Lost Baggage

My favorite episode of Lost is the one in which the audience learns that Locke couldn’t walk before the plane crash, but then again the decision is easier for me than it is for most fans of the show because I stopped watching after the first season. I didn’t stop watching because I didn’t like it; rather, I stopped watching because I liked it a little too much.

I have some experience with these kinds of things. I wasn’t cosmopolitan enough to host (or even attend) any pie-and-coffee parties, but the mystery surrounding who killed Laura Palmer captivated me in my senior year of high school, and years later my wife and I would stand guilty of cramming as many as six taped episodes of The X Files into a single Friday night as we too wanted to believe that Chris Carter knew what the hell he was doing.

Since then, there have been other DVD-enabled binges: Season 1 of Six Feet Under in an all-nighter, the entirety of the British version of The Office in a weekend that nearly matched the show in perfection, and more recently Deadwood while we rocked a newborn during hours that neither of us had spent sober for a long, long time prior to baby’s arrival. However, the fact that I can remember these titles so specifically suggests just how exceptional these kinds of commitments have become.

Part of my initial resistance to a show like Lost stems from a vow that I’ve made to myself regarding first-run television: I don’t watch it. The way I’m wired prevents me from doing anything casually, and the demands of my life tug hard enough that I don’t need a television program contributing to my sense of completeness for any given week. I watch Mad Men because I know I’ll always be home on Sunday night at 10:00pm and Project Runway because if I miss an episode I really don’t care, but otherwise I even stay away from the original run of shows that I know I’ll like. (For example, I let 30 Rock lapse after only a few shows, and I’ve yet to see an episode of Community, though trusted sources assure me I’ll find it hilarious or at least modestly amusing).

And yes, to paraphrase Jules from Pulp Fiction, I am aware of the invention of DVR, On Demand, and the Interwebs and that these inventions render this excuse obsolete. Heck, I legally finagled a way to see the first three episodes of Treme before they even aired on HBO (at least I think it was legal), so I know that “Thursdays at 10:00pm Eastern, 9:00pm Central” is not the only way to catch one’s favorite show.

No, the bigger issue here is that the deeper I got into Season 1 of Lost the clearer it became to me that the narrative was functioning like a drug: I didn’t want to watch the next episode as much as I needed to, and I resented what I felt to be more manipulation on the part of the producers than fair play.

There was much to love in those early episodes: the cinematic nature of the pilot that made me feel like I was in a multiplex rather than my living room; the sneaky way that this plot-driven show spent 40 of its 44-minutes developing character; the Kate/Sawyer tension; the mysterious connections between the characters (am I remembering right that Sawyer had some contact with Jack’s father in Australia?); and OK, I admit it, that looping radio signal from 19-whatever-year-it-was, was pretty fucking cool.

Even then, though, I never had a sense that the show had a clear direction. Remember, this was before they announced the finite run, and the image of the cast adrift at sea at the end of the first season couldn’t have been more apt. I was getting jerked around. I wanted a sense of inevitability; what I got instead was more make-it-up-as-we-go.

Even so, I watched that first season on DVD, and when it was over, I thought, “Wow. That was really great. I can see why it’s such a phenomenon. I don’t think I need that in my life”. And I haven’t seen a minute of it since.

Have I regretted it? Maybe a little. I’m out of the pop-cultural loop when it comes to things like The Others, the hatch, and the Smoke Monster. Also, I remember one night preaching The Wire to a friend, and he countered with a discussion of the flash forward episode of Lost, which sounded like a real narrative coup. That one hurt. I was sorry that I had the flash forward explained to me rather than experiencing it for myself. Seemed like a mind-bender of the best possible kind. For the record, though, said friend is finally now coming around to The Wire, and he confessed to me recently that episodes of Lost were cluttering up his DVR but that he just couldn’t bring himself to watch them. He was going to watch them soon, that part was clear. By this point, given all that he had invested, he didn’t have a choice.

Despite all of this, I’ve actually thought about tuning in for the series finalé, if only to get the Facebook jokes, but then I heard that the last episode is going to be two and a half hours long. Two and a half hours? Are you kidding me? That’s almost half a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

— Kirby Fields

Lost Opportunities, or, It’s the Characters, Stupid

In the spring of 2005 in Entertainment Weekly, Damon Lindelhof provided an insightful analysis of the history of long narrative on television. He identified Twin Peaks as the first show to attempt a very long story, but one short-circuited by the piling up of too many mysteries with no eventual resolution. The next major series was The X-Files, which stretched its alien colonization arc over six seasons, but made the mistake of focusing more on plot than character development. Lost, he said, was going instead to base its approach on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which privileged character development over plot, though without sacrificing great stories. Lost, he promised, was going to be about character.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way on Lost, character fell victim to plot. Especially in Season Six, character development has been almost nonexistent. With the show nearing its end, few characters can be said to be particularly well-developed. We don’t understand why Jack was initially hesitant to return Kate’s advances, or why Hurley initially went into a mental health hospital, or what drives Ben. There is not, in fact, fact a single character as well-developed as any of the seven or eight most important characters on Buffy. Sadly, in its own way, Lost has turned out to embody the same errors that its producers were trying to avoid.

— Robert Moore

 

The Son Shall Redeem the Father: Walt, Michael, and Lost‘s Star WarsConnection

Being a Lost fan who is also a fan of Star Wars, I’ve noticed quite a few similarities between the two modern-day epics. Both feature heroes and villains, each with their own complex dualities and grey areas. The storylines flash forward, backward and sideways, intertwining the lives of the characters in unexpected ways. Some characters (Star Wars‘ Luke and Leia and Lost‘s Jack and Claire) discover they are related to their long-lost siblings, found through the strangest of circumstances. Most importantly, both Lost and Star Wars revolve around redemption.

Since its first season, one of the major themes of Lost has been redemption. Each of Lost‘s main characters has harbored guilt about the lives they led before Oceanic 815 crashed on the island, and felt guilt, too, about the choices they’ve made since marooned.

As Lost hurtles towards its conclusion, many of the Lostaways have found their redemption, sometimes at great cost. However, one major unsolved mystery that remains to be solved is if dead dad, Michael Dawson, can be redeemed by his son, Walter Lloyd.

Michael and Walter’s complex father-son relationship was a major focal point of the first two seasons of Lost. Michael wanted to be a part of his son’s life, however, Walter’s mother, Susan, took him with her to further her career overseas. She married her boss and initially wanted him to adopt Walt, attempting to coerce Michael into signing away his parental rights. However, after the unexpected death of Walt’s mother, Susan’s husband told Michael he didn’t want to be responsible for Walt and that he made him uneasy. In turn, Michael was granted full custody.

Michael himself didn’t seem prepared for fatherhood, asking his own mother if she would care for the child if he gave her the means to do so. Walt overheard this conversation and it placed even further strain on their father-son relationship. Michael and Walter (and Vincent, the dog) were on Oceanic 815 back to the States from Australia when the plane crashed, stranding them on the mysterious island.

Their relationship on the island was rocky, but father and son did eventually grow closer. When Walt was kidnapped by “The Others”, Michael did all he could to get his son back. Michael shot Ana Lucia and Hurley’s girlfriend, Libby, for what he rationalized was the only way to help save his kidnapped son. Although Michael and Walt managed to escape the island, Michael returned out of guilt. He posed as a deckhand named Kevin Johnson on Widmore’s freighter, on a mission at the behest of Benjamin Linus. In doing so, Michael saved his fellow Lostaways from a C4 blast, which claimed his own life. To this day, his son doesn’t know for certain that his father is dead, with many of the Lostaways hiding the truth from him.

Because of the sins he committed, even in death, Michael cannot leave the island. He can’t move on to the Great Big Island in the Sky, but rather, his spirit is bound to the Island itself. (Much like Jacob and the Man in Black are bound there by some sort of mysterious cosmic duty.) Michael has attempted to redeem himself by attempting to warn the rest of the Losties of coming dangers, using Hurley’s ability to speak to the dead.

Throughout his story arc in seasons one and two, Walt has been touted as “special”. He has gifts and abilities that were never fully explained, but briefly touched upon, including precognition. With that in mind, it’s odd that Walt doesn’t know or sense that his father is dead. Seeing as how each of the Lostaways have found redemption in one form or another, one of the only mysteries and plot points yet to be tied up is the dangling thread of Michael and Walt’s unresolved father-son relationship and an explanation for Walt’s supernatural abilities.

Several characters on the show had strained relationships with their fathers (Jack, Locke, Hurley, Sun, and Sawyer most notably spring to mind), however, Michael and Walt were the only father and son to actually appear on the island with their relationship taking several dynamic turns as the series unfolded. To leave these two important characters’ stories unresolved would be a big letdown to fans.

My theory is that somehow, like Luke Skywalker, Walt’s special abilities will somehow redeem and free the spirit of his imprisoned father, Michael. Much like the good, yet tragically flawed Anakin Skywalker, who found himself “trapped” in the suit of Darth Vader (and the Sith trappings that came with it), Michael’s spirit is bound to the island as he attempts to atone for his deeds from the hereafter. Perhaps there is some way that Walt’s special connection to the metaphysical can be explained and be used to grant his father the amnesty needed to ‘cross over’ and finally find spiritual liberation and redemption.

What may complicate Michael’s redemption is the fact that Walt has been living off the island and in mainstream society for a number of years, now. While tying up this loose end may feel like an extreme act of deus ex machina, the two characters who were so important to the early years of the series are still so well-remembered that it would be a disservice to fans not to give their storyline some sort of happy — or at least definitive — ending.

There just might be something to this theory. Lost creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof are both admitted Star Wars geeks, too. Another theory I have regarding Michael is that somehow, the words that Locke keeps hearing from Jack and others on the island and in the alternate Lost to “let go” may be the key to Michael letting go of his guilt, and in turn, letting go of the island and moving on.

Whether or not Lost takes a play from George Lucas’ book and has Walt redeem Michael’s spirit from afar in the show’s final moments will be answered soon. If Abrams and Lindelof have decided to take the ball and run with it, his storyline resolution could be one of the most poignant moments yet for the series.

— Lana Cooper

Lost Almost Lost Me

First thing’s first. I am not a Lost apologist. The show has, in equal measure, enthralled and frustrated me. There have been gimmicks a-plenty to pad out a story that really should have ended a long time ago, red herring after narrative dead end and if asked, I don’t particularly care who Kate ends up with.

However, I realised something as the end of the show loomed, keeping in mind the final mysteries coalescing into what we fans hope will be a satisfying whole — it dawned on me that I was really going to miss this show. As manipulative as it has always been, one must marvel at what it gave us, as a television audience.

Lost had the audacity to be ridiculously continuity-heavy in an industry where such adherence to a concentrated continuous narrative usually spells an early death. It gave us twist after twist and I don’t mean just the convoluted plotting — it subverted our idea of ‘character’ from the very get go. The first season taught us to never make a lazy assumption when dealing with any one role. It achieved this through clever use of a flashback structure which at the beginning, at the very least, gave weight to everyone featured. Context is all and through our omniscience as an audience we could understand if not entirely agree with motivations. Our sympathies were shaped by seeing what led our heroes to this mysterious island.

The flashbacks soon became a tedious crutch, however, when they attempted to give unnecessary insight, the epitome of that being “Stranger in a Strange Land”, which was a story to explain Jack’s tattoos, the most pointless digression this side of Shannon Rutherford. The glimpses into the past gave different flavours and colours to the show, neutralising a potential audience fatigue which could have set in with the Losties traipsing through yet another part of the jungle.

The show continued to broaden its palette chronologically, with the very unexpected employment of flash-forwards and an ingeniously dropped bombshell at the end of season three. This led to the time travel shenanigans of season five and finally to the flash-sideways of the current series. Whether or not viewers found these moments compelling, the conceit of playing fast and loose with personal timelines is an inherent part of the formula of Lost, and while it has been aped with limited success elsewhere, it remains a unique staple of the show.

In its marketing efforts, Lost branched out to multimedia and crossover aspects; from the online game which ran alongside the second season, the tie-in books written by characters within the show, the interview with fictional character Hugh McIntyre on Jimmy Kimmel all the way to the name-checking of the “Hanso Foundation” in the credits to the JJ Abrams-directed Mission Impossible 3. This canny use of viral marketing and cross pollination between projects not only served to enhance the whole experience of the show, it gave the Internet audience a variety of Easter egg-like treasures to unearth. Still there was something slightly unnerving with just how pervasive the TV show was becoming. While a treasure trove of marketing revenue for its network, this all out assault on various media fomented a backlash which was exasperated by the decision to air season three in two blocks, the first six episodes coming under heavy fire for being too ponderous and stalling the momentum.

By this point, people wanted answers, answers they couldn’t expect from the first season, answers patiently delayed during the meandering second season. By season three, it was time for their loyalty to be rewarded. However, the show was not yet ready to spill its secrets and so it twisted in new, more unusual ways, shelving some established characters while forefronting the Others. Fans’ growing frustration was understandable. I had almost jumped ship before that, as I found the second season to be a middling misfire. I never minded the teasing out of Lost‘s mysteries, and have often made the point that I don’t care how long it takes to reach the end as long as I was enjoying the ride.

Despite loving some of the core devices introduced in that season (those Dharma Initiative orientation videos were a perfectly crafted retro delight), I felt the show was treading water, directionless and being stretched out by Locke and Jacks “faith vs. science” debates that were going around in circles. The Hatch, while presenting an intriguing situation, ended up sapping some energy from the show. Tying the characters to a static location might have seemed like a good idea after a year of jungle walking, but it soon became claustrophobic and counterproductive. When the Hatch’s importance seemed to recede and various new characters were being killed off, I couldn’t help but look back on that season as a little bit adrift.

I began to stick with the show out of compulsive desire to see the mystery solved – not out of loyalty to the characters. Jack was suddenly unlikeable, Locke wobbled as his faith was tested, Charlie succumbed to his more pathetic qualities, once Claire had given birth her role was greatly reduced – there was no love to lose with these guys. The two best things in that disappointing season was 1. the introduction of one of the great small screen ambiguities, in the form of Ben Linus and 2. a sympathetic romantic lead with Desmond Hume who, unlike the other new characters in season two, actually lingered and became important to the overall mythology of the programme.

Season three, after a shaky mid-section, improved exponetially and sent the show careening into what I consider its most solid run. The writer’s strike which afflicted TV that year had a surprising positive effect on Lost by trimming the fat and eliminating the filler, re-invigorating the cast and genuinely hooking the storyline back in. The stakes were raised, again, the characters matured and it was thematically satisfying seeing the future and the “present” meet so skillfully. The Michael Emerson-led episode “The Shape of Things to Come” showcased an actor at the top of his game, and the death of his daughter remains a standout moment of the show. The emotional intensity of that scene was genuinely earned, as outside of the core characters, this was the most harrowing of all peripheral deaths in the show.

Lost is an extreme example of serpentine plotting. Fair weathered fans flew the coop as the show embraced its metaphysical merits and finally ‘fessed up to what it always has been — science fiction with time travel coming to the fore. Its notion of time travel is a little sketchy and dare I say whimsical, and I can understand how the island ‘moving’ and the cast split across time itself would be off-putting to some. I tired of some of the 1977 plotting, but it demonstrated a show not only tackling its own mythology but going to great lengths to justify it, and that must be acknowledged in a positive way. I still believe the show was spiraling without a plan for a long time and the decision to set an end date galvanised the writers to stop screwing around and nail down some essential truths. Whether or not the plan came later, the writers’ course corrected and Lost had a renewed purpose. While the current season has a had a few bumps and is slightly coloured by the notion that where we’re heading will only disappoint, like so many, I am hopelessly absorbed in the complex layers of this unlikely TV phenomenon – I will stay Lost to the very last minute.

— Emmet O’Brien

 

Lost: First Found at Comic-Con

I walked into the San Diego Comic-Con screening of the first hour of the two-hour Lost pilot at 10:00am on Saturday, 24 July 2004, not really knowing what to expect. It was the first event of a packed day, but it had a cool premise (a plane crashes on an island, mysterious things happen to the survivors) and it was from Alias creator J.J. Abrams. I watched, intrigued, as Matthew Fox, that guy from Party of Five, opened his eye, somehow thrown into the jungle unharmed by a horrific plane crash. I laughed as fangirls in the audience shrieked loudly every time Dominic Monaghan, merry from the just-completed Lord of the Rings trilogy, showed up on screen.

I was soon hooked by the mysteries that surfaced even in that first hour of the show. Why did the plane crash? Why was Kate in handcuffs? What in the world was the unseen noisy monster that ate the pilot of Oceanic 815?

Little did I know that Abrams would abandon the show after one season to direct Mission: Impossible 3, and never come back. Little did I know that Damon Lindelof, the bald guy onstage trying very hard to not give straight answers in the Q&A after the screening, would turn this process of not giving straight answers into a yearly Comic-Con ritual. He quickly got much, much better at doling out tiny morsels of information while not giving anything away.

— Chris Conaton

Bad Twin, Eh, Not So Bad

Some four seasons ago, a young(er) Sawyer (James Ford) sat on the beach of a bewildering island, passing the time by reading an unpublished manuscript he had found among the strewn about luggage from the plane crash.

The manuscript, “Bad Twin”, was written by fellow Oceanic passenger Gary Troup. Troup was the unfortunate soul who was sucked into the turbine in the first chaotic few moments of the television series Lost. Troup, obviously, is no longer with us, but thanks to “Bad Twin”, his legacy lives on. Sort of.

“Bad Twin” was a meta, semi-canonical attempt at expanding the ‘Lostverse’ that was published in the summer of 2006. Was it successful? Not really. Was it good? Kind of.

After hearing that its association with the show was tenuous at best, I avoided “Bad Twin” for a few years. Not helping was the fact that I associated it with the “Lost Experience” — a convoluted, semicanonical, alternate reality game that I couldn’t explain to you if I wanted to. Neither seemed worth my time.

That was long before the end was nigh. About a third of the way into this final season run, the reality that our time with Lostwas almost up started to sink in. I had already seen all the seasons, and the creators officially stated there would be no spin offs after the series was over. I wanted more, and unless I wanted to watch a bunch of boring, low budget viral videos featuring characters I have never heard of before, I had to check out the tie-in book titled, of course, Bad Twin.

Let me just start off by saying that Bad Twin was not written by any Lost staff writers. The book was ghost written by novelist Laurence Shames, who was given notes of elements to include by the shows creative team. According to a quote from Variety, however, “the author had his own vision and wound up including only a few of the elements.” It’s true. The book contains no island, no Hurley, no four-toed statues — but a few similarities with the show do get a shout out: the Widmore family (although none of their first names are familiar), the Hanso Corporation, Paik Industries, Oceanic Airlines, and Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack. Although the Widmore clan is the centerpeice of The Bad Twin, most of the other elements are mentioned in passing.

Bad Twin is basically a detective story about a private investigator hired by one “good” Widmore twin to find his missing, “bad” twin brother. Cliff Widmore, the “good” twin, is ostensibly a clean, put together businessman who wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and take control of the family dynasty. Xander, the missing “bad” twin, is described as a wayward, prodigal son whose life may be in danger.

Sound kind of familiar? Now, this book came out between the second and third season of Lost, so it should be considered solid evidence that the creators had at least a general idea of the island’s underlying mythology and were not “making it up as they were going along.” The book even contains a reference to Jacob and Essau, a biblical story that really didn’t start making serious rounds in Lost discussions until the end of its fifth season.

In fact, the book contains literary reference upon literary reference, covering everything from Gilgamesh to Lord of the Flies. Before I ever got into the Lost series, my initial concern was that I didn’t want to waste time in this fictional universe. I pegged Lost as a mere genre distraction. As it got going, however, I was impressed with its use of religious, philosophical, historical, and mythological themes. The use of these elements inspired me to do further research. The result: Lost has enriched my life. In this respect, Bad Twin delivers, shining light on a lot of the show’s themes, even spelling them out for those who needed it sometimes (I did).

The most significant reference to me was regarding the detective novel, Trent’s Last Case. The story is a mystery with a solution that appears to have been reached half way through the novel. The solution turns out to be erroneous, and the second half of the novel is spent rearranging the facts and clues until the correction solution is reached. This reference parallels the character arc of Xander Widmore, a not-so-bad twin who just wanted to get away from the hullabaloo of the family fortune and dedicate his life to charity and spirituality.

Half of life, the book implies, is spent acquiring material wealth and becoming successful. Many think this is the ultimate end game, like the detective in Trent’s Last Case coming to a false conclusion. Once this success is reached, one begins feeling empty, as if one arrived at the wrong solution. The second half of life, then, is spent letting go of all that you’ve acquired.

This theme is mirrored in the Lost castaways story thus far. They come to the island like babies out of the womb; new, scared and confused. As they proceed, they adopt many philosophies and styles of leadership to organize themselves, shifting allegiences and world views when need be. All of us do this in our lives, albeit on a much less epic scale. Half way through the series, the castaways finally reach their intended goal by getting off the island.

Only… it wasn’t what they thought it would be. They had to go back from whence they came, with nothing.

— John Lindstedt