Found It!

This past year, I've fallen way behind in my television viewing.  I've been distracted by life, and The Wire, and books, so the only thing I really kept current with was the amazing final season of BSG.  I did continue to DVR my favorite shows, though, and finally am starting to get caught up on some of these.  Right now I'm about halfway through the 13-episode season of "Lost," and if time permits I may also go through the remainder of "House."

For a long while, I've had a hard time putting my finger on how I feel about Lost's writing.  I think I finally have it.  "Lost" is quite good at writing interesting stories, and generally awful at writing dialog.  I mean "dialog" in the literal sense of two people exchanging sentences with one another.  Lost has always been pretty good at one-liners (see: Sawyer), as well as monologues (see: Ben, Daniel).  But nearly any time that two people get together, it turns into a cringe-fest.

Person 1: "I'm really angry!  I demand answers!"
Person 2: "Look at me ignore your question while I tell you that you need to travel to Point B."
Person 1: "I shall continue to scowl and yell, but not acknowledge that what you said makes no sense."

I think I'll start viewing all Lost dialog as camp, and the rest of the show as drama.  This could increase my enjoyment of it.

Speaking of which, I AM enjoying the current (rather, last) season.  Here are some

MINI SPOILERS

I'm pleased with Locke's current arc.  I nearly stopped watching Lost when they took him, the most interesting character in the first season, and turned him into a whiny brat.  Not totally sure where he's going, but so far signs look good.

Current favorite characters:
Locke
Daniel

Most intriguing characters:
Whitmore
Ben
Lt. Daniels

MEGA SPOILERS

The rant above about dialog was actually prompted by the scenes where the Oceanic Six meet with Ms. Hawking and when Locke meets with Whitmore.  These are HUGE events, people - the best chance they may ever get to figure out what the hell is going on.  And it just... argh!  I don't care that they don't explain everything, I just hate the stilted way they talk past each other.  Even when the individual characters are awesome, in company they just don't work together.

The scene with Locke's attempted suicide in the hotel room?  AMAZING.  I dug that hard.

END SPOILERS

Interesting to speculate on where the rest of the season will go.  In general, though, I'm fairly optimistic that the writers will be able to bring this show to a satisfying conclusion.  As long as there's no dialog in the final episode.