Lost - Realist? I've heard it all now. Seriously. Dude, you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but you seem blissfully unaware of a couple of things: I'm perfectly capable of seeing the good things about Lost - did you not read the part when I said I've seen the whole thing? All of season 1, and the first 15 episodes of Season 2. It's good, nobody is denying that, it's just not in the same league as TP (very few things are - possible none). Like New Shoes, I'm also a member of the Lost messageboard - I see the merits of the show. I also see the massive flaws. You say they show the reasons behind people's evil deeds in a bid to heighten the realism - but does it really do this? No, it doesn't. The net result of the Lost approach is that the viewer is unable to hate any of the characters, even if they are shown to be vicious murderers like Mr Eko, for example. On paper, Eko should be the biggest bastard in the whole show, but he isn't because the writers may require you to sympathise with him one day, so they drop in little details which "forgive" his wrongdoing. For example - he's involved in drug smuggling, but his intentions are honourable: he wants to get the heroin out of Nigeria so his countrymen aren't exposed to it. He shoots a man in cold blood, but he only does it because he's worried about his brother. Sawyer is a callous con-man, but it's alright - he only does it because his mother was taken in by a con-man when he was a kid, which led to her death at the hands of his father.

Are you trying to tell me that you think every drug smuggler in the world acts with honourable intent like Mr Eko, or every con-man has a backstory which essentially legitimises his behaviour? I'm sorry to tell you: the world is simply not like that, and to say otherwise is simplistic. As simplistic as the script for Lost. You don't think Carnivale is as good because "it's really slow paced and doesn't always seem to be moving forward"? Well, I happen to think it's as good because it's slow paced and circuitous - that's a more challenging approach than simplistic linear storytelling. Finally, I hate to break it to you, but reading the quality of your own writing, I don't think you're really in a position to say what does or does not constitute good writing. Please don't take offence at that, but I have not read a single sentence by you that makes me think "this guy know good writing when he sees it". Sorry. I'm not trying to start some kind of "flame war" here - you're welcome to your views, but you are never going to convince me that Lost features better writing than TP in a million years.

I am not saying that they always have honourable intent behing their actions, I am saying that they all have some kind of intent, atleast some kind of reason why they came like that. Was Twin Peaks realistic having this one theory that the reason why Leland raped and killed his own daughter because of some evil spirit that possessed him? Is that realistic, or say the right way to look at this world, to think that those people do these things because they are simply evil or because they possessed by some spirit? Maybe the producers are indeed hoping us "to forgive to the characters", but I just don't see it that way.

I also know that Lost is flawed as any series...

What I meant by saying that Carnivale is slow paced is that it doesn't have too much material in it. Twin Peaks was not slow paced, thousands of things happened specially in the first season in every episode. In Carnivale you are kind of waiting for something to happen, the same images in the nightmares are repeated, and when finally something happened the first season ended (personally haven't seen second season yet). 

Yes, I know that my writing isn't in the best form of an essay and I don't even speak English as my first language...

Riget (The Kingdom), the original series by Lars von Trier (http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0108906/) is by far the series with the greatest number of similarities with Twin Peaks. Von Trier himself tells on the commentary track that he loves Twin Peaks. The resemblance is unbeliveable, every now and then. The atmosphere is unique but at the same time the darker aspects seems to be coming from the same places.

Besides, the second season isn't as good as the first - same with TP. :)

 +1.  i'm not just turned off...IT'S turned off.  american tv sucks.  movies are no different.  it's all produced in a calculated way to be everything to everybody and make as much money as possible, then quickly be released on dvd to make more money.  i have not seen an original OR even interesting idea on television for a long time.  crap, all of it.  it's not just hard to be satisfied because you've seen the best; it's hard to be satisfied because it's all bad, and it will only get worse.  correction...the first couple seasons of the sopranos and curb your enthusiasm were great, and the simpsons is always good...that's where it ends for network television.  and to stay somewhat on thread, lost is an empty, dried husk of a show, and jon stewart wouldn't know good television even if he was accidentally involved in it.  i feel better now   

I am SO SICK!! of Lost being compared to Twin Peaks!!  I have read all the attacks on it as a programme, which people are entitiled to do of they feel like it, but also not EVERYONE on the planet thinks Twin Peaks is like Lost!! What, JUST because that stupid Jon Stewart bloke, whoever the heck he is "said so" then everyone jumps on the  bandwagon and agrees with him? It's the same when they did it with Desperate Housewives.  Twin Peaks IS Twin Peaks.  Lost IS Lost.  Quite frankly I think they are both excellent shows in their own right, but are NOTHING like each other.

And Montana, if lost is such "meaningless drivel/crap" whatever, then the solution is simple - just don't watch it!!

"watch out for my cousin.."