No introduction. Let's just get right to the massive reviews.
LOST - BECAUSE YOU LEFT SCORES A 9.25 / 10.00
The opening of the fifth season of Lost starts off just like season four did - dancing on the edge of a razor, ready to lose everything in a moment's notice. After "The Beginning of the End" and "Confirmed Dead" last year - the writers of Lost got off the razor and earned my trust for another year. After watching "Because You Left" and "The Lie" - the writers of this show are still dancing atop the razor as I worry that may favorite show is about to take us on a journey that will ruin the show forever. Let's begin the review with "Because You Left"
The opening scene of every season has been amazing - all except this one. The Pilot had the plane crash and it worked with sucking us into the rest of season one. Man of Science, Man of Faith had Desmond in the hatch, which helped us into season two. A Tale of Two Cities and The Beginning of the End also both captivated me into the season long arch with the opening scene. The very first scene of season five is poorly executed and finds itself finishing fifth in terms of all of the seasons put together. The record player is a good addition considering Daniel's explaination later in the episode, but the song choice is very poor and thye tried too much to make it look like seasons two and three. The big shock that the person running everything is Dr. Candle didn't do it for me either. The two-three minute follow-up with Dr. Candle being called down to the Orchid station is what I had a big problem with. Bad writing down here - with the one Dharma worker asking if they were going to kill Hitler Faraday shows up at the end for the 'real' shock, but the rest of the episode doesn't expand on that principal that Faraday is in the Orchid over 30 years ago. I get it - At some point in time Faraday will get there. But that's not what I want the opening scene to do. In season two Jack went into the hatch 20 minutes later. In season three Kate sat down with Ben for breakfast 20 minutes later. In season four we got more flashes into the future after the first one. The opening scene was without a doubt the worst of the five seasons. It seems they wanted to surprise us just to - surprise us.
We can then break the rest of the episode down into three very unique parts - Locke / Sawyer+Juliet / Oceanic Six based. Let's begin with Locke, who had the best scene of the episode I thought. Locke sees the plane crash, which I thought was a very cool addition to the time travel. Perhaps this explains why the Black Rock is so far inland. The island moves and causes these things to crash into them. I was hoping to see "Goldie" climb out of the plane and shoot Locke, but instead we get Ethan. The Ethan scene was terrible and is not the scene I was talking about earlier. The Ethan scene felt really forced and Quinn's acting felt off in that scene as well. Also - the "I'm about to kill you, but you teleport in time" thing is only going to work a couple of times before it gets old. The best scene of the episode came after Locke was shot and Richard meets him in the jungle. Richard gives Locke a compass, one of the items in "Cabin Fever" that Richard said all ready belonged to him. I thought that was interesting. This was the best scene of the episode, as Richard also seems to know what it going on with Locke and the rest of the group. To the Oceanic Six it looks like the island moved - but Richard seems to think that the people are moving. I'm thinking it has to be a combination of both in order for everything to work out.
Juliet, Sawyer, and Faraday seem to be the leaders of the other portion for the duration of this episode. Sawyer's line of "It's the ghost of Christmas future" was - awful writing. Just. Terrible. I liked the way Daniel explained everything to the audiance and I liked his scene with Desmond at the very end when he tells Desmond that everyone is in trouble that they left behind. Desmond shows up at the very end of the episode and that's it for him and Penny in "Because You Left". The main purpose of this group was to have everything explained to us and I thought that was good.
The Oceanic Six didn't really do much of anything. With the island traveling in time it seems like all of the discussion will focus on what's going on with the island. Jack and Ben scenes at the beignning were very good. Ben seems to have some form of a "team" that we will be learning about. Enjoying Kate + Aaron's relationship on-screen, though it looks like I'm one of a few in that section of the show. Sun runs into Widemore again, to which he is upset that she ran into him in public instead of doing it in private. There wasn't a whole lot really going on - Sun seems like a very dangerous member of the Oceanic Six right now. I don't really know her agenda. Sayid's fight scene was well done, though Hurley looking over the balcony was yet another face-palm moment.
Overall - this opening episode had a lot of things to talk about, but it wasn't as amazing as past openers. I do like the flashless format, I think we have learned enough about our characters to go the rest of the way without getting too much more flashes.
LOST - THE LIE SCORES A 8.90 / 10.00
This review will likely be shorter then my last review. This episode was a bit of a change from "Because You Left" - settling into a much more chill tone then the opener, which we all knew to expect considering they were written to be two seperate episodes.
The Oceanic Six - Hurley - takes up the main portion of the episode which ultimate is the reason that the episode comes up short in a lot of ways. I like Jorge Garcia as an actor and I think he plays Hurley very well - but the writing in this episode is just not good for him. Let's begin with the opening scene of the episode. It's a flashback to the days when the Oceanic Six were on the boat, coming up with the lie. Hurley tells Sayid that one day he is going to need his help and that he won't give it - ****c flashback / flashforward technique. Say something a long time ago and then it makes sense sometime in the future. This one didn't make sense because the entire episode is about Hurley telling Sayid. Maybe that was the point - but I just didn't see the purpose for Hurley to call out just Sayid out of everyone in the group, it made it seem too forced and the writers were trying to make too much of a conneection between something that happened three years ago and something that is going on right now. The Sayid / Ben twist in "The Economist" was done perfectly - Sayid says he will never work for Ben, but we find out he does, and then some episodes later there is a good reason why. In this - Hurley singles out Sayid and blames him and it fails to connect to the rest of the episode. Very poorly done.
Continuing with Hurley - the conversation with Anna-Lucia comes up short as well. Didn't like it. The entire scene could have been okay, but the thing is the writers tried to make the scene "funny" and failed in doing so. Anna-Lucia tries to joke on Hurley for his clothes and the entire thing kind of comes off like Miles' "3.2 million dollar" request back in "Eggtown". The tacked on "Libby says Hi" line at the end of the conversation just made me happy that the scene was finnaly over. In summary --> The first 5 minutes of each episode was done very poorly, which is likely why I was put into this midset for both episodes because I did the best I could to seperate them and judge them as their own episodes.
Continuing with Hurley - the scenes with his Dad were all pretty poor. I don't like Martin as an actor and I didn't think he did a very good job in this episode. Sitting down to watch Expose was a nice inside joke, but the minute it took him to make a sandwhich was just like - okay. Hurley's Mom shows up a little bit later. I did like the scene where Hurley gives the summary of lost in about 30 seconds, I should try that out sometime. She doesn't understand it, but I still thought the scene came out really well and it was one of the highlight scenes of the episode.
Continuing with Hurley - the scene with Ben was the most humerous scene of the episode. Loved the hot pocket through. The look Emerson provided was beyond amazing. Shocked the writers had Hurley run into the cops outside of his house, I would have thought they would have gone a different route with that. Hurley has always been one for doing what people tell him - so standing up to Ben out of everyone seemed a little - heroic and out of character? Like I said - Hurley took up a big portion of the episode.
I didn't like Frogurt's apperance in the epsiode. I like his character but the "We can't even get fire" line followed by a flaming arrow was a roll of the eyes moment. Juliet and Sawyer seperate from the group and run into some island inhabitants, likely thise who started the arrow war with the rest of our survivors. There wasn't a whole lot to talk about island wise in this episode, it was more about the Oceanic Six and Hurley.
Oceanic Six breakdown - Jack gets tossed Sayid, but nothing really gets accomplished. Sun invites Kate for a visit - I thought it was cool that we got to see that. I liked the Kate / Aaron elevator scene, another scene that seems to be coming under some scruntiny. Ben had a good part to this episode and had the best scene of the episode. The ending scene with Hawking and the "70 hours" was really well done and I liked that one a lot.
Overall - I think the two-hour opening failed on several levels. I think it was the worst 1-2 combination that the show has ever had to start off a season and ever since "Through The Looking Glass" the show has been on a razor to deliver in the final 48. This is not final 48 quality and I hope to see that change in the next episode. Somehow.