Lost Webisode 1: The Watch

The season three finale of Lost back in June was one of the smartest television shows I have ever seen, perfectly doing that impossible thing a show like this needs -- telling us nothing and making us feel satisfied at the same time. The twist is FORMAL, and is not based in CONTENT, which is genius.

I eagerly await the new season out of a combination of general obsession with Lost, the fact that not much else on TV is grabbing my attention, and anxiety about how to writer's strike will play out. (Though with this show, I know that if it goes down because of the strike, it will continue in comic book form, surely).

Now ABC.com is going to have thirteen (I think) weekly mini-episodes of only a few minutes each until the premier of season 4. They claim these are original shorts and not simply deleted flashbacks.

The new Dharma Corp video, which I have already blogged about, was a brilliant little teaser. "The Watch" on the other hand, seems like a terrible thing to toss at viewers. Why, you know, ON EARTH, would you want to make such a harmless redundant little Jack flashback one of the first things viewers will see after such an amazing finale? Jack and his dad have issues. Yeah, I know about that actually. And in a show with an already important watch (the watch given to Sun's husband by her father to deliver) why would you want to introduce another one -- unless they are connected somehow (and even still)? I think there was a lot that Lost could have done with the Webisode format -- concentrating on Dharma Corp videos for example -- but I cannot understand why such a smart show would emphasize the insignificance of the format in the very first installment. There could be more going on of course, and all of this could tie together brilliantly, but why would you want to give viewers the impression that it is a waste of time right out of the gate?