More about Lost and Battlestar

Both Lost and Battlestar Galactica are on their third seasons, I’ve watched Lost from the start and got into Battlestar Galactica during the third season (because watch TV on Friday night wasn’t my cup of tea). I thought the second season of Lost was much better than the first, while the first was above average. As I reported last week I hated the season opener for the third season, by far one of the worst that I have seen. The second show of this season, much better but still falls far from the tree.

One reason that I like Lost is because of the wide variety of characters. The first two episodes of the season have dealt narrowly with the characters. I’m wondering much what happened to everyone else on the island. Yes, it is interesting to know what is going on with the “others” but I also know that the show isn’t going to reveal much so get back into the characters and the other mysteries of the island (the others wore itself out for me).

This last week had Sayid who is my favorite character. The Kwon’s were the focus of the flashback, and that was good in itself because their flashback scenes are better than their scenes on the island. This may change with their development, especially with some of the revelations during this episode. There is a major paradox in this episode though, the “others” seem to easily sneak past Sayid who has shown to be a competent former solder (another mystery because the Iraqi army wasn’t know for being that great); while Sawyer easily beats up a bunch of them. I understand that these were not the same group of “others” but it doesn’t seem right to me. This episode was much better than the opener. If the next episode has Hugo, Charlie, and Locke I’ll be much happier.

One issue that links the two series is the large cast of characters. After three seasons the group on Lost is at the same time narrowing and expanding. Some characters have died and others have left (possible); and there has been an expansion of characters as well. It looks to have some “others” become more mainstream characters. Where I think the series is failing is the focus on Sawyer, Kate, and Jack who I think are the three most hollow characters in the series. Battlestar on the other hand has embraced the smaller characters and given them a smaller role and fleshed them out. The main characters like Adama and Adama are becoming more interesting and minor characters like Cally and Zarek have smaller roles but seem as powerful as the main characters. Tigh is developing really well.

I have no complaints about the third episode, the story is progressing and once again I wanted more at the end of the episode. My only complaint is Starbuck, who in the first two episodes was a little boring, and it got a little more interesting now. The Cylons are becoming more interesting now that they are cracking down more on the humans and the revolt is spreading. What I am most happy with is Sharon’s role. There are continued mysteries mainly involving to what really happened with the Cylons, are they a rouge faction or will there be a rogue faction? What is up with Sharon’s baby; and now Starbuck’s baby? What makes the episode even better is that it really only a lead up to the next episode and it was still awesome.

What Battlestar is doing better than Lost is the character development. Yes, there are more “others” to develop, but the last two seasons has been developing them as a mystery and not as characters. That means I just don’t care about them as characters, and the mystery about their characters. They were always a “group” while the Cylons have had individuals about them from the beginning. There is one Cylon that appears to be developing, but she was developed before when everyone thought she was a human. Lost used to have smaller characters that were able to dominate a few scenes and make their presence know, so far this season there has been a desperate lack of that. I don’t care much for the others, and their development so far has been more attempting to reinforce the mystery (at the expense of other characters) as opposed to making them real characters.