I think Lost is one those shows that I half feign interest in because of its popularity.
It’s certainly not a bad show. It’s more interesting than endlessly watching a show to determine if Katherine Heigl is hot or not (current status: still inconclusive) or to continue my eventual transformation into Fry off Futurama (Friends, any other 90’s sitcom), but it’s probably not in my top ten.
I’m probably described as a casual Lost fan. I could probably hold a conversation with someone about Lost long enough to decide if I will continue talking/being friends/ beg for me to let them sleep with them, but any longer and I’ll be exposed when I start confusing Michael with Ben (or something similarly stupid).
I sporadically watched the first three seasons, then gradually got more interested in it and watched about three quarters of the fourth. Maybe it’s because I got more interested in it, but whilst watching I always felt that this was the most enjoyable. Now that I just got done watching the season four finale, I feel that I was (for once) right.
For those too bewildered/intelligent to both bother watching, the finale revolved around four of the initial crash survivors finally escaping/leaving the island. Of course, other stuff happened too, but talking about is like, as Rapper Lil’
In other (non-Homoerotic) words, E-mail me in two years time, when we might be able to discuss some concrete answers. Now, what actually happened to the characters for the first hour and forty minutes of the show is kind of irrelevant (critics may say that has happened during the show’s entire run is irrelevant). Insane crazy stuff happened, but in the last twenty minutes, there were two moments that got me thinking.
1) The first was when the survivors, after leaving the island for but twenty minutes were kind of explicably rescued.
2) Then, for some reason, the island that the survivors where ‘Lost’ on disappeared into the fucking ocean.
These events- and my reactions to them- are why Lost is the most fucking subversive show on television (apologies to Boston Legal, the show written by a thousand pissed off DiGG users).
Deus Ex Machima, for those not in the know, is Latin for ‘The hand of god’. Those who didn’t waste their life reading about pointless subjects may be more familiar with its place in television. There it’s known as the fucking impossible happening with no explanation. Think people waking up to find a defining episode was ‘only a dream’ or when we discover an important character is inexplicably immune to virus that’s killing everyone else. My most recent experience with it came while re-watching Supernatural (what? It’s a valid show!).
Start of season one: There’s no way to kill a demon! Dean and Sam (the shows Demon hunting protagonists) are fucked.
Midway through season one: Oh, actually there’s this way old gun that can kill them.
Midway though season two: Oh, and this exorcism.
Start of season three: And there’s this knife that kills them as well.
Now whatever, I like Supernatural’s On the Road/American Gods/Dad Rock kind of vibe, but it’s steeped in traditional TV thinking[1]. Its metastory- although enjoyable- is a collage of rushed out solutions and “Huh? Who knew?” moments of confusion.
Now, compare this it to the two moments I mentioned in Lost. In Supernatural (or any other show) these two moments would feel like divine intervention, but they don’t in Lost. When I saw the island disappear into ocean, I didn’t think ‘Awesome. Now there’s more water for the circling shark to swim around in’ , instead, I couldn’t wait to see how the writers[2] would explain it. To anybody unfamiliar with the show, it would seem like insanity, yet I had complete faith in the writers explaining what exactly was up. Sure it might take a couple of years, but I knew that I was going to be given satisfactory answers. I was expecting a rational explanation.
In essence, doesn’t this mean Lost has killed god?
Okay, so maybe they haven’t killed him- maybe negated is better word. J.J Abrams and the Lost writers present their narratives in a way that make god feel irrelevant. Instead of creating quick fixes, they seem to thrive of digging themselves into a hole- then taking two seasons to claw their way back out. It’s a show that’s built of doing things the hard and satisfying way[3] instead of the quick and easy.
I could go overdramatic and say that the immense popularity of Lost is some kind of implicit approval of secularism (or maybe Communism!), but I think that’s taking things a bit too far. However, I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that Lost has killed god- hell just look at other what folks are saying.
The internet contains what interests me about Lost most of all- the way that people talk about it. Sure, this is all anecdotal- but Lost is one of those shows that is universally accepted as being totally bewildering. The same things that are attractive to fanatics- the lore, the frequent fuck yous to the viewers and the plain stupidity of characters- are the same reason that people hate the show.
It’s this combination of things that make hearing people discuss Lost a great experience. For an article discussing the absence of god, it awkward to say that there’s a kind of unwavering faith that people put in the writers of the show, but that’s what it is. Even if they don’t realize it, the theories that fans post online are evidence of the absence of god. Would the kind of conjecture raised when discussing Lost be possible with Prison Break? A show with a ‘fly by the seat of your pants, next week be damned’ kind of philosophy. By posting theories, fans are unconsciously approving the story that Lost is presenting. The shows’ deep lore and history of leaving clues in previous episodes makes fans think that the writers no what they’re doing- so it’s at least possible to try predict what they’re going to do next.
Now, I’ve read enough of these theories to know that most of the time they’re wrong, but they’re wrong for the right reason. When the whole ‘island disappearing’ plotline is finished, I’m hope that people who incorrectly pontificated on it will be able to say ‘See, here’s why I thought X was the solution, but looking back, I can also see that Y is also valid.’.
Lost is giving the power back to the average person. And isn’t that what the whole religion/god thing is about?
[1] Which again, is fine. It’s traditional TV, so why the fuck shouldn’t it be steeped in traditional TV thinking?
[2] Writing this makes me realize how much I hate the term ‘writers’ when referring to the story of a TV show. It sounds so fucking conspiratorial. It’s up there with ‘The Jews’, ‘The Muslims’ or just the ever present and mysterious ‘They’.
[3] There was got to be a better way or putting that.
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