Notes for Episode 20: "Touch"

Happy February, everyone! Notes are a little delayed this month, as we're still getting things settled back in after a very hard January. The good news is that a) we're fully on track to get our January bonus episode (Stephen King's Rose Red) and our January/February main episode (New Amsterdam) out on schedule, and b) we have here a very loose, lively, animated set of notes. We've hated on a lot of shows here on the Lost Broadcasts, but this just might be the most fun we've ever had hating on a show. And we hope you have a fun time reading our notes about it! See you all soon.

• Plot / Structure Stuff:

  • Oh so there’s gonna be Arc Numbers huh

    • They’re making the whole show out of the arc numbers

  • Ooooh a 9/11 backstory. His wife worked there… the hijackers were trying to connect with her via the plane

  • Martin stares around wildly in Grand Central for five seconds like he’s having a revelation but he just says “You go that way, I’ll go this way!”

    • Confronted with a conundrum and just shouting “SKIP. SKIP”

  • The traveling phone plot is so goofy, this so end of history. I think after the Cold War wrapped up this is what we imagined all of culture would be

  • WHAT’S THE SHOW??

    • Babel/Magnolia every week is, I admit, an intriguing pitch

  • So what’s the over/under on episodes before they introduce some kind of Institute that wants to harness Jake’s power

    • Esther’s guess: before the midseason

  • I think what this show is running up against is that it’s not actually doing Numb3rs type stuff. Like they mentioned the Golden Ratio once but ever since then it’s just been a random number generation. No sense of “here’s a random math fact that’ll blow your mind”

    • Difference between sudoku (dogshit) and kenken (beautiful, truth)

  • The climax to ep 3 is as bad as it gets. Nothing is connected. Cloud Atlas is not real. There are no themes. An ocean is NOT a multitude of drops

  • Oh man this is also just Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

  • All that FUCKING happens in this show is rights free Youtube essay music plays for fifteen seconds and then Danny Glover says “six…” reverently

  • There’s 35 other Jakes… Jewish mysticism… oh no. Oh no, not good

  • It’s episode NINE and the dad is still being like “no Jake stop focusing in on something clearly important and do what I want you to” 

    • Ep 11 Jake poured orange soda on the floor and Martin shout-whispered WHAT ARE YOU DOING and I shouted I DUNNO MAN PROBABLY SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE FUCKING EPISODE

  • I think you could fool someone on this show by like… not even tricking them into covering their eyes. You’d just have to walk behind them and it wouldn’t occur to them to turn

  • I really think the whole “he doesn’t like to be touched” thing is a narrative device that exists purely because so many problems could be solved if Keifer could just pick up Jake and walk away

  • They really thought the specific thing that grabbed people about Lost was just that it had numbers. This doesn’t use numbers like Lost! There’s nothing numinous about them, no sense of “what do the numbers MEAN?”

    • It’s just like, for a given episode, a number becomes the answer to every ostensible challenge in the episode

• Character / Performance Stuff:

  • Kiefer Sutherland IS… Cuck Sorry

  • In Grand Central Station there’s an insert shot where the 1 2 3 trains are in green circles but when they cut back it’s correctly the 4 5 6. What happened there

  • So the show’s very very racist huh

    • The Iraqi kid being like “I wanted to be a comedian, like Chris Rock!” and the phone operator being like “If it’ll save everyone in that square… you can recite your favorite routine of his! Word for word! You can say it!”

  • Jake makes Clea the smiley face out of popcorn because he’s like “alright small brain, this should keep you occupied”

  • They really have Jake doing Mohinder intro/outros basically verbatim

  • This really is a show about how all these non-white people have these BACKWARDS cultures

  • The Jewish fella is the worst actor. Everything he says is beyond stilted

• Technical / Aesthetic Stuff: 

  • This has the vibe of like an educational Youtube video essay

  • They’re not allowed to say Yankees, Mets, MLB, anything. It’s so low rent

    • They couldn’t get the rights to ANYTHING. By episode 6 we’re gonna see a guy drinking a glass of Molk

    • Jake’s using an app called AT&T Air Graffiti in a later episode. The ONE thing they licensed

  • Most saccharine show we’ve covered, easily

    • This show has such a rancidly bad command of tone that it makes it impossible for any episodic stakes to stick. Like on a good procedural like Person of Interest you suspend your disbelief about a case, but here they just blast you with the cloying music nonstop like DON’T WORRY IT’LL BE OKAY IT’S ABOUT LOVE

  • THE MOST AWARD WINNING SET DRESSER OF ALL TIME. THE JAZZ GUY’S CUBICLE HAS A POSTER THAT JUST SAYS JAZZ

  • Kiefer talking to a troubled Black kid in an alley while Jake plays on his ipad in the background, that’s such a funny image

• Notable Quotes:

  • “Oh my God… the numbers”

    • That’s really the core of the Lostalike promise

  • Kiefer trying to talk tough by saying “Back to the gas station!”

  • “He sees the pain as numbers”

  • A kindhearted African woman saying “You must take the computer test if we’re to move to the City together” I’m sorry but I might need to look away from how racist this show is getting

  • Kiefer explaining why he needs to buy a gun: “Today, I just need people to do what I tell them”

  • “Somebody actually just emailed me a list of 67 good deeds to change the world. Something inspired by Nelson Mandela”

• Cute Things We Said:

  • Do people see seashells and flowers as chaos? To me they’re not chaos

  • Oh this is a show about denying autism diagnoses. Let’s fucking go. What else do you deny, Kiefer

  • 318 WEST TESLA STREET FUCK OFF KILL

    • Imagine a Bronx rapper like “you didn’t grow up on West Tesla!!”

  • A Stephen Twitch Boss appearance?? THAT’S HUGE FOR HANNAH

    • This is my Ricky Jay

  • Stray notes that were JUST us venting inarticulately:

    • Dumb show stupid

    • This is rough . This rough

    • Racism. Racism. Racism

  • Reese would kick the shit out of this guy oh my goodness

    • This should’ve existed as a runoff for all the plotlines Jim Caveziel wanted to do where he just tortured people’s balls for 45 minutes

  • The genre of this show isn’t sci-fi, it isn’t fantasy. It’s woo-woo. It’s instagram model posting. It’s angel numbers

    • 40% of America’s registered nurses believe this show really happened, right down to the “Oh, I don’t believe that autism diagnosis” part

  • Hannah: “Did you see what’s on her boarding pass?”

    • Esther: “Is it whatever the fucking number is?”

  • When Dr. Teller sees Jake painting the week’s number and he’s like “Ah, I see you’ve been expecting me,” Jake should turn around and speak for the first time: “That’s a gay number, bro. You actually like this shit?”

  • Type of show to make the dad who watches tv standing up sit down

  • By episode 10 Hannah was desperately trying to amuse herself by repeating “I forgot my penis” in a posh English accent

  • Esther clarifies: over and over

  • This shit is like if The 25th Hour was made by people who had never heard of swear words

  • If this was a good show, then every time the number of the week showed up for the first time I’d be like YOOOO IT’s 2217!!! But it’s not. So I don’t

  • Esther: “This must’ve hit like crack if you were stupid”

    • Hannah: “No, but it didn’t! Statistically speaking, we know it didn’t!”

  • Esther will gasp at anything. She gasped at Clea’s betreal

    • “Ultimately, I’m just a very credulous person”