The Lost Room

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  • #41033
    bonnee
    Participant

    The sci fi channel’s original 3 part miniseries ‘Lost Room’ is fantastic – somehow they’ve taken a ludicrous premise and turned it into compelling television. The show really shouldn’t work, but it is the most original sci fi outing I’ve seen in recent memory.

    Here are some critics views reproduced at Slate.

    The Lost Room (Sci Fi Channel). A miniseries about the mysterious powers of seemingly innocuous talismans—a deck of cards, a plastic comb—and the disappearance of a Pittsburgh detective’s daughter has critics enthralled. “The tale’s beyond complicated, to be sure. But it also may be the most watchable six hours of strangeness you’ll see this season,” opines the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In the New York Times, Virginia Heffernan raves about actor Peter Krause’s performance: “There’s something distinctly literary and timeless in his own intrinsic religiosity and muted melancholy.” And the New York Post calls The Lost Room, which also stars Julianna Margulies, Margaret Cho, and Elle Fanning as Krause’s daughter, “one of the most perfectly cast miniseries in recent history.” The Los Angeles Times quibbles that the miniseries sometimes wanders and takes liberties with the laws of physics, but concludes, “[T]aken simply as a thing to watch, it’s fucking awesome.”

    Metacritic shows that it has divided others though – which is obviously a good thing. 😛

    http://www.metacritic.com/tv/shows/lostroom

    Here’s a list of views.

    80
    Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy
    A terrific, six-hour miniseries, beautifully written and sharply directed.
    Read Full Review
    75
    Entertainment Weekly Gillian Flynn
    As much fun as the adventure is, the central mystery — what happened in that motel on that May date that created such cosmic blowback — is never truly explained.
    Read Full Review
    75
    New York Daily News David Bianculli
    A very complex metaphysical mystery, the enjoyment of which comes, in no small part, from the surprises that spill out as it slowly unfurls.
    Read Full Review
    75
    New York Post Linda Stasi
    Bizarrely complicated and intriguing.
    Read Full Review
    70
    Variety
    Strange and clever, “The Lost Room” is full of winding corridors, peculiar twists and wry, oddball humor, set against a mystery that recalls TV’s better Stephen King productions.
    Read Full Review
    60
    Seattle Post-Intelligencer Melanie McFarland
    The tale’s beyond complicated, to be sure. But it also may be the most watchable six hours of strangeness you’ll see this season.
    Read Full Review
    60
    The New York Times Virginia Heffernan
    A quest romance in which Middle Earth is essentially Route 66, that national treasure, and some of its burned-out byways.
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    60
    Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd
    A long ride to nowhere but with some nice scenery and exciting turns along the way.
    Read Full Review
    60
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
    “The Lost Room” is certainly a more creative exercise than past Sci Fi miniseries (including “The Triangle”), but it sometimes feels rushed.
    Read Full Review
    60
    Newsday Verne Gay
    “Lost Room” is a shaggy dog story that gets shaggier with every scene. It’s a tale as tall as the Empire State Building that threatens to topple in the merest breeze but – miraculously – never does.
    Read Full Review
    60
    Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron
    Maybe the best thing about this miniseries is the weird assortment of characters.
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    60
    Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
    It’s a supernatural mystery, involving a few ghosts, a little time travel and lots of crazy people. People who have been missing The X-Files might really go for The Lost Room.
    Read Full Review
    40
    Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker
    Enjoyment turns to exasperation as the tone wobbles from horror to crime drama to fantasy to comedy.
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    40
    Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
    A tonally mixed-up disappointment.
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    20
    San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum
    While it’s not totally painful, it’s so hopelessly incoherent that you’ll probably get a headache or two if you actually stick with it for the full three days and six hours.
    Read Full Review
    20
    TV Guide Matt Roush
    An especially silly descent into incoherence.
    Read Full Review

    #77134
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Cool!

    Another great recommendation.

    God-dammit – we really need you on SadCAST!

    #77135
    bonnee
    Participant

    Believe me Sad, I’d love to be a regular contributor. The time difference – or my sleeping patterns – appears to make it difficult. It’s a shame that I’m such a creature of the night, and that I’m (usually) sleeping when the show is taping – or that you and Mike are still getting pissed when I’m awake. 😀

    btw, not sure why, but the ‘notify’ feature of threads doesn’t seem to be working anymore.

    #77136
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Oki, but I’ll still include you on the sadcasters mail list and maybe you could join in if you’re around – need that piccie though 🙂

    Or, we could do a special(s). I’m a lot more flexible about time if it was a smaller group or just us two. Have a think about it.

    Thanks for the heads up about the forums notify. Trouble is with sadgeezer.com is that it’s currently falling apart because the ISP can’t handle it and the software needs upgrading.

    I currently have a test site at sadgeezer.net which I use to test the new sadgeezer.com content management system (currently unpopulated, just the CMS) and am actively tweeking and modifying the modules before the switch over in a couple of months. Mike, by the way, is completely redesigning the graphics, which will be up in a couple of weeks.

    #77151
    hishadow
    Participant

    I’m trying to watch this, but I personally find it a bit silly. A sort of Monk[/url] goes mystery, with Texas Ranger production values. Hehe. It’s ok watching, but only if you don’t got anything else useful to do (in my opinion.) Hopefully Hogfather will be great.

    #77154
    bonnee
    Participant

    Someone needs to be locked in a room, and throw away the key.

    #77158
    hishadow
    Participant
    bonnee wrote:

    Someone needs to be locked in a room, and throw away the key.

    Ok. I’ll admit that my Texas Ranger analogy was wrong, but The Lost Room still reminds me about Monk, both in terms of characters and story complexity.

    #77165
    bonnee
    Participant

    I haven’t seen Monk, so I won’t presume to comment. I agree, though, that the production and visual look is surprisingly generic – the series certainly doesn’t distinguish itself in that regard.

    My initial reaction also was: why is this crap getting good reviews for its ‘strangeness’ and ‘bizarreness’ – it looks as if it has come straight off the production line. The character’s motives don’t seem to get more complex than: find the objects/who has the objects/what do the objects do to those seeking/owning them, etc?

    I’d argue, though, that looks can be deceiving and that its (lack of) style was an aesthetic choice by the producers. And the characterization’s provide an opportunity to explore religious themes in the (possible) weekly tv series…the objects (and characters) increasingly take on a religious significance. Many think they’re collecting pieces of God and find their faith put to the test, etc.

    If you keep watching – and I’m not sure how much you’ve seen – the show’s style goes into increasingly leftfield and ingenious storytelling.

    So yeah, I’d normally completely agree with you – until I watched it.

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