If There Was No Relationship Angst In LOST..

[D-Roc]

...would you still watch? Would the show still move you to tears (on the odd occassion that Penny and Des show up together)? Would the absense of relationship 'drama' dilute the power of the story-lines, rendering them flat and dull?

We all watch LOST for various reasons, me being neither a skater or a jater (although I do dabble in Bocke) have often ridiculed the relationship issues that flare up between the main characters. Often I wish that 'Skate' or 'Jate' never existed, then we could just get to the heart of the matter.

But, am I doing the relationship issues a disservice, because perhaps the relationships are the HEART of the show? I guess human interaction is one of the most intriguing things about life..we all experience it and we all feel it, and so I guess it's one of the best things that translates from the screen when we watch shows like LOST. So perhaps, however tiresome some of the relationships in LOST become, we need them to exist until the very end of the show? Perhaps this is the sole reason as to why Kate is still alive with us today?

Anyway, what d'you think - would you still enjoy LOST as much if there were NO relationship issues (even the good ones)?

[firebreathingfishies]

You can't beat Sack in my opinion

But i'd still watch. It would be sorely missing without the Desmond/Penny thing but the whole Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet/Barnaby Bear love polygon could quite easily be done without. It doesn't really add anything to the mysteries of Lost apart from being something to fill up those moments between crazy in-island action

[monster-eats-pilot]

Yes.
Ok the relationship thing was good for afew episodes but now it's just boring. Pesmond was just right but if that drags on like the whole Jate/Skate/Julack (Jack & Juliet)/Sin (Sun and Jin) then I may get a little annoyed

[Toby]

Relationships: meaning human relationships, interactions between people? Or LOVE strictly?

Cause I presume you meant the latter, but didnt imply it enough. If you did mean the first, then everybody would walk around silently not conversing or communicating in anyway. The show would seem absurd and no one would watch (well, me and Roco might still do).

Without the LOVE? Then firstly, that makes your smiley obsolete haha, Bocke ftw! Jocke I think is more likely ifyaknowhatimean (season 2 !!!).

Dont forget the love between father and daughter, Ben and Alex, if that wasnt present would Ben have had the friction with rousseu and more importantly kill keamy? Of course we dont know, but without Love and relationship you remove human, ergo it could be a bunch of gorrillaz punching random keys in the hatch till they get the right combo.

With the love relationship between Jin and Sun (with micheal in there from time to time), there would be no baby. And a baby changes everything.

And the whole Jate Skate Tate (Toby and kate :O) thing? Love is a powerful gravity, which I think the island could build in tension as almost a weapon if you will. Ben used it to control Jack, showing him the video between Kate and Sawyer. I think that also Kate is the only thing keeping Sawyer wanting to exsist, especially after the fiascos with his Dad.

Interesting!

[freckles08]

I would still watch the show as i have been hooked since the begining and there was no relationship stuff in the pilot even though we knew it was coming.

Anyway i wonder what would happen because the show focuses on the ships on the island quite a bit.

I think the whole Jate/Skate thing should have been settled during season 1 that way there would have been room for Jacket seeing as Jack would have gone for Kate!

[Him]

Depends what you mean by relationship angst. Sexual relationship angst, we can mostly do without -- Jack and Sarah, Locke and Helen and Desmond and Penny are really the only ones in my opinion that bring anything significant to show and its characters. I think the Jate/Skate nonsense could be fine if it was toned down a bit.

[firebreathingfishies]

For the record, I was purely thinking of on-island stuff. I think most of the past relationships (like Him mentioned) are quite essential. Locke and Helen especially - his character wouldn't mean as much without her. And Sarah is basically the reason why Jack is such a weirdo

[Miss Austen]

In the first episode you didn't really need a lot of romance because they'd all just experienced a plane crash and you wanted to see who survived and how they survived. You were rooting for them and shocked when you saw people sucked into the engines and thrilled when someone was saved from certain death.

However once the hoo-ha of the crash was over, the characters needed to be fleshed out in all their glory and that includes their likes, dislikes, hang ups, motivations and who they fancy! Or who they don't fancy. Love makes the world go around!

Personally I like Lost to have confrontation between characters.

I want to root for someone. I want to see the characters overcome obstacles and solve the mysteries of the island. I want to see the characters fall in love or experience sexual attraction. I want all that mix.

If the show was just about fighting all the time or always focussing on drug/drink addiction and people dying, LOST would be far too depressing - so a bit of love action and some humour from Hurley, Sawyer, Ben or whoever is welcome light relief and all adds to the mix. Love is an essential ingredient but is only one part of the recipe imho.

[firebreathingfishies]

I take back what I said. I agree with Miss A

[KatesFate]

I take back what I said. I agree with Miss A

Hehe! All I have to say is, please see above statement by Miss A for my opinion as well.

[Toby]

Woops, looks like I misintereperated the thread with my post: didnt see the word "angst" :O

So on that point, I can still include the tension control by the island, but whever its over done or unessesary is actually quite challenging to decipher. So, as a lame copout, Im gona quote a cliche and run:

Everything happens, for a reason.

[TimeTravellingBunny]

Relationships and relationship angst are a part of being human. If the show didn't focus on human relationships, it would be just an empty action-adventure show with little human interest. If it didn't feature any romantic relationships/sex/tension/flirting, it would ring false, it would be ignoring a huge part of human existance.

I think that this show is ultimately about people, about characters, while the smoke monster or the numbers are secondary. I think that Sin/Jun (?) has been beautifully developed on island and in flashbacks, for that reason it's my favourite relationship on the show (more so than Desmond and Penny, which is a nice story but it has a bit too much of a 19th century novel feel to it, you know - her rich dad doesn't approve of him so he goes to sail the world to prove himself and she keeps looking for him...), it feels real and human and screwed-up but you know that they have loved each other through it all... I cannot see why anyone would say that it's 'dragged on'... they love each other and they're married, do you think they should break up and fall in love with someone new every season? And, it is interesting that the island has both 'healed' their relationship and allowed them to have what they always wanted, a baby... And now their storyline is obviously going to affect the overall story in a big way in the next seasons.

I liked most of the flashback relationships and many of the island stuff - Shannon/Boone story, for instance, was twisted and tragic and made them both so much more interesting than you'd expect a couple of pretty, rich, white kids without partiular survival skills to be. However, the love triangle from hell (or quandrangle) has been awful... the Jate/Skate triangle was interesting and worked well for the first couple of seasons, but then it turned into such a mess by late season 3. I think they have been trying too hard to maintain the triangle and now get it resolved, and it has started to feel really convoluted and annoying. It's taken up too much screentime, and it has turned Kate, who seemed like a strong and interesting character at the beginning, into nothing but a 'love interest' going back and forth between two men.

Overall, I think that relationships are a crucial part of the show if they are done well and if they serve to explore the characters and help the story, but they are awful if they are there only because TPTB think that the ratings will go up if they show random hot young people sucking each other's faces.