From May to mid-July, Josie and me have sat through the 120 episodes of LOST. Throughout its six season run, it was one of the most polarizing things on television. People either loved it or hated it. Some also fell out of love as the show kept changing its tones. One season it was deeply philosophical, the other was a long, fictionalized episode of SURVIVOR, season five was cut straight out of a sixties men's adventure magazine, etc. I was in the "unconditional love" camp. It took me about two and a half season to make it irreversible, but the show worked its magic on me.
How?
Well, LOST is a show that's as endearing in its flaws that it is in its strengths. I don't think J.J Abrams and Damon Lindelof are particularly geniuses. In fact, I find it hilarious that they are treated as such and are constantly demanded to create deep in meaningful content. Lindelof in particular and he's been so focused on creating meaningful and moving stuff since then, he has yet to come up with another interesting character. He seems to have completely misunderstood what made him a wanted commodity in the first place. Many times, LOST reeked of the "what-are-we-going-to-make-them-do-now?" issue. Why didn't it turn me away from the show, then? That's where the magic operated. This is the first of a series of LOST posts, where I'll tackle different aspects of the show. But first, here are five ways it revealed me to myself.
Give me great characters and I will follow you on blood stumps through the snow. Seriously, what terrible humans care about plot more than they care about people? If you care about somebody, it's not important what they're going through, you just want them to survive and find a little sun in their lives. In LOST, I found myself gravitating towards Ben, Sayid and Sawyer the most. Sayid Jarrah is an ex-soldier in the Iraqi Republican Guard who did a LOT of bad stuff in his life. He's constantly looking to be better, but he's a soldier at heart. He doesn't like his cold warrior logic, but it keeps saving everybody's lives. Sawyer is a grifter who gradually starts fighting the survival instinct he lived by for all his life and Ben, my little Ben is about the most complex bad guy I've seen on TV along with Walter White. His story is a bit ludicrous, but his faith isn't. Maybe they are the three "noirest" characters in the cast, but hey, sue me. I like that.
I can't watch TV series on TV anymore. Especially with a larger cast like that. There could be what? Four, five weeks in between two episodes that feature a certain storyline? The magic of Netflix bridges this gap in a single evening. Maybe the "television series" should lose the word "television" in them. What happened to me? I used to be so patient. There are so many series out there and so many things to do beside watching television, it's a no brainer. I don't care about a series until I can watch at least a season without having to wait. Because time is no way to build anticipation. Cliffhangers are still a good way to get you to watch the next episode, but time has become the enemy. Suck it, TV executives.
I'm getting better as a storyteller. From watching great and bad storytelling. It's true the mysteries in LOST got a little tired over time. I think it's at the end of season 4 (the weakest season, in my opinion), that Ben, under the gun said something along the line of "Don't kill me, because I know things that wish to know". That resumes the intrigue of the last three seasons in a nutshell. People being deliberately vague, to haul the suspense a mile further down the road. Infuriating, yes but nothing's perfect. This would have been a lot more painful if the show wasn't punctuated by the absolutely wacky, fun and ridiculous season five where the zany science-fiction themes took all the place. A nuclear bomb, crazy science people, true believers and time travel on top of things? C'mon. It's hard to hate. The storytelling of LOST isn't always bad, it's just overambitious more often than not.
I can now spot sexism without a bikini or a cooking apron. Take that, Don Draper. The character I disliked the most in LOST was probably Kate Austen. No fault to Evangeline Lily who's a great actress, but her role had absolutely no point except to create conflict between her love interests Jack and Sawyer and to put the entire cast in danger. Her decisions are always 100% emotional and men listen to her because she makes sweet eyes before walking into traffic. She's a damsel tied to the train tracks who talks a big game, that's it. In many regards, she was the complete opposite to Sayid, who was my favorite character. Juliet Burke, despite being less physically appealing, was a better written character.She had an arc not unlike Ben, where she goes from being monstrous to being endearing.
The hype has lied to me one last time. The finale was hyped as the most disappointing final episode ever. Without spoiling anything, there are cheap decisions taken (like, you know. Confirming that hypothesis everyone had since day one). But there are gutsy decisions taken too and narrative choices that are everything but evident. We know the characters ultimate fate, but Abrams and Lindelof created huge gaps in time where other adventures could've happened. There is nothing I find more heartwarming than knowing the characters I spent over eighty hours loving and caring about, will go on and have crazy adventures that may or may not get written. I will not believe the hype anymore. So I'm telling myself.
What about you, dear readers? What have you learned about yourself watching LOST?