Thursday, January 31, 2008

This is a blog.

This is a letter to the Public Relations department of ABC Studios.
(This is not a flash forward).

We at Lostpedia would like to officially request an interview.

I watched the enhanced version of Through the Looking Glass, and (we're about to share a big moment): I was enhanced.

The Powers that Be (including script supervisor Gregg Nations) have denied having a hand in the enhancement captions. "Papa is very angry." They gave away all those mirror secrets.

But I really enjoyed the writing. I mean: WHAT writer's strike?

So let us please have an interview with the writing intern from ABC's marketing department responsible for the enhanced captions. He/she was amazing. Let me list the ways.

I had forgotten who Rousseau was, but luckily there were those popup pics to remind me. She looked crazy.

And most of all I'd forgotten who the scary dude was. He seemed awfully familiar.
You read my mind, and said:
"This scary dude is Ben Linus, the leader of the Others."
Oh yeah.

The ABC intern did his homework, maybe on the Internets. The Black Rock is a 19th century slaving ship. St. Sebastian is a protector from the plague. Pascal Flats is a reference to... ooo my mind was spinning.

But what about Richard Alpert? He's Ben's advisor, but there was no Ram Dass explanation in the caption. GRRR. And he highlighted Pascal Flats, but why did he ignore where Richard was actually taking all the Others? THE TEMPLE THE TEMPLE. WTH.

Wait wait, let me calm down, and get back on topic.

I was truly impressed. The ABC marketing intern read up on the last name Nadler, and labeled the Nirvana song playing in Jack's car (I guess Sarah sold his BMW).

And, yes, yes, YESSSS:
DHARMA is always all-caps, because it's an acronym-- have the caption writer go educate the film crew, since the prop master apparently doesn't know that. High five.

The sad part was all those boring parts when I had to sit through the actual show, when the captions dropped out. (More captions next time!)

Thankfully these caption dropouts were few because who actually wanted to watch the acting? Oh, the emotion in the enhanced caption, just tell it to me, it's spoonfed to me like Heroes:
"Clearly Jack is in great despair".
"Ben knows that he is SERIOUS"
"Jack and Kate are about to share a big moment."
"That's right, all three are highly motivated." (List)

Thanks ABC intern! That's what television is all about.

I was just drawn right into... "our gang."
Psst: Our gang = the characters we are rooting for.
(Remind me to put a new entry in the Lostpedia nickname article.)

And did I mention the quality of the sublime writing?
I'll say it again: WHAT writer's strike? We have lines like:

"hang on everybody, our triangle has just become... a quadrangle."
"Patchy, regrettably sans patch"
"It's not easy to be the leader of the Others"

And there was even fan service:
"Jaters are no doubt gleeful."

Ok, ok, I know ABC has to cater to the least common denominator and not the Lost-fan-without-a-life (i.e., people reading this blog, Jaters, and of course myself). Lost must capitalize on the barren landscape of WGA-less shows in the midst of the strike, and we can't afford to lose any audience due to the complex story. Here's the chance to Heroes-ify Lost without the creators of Lost having a say. Good for you.

So back to my first request.

May we have an interview with the ABC intern(s) responsible for the enhanced captions? We'd love to get in contact with him/her, but don't know how.

And in case you didn't get it, this is a STAR WARS reference, when Princess Leia triggered Artoo's message:

Help me ABC PR Dep't, you're my only hope. Please grant us this interview.

7 comments:

  1. I thought that some of the captions were extermly funny! ☻☺☻

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  2. This post was really hard to follow.
    I thought the "Enhanced Version" was really well done. As you stated, the point was to remind those that aren't on boards everyday theorizing (of which I am a proud member), and get them up to speed for the premiere. But it didn't bother me at all. I thought the captions were humorous - it almost seemed like Damon's voice ans sense of humor was coming through the captions, even though I agree he wouldn't have been able to write the them.

    Maybe we had different expectations. I went in knowing it wouldn't be ground-breaking and just enjoyed it for the humor. Plus, my wife (who actually has a life) learned quite a bit.

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  3. I probably only read ~25% of the 'captions' (too busy SMSing or just watching the show to bother with them), but the ones I saw were, at times, quite funny. As a gimmick, though, I'd have to say that they would annoy me if they were a constant thing - they take up too much screen real estate, especially when photos are being displayed. Still, though, I realize that they're not for me - they're for Lost newbies who ABC is trying to entice into watching, both now and when they (they hope) sell the show in syndication. I learned all of this from this article in the NYTimes. Also learned: the 'captions' weren't written by anyone at ABC at all, but by Met|Hodder, a "marketing and production company (who have) ... also handled all the previous 'Lost' clip shows." The things you learn from reading the NYTimes, eh??

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  4. anonymous: You're right, people that have a life learned quite a bit from the captions-- I observed this effect with the people I was watching it with. I didn't have to keep hitting pause to explain Lost myself, so the captions did indeed work as advertised.

    Snark_nerd - Thanks for the NY Times info re: Met|Hodder!

    1/31/2008 7:08 PM

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  5. What a jerky rant. The captioned episode was obviously intended to help new and infrequent viewers get up to speed before the new season.

    The biggest complaint I hear about Lost is that it's impossible to follow without having seen every episode. I know plenty of people who gave up watching after missing a single episode. You're criticizing ABC for trying to help overwhelmed potential viewers understand the show you love?

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  6. I thought they were mostly funny, occasionally useful to me and most certainly useful to those who are either just getting started with Lost or haven't watched for a while. So, thanks for your troll commentary on the captions, but...no dice.

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  7. I see why they did them. And I agree with both sides of this argument, sort of.

    Sometimes, they were a useful way of letting people know what's going on... of course, taking people out of the action in order to let them know what was going on is never going to work perfectly.

    My problem (as mentioned briefly in the post) is that they included stuff like "Jack is angry". Tell us all about characters backstories, but don't tell us what the actors themselves are supposed to convey!

    "Now we're back underwater in the Looking Glass..." alright, viewers aren't dullards...

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