But when you back away, it's a big mess

Lost is like a reverse Monet.

Monet is the impressionist, right? So the old saying (or some saying, I don't really know much about painters) is that far away it looks great, but when you get up close, it's a big mess.

LOST is really quite good at short scenes. They're very dramatic. There are enough good actors in the show to make scenes really sizzle. The editing is good, and the style helps a lot. Honestly, there are some days when they lean on style like an old man leans on the railing in the subway.

But what it's terrible, no....what it's aggressively retarded about, is the big picture.

If you even examine three or four episodes in a row there are enough holes, logic gaps, leaps, and spastic reasoning on the part of the islanders one can only assume the "long arc" has been written by seventeen different people who all have a different (and stupid!) idea of what's going on.

The very clear and evident truth is, none of the writers know what's going on. It's fairly plain they have no idea what's going to happen from season to season, and I'm on the fence if they know what's going to happen three episodes out. I thought that was impossible in scripted TV with this sort of budget, but -something- is rotten in Denmark.

When you watch something like SEVEN, (where it's likely the writer came up with the awesome ending first and then figured out cool ways to get there) or better yet the masterfully crafted season arcs in THE WIRE, the short-term planning of LOST glares like the sun off Lock's head.