Reflections and Final Thoughts

Hello again everybody. It has been a long time since I commented on this board, which I guess isn’t all that surprising considering that Lost Girl ended over a year ago. However, With the announcement that IMdB is closing down their message boards I decided to make one last thread here. This one will be about my opinion of the show as a whole. I have long considered writing something like this but never did due to the time it would take to write and, with the show ending, the lack of traffic on this board.

This will be a lengthy post but I hope that you guys enjoy it. I would be glad for any feedback and comments, but if any of the old regulars still check in on this board (Tristen1960, tucobkg, NYPinTA, MBalvanie for instance) I’d love to hear from you one last time.

Getting Starting.

I first saw Lost Girl during the Summer of 2012. At that time I spent a lot nights up late, and would have the TV on while I worked on the computer. Lost Girl had recently started airing on the Syfy channel (a name change I still hate, by the way), and they were playing a marathon of Season 2, I believe. It looked different so I left it on. The episode that was on, and therefore the first one I ever saw, was the 17th episode of Season 2: “The Girl Who Fae’d with Fire” (still one of my favorites too). While I found the show kind of odd and campy, I also thought it was thoroughly enjoyable and certainly fun; both dramatic and funny.

It wasn’t long before I started researching the show, and looking for the episodes on the internet to watch. I managed to find and watch all of Seasons 1 and 2 before the 3rd season started in January 2013. By which time I was hooked.

The Characters

There is a lot to like about Lost Girl, especially in the early years, but one of the best things has always been the characters. While, as I will be talking about later, I think the show’s quality suffered in its second half, the characters, both main and secondary ones, would be a strength throughout the entire run.

One of their strengths was that the characters were very well-defined. Each was a distinct creation, with vastly different personalities, backstories, and motivations (in the beginning at least). This allowed us to get excited at how certain characters would react to events or to each other (I’ll get back to this later). Next I’ll go over in more detail the main characters:

1. Bo.
Bo was an able lead throughout, both moral and strong. She was more than capable of carrying the show. In what will be a recurring theme, I like what they did with the character on the first few seasons much more so than later. Seeing Bo discover what she was, and come to not only accept but own it, was compelling. So was her overcoming her guilt for what she had done before she got control of her abilities. However, Bo was not immune to the poor writing that plagued the show in its second half, specifically in how I think they changed what her special.

I liked it better when Bo was just a normal Fae, not some sort of prophesied hero. What made her special was her actions, standing by humans, and standing up to the Light and Dark; thinking for herself to better help others. It was the central part of her character, and it was altered to make her “The One” or something, which I find to be a rather painful cliché. I find that it removed the feeling Bo was a fierce underdog, constrained by the realities of the Fae world, but still able to make a difference one person at a time. The change caused the show to move too far away from intimate storytelling I think too. It is possible that all the prophesies were planned from the start, but if so, I think the execution was flawed.

2. The Guys (Dyson, Hale, and Trick)

Dyson, Hale, and Trick all added something different to the show, and I enjoyed all of them as characters. Dyson showed that standing for the old ways wasn’t always bad or at least unreasonable, adding some depth and realism to that aspect of the show. He was a good love interest to Bo, though I never cared much about that part of the show aside from how it affected character development or narrative. He was very poorly served by the never-ending Triangle though, hindering his growth for pretty much 2 entire seasons (the “wolves only mate once” thing hurt too). It wasn’t till he got a son in the final season did he really break past that, and by then it was largely too late. Anyway, I always like Dyson and I think he was a good male lead for the show and I loved that he inherited the Dal at the end.

In Seasons 1-2, Hale was probably my 2nd favorite character. He was calm and laid back, smart and funny. He had good chemistry with Dyson as his friend, and with Kenzi as his fellow sidekick. He added great humor and I liked his story involving his struggles with his dogmatic family. It was a mistake to make him Ash in Season 3 though, not just for his character but for the show. As for the character, it removed him from the gang and from being Dyson’s partner. I wasn’t inherently opposed to the long expected Kenzi/Hale romance in Season 4, but I didn’t like its execution either. They just never really got the screen time (as a couple), or the right dialogue, to make it work. His death was certainly sad (and the scene excellent) though.

Trick was an interesting character. He generally always tried to do the right thing and make amends for his past misdeeds, sometimes in ways that were good other times not so much. His flaws and his interesting past made him compelling, and I also enjoyed his dead-pan sense of humor. The scene where he tells Kenzi she can stay with him if Bo doesn’t make it back from The Dawning is heartwarming (showed growth on his part too), and much like Hale’s, his death was tragic but probably the right call story-wise.

3. The Girls (Lauren, Tamsin, and Kenzi)

Lauren was the character that was probably most poorly served by the writing. Yet again, it was much better at the start. I agree with another commenter that one of the things that hurt this character was the fact she had so little to do that didn’t involve Bo. To an even greater degree than Dyson, the endless Triangle hampered her, though I think she did have good chemistry with Bo. That said, the season 2 story involving Nadia was very good. Lauren could have used a lot more of that, instead she got that terrible eco-terrorist backstory. Her storyline with Taft had a ton of potential for her character, but it was wasted (as was Taft in general). I also like the friendship with Dyson that started in Season 4. And like Dyson, she was given better writing in the final season and I think she ended on a high note, I never liked her more than at the end. It helped that she was allowed to take on more of the comic relief, and she was good at it.

Tamsin quickly became a fan-favorite, and I liked her from the start too. Her addition being one of the better things to emerge later in the show. She was an excellent foil to our gang in the 1st half of Season 3, and her sardonic sense of her humor fit in nicely. Tamsin however became the 3rd character to be held back by love for Bo. I liked Tamsin realizing she was lonely and had no real friends; envying the gang for their closeness. I didn’t like her falling for Bo though, and the subsequent removal of her as a foil. Unlike some of the others then, I didn’t like her Season 5 writing so much. This aside though she was a great character, and her deal with Hades was a good idea for her character’s backstory. Her death, unlike Trick or Hale’s, was unexpected to me, though I do think in retrospect probably the right call as well.

As much as I liked all these characters, however, it was Kenzi that was always by far my favorite, even from the very first episode I saw. She also had the most consistent arc of all the characters; her story of struggle with self-worth and finding her place started in Season 1 (first appearing in Dead Lucky, I believe) and became more and more conspicuous till it reached a head in Season 4. Her death/sacrifice scene in 4x13 was powerful, and pretty much the only positive from that atrocious episode. However, I don’t think she was very well utilized in Season 5, even though she only appeared as a guest star she still didn’t have much to do. I think it may have been best for her not to be rescued till the end of the season instead of the beginning. Anyway, Kenzi is one of my top 3 favorite TV characters ever, I loved her wit (especially sharp in the early seasons), attitude, strength but also vulnerability, all brought together by an excellent performance by the talented and beautiful Ksenia Solo.

The World

Another thing I really enjoyed about the earlier seasons was the Fae world the writers created. Finding out about the Light and the Dark, how they both did things, how they governed their people, their different traditions, and their history, fascinated me. I am a massive history buff and I chose Political Science as my major in college for a reason; these are the types of things I love learning about and studying in the real world. I enjoy a good fictional creation almost as much sometimes.

Watching our characters interact with this world was a great source of entertainment, whether it be Bo and Kenzi both challenging and adapting to it, or Dyson and Trick’s more respectful treatment. I thought that all this was quite well done, and more importantly added another, deeper, element to the show. The later seasons would ignore this aspect of the show, which I think was not only a big mistake, but one of the biggest ones they made.

This goes back to what I wrote earlier about how making Hale the Ash in Season 3 was a mistake not only for his character, but also for the show. The 1st Ash and Lachlan were both excellent foils to Bo and company, and interesting secondary characters in their own right. In the 2nd half of the show the Ash was either Hale or Trick, taking a source of conflict, and therefore drama, out of the show. Attempts in later seasons were half-heartedly made, such as the Una-Mens, and some were interesting but they weren’t capitalized upon.

By reducing, and almost eliminating, this aspect of the show they made it shallower, less interesting, and less dramatic. It is one of the things about the writing in the later seasons of the show I am most disappointed about.

The Triangle

I have never hidden my disdain for the love triangle of Bo-Lauren-Dyson. I don’t like love triangles as a general rule, I find them to be a lazy way to generate fan interest, but I can usually tolerate them. Which is what I did with this one for the first 2 seasons.

As I have already noted, I never cared who Bo actually chose, I cared about how the dilemma created drama and character development. After 2 seasons I thought the Triangle had about lived out its usefulness, and it appeared the writers agreed with me as Bo ended the Triangle by choosing Lauren in the premiere episode of Season 3. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the 1st half of Season 3 about as much as I did Seasons 1-2, things appeared to be progressing, going along with the Kenzi kidnapped storyline that I thought was very good (The Kenzi Scale-3x06- is one of my favorites of the series and is my favorite of Season 3).

Bo and Lauren trying to make a relationship work, and Dyson trying to move on should have been how things stayed, but the Triangle re-emerged mid-way through the season (Episodes 3x08 and 3x09). I really dislike "Fae-ge Against the Machine" (3x08) and consider it one of the show’s worst episodes. One of the reasons (I’ll get to the other shortly) is it used the horrifically clichéd “I forgot about something important to my SO” trope that is much too overused. This was the episode that started introducing Tamsin as a love interest too, which didn’t help. I actually do enjoy “Ceremony” (3x09) as an individual episode, but I don’t like what it did for the plot as a whole.

Both episodes together restarted the Triangle, halting whatever progress had been made over the previous 7 episodes, and wouldn’t end till the series finale, 2 ½ seasons later. I’ve already mentioned how I think it damaged all the characters involved (especially Lauren and Dyson), but just as bad was that it became even more of a focus of the show, taking time away from the Fae world and other much more interesting subjects. This miscalculation, or perhaps just plain cowardice, on the part of the writers did lasting and maybe even fatal damage to the show. Another one of the show’s great second half errors.

Big Bads

Lost Girl always had a little trouble with its villains. I think it was Roger Ebert who said “A hero is only as good as their villain”; a good, intriguing antagonist is important and can do wonders for a show or movie. Lost Girl’s struggles, however, were primary the result of execution and not of ideas.

Aife was the shows first major villain, though overtime she would become a more sympathetic character. She was entertaining to the viewer and threatening to the heroes. She remained a good character throughout the show, and is one of the shows successes in this department.

The Garuda was a good idea too, but not quite as good execution as Aife. Unlike her, he was not a sympathetic character at all, but more of a truly evil being. The build-up to his arrival was well done and effective in building suspense and a sense of dread and fear. One of the flaws in the execution of his character, though, was that this went on for too long, episode after episode the Garuda was mentioned with little else happening. The second problem was the budget, which hampered any payoff that could be delivered in the Season 2 finale.

A much bigger blown opportunity however was Taft in Season 3. I think Taft was a very interesting idea and bad guy who should have been given much more time and development. He actually had some very real grievances against the Fae (as do a lot of humans) and the show would have been better served digging into that instead of the Dawning storyline, for instance. As it was, Taft was simply victim of the overcrowded and hectic second half of Season 3, that tried to do too much.

Even worse than this blown opportunity, was what they did with The Wanderer. The Wanderer references started in the 2nd half of Season 3, and I found them very intriguing. Much like The Garuda, it was a well done build up to what looked like a major villain, especially making fantastic use of that Dion song. Even 3x08 had that cool scene with the tarot cards raining on Tamsin. And while I wasn’t a big fan of 3x13 “Those Who Wander”, the parts of the episode with the Wanderer in them (appearing before Tamsin’s truck, taking Bo in the Dal) built up the excitement for the next season.

Then came Season 4 and the writers threw it all away. Instead of delivering for the fans, they didn’t even try and instead revealed it all as a psych-out, the worst kind of plot twist, as it relies on audience manipulation instead of clever writing. All we got out of it was the terrible Rainer storyline which, along with the Triangle restarting, was the worst mistake of the show, also possibly fatal. I think once audiences realized they were being given fan service (Triangle restart) and dishonesty (Wanderer to Rainer) they left the show. It was flat-out terrible writing.

As far as villains go, once Bo’s dad finally appeared in Season 5, he was decent. Jack wasn’t perfect but he was good, the best pure all-around villain of the show.

Miscellaneous

In this section, I’ll share some brief thoughts that I couldn’t fit into the other sections

1st, the private investigation business. Having Bo and Kenzi be private investigators in this fantastical world was a great idea. It allowed the writers to introduce different types of Fae and reveal new parts of their world a little at a time. Also, it allowed them to cooperate and conflict with Dyson and Hale. The first few seasons drew a very nice balance between a procedural type of story and a serial type of storytelling. A balance that was important to the show’s early success. The private investigation business would unfortunately make only token appearances after the end of the 2nd season, another major mistake in my mind.

2nd, I didn’t (and still don’t) like the Dawning as a storyline. In fact, I think you could make the argument the show would make more sense if it was removed altogether. Bo’s growing dark side was better explained by her being the Pyripuss, in my opinion. Once that revelation was made in Season 5, it fairly neatly explained why she was acting darker starting in the Season 2 finale. The Dawning appears to have been a way to restart the Triangle, for Bo to have that vision of her dad, and not to have been anything for its own sake.

3rd, is a couple more missed opportunities to mention. The writers never being able to capitalize on the deal struck between Kenzi and Evony in 2x15 is very unfortunate. It was another good idea, that could have resulted in some excellent drama. Another one is Dyson’s fellow wolf-shifter from 2x05 who was never shown again after he disappeared at the end of the episode. I would like to have seen more of that, which I think could have helped Dyson’s character development.

Earlier I wrote: This allowed us to get excited at how certain characters would react to events or to each other (I’ll get back to this later) and I really dislike "Fae-ge Against the Machine" (3x08) and consider it one of the show’s worst episodes. One of the reasons (I’ll get to the other shortly). What I’m talking about is that at the end of 3x07 Bo confronts Kenzi over what she is hiding from her (Getting Dyson’s love back from the Norn), and at the start of 3x08…nothing. This has to do with something I’ve mentioned several times, the writers making decisions that reduced conflict and therefore drama. It was a seemingly small narrative decision that has irritated me since I first saw 3x08, but I find it representative of the writers often tone-deafness toward what makes good TV.

Overview

As this post is now well over 3,000 words, I’ll be brief here.

I don’t mean to seem so negative about this show, because I genuinely consider Lost Girl one of my favorite TV shows, and there are few if any I’ve gotten this into.

The reason for my curmudgeonly attitude is that Seasons 1, 2 and the 1st half of 3 are some of favorite TV ever, but what followed was quite frankly, disappointing. There was good stuff there too, some very good episodes, some very good ideas, but all together the result was sub-par.

As a whole, Lost Girl was a show with a good concept, excellent characters, and an interesting fictional world. It always entertaining, often funny, and, at times, capable of delivering dramatic goods. As a viewer it was often frustrating for the latter part of its run, as I think it could have and should have been better. But for 3 ½ years it did what a TV show was supposed to do: provide a fun distraction, and here on IMdB I was given a place to analyze, discuss, and with my fellow fans, conversations I enjoyed immensely, and will miss the opportunity to have more in the future. Anyone agree with my analysis, disagree? Have any other thoughts on the show to share? I look forward to reading them.