As mentioned a little while back, Lost has drifted from "must-watch-immediately" TV towards "I'll-watch-it-off-my-Tivo-sometime" TV. This week's show is a good reason why - as usual, two threads going on, one good and one bad. On the good side, I'm finding the explorations of Sayid, John and Kate to be more interesting than those of Jack, Sawyer and Kate during the first half of the season. It isn't clear they are learning much more (yet), but they've done more in their two episodes of wandering around than they accomplished in eight episodes on the other island. The efforts to bring John back to his more ambiguous personality that he showed during the first season have been a little obvious, but it's still good to see - and based on the previews, the "new old John" subplot may be coming to a head next week.
However, the other ongoing plot, the "when will the Hobbit get it" plot, continues to drag. Considering that this subplot has been the main focus of two episodes and a subplot of a couple of others, there really isn't that much to it. OK - Desmond is having premonitions of Charlie's death, and....that's about it. Presumably there will be some payoff at some point this season, but why expend so much energy on it? And this plot has also been responsible for several flashback sequences that have brought nothing to the table - in fact, the flashbacks have mostly been a wash for the entire season. Again, the Locke storyline may help shake this trend next week, but even episodes I've seen praised online (like the Desmond episode from a few weeks back) have had flashbacks that just seem to take up time.
At least we avoided any foolishness like Hurley's Big VW Van Adventure or the Ping-Pong Tournament this week. As you can see, I'm ready for this show to get moving - when it does, it is still very good, but when it doesn't, I'm looking for the 30-second skip.
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