Thursday, April 28, 2005

Okay, I want a show of hands. Who thinks Lost did a lame-ass clip show because they:

a. went over budget?
b. went over schedule?
c. or figured no one can keep the damn story straight any more?

And why wasn't Hurley's numeric surprise in it?

I wonder if the l.a.c.s. will be on the DVD.

2:57 PM

10 Comments:

What makes it lame?
Other than the all-important all clip shows are somewhat lame rule?

I watched this show last night even though I'm caught up since I've seen LOST since the beginning. I watched it mainly because I wanted to see how they did it differently from the Desperate Housewives: Sorting out the Dirty Laundry show that ABC aired Sunday.

The LOST show didn't do backstory - it just caught everybody up on the basics of what we know about what's happened on the island since the crash. Since Hurley's whole thing really isn't important unless you know the backstory, I probably would have left it out too.

The only thing I can say about this show is predicated on the results of that DH clip show. That one for those who didn't see it, took a character per act and ran down everything that happened to them up to now.

Now, I watched 2 DH's earlier in the season and then stopped. Figured I'd seen it enough. But the thing is such a phenomenon-pig that I've been feeling lately like maybe I should have gone further, that I can't be that out of touch with such an out of the box hit. I mean it's not like someone asked me to watch JAG.

So I watched. And guess what? I feel now like maybe I could watch the last 4 eps of DH and know what the hell is going on. I might watch the next new episode.

Now, I'm sure that's what they're doing with LOST too. If 5% of the people watching were people who hadn't watched up til then, and were tuning in knowing that ABC heavily promoted this as the way to catch up with these shows -- well, if even some of that 5% continue to watch, that could translate to 10 million or more viewers. That doesn't strike me as a lame ass move at all.

It worked in Reality with Survivor --the finales usually uptick from episodes preceding it. I think this may just turn out to be the way that highly serialized dramas get to have their cake (rewarding intricate stories) and eat it too (attract new viewers in time for the season ender.) And that's not lame either.

In fact, how much do you wish Arrested Development had tried something like it?

By  DMc, at 4:10 PM  

Lost and Desperate Housewives didn't create their own clip shows; they were created by two companies that mostly create promos, including some of the promos for Lost and Desperate Housewives. And the shows both remain really popular. So I don't think it's a matter of being over budget, over schedule, or too convoluted. They're preparing for May sweeps, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if their ratings next week are a bit higher as a result.

I'd prefer a new episode...but with DH's clipshow bringing in almost as many viewers as a new episode, and Lost's episode bringing in a bit less (after weeks of no new episodes), I expect clip shows to be an annual event now.

By  Peter, at 4:52 PM  

Since ABC isn't running repeats on Saturday Nights like they should be. I'd go with Plot. My DVD box saw it as a new episode and taped it.

Just need to wait till next week to get our LOST fix....

By  R. K. Bentley, at 5:44 PM  

Re. your previous post about comedy writing in your new book... are you also going to write about the various styles of comedic writing ? Like black/dark humour, sophisticated humour ?
Ofcourse I can't at the moment think of any TV examples.. I think maybe most shows have glimmers of these styles every now and then, but I don't think an entire show has been based on these comedic styles... or am I mistaken ?

J

By  Anonymous, at 5:58 PM  

Well, dark humor, sure. Any Joss Whedon show. Sophisticated humor ... I'm trying to think of an example but it sort of depends on what you mean by sophisticated...

By  Alex Epstein, at 6:13 PM  

The best clip show I've ever seen was Stargate SG1's. The clips were short, clear and consise and the "plot" of the episode was very believable. It covered the major plotpoints over the series' life-span and addressed questions that fans had been asking for quite a while, in a humourous way.

Arrested Development and the OFfice are two examples of sophisticated humour IMO. They rely on clever writing and awkward pauses

(beat)

to convey the joke. Also, they both force you to pay attention to the show because many of the jokes are related to a phrase someone said or a seemingly minor event...

Ok, I'm rambling here but my idea of sophisticated humour is something that may use a punchline (or lack of one) for furthuring the audience's enjoyment, but ultimately gains its laughs from clever writing and acting.

By  Jason Sanders, at 6:54 PM  

ABC just wants to see if they can capitalize on the ten tons of extra hype Lost is getting and suck more people into the vortex. There is a few stragglers congregating at the water cooler complaining that they have no clue what has been going on (but they wished they did so they could see Sawyer with his shirt off again) so the catch-up episide is just one giant Suck-In Promo

By  Anonymous, at 7:37 PM  

I didn't read all the other comments yet, so maybe someone already addressed this.

It's an ABC thing. Desperate Housewives did the same thing this week.

By  Anonymous, at 7:59 PM  

Ah. And now I see EVERYONE addressed this. Sorry. I deserve the dunce cap of the day.

By  Anonymous, at 8:02 PM  

I tried to keep my eyes glued to the screen, thinking I might catch something I'd missed, previously. But I've seen every episode to date, so this clip show was boring me to tears by the second commercial break. I FF'd the tape to watch Alias, instead.

I'd completely forgotten about the whole numerical mystery that Hurley discovered. Why the heck wasn't that included in any of the clips? At any rate, I thought it was a wee bit better done than the DH clip show.

By  Anonymous, at 9:34 PM  

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