So as we go another week without Lost, it leaves me with more time to dwell on the shit storm it left us with. Now we have perspective on the whole endeavour, it's changed my opinions on some of the characters. Some of them seemed relevant back when we didn't know what it was all about, but now it's over, we have learnt that they didn't matter in any of it, and that if we ever want to watch it again, we can just skip their flashbacks/forwards/sideways all together. Below is a list of these annoying characters.
Kate
For such a central character to a TV show, it is strange that she is one we care about so little. There are reasons a many for this however. Number one, from the start, we learn she is a criminal, we later discover she has killed her own father, lovely. Number two, she is intent on having both Jack and Sawyer, leave one for us! Number three, she wants to get involved in everyone’s problems, but goes mental when asked about her own life. This makes her a harassing murdering slag, and is why I didn’t care about her.
At the end of the show, it became clear that all these characters were on the island to redeem themselves, but even at the end, Kate never really did that, hell, she didn’t even show much remorse for her crimes. How were we supposed to empathise with her struggles of being a fugitive when she was guilty? Yes, other characters killed, but their actions were understandable to an extent, where as I can’t even remember why Kate killed her father. And she stole a lunchbox when she was a kid!
Another “annoying Kate moment” came in the last season, when Sawyer opens up to her about his feelings for Juliet. Sawyer walks away, and it is Kate who bursts into tears! Why is she crying? And why are we supposed to be sad that she is sad for Sawyer? It just made me dislike her even more.
It was originally planned for Jack to die at the end of the pilot episode, with Kate taking over as the "leader", thank your gods that didn’t happen.
Rose And Bernard
For all the brilliant multi dimensional characters in lost, it is these two characters who have the least dimensions. They don’t work individually, and they hardly work as a couple. What gets me about these two dicks is their persistence, they never leave! We only saw Rose in the first season, who was a moody bitch who sat on the other side of the beach, NOT HELPING. There’s been a plane crash! People are injured, hungry, thirsty, and most likely lost loved ones themselves. The cynic I am, I just saw her as lazy and selfish, and excluding a rare moment of empathy for when she and Bernard are reunited in Season 2, it turns out she’s a complete bitch to him, and he’s better off on the other side of the island.
As the series went on, it became clear that they had no direction, and no impact on any of the several hundred plots, so why were they always there? And they just didn’t want to help, there were people dying, and they just sat there eating all the Dharma food. Again, lazy and selfish. I suppose they looked after Vincent, you have to start with something small I guess.
If there were to be Lost spin-offs then a shit sitcom featuring the two would probably be made. Bernard does something stupid (perhaps in the style of Larry David) and then Rose just insults him for 20 minutes.
Walt
Now let’s get this clear, Walt wasn’t a bad character, the writers just didn’t think it through. My one biggest question at the end of Lost was “Why did you waste all that time making Walt appear to be so integral to the whole fucking thing?”
Walt had special freaky X-Men powers, and remember when Locke saw him after he had left the island already? I wanted these questions answered, and they never were.
The explanation for this is no doubt that the actor had a growth spurt, but for all the stupid shit they did put in the show, they could have no doubt managed to find a way around this. More than likely, they just got bored with him. It’s a shame, because I really liked the direction the show was going in the first few seasons, and I was looking forward to a massive revelation involving Walt and the others. When you think about Walt, it raises so many unanswered questions, especially the polar bear.
Jacob
Another intriguing character who was ruined. I know we got to find out who he was but remember when he was first mentioned? In Season 3 Jacob is referred to as the Other’s leader. Everything Benjamin does is because Jacob has told him to do it. But this seems pretty inconsistent with the Jacob we know in Season 6. The “first” Jacob, was mysterious, he was unseen, and unheard. We saw that strange Clockwork Orange style room, and then the cabin Locke and Benjamin visit. When we find out who he actually is, it’s a bit of a letdown. Why is he completely different to that thing in the cabin? What the hell was that all about? To me, it’s just another case of the writer’s “making it up as they go along”.
I was expecting quite an evil character, who was manipulating everyone, ordering the death’s of several people, but in the end, he was really just this naïve man who wanted to prove that mankind wasn’t all that bad. Like Walt, they could have really built on the mythology, and made a very evil character, but instead Jacob was the good guy, and the man in black was the bad guy. It just didn’t make sense.
The man in black
Why? What was the point? “What do you mean people won’t watch a tv show that’s just about a plane crash? Let’s have a monster? OK!” What we all thought was just an “ordinary” monster, right from the very first episode, was in fact just a man, and they didn’t even explain that very well.
The black smoke was one of the biggest mysteries of Lost, and it was a bit of a letdown to find out that it was just a man who wanted to get off the island, but for some reason couldn’t. If we were to believe this, then it would have helped if we were told why he became black smoke (I‘m not buying magic light!), and why he couldn’t leave the island.
Why could Benjamin beckon him? Did that mean he was taking orders from the man in black and not Jacob? That would have been plausible, but it’s explained that this wasn’t the case. As the man in black and Jacob ultimately became the two most important characters (to the plot anyway), it would have worked better if they had more time to develop. Across the sea is not acceptable in any form, and had they been unravelled throughout the season, they may have been more believable. To me, it looks like they ran out of ideas, and the man in black was the best they could do.
The Mother
Across the sea is one of the worst Lost episodes, and as it came so late in the series, it was even more disappointing. It’s intent was to explain Jacob and the man in black, but in the end it just confused us more. Everything about this episode was confusing, especially the introduction of a new character, their mother.
Where did she come from? How was she different to people? Why didn’t she like them? And why did she steal babies? She wasn’t likeable, she didn’t have a point, and she died at the end of the episode, so why raise all these questions so near to the finale? This was the point in the show where I knew none of my questions would be answered, I had hoped for some, but after seeing this episode, I knew that NONE of them would be answered (and they weren’t).
The mother was a typical “other” character (ragged clothes and stealing babies), so it may have worked better in a flashback about how the others came about, and maybe at the beginning on the season as opposed to the end.
Claire
By far my least favourite character in the series. From the beginning she was just there to flesh out the cast, like Hurley, Charlie, Michael, Rose, Boone, Shannon, Sun, Jin, Vincent. Hurley liked food, Charlie liked drugs, Michael liked shouting, Boone liked Shannon, Shannon hated everything, Sun liked her English teacher, Jin liked shouting, and Claire, err, liked giving away babies.
For all the other character’s issues, they were pretty much inconsequential, Claire’s pregnancy made her more involved than she should be. We had to go through the whole tedious flashback (with the psychic), and then the whole kidnapping kafuffle, and then the actual birth, all in the first season. No one really cared when she was kidnapped apart from Charlie, and he was a heroin addict.
Maybe I just never connected with the character, but for someone who was giving her baby away anyway, why didn’t she just let the others have it, and save everyone the trouble. Could have saved a lot of lives too, get in the corner with Rose and Bernard!
She disappeared towards the end of the series, and again no one really cared. When she did come back, she was mental! It made her twice as annoying, but delivered one of the funniest moments of season 6, when everyone kept trying to ditch her. They should have in season 1.
Nikki and Paulo
There were quite a few stale periods in the series, especially during the third season, and Expose was Lost at it’s most stale. Stand alone episodes worked in most science fiction shows, the X-Files, Buffy, Star Trek, etc, but not in Lost. Lost was all about the plot, and characters, so to introduce two (not entirely) new characters into the foray, and tell a story, that is not only cheesy, but does nothing to expand on the plot, went against everything the show stood for. This was season 3’s Across the sea. Just downright awful.
Driveshaft
Since the show began, every now and again, a song comes into my head, and it won’t leave. That song is Driveshaft’s “You are everybody”. It’s not even a real song! I am not saying that Charlie was a bad character, because I liked some of his story arcs. He was integral to Desmond’s fucking brilliant storyline, and for that, Charlie is ok in my mind, Sure, that period where he went evil was very very silly, and in the flash-sideways-purgatory-doo-da he was a total prick, but the way he left the show (initially) was perfect for his character. My beef is not with Charlie though, it’s with Manchester based rock band Driveshaft, and yes, they count as a character!
Ilana
So they have to go back to the island, but take some other non important (or so it would seem) people with them. They are split apart, and Illana takes control of this new group. She is essentially Ana Lucia 2.0, not because they are both Hispanic, but because they are angry shouty ladies who like to take control. Illana does nothing of any consequence when you think about it. We find out that Jacob was like a father to her (if you say so) so she’s out for blood for the man who killed him, and then she blows up. Vincent was more vital to the plot, she was totally pointless, and I assume there were cheers when she exploded.
John Locke
John Locke would also be on my list of best characters, as he has a genuinely interesting side to him, however, the other side to him is just so fucking boring. The Daddy issue is used so many times in the show, and as Jack had it first, Locke should have had a different problem...which he did, he had no legs, that woman he kept calling didn't love him, he got chased out of some hippy village, it just goes on and on. Your opinion of Locke depends on what version you see of him, and this is why he makes this list, because there is always a good chance you will get boring Locke, instead of interesting Locke. Had Terry O'Quinn not been so good as Locke, they probably wouldn't have used him for the man in black, and we would have had someone like Charlie.
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