Lost

Polarizing doesn't even begin to describe the effect that Lost has had on the television landscape. Even now that it is over the show that seemingly made serial dramas cool again is still divisive in the popular opinion, with most people either loving or hating the series finale. After six seasons of wildly varying quality, it's not easy to classify Lost as simply "Bad" or "Good". I'd say more "Good" than "Bad", but we'll get into that later.

People like to say that Lost heralded the return of the science fiction serial. Given that the most popular shows of the 2004 were procedural series consisting of largely stand-alone episodes like Cold Case and CSI, it's easy to see why so many would love to pin the instantly popular Lost as the show that brought back science fiction serials to TV. People seem to forget that it was shows like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2nd Season), and Carnivale that brought the return of season or even series long story-arches and complicated sci-fi/fantasy mythologies back to television. You also can't mention the impact of Lost without also mentioning Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar premiered the month after Lost, with its own set of interesting characters and epic story. Despite its flaws, Battlestar Galactica was superior in both the story it told and how it told it.



Out of all those shows, Lost was poised to be the most commercially successful. Its first season was very well done, and its momentum carried into the early portions of the second season. The characters were interesting, the story was moving along at a good pace. The cliffhanger at the end of the first season was one of the most memorable in TV history. Then something happened that as a viewer and a fan I didn't expect. Lost got bad. Not just bad, but abysmally awful. The story ground to a halt and instead of resolving the questions that had already been posed to the audience regarding the mysteries of the show, more questions were piled on. Going into the 2nd season finale, I'd almost given up on the show. After that point, the show finally found its rhythm again, and Lost had more good episodes than bad. The creators of the show even announced that Lost would only run for six season, which I found encouraging as they would eventually be forced to resolve the riddles of the island. Still, I never got the feeling that the story was in capable hands and worried that the show would end with important questions still left unanswered.

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the show has ended and there are important questions that the creators of the show didn't even bother to address. While the characters of the show have all been given absolution and we now know all of their stories the place that the story was set, the island itself, remains plagued by an annoying lack of information. I've always found the mythology of Lost to be the most interesting aspect of the show, but the creators of Lost seem to disagree with me. They want me to be concerned with the characters, and go so far as to constantly label their show as "character-driven". As a result Lost has sometimes neglected to address the grand mysteries of the island and its denizens in favor of smaller more trivial matters like Jack's tattoos, Kate's crimes, and Sawyer's cons. After an entire series of these kinds of story choice, one wonders whether the minds behind Lost are even capable of answering a straight-forward question in direct terms. Instead, the creators have used the vaguest of answers in relation to the greater mysteries of island's nature. At this point, the notion of a "character-driven" show seems like merely an excuse for lazy or non-existent exposition.



Just as an example, it's like the creators of Lost have just served you a cake. You taste it, and get curious about it:

You: Mmm... this cake is delicious! How'd you make it?
Lost: I baked it.
You: ... Yes, I see that. Um, what's in this cake? I'd love to know the ingredients!
Lost: I baked it IN AN OVEN.
You: I see....
Lost: IT WAS A KENMORE.

One of the more infuriating flaws with the show was the interactions of the characters with each other, or more to the point, the lack of interaction. Many times over the course of the series, characters would be in possession of information that could help in the revelation of a mystery, and would purposefully (and many times illogically) with hold it from the rest of the characters. This would also often happen between characters that were supposed to be on the same "side". Secrets were long kept hidden from both other characters and more importantly, the audience, for no good reason.



This circumstance of sub-par finales seems to be a recurring theme with shows that have a supernatural component to them. When you look at more grounded shows and their finales, like The Wire and it's sublime "-30-", you get a satisfaction that you've been told a great story and can now move on. Shows like The X-Files, Buffy, Quantum Leap, and to a lesser extent Angel, all suffered from lackluster finales. Questions still linger, and there's no way anyone's getting a better answer than they've been given. An exception to this is the fantastic Deep Space Nine finale of "What You Leave Behind" that delivered despite its supernaturally spiritual themes.

All this said, there was definitely more good than bad over Lost's run. Several of the characters, such as Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, Eko, Juliet, Frank, and Miles all grew on me. It's no surprise that all of my favorite characters have one thing in common in that they were all the most direct in questioning the secrets of the island and the other characters, especially Sayid, Eko, and Frank. Sun and Jin, but mainly Sun, were also among the characters that I enjoyed seeing week to week. When Lost did get around to solving a big puzzle, the results were the best moments of the show, and it's unfortunate that the finale did not do this to the extent that would've liked. The finale bordered on being grossly emotionally manipulative, and almost seemed to be trying to cover its lack of information with the farewell of these characters that we've been following for six season. The island itself and the power it wielded was by far the most interesting aspect of the show. Even now, the mysteries and questions that surround what could be described as a insignificant speck of turf in the Pacific continues to capture the imagination and doesn't stop being a source of fascination.



So what could've made Lost and its finale better? After seeing the entire series, it's plainly obvious that the story of Lost could've been told in a much shorter span. I mentioned Battlestar Galactica earlier as the superior to Lost, and one of the big reasons for this was the time it took to tell its story versus Lost's time to tell a similarly complex story. Lost ended up with 121 episodes over 6 seasons to Battlestar Galactica's 75 episodes over 4 seasons. While each season was about the same length, BSG chose to end its run after four seasons, and this was for the best. It kept the writers on-task, and helped to keep the pace brisk and the story focused. The story of Lost, with all of its repeating themes and unnecessary diversions, could have been told in an even smaller amount of time. I'm thinking that 3 seasons of 20 episodes would have been sufficient to cover the tale that we ended up getting from Lost.

In the end if you've never seen Lost, don't start now. Don't worry about it until you've seen some of the other shows I've mentioned here. Don't bother until you've seen Serenity, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Arrested Development. After you've seen all that and you're still curious, add Lost to your Netflix queue and have at it. If you started Lost, but gave up along the way, you'd might as well finish now. Perhaps one of these days I'll write up an Essential Episodes of Lost guide for the good of the TV watching public, because for all its flaws there is some really good stuff to be found in Lost. Until then, namaste.