Macrodata Refinement

Having caught a few episodes since it ended, I think the real tragedy of LOST is how good each individual episode was in comparison to how terrible the overall planning was. It was engrossing during the episode, but any time spent outside that trying to tease out meaning or clues was just wasted time. Ostensible foreshadowing was really just "wouldn't it be cool if?" with no further thought behind it.

I'd argue that quality actually makes it an amazing show to binge. It wouldn't "work" in the current climate of one-episode-per-week with bountiful time to analyze and Internet sleuths/theorists often coming up with better plots than the actual writing in each next episode, but Lost promises high quality episode after high quality episode for you to, well, just get lost in.

For anyone who hasn't seen it: you're in for a wild ride. Don't look up spoilers.

When it first aired, people definitely did that on the internet.

I'm of a firm opinion that there are two very different kinds of Lost viewers -- ones who care about the characters first and plot second vs ones who only care about the plot.

Personally, I took it as 'We're getting to see these things through these characters' eyes and how they react.' And we probably wouldn't have given a shit about the plot, if we hadn't actually cared about the characters first.

Lost did characterization very well. (Helped by an insanely talented cast!)

[Spoilers]

I lost interest when they reached back.

Although I definitely like "unexplainable" stories like Twin Peaks.

If we are talking old TV, definitely check out The Wire. It's up there in the classics, but people nowadays don't talk about it much.

Meh. Saw it at the time. After season 2 I certainly got lost, but not “in it”.

The plot always thickens, back then there was the promise/hope that “everything will be explained”, but then the show ended with sooo many loose ends and inconsistencies. Utter disappointment, I’d like my time back please.