Wednesday, April 29, 2009

RETRO REVIEW: Season One

*Posted January 18, 2009*

Here's how these will work. I'm going to rate each season based on their 10 most important storylines.


THE PLANE WRECKAGE: The opening scenes of Jack on the beach are pretty epic. It's like the Saving Private Ryan 'Storming the Beach' scene of television. Well worth the hefty pricetag. 10/10

DISTRESS SIGNAL: Discovering and decoding it is pretty chilling. You've got to love how the pilot was layered so that you could get hooked on the show on many different levels. 10/10

FLASHBACKS: Kate's a fugitive! Locke was paralyzed! Sayid's a torturer! Season one's flashbacks were crazy awesome. They added to the depth and mystery of the show without slowing the momentum of on-Island events. 10/10

THE CAVES: Did they ever give us a good reason for leaving the caves? I liked the stories there (cave-in, Boone's operating room), but I hated how every major event became a relay race from the beach to the caves and back. How many characters had to sprint back and forth for lame reasons? 8/10

THE LOVE TRIANGLE: Jack and Kate made a great team in season one, but somehow loser Sawyer wore her down. How?!?!? He was a mean bastard with lame nicknames for everyone. How terrible is it that 4 seasons later, they're still both fighting over her? 7/10

ETHAN ROM: The discovery of the "Others" provided a midseason jolt of life (not needed, but much appreciated). Ethan always seemed a pussy in flashbacks after his death, but he was creepy and intimidating during this stretch of episodes. Plus Claire was MIA for a bit. 10/10

SUN SPEAKS ENGLISH: Sun sucks, and Michael sucked for caring about her, but Jin was a jerk before this. Everyone hated Jin in the first half of the season, but this betrayal was a turning point for him. 7/10

THE RAFT: The building/burning/re-building/sailing of the raft was a big plotline in the second half of the season. The writers took a storyline that most people expected (building a raft worked for Hanks) and brought some clever twists with it (plus the raft itself was impressive). 9/10

THE DEATH OF BOONE: The first major castaway eats it, and in a big way. I really liked how abrupt his accident was, but they sure milked the surgery for all it was worth. 10/10

THE HATCH: Nobody had a clue about what would be in there. The buildup was huge and the suspense was unbearable. It's things like this that made Locke my favorite character early on. Finding the hatch was his high point, and blowing the hatch was the perfect cap to the best season of television ever. 10/10


FINAL SCORE: 91



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