Yi Yeon

(NB: this little rant won't make any sense until you've watched the episode first.)


Dammit.

I had thought that with the cut-down shortened seasons we'd seen the last of 'Lost' churning out their pointless filler episodes - that we were going to get more meat than potatoes up until to the end of the show's run. But oh no... big filler episode here and more annoyingily - one that self-consciously and most self-congratulatory plays with it's own format. I can see them now in the writer's staff room:

A: Hey, you know how for the first three seasons we had a flashback every episode to establish and explore each character's background?

B: Well d'uh. Yeah.

A: Then last season we went all 'flash forwards' with Jack - the first time playing it like it was a flash back.

B: Hell yeah, we were so completely pleased with ourselves we went on a whole weekend champagne and coke bender.

A: Well this time how about having (tee hee, tee hee) ...both. In the same episode and playing it so everyone watching will think it's all in the same time frame. 'Cause - y'know, we're all about playing with timelines and that now... us having got that copy of 'Dummy's Guide to Stephen Hawking' and found a few wikipedia articles on all that stuff.

B: Yeah - that'll be great and everyone will acknowledge our genius and we'll get even more awards and ...hey, I'll get the champagne shall I...

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Not that the payoff wasn't quite touching - but they could have achieved the same ends without Jin's flashback at all - that was completely and utterly pointless - a silly piece of rubbish screwball comedy just to deliver the 'I've only been married two months' line. All they were missing at that point was a "whaaa-whaaa-whaaa" on the soundtrack.

And as for Michael on the Freighter - oh wow, didn't see that one coming. Oh no. Not with Harold's name in the opening credits in every episode. They needed a quick 'Whaaa-whaaa-whaaaa' on that one too.