Tag Archives: Emilie de Ravin

June 3, 2010 · 2:00 am

Handicapping the 2010 Emmys: Drama Acting

June 3rd, 2010

On the drama side of things, there’s fewer trends that we can follow through to the nominees than there are in comedy. There, we can look at Glee and Modern Family and see some logical directions the awards could take, but in Drama there’s really only one new contender (The Good Wife), and the other variables are much more up in the air in terms of what’s going to connect with viewers. Lost could see a resurgence with voters in its final season, or it could be left in the dust; Mad Men could pick up more acting nominations now that its dynasty is secure, or it could remain underrepresented; Breaking Bad could stick to Cranston/Paul, or it could branch out into the rest of the stellar cast.

That unpredictability isn’t going to make for a shocking set of nominations, but I do think it leaves a lot of room open for voters to engage with a number of series to a degree that we may not have, so it’s an interesting set of races where I’m likely going out on some limbs.

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Tagged as 2010, Aaron Paul, Analysis, Andre Braugher, Anna Gunn, Archie Panjabi, Award Show, Big Love, Bob Odenkirk, Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston, Cherry Jones, Chloe Sevigny, Chris Noth, Christina Hendricks, Christine Baranski, Clarke Peters, Connie Britton, Damages, Dean Norris, Dexter, Drama, Elisabeth Moss, Emilie de Ravin, Emmys, Evangeline Lilly, Friday Night Lights, Fringe, Giancarlo Esposito, Glenn Close, Henry Ian Cusick, House, Hugh Laurie., January Jones, John Goodman, John Noble, John Slattery, Jon Hamm, Josh Charles, Julianna Margulies, Justified, Katey Sagal, Khandi Alexander, Kyle Chandler, Lauren Graham, Lisa Edelstein, Lost, Mad Men, Matthew Fox, Melissa Leo, Men of a Certain Age, Michael C. Hall, Michael Emerson, Nestor Carbonell, Nominees, Parenthoo, Peter Krause, Predictions, Ray Romano, Robert Sean Leonard, Scott Bakula, Sons of Anarchy, Television, Terry O'Quinn, The Good Wife, Timothy Olyphant, Treme, TV, Wendell Pierce, Yunjin Kim

April 20, 2010 · 11:56 pm

Lost – “The Last Recruit”

“The Last Recruit”

April 20th, 2010

“You could find yourself in a situation that’s…irreversible.”

From what we can gather, the Man in Black is a man of promises: while he has a certain power of persuasion in general, his greatest tool appears to be his ability to offer the thing that people want most. He offered Claire knowledge about her son’s whereabouts, and promised that he would help her find him, and he promised Sayid that he would reunite him with Nadia so long as he joined his side. In both cases, the characters had clear goals, and in both cases their predisposition to accepting such promises (the darkness within them) pushes them into the realm of the psychotic and dangerous.

But “The Last Recruit” asks us to reevaluate these characters, or more accurately asks us to reconsider whether their situation is truly irreversible. While Sawyer is right to be wary of Sayid and Claire due to their allegiance with Locke, other characters have the ability to promise them something more, or to force them to fully consider the nature of what the Man in Black is promising and the complications therein. On a show marked by the overwhelming power of fate, this week’s episode demonstrated a lot of characters charting a new path for themselves just as soon as it seemed everyone was in the same place for the first time in ages, with most choosing to chart their own path amidst the unclear motivations which define the island’s politics.

It becomes an instance where short-term convergence leads to long-term, and ideological, dispersion, just as the Sideways storyline begins to bring the whole gang back together again in a way which seems just uncanny enough to overcome a somewhat problematic short-term focus.

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Tagged as ABC, Adoption, Anakin, Analysis, Charles Widmore, Claire, Convergence, Desmond, Emilie de Ravin, Entertainment, Episode 13, Flash-Sideways, Hurley, Ilana, Island, Jack, Jin, Kate, Locke, Man in Black, Michael Giacchino, Promises, Reunion, Review, Sayid, Season 6, Star Wars, Sun, Surgery, Television, The Last Recruit, TV

February 23, 2010 · 10:59 pm

Lost – “Lighthouse”

“Lighthouse”

February 23rd, 2010

“I guess we weren’t looking for it…”

When Lost adds new elements to its world, acts of expansion that have been quite common early in the show’s sixth season, there’s always a question of why we’ve never seen it before. Why did they wait so long, for example, for us to meet Benjamin Linus, and why did we never learn about the Man in Black until the fifth season finale? They’re questions that have some merit, certainly, but which perhaps miss the point: the reality is that sometimes things sneak up on you, and things that have existed for centuries are only able to be found when you know where to look (and sometimes Michael Emerson blows away the producers and becomes part of the show’s expansion).

“Lighthouse” is a cross-reality investigation of this idea, of what people are able to “see” with the right information and how those viewpoints change those characters. For some, their perspective is clouded by an infection taking over their mind and body, while for others their perspective is clouded by a life filled with self-doubt and personal struggle. And while we’ve yet to be given the proper coordinates to full interested what the show’s flash-sideways structure represents, it continues to offer a unique perspective on who these characters could have been, which remains a compelling counterpoint to the characters they are and – perhaps more importantly – the characters they are destined, or not destined, to be.

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February 3, 2010 · 1:30 am

Season Premiere: Lost – “LA X”

“LA X”

February 2nd, 2010

“Nothing is Irreversible.”

To say that I am excited about the final season of Lost is an understatement, but it doesn’t tell the entire story.

I was excited, for instance, for the final season of Battlestar Galactica, but that season had clear expectations in terms of dealing with the identities of the final five Cylons, and was divided into two halves so as to stretch it out further. With Lost, there is no such clarity, as the show could be headed in any bloody direction we could imagine, and it will be completely over in only a few short months. And this is a show that I started watching on day one, that I remained devoted to throughout its run, and that was an important part of my transition into TV criticism.

So “LA X” is the culmination of a six-year journey, and my only hope going into the premiere was that it would feel like the beginning of the end without feeling like the end of the beginning, that it would seem like it was the same show that came before while clearly marching towards a conclusion.

And what we got was an episode of television that turns the show’s world upside down while simultaneously fitting pieces together to work towards that conclusion, and by balancing the two almost to perfection Lindelof and Cuse have made this just as exciting and eventful as I hoped it would be, all while making me even more confused than I was before. It starts a season that promises to probe the above question in terms of an abstract impression of these characters and the journey they have taken on our television screens, a ballsy move that promises another year of complex but precise television.

Welcome back, Lost – we missed you.

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