Lost has ended.

The excellent finale closed a TV series which had the potential to become one of the best drama ever to be seen on the small screen, but it turned out to be one of the most memorable disappointments instead.

(Only season 4 spoilers.)

I loved the first two seasons. The story, the actors, the mysteries all worked well and I expected that everything will make sense eventually.
However at the end of the second season I started to feel fooled. Tons of questions with no answers and those long, boring background stories made me frown.

Then during season four where Desmond’s mind travels around in time (like in the “Butterfly effect”) and he needs to talk to someone he cares about or else he dies, I was like “What the hell? I don’t want to watch this random bullshit anymore.”

It seemed that the creative process was raped by greed yet again: the writers were forced by the network to stretch the series for twice the length of what the material actually needed:

“Listen up people! I want 4 more seasons, at least, with 45% more mysteries, 5 new characters and two big explosions in each season. But since I really don’t want to suppress your creative freedom, you can decide what you want to blow up.”

Later I found that there was another, less evil reason for the flock of unanswered questions lingering in the jungle: I saw J. J. Abrams’ talk on TED.com.
In this excellent presentation he reveals his preference of “mystery over knowledge". As an example he mentions Jaws and Alien and that how they would be less effective if the monsters were revealed directly. And I agree with him.
Trouble is that those movies are very different experiences from lost and the direct comparison is meaningless. There the events and characters are connected to each other so one can understand what was going on, no unanswered questions remain.

For that, here is my depiction of a Lost-esque Jaws:

One night an unusually wild storm hits the small island resort town. Many have seen purple lights in the clouds and the thunders also sound strange. Fishermen saw several lightnings striking the same spot not far from the shore.

Next morning the mutilated body of a young woman is found on the beach. The coroner suspects a shark attack and he also notes that she suffered from situs inversus, her internal organs are located at the other side of her body.

The local police chief starts to warn the tourists about the shark but then he is stopped by the mayor and told to acknowledge that it was a motorboat accident. He reluctantly agrees, but finds the suddenly limping mayor’s behavior erratic and generally weird. Starts sniffing around and discovers the mayor’s notebook with drawings of distorted faces and a mirrored names.

When the dead woman’s fiance identifies the body, he finds five letters of the Greek alphabet tattooed on her neck, tattoos he’s never seen before.
He asks for her belongings and is disappointed as the necklace of her is missing, probably sank during the attack.

A day later a message in a bottle is washed ashore and is found by the police chief’s kids. The message is the same Greek letters which were found on the deceased woman’s neck.

Another dead body turns up the week after, a guy this time. He also seems to be killed by a shark, also suffers from situs inversus and has four Greek letters on his neck.

The police chief starts to look for a shark hunter. The old, limping hermit living in the abandoned lighthouse shows up and offers his assistance.

A few boaters haul in a big, old chest they found floating not far away from the very spot where the lightning kept striking during the storm.
When they open the chest they discover the bones of a huge shark with a rusty necklace stuck between its teeth. The necklace is later identified as the one the first victim was wearing.

…and so on. Its not that difficult to come up with random stuff if I don’t have to explain them later on. It’s cheating.

So I stopped watching Lost.
Then I accepted that it was screwed and started watching it again. I wanted to see how they sink deeper and deeper in their own bullshit, but for more importantly, I wanted to learn from them what I could. Picked the great bits and pieces for later use and browsed the web during the boring parts. There were several moments which inspired me so I think in this case certain parts are greater then the whole.

I want to use this knowledge to create a proper Lost-like experience at some point. Which feels like Lost but where there is an explanation for everything because there is a network of logical relations under the hood.

As often said, the mysteries of Lost made people use their imagination while trying to explain things. And this is great. People thinking about stuff, asking questions and pondering about different possibilities is always great.
But why leave them there, without actual answers? They won’t know if they guessed right, they won’t realize their mistakes, they won’t learn.

I think this is how it should be done:
- Introduce a mystery.
- Drop some clues which might or might not be related to this particular weirdness. (But relate to something.)
- Leave it for a while and let people wonder, guess, ask questions, discuss.
- Drop more clues.
- Leave it again for a bit.
And keep pouring information until the mystery is fully revealed. People will try to fill in the gaps after each new clue. They will narrow down possibilities or realize that they were totally off. Everyone will reach a point sooner or later when they can predict your, the creator’s next move. When they succeed then they are satisfied (and rightfully so) because they beat you to the solution.

So the audience got mysteries, got food for thoughts, got a chance to discover the solution for themselves and got the satisfaction of being right.

And I hope you like the intro image for this post.

(The Canceled Classics series is about my favorite, prematurely canceled TV shows.)

White guy, black guy: badass cops.
Undercover operation, hot chick boss, secret HQ.
Being cop, playing criminal, walking the line between.
Money, cars, women, parties, drugs, high life.
Making plan, setting up bust, screwing up, ending well.


Chasing, shooting, fighting, being cool. Verbal sparring, one liners, not Tolstoy.
Fast paced action, well spaced drama. Good acting, good writing, many cliches.
Trendy, flashy, not serious.
Entertaining.

I’ve finished my programming task on schedule, a standalone Lua application which provides utility functions for processing data coming from Unreal. (More on its features in a later article.)

I also started making a custom animation tree and learned much about Unreal’s animation system in general. The animations will be outsourced, and since this part of the project is going to be the most expensive, I really need to get everything right on my end. I must ask for the right animations as I can’t afford redoing anims over and over again.

Fortunately - if everything goes well - I’m going to get help from a technical animator with this whole animtree thing, so there is hope yet that it will be done on time/budget and at a high quality.

Speaking of high quality, my beloved Dollhouse has ended. After 26 episodes split between two seasons, it was canceled. I’m not happy about it but it’s still better than overdoing something until it’s squeezed and disfigured but still sweats money. (I’m looking at you Stargate… )

Fortunately my sci-fi needs are still well fed: Mass Effect 2 is simply awesome.
Fun to play, looks nice, runs at 60 fps, has great music and last but not least, the story is interesting. I though as much after playing ME1, so I stopped reading any kind of news about ME2 to avoid the marketing machine and similarly retarded forum users spoiling the story for me.
Same goes for Bioshock 2 and any game from Bethesda Softworks. This article on Kotaku is about this is issue, and I totally agree with the author.
I mean, it’s really shocking when Shepard discovers that she has a Geth twin sister, but it just wouldn’t have the same impact if you knew about it beforehand.
Oh..erhm… oops…

(The Canceled Classics series is about my favorite, prematurely canceled TV shows.)

Partially improvised

This show follows the struggles and everyday life of an extended American family living in the suburbs. No guns, no car chases, no mysteries. However, it is far from being boring.

While the family does face interesting and sometimes unusual problems, the storyline is only there to emphasize the best aspect of the show: the acting.


The tip of the hat to all actors, including the children: they portray the slightly wacky family members very well. The characters are not caricatures, they are exactly as goofy and eccentric as any of us. (Okay, maybe a bit more.)

The situations, conversations feel very natural, mostly because the dialog is partially improvised.
It’s no “Curb your enthusiasm” crap with annoying plots and retarded characters. Here improvisation makes the whole thing feel like a documentary. There are unfinished sentences, stuttering, talking over each other’s head, stuff which would be cut from other formats.

These little things and the liberal direction make the experience genuine: a person burbling with laughter at someone goofing around, is not acting just reacting. You can see the effort as she tries to keep her act together, barely avoiding spitting out the tea in her mouth, while shaking in laughter. You can see the unadulterated fascination in her eyes as she watches a fellow actress doing an impression of a relative.

Similarly, moments of sadness also feel authentic and have a big impact on the viewer. At one point a character, angry and shaken, bursts out in a monologue on a family event. I felt discomfort and sorry for her, because that woman crying on the screen was really hurt. I was also somewhat ashamed because I felt like part of that group of family and friends who - even if inadvertently - caused distress for that woman.

So there are funny bits, dramatic bits, effortlessly depicted family relations. Great acting all around, from the 4 years old little girl to the 70 something great-grandma.

Fred Goss, creator and star of the show, done something outstanding. This short lived series is one of my favorite TV shows ever.

I recently stumbled upon Dollhouse, a new TV series, and after the second episode, I became an addict.
What it does is simple but effective: it takes our present day world and adds a new element to it: a scientific breakthrough which allows the programming of human beings. Personalities can be archived, modified and uploaded into another body, a doll. Dolls are empty, flesh and blood pendrives walking around in the Dollhouse waiting to get a personality and a job to finish. When they are done with the given task, they are wiped yet again and keep enjoying the bliss of ignorance until the next mission.

A company was formed to leverage this achievement and clients turn up who need these services. Certain people are happy with it because the Dollhouse helps them to fulfill certain needs, others want to take down the whole operation on moral grounds. And some are struggling in between having a hard time picking a side.

The star of the show is a doll called Echo, who volunteered to be a doll for 5 years. When her contract expires she’ll get her personality back along with a fat paycheck and also lose a painful memory. Or at least this was the deal originally.
The staff maintaining the facility has a just as important role as the heroine. We learn their backgrounds, motivations, goals, hopes and dreams. How they discover the long term effects of the technology, how they adapt to emergencies or unusual client requests.

An interesting premise, a solid foundation upon which the writer-director Joss Whedon and his crew was able to build an exceptionally entertaining show.

The show is not without flaws. The biggest one is Eliza Dushku in the lead role. Her acting is adequate but nothing more. They wasted the great opportunity of having a different character in every episode: a more talented/experienced actress would have created more contrast between personalities. Dushku usually portrays badass chicks smacking people, which works, but she really struggles when it comes to feelings like fear, disgust or confusion.

Fortunately the writing is excellent, it saves the show. The story, the interesting conflicts, the witty dialogs and believable human reactions make you forget the occasionally rocky acting. The pacing is well done, the drama makes sense and it’s interesting to see how the characters deal with the questionable ethics of the operation. (And hopefully making the viewer think about the morally gray choices presented in the show.)

All in all I found it very clever and entertaining. (Knowing my cancel-o-meter talent, it might not be such a good sign.)