SCOTS
CMSW

Document 1623

TV critic review column on Lost

Author(s): Paul English

Copyright holder(s): Derek Stewart-Brown: on behalf of The Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd

Text

So where does Newton Mearns guy park his 4x4? Lost Channel 4, Tuesday

WE'VE had plane crashes and polar bears, hallucinations and miracles, birth, death and kidnap... now we've got a man from Glasgow making smoothies in a bunker.

The last thing I expected to find on the other side of "the hatch" in Lost was a Mamas and Papas fan from Newton Mearns.

You go all the way around the world, survive a plane crash, live on the scariest island since Bergerac policed Jersey (!) and what do you find?

Some oddball from East Renfrewshire living in a Seventies-themed subterranean bachelor pad.

Lost depends on teasing us with unanswered questions - why are they there, who are the others, how come Lock's not paralysed anymore, why hasn't Hurley lost any weight.?

Still blissfully clueless there.

But these penny-a-day posers aren't bugging me so much after Tuesday. I'm chewing on a meatier puzzler now.

If this guy living in a time warp down the hatch is REALLY from Newton Mearns, then where does he park his 4x4?

Could it be that the noise from the mysterious angry beastie in the jungle all the way through series one was just him doing the school run in his gas-guzzler?

Are "the others" actually just neighbours from Giffnock..?

(Or is that the housewives from five's fab new comedy Suburban Shootout (Thursday)? It's got G77 written all over it..)

The double-bill return - which introduced Scots actor Henry Ian Cusick as the snarling hatch-dweller Desmond - felt a wee bit like going on holiday somewhere only to find it's full of Scots, a concept perhaps alien to many Air Scotland passengers...

For me, it was like sitting on that train crossing the Nevada desert only to discover the guy next to me was a pal of my flatmate in Glasgow.

Or taking a holiday during my Greenock Telegraph days to ski in a wee resort in Australia only to share that chairlift with an Aussie woman who"used to work in a factory in a Scottish town called Greenock".

Small - and uncanny - world indeed, but, as Chic Murray said, I wouldn't like to paint it.

Anyway. Tuesday night's Lost was Yankee Doodle drama-by-numbers stuff.

Michael's custody battle flashbacks sated LA Law fans, Dr Jack's floppy-fringed surgery stresses took us on a brief detour into ER, while Michael and Sawyer's brush with a shark was only a few "dum dum, dum dums" away from Jaws.

And yes. I did see the same trademark crest as spotted in Desmond's underground larder branded on the shark's tail.

But do you want to know what it all means?

Don't ask me. Thankfully, I'm every bit as gloriously Lost as you...

This work is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

The SCOTS Project and the University of Glasgow do not necessarily endorse, support or recommend the views expressed in this document.

Close

Cite this Document

APA Style:

TV critic review column on Lost. 2024. In The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. Retrieved 10 November 2024, from http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?documentid=1623.

MLA Style:

"TV critic review column on Lost." The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 2024. Web. 10 November 2024. http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?documentid=1623.

Chicago Style

The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech, s.v., "TV critic review column on Lost," accessed 10 November 2024, http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?documentid=1623.

If your style guide prefers a single bibliography entry for this resource, we recommend:

The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech. 2024. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk.

Close

Information about Document 1623

TV critic review column on Lost

Text

Text audience

Adults (18+)
General public
Audience size 1000+

Text details

Method of composition Wordprocessed
Year of composition 2006
Word count 475
General description Newspaper TV review

Text medium

Newspaper

Text publication details

Published
Publisher Daily Record
Publication year 2006
Place of publication Glasgow
Part of larger text
Contained in Daily Record 04/05/06
Page numbers 25

Text setting

Journalism

Text type

Article

Author

Author details

Author id 1165
Forenames Paul
Surname English
Gender Male
Decade of birth 1970
Educational attainment University
Age left school 17
Upbringing/religious beliefs Catholicism
Occupation Journalist, Daily Record Features Writer
Place of birth Paisley
Region of birth Renfrew
Birthplace CSD dialect area Renfr
Country of birth Scotland
Place of residence Glasgow
Region of residence Glasgow
Residence CSD dialect area Gsw
Country of residence Scotland
Father's occupation Social club manager
Father's place of birth Port Glasgow
Father's region of birth Glasgow
Father's birthplace CSD dialect area Gsw
Father's country of birth Scotland
Mother's occupation School meals auxiliary
Mother's place of birth Port Glasgow
Mother's region of birth Glasgow
Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area Gsw
Mother's country of birth Scotland

Languages

Language Speak Read Write Understand Circumstances
English Yes Yes Yes Yes Work / home etc

Close