Not so much a question as a ...
Question: Not so much a question as a comment. You
wondered why people tempered their excitement with cynicism regarding
Lost and the other new shows. I'll give you two reasons:
The X-Files and
Twin Peaks. It became almost immediately clear that as brilliant as
Peaks was, none of the writers had a clue where it was going.
X-Files took five years to do the same thing, which made it even more heartbreaking and maddening. For every
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which did an excellent job of creating season-long arcs) and
Babylon 5 (the only show in history to pull off a multi-year arc successfully, even if the show wasn't actually that great), there are literally hundreds of shows that start with a great premise but don't plan beyond the next two or three episodes. I truly hope the main factors in the mythology — the boy, the baby, the hatch and the Others — have been planned out and have a satisfactory conclusion, but that doesn't mean I trust it completely. After the convoluted mess that
X-Files devolved into, I don't think I'll ever be foolish enough to trust another show completely again.
Answer: All good and fair points (and kudos for acknowledging the triumphs, and limitations of
Babylon 5), but I'm still a firm believer that part of the fun of watching episodic TV is taking that blind leap of faith and enjoying the ride while we can without spoiling it with the taint of past experiences. (I suppose I could trot out that Charlie Brown/football analogy I used last week in my post-Emmy angst, but let's not.)
