dramatic tension throughout, most notably Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica, which haven't dissapointed at all yet this season. |
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