The art of the stall

I notice some frustration going around about LOST so I thought I'd pass this little tidbit from Finding Lost.

“We knew as we were shooting the pilot though that the only way to do the series would be to use the art of the stall. In any given season of 24 there's not that much happening, but they give the illusion of constant suspense. On Lost if every episode were about discovering the mysteries of the island than we would be sunk, because there's an inevitability to that where if the characters decided ‘we're going to explore this island and figure out what this place is' whereas if it's ‘we're going to figure out how to live with each other and figure out what this island is' and we're going to learn about the characters before the crash so that they're emotionally compelling, that was the only way we saw to do the show.”

So what happened last night? Sun lost her wedding ring basically losing the one tangible thing of Jin she feels she has left. Sun and Jin's flashbacks establish how they met. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and it looks like when he returns they will reunite. The tail section heads to rejoin the group. Micheal is so desperate to find Walt he takes off on his own. Jin is a real pal and goes after him. Shaft is a good guy and goes after Jin. Sawyer's an SOB and looks out for himself. The Others are so bad that even Shaft hides from them. Michael accepts that he's going to have to find Walt a different way.

So there you have it, the art of the stall in action. I'm going to go out on a limb, it's a strong limb so I feel pretty safe out here, and say that if you only watch sweeps episodes and the finale you'll be able to follow LOST just fine.