Uh, who was saying the news about the just announced Buffy comic writers was like a whole basketful of tiny kittens!? (QG) Plotzes ... Genuflects ... Thanks Lucky Stars and Charms - they are magically delicious!.

This can only be of the good, I hope. Lost really needs help focusing in a way that is beneficial in keeping viewers interested and the plot less (seemingly so) convoluted.

You go Drew and Brian!!

[ edited by Tonya J on 2006-12-20 22:07 ]

[ edited by Tonya J on 2006-12-20 22:08 ]

Tonya J | December 21, 00:06 CET

It's like Christmas for Vaughan fans today. Both Buffy: Season 8 and Lost should benefit greatly from the man's considerable storytelling abilities.

rbt | December 21, 01:01 CET

So Mark Millar was right.

Simon | December 21, 01:05 CET

Cool, he went to film school, right? Should help. I can't get super excited, just because of how meh Lost has been since Season 1. Plus, the show has a pretty ginormous writing staff, doesn't it? Might get in the way of him writing more than a couple of episodes a year.

Dirk | December 21, 01:37 CET

Yay?

I don't want to dampen everyone's enthusiasm, but Drew G. has been on the show for a year plus now, and LOST went downhill during his stay. Talented writing staff can't get you there if the showrunners don't know where they're going.

cjl | December 21, 01:44 CET

Yeah, I couldn't help being excited. Who knows how much of an influx from B&A could wind up on their staff, though. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with during their tenure.

Tonya J | December 21, 01:46 CET

I think Lost has a regular-sized writing staff... it's the cast that's enormous :)

daylight | December 21, 02:08 CET

"My writing staff feels big. Is it big?"
"No, it's writing staff-sized."

(They don't call me *OZ*Lady for nothing! :-D)

OzLady | December 21, 02:18 CET

LOL, OzLady!

I agree Lost needs help this season; I hope that by going to someone like Mr. Vaughan, who knows a thing or two about keeping multiple character stories interesting, the producers are showing they know they need help.

Also: Dear Brian K. Vaughan, Thanks for joining the Lost staff. Please write more about Kate's backstory; her ex-husband Kevin seemed quite interesting! (Just work it out so he can come by when he has days off from his new job.) Peace, out, billz. ;-)

billz | December 21, 03:35 CET

Heh. And billz works in the plug for bringing *cough* Kevin back.

Tonya J | December 21, 03:40 CET

OzLady is funny lady.

Harmalicious | December 21, 04:04 CET

I'm eager to see which characters BKV will end up working with. I think his style would suit Sayid or Charlie - the two Losties that nobody seems to know what to do with, but whose actors haven't committed some sort of contract-breaching felony in the past year. They better utilize the guy to his fullest potential, is all, 'cause there's plenty of room on Galactica...

noplaceIcanbe | December 21, 04:33 CET

Every announcement of some fantastic new writer joining the 'Lost' staff is just another opportunity for fans to winge about how "bad" or "off track" the series is now. *sigh*

But seriously, I've been a big BKV fan for a long, long time now and think this has the potential to be awesome news.

Haunt | December 21, 07:09 CET

i still like LOST...though, i just started watching this summer via DVD....so i can see where others might be growing weary of its nonsense. im kinda glad i waited to start watching :)

yamsham | December 21, 07:14 CET

I think Season 3 of Lost has been much better than the mostly mediocre and at times crawling second season (the last five or six episodes of last year pretty much rocked though). I've been entertained with almost every episode, I loved the change-up in format somewhat early on. Specifically, how only three of the main characters were played with each episode at the beginning--Jack, Sawyer, Kate, or Sayid, Jin, Sun--and then the other folks back at the beach were re-introduced slowly. Season 3 feels like it's delivering on the potential promised in Season 1 and, if the second half lives up to the build of the first, it could be Lost's best year yet, IMO.

I hated the death of Eko, though. What a waste.

Having a winter break was definitely the way to go. It'll be nice to not have to suffer through a broken up schedule of repeats from February to May.

Cool for Brian K. Vaughan. A TV-addict's dream job. It's hard to predict whether his presence will be felt in the dialogue and plot set-ups. I just hope for more focus in the overall arc. Matthew Fox taunted in an interview recently that he at least knows how it all ends, though not how the story arrives there...wonder if he was kidding though. I'd be surprised if they'd planned a definitive ending for this series. In Season 1 JJ Abrams and others made it sound like they hadn't a clue about the big picture and hadn't even done a rough outline for all the eps of Season 1. I understand that a lot of dramas, even serialized ones, aren't sketched out by the writing teams before the seasons start and many of these shows turn out fine or even excellent...but it's reassuring when the creative team lets on that they do have a plan.

[ edited by Kris on 2006-12-21 07:20 ]

Kris | December 21, 09:19 CET

Brian is going to rock that script! He's such a talented writer. I can't wait.

Mikie | December 21, 10:17 CET

Haunt - "Every announcement of some fantastic new writer joining the 'Lost' staff is just another opportunity for fans to winge about how "bad" or "off track" the series is now. *sigh*"

Right there with ya, Haunt. I've had this conversation so many times already (in another thread here quite recently actually) but I'm honestly baffled as to what it is that people are not liking about the show.

Does it have the occasional dull episode? Yes, but what show doesn't? Are all the various plot lines and answers immediately obvious? No, but then if that is what you really want then watch something like CSI. Did season two go a little slow in developments? For me personally the answer is no but then I actually can see that for some it may have seemed that way, particularly in the first ten or twelve episodes. Even so, the second half (in particular the last six or seven episodes) was just amazing television.

What I really don't understand is what people mean when they suggest that the showrunners don't know what they are doing or where they are heading. For me, almost every detail that we have been given makes sense in the larger picture of what we know of the Dharma Initiative. Okay, you need to have been paying attention and it helps if you have followed the the online Lost Experience for the information revealed during that, but it really does all fit together if you look at all the pieces. Just because you may not have all the info that has been given doesn't mean that the writers and showrunners are not working with a definate plan in mind. Everything from the plane crash to the numbers, from the polar bears to the black smoke is connected and a result of the exact same thing. As Scully once said, the answers are there, you just have to know where to look.

I'm totally in agreement with Kris, with regards to season three. So far it has been excellent and very informative (some of the things that Ben has said combined with a little information given by the Lost Experience has pretty much told us everything we need to know about the Others and what they are doing on the island) so hopefully it's going to please many of the fans who wanted more action and more clues as to what is going on.

It's all in the smoke. ;)

D-Monik | December 21, 18:55 CET

cjl, what are you talking about? I don't think Goddard had much input in the second season. He may not have even been on the writing staff at all, I'm not entirely sure. In any case I doubt his involvement was large enough have an impact on the show's overall quality.

[ edited by fryrish on 2006-12-21 17:53 ]

sungoesdark | December 21, 19:41 CET

You're right--Goddard didn't write a single ep in S2, but he co-wrote "Glass Ballerina" (3.2) with Jeff Pinkner, so I presume he's been there all along. Anybody out there know for sure?

Look, I don't want to start the "Has LOST lost it?" argument on this board, and I did not intend to disparage Drew G.'s writing talent. It's just that--despite Drew G.'s input--I felt that LOST was slipping off course during Season 2, much the way ALIAS (JJ's previous brainchild) did during Season 3. ALIAS never found its way back, but I watched because my admiration and affection for Victor Garber, Carl Lumbly, Ron Rifkin, Lena Olin, and Kevin Weisman wouldn't let me leave. I have no such lingering affection for the LOST crew--except MAYBE Terry O'Quinn. But Locke (such as he is) isn't enough to keep me around much longer.

[ edited by cjl on 2006-12-21 21:03 ]

cjl | December 21, 21:56 CET

The Alias/Lost comparison is also something that I tend to think is a little unfair and gets thrown out far too often as "proof" that Lost is going down hill with no hope of return.

Ultimately, the main reason that the comparison is made is because J.J. Abrams created both series and yet that is pretty much where this specific connection ends, certainly regarding season two of Lost which had very little involvement from Abrams himself. Assuming that Lost and Alias are following the same pattern simply because they were originally created by the same guy doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm wondering, cjl, if you have seen all six episodes of season three so far? Because if you are a Locke fan then I'd say that it's fair to say that the Locke we know and love is back, large and in charge. Stick with the show for the third season at least. I'd say it will be worth it.

D-Monik | December 21, 22:44 CET

Mostly. But other than the Locke material, which washed away some of that S2 bitter taste, I haven't been impressed. I can't bear the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle (and for that matter, I can barely stand Kate, Jack and Sawyer). Ben was far more menacing and deliciously eeevil as Henry Gale. Eko's death was an absolute travesty.

And as for the LOST/ALIAS parallels, a good chunk of the S4 & S5 ALIAS writer/producer staff is now on LOST, backing up Cuse and Lindelhof. I don't think the comparison is too off-center.

[ edited by cjl on 2006-12-21 21:06 ]

cjl | December 21, 23:03 CET

that's awesome for BKV!

groonk | December 21, 23:20 CET

As a Locke and Eko fan I do know where you are coming from in both cases but again everything happening makes sense in the larger picture. From Locke losing his faith to the death of Eko. It's all an important part of the story's tapestry. Eko's role on the island was always planned to be a short one and I actually think that the writers should be praised for going to the trouble of making a character so complex and interesting to watch when they always knew that he was destined to die very soon.

As for the writers you mention, whilst I've seen that a few of the old Alias writers are now onboard for the third season of Lost (Goddard, as mentioned, as well as Pinkner, Schapker and Owusu-Breen have written episodes so far), they had nothing to do with the second season which, as I understand it, is actually where your issue with the show's quality began. Also, I'd say that the two episodes they have written to date have been very good indeed. I think it's only fair to give them, and the show itself, the benefit of the doubt. They might surprise you.

D-Monik | December 21, 23:31 CET

Oops! Double post. Sorry 'bout that. :)

[ edited by The Immortal on 2006-12-21 21:32 ]

D-Monik | December 21, 23:31 CET