Space Enough, and Time

This past week, people of pop culture commemorated the tenth anniversary of LOST, a show that many consider a pivotal show for 21st-century American television.  I found (or was led to) a few interesting “reflections” on the series worth pointing out.

First is a Grantland article by Andy Greenwald.  I love his first sentence:

Lost premiered 10 years ago this week. It ended four and a half years ago. And I still miss it like crazy.

What followed was a list of the six things that network today could learn from the show.  My favorites?  Number One: Characters First, Concept Later.  Whatever you think of the show’s ending, its success was based on how well-articulated its core cast was . . . from the very beginning.  And the new characters that came along, like Juliet and Ben, were fleshed out quickly and with brilliance.  And then there’s Number Three: Don’t Self-Segregate.  Money quote:

Here’s the beauty of Lost: There are polar bears, flashbacks, bursts of electromagnetism, and a giant, tree-crashing, human-smashing monster in the pilot. Within a year, there would be a hippie cult, a torture room, and a set of magical numbers that appears to control the universe. By the end of Season 5, a time-traveling fertility doctor used a giant stone to bash a hydrogen bomb until it exploded. The end of the show hinged on a pair of godlike brothers squabbling over an immortal deckhand and which one of them Allison Janney loved more.

And yet during all of this, Lost carried itself like a fully mainstream entertainment. Even midway through the third season, after the show secured its end date and committed more fully to the genre looniness that had been lurking beneath the surface, Lindelof and his fellow showrunner, Cuse, never stopped projecting to the furthest reaches of the peanut gallery. Lost was a big, bold show that always sought the largest possible audience.

A second article ran in the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly and was written by Doc Jensen, who also loved and wrote often about the show.  The essay quickly turns to how the show became frustrating and divisive, and how he contributed to that situation as a writer.

In the aftermath, we are left with Losties who feel certain that they were loved, Losties who feel jilted, and an enduring conflict between the two parties that boils with the rancor of a bitter custody battle: How do we remember Lost? Was it a success or failure? Who decides? Who gets to be the caretaker of its memory? If there is one thing I hate about Lost—and it is probably the only thing I, an ardent, gonzo acolyte of Lost, truly hate about the show–is how its evolving vision (unintentionally) fractured the show’s vibrant fan community, and how its well-meaning wont for never-ending, friendly debate over the show’s finale has resulted in never-ending, unfriendly fighting over the show’s merit and meaning.

What is certain is that Lost helped change the way we watch and talk about television. A once-passive experience processed the next day around the water cooler is now an interactive experience parsed immediately via social media, recaps, and blogs. Of course, Lost reminds us that this kind of cultural interaction can also be a messy, flawed affair. Case in point: Me. I wrestle with the value of my contribution to the conversation. The overthinking. The projections. The emotional enmeshment. My constant theorizing—sometimes cheeky, more often sincere—cultivated the notion that Lost was a puzzle to be solved, not a story to be enjoyed. What I regret the most is season 6. Those frustrated by the show’s oblique, confounding story needed clear-eyed, common sense analysis—not one last hurrah of my absurd shtick. I am sorry.

And in case you’re wondering about the mysteries whose lack of resolution frustrated so many viewers?  Well, the people at The Telegraph put together a nice list of most of the Island’s major mysteries and what explanations were given (that you might have midst while in the midst of an early form of hate-watching).  You can check that list out here.

You can read more of Greenwald’s Grantland piece here.  I highly recommend it.  And you can read the rest of Jensen’s piece here.