For me, my internet fandom was, largely, shaped by the TV show Lost. It was a show that demanded that its viewers kept the faith and trusted in its’ premise. After all, season one of Lost was truly revolutionary. While The Sopranos had blazed the trail of television telling one over-arcing story throughout a season, as well as 24’s efforts in the medium, Lost was one show that had the balls to do the unexpected, at least in the beginning. While the initial mystery of how to survive given the dire circumstances of a plane crash on a seemingly deserted island carried much of the early plot, Lost developed into something much broader in subsequent seasons. Its’ strength was always that of its characters, and because of this many of us, myself included, looked past the escalation of ridiculous plot devices and contrivances. While I was interested in what the smoke monster was from day one, I was also patient to let the writers reveal it to me in their own time.
I was clearly a fool for doing so.
While I could go on a psycho-babble rant about how badly the show let me down, which I guarantee would devolve into a “Fuck you Damon Lindelof!”-centric article, I’m instead going to examine Lost through the five stages of grief, as it truly was a let-down of cataclysmic proportions the day that Lost ended. Not, of course, because we’d never see any more Lost again, but because of how thoroughly the show gave all of its fans the finger.
Stage 1: Denial
Yeah, I’ll admit when the show ended I didn’t want everyone else to be right. All of my buddies who told me the show was bullshit and wasn’t going anywhere and couldn’t possibly end well, I couldn’t let them get the last laugh. In truth, I hated this show from the second-to-last episode until its’ bafflingly stupid conclusion, but I did not want to concede my stance in front of my peers. Lost was the focus of my interest for the better part of two years, and in retrospect I can’t imagine how anyone who followed the show from the beginning must have felt when the final episode ended. I tried to deny the fact that many of the questions I had still lingered long after the show ended. Simple, basic, day one questions, like “Who/What is the smoke monster?” and “Why are they on the island?” never came close to having definitive answers that were satisfying to me. I mean, what the fuck was up with Walt? Why was he so important? And why was Aaron, Claire’s baby, such a big fucking deal for a while, then literally a lower-tier character for most of the rest of the show? Why is there so much reliance on blind faith in the face of logic by most of the characters on the show? I mean, I understand the Man of Science/Man of Faith aspect, but the story suffers because of an ineptitude in writing the third part of any character arcs on the show. Similar shows that had sci-fi elements, such as the Battlestar Galactica reboot, did a much better job taking the omnipotent aspects of the plot and lightly peppering them throughout the story, rather than halfheartedly slathering that shit on in the final moments of the series because the story had nowhere else to go. After loving a show as much as I did with Lost, I had too much invested to let it not be everything I hoped it would be.
Stage 2: Anger
So I may be with the majority here but I’m totally stuck on stage 2. Fuck Lost. Seriously. Fuck it. It’s without question one of the biggest letdowns ever made, isolating its’ audience from the outside world by promising it “had an ending” and “knew where it was going”, while delivering that in probably the most empty and superficial way possible. I mean in all honesty, the supernatural elements to this show are absolute bullshit. The island is constantly moving? Why? What is the island then, a fucking boat? Why is it a boat and not an island? Why do we have to travel through time? How does ANY of this shit make ANY sense, but more importantly, what the fuck does it say about anything? Lost just gets, well, lost in its own bullshit right around the third season. While predicating itself on a ton of “oh, wow” gasp-for-air moments, the shows’ overall direction is nonexistent. Even when outside forces in the form of some billionaire named Charles Whitmore come to the island for varying mysterious reasons, there’s almost no explanation or purpose for any of it. I’ll take you through my favorite line of questioning whenever Lost comes up in conversation to illustrate to you how pathetic the storytelling is.
Me: Alright, so what is the smoke monster?
You: Well, it’s the manifestation of the man in black.
Me: Oh, so who’s the man in black?
You: Well, he’s the brother/acquaintance of Jacob.
Me: Well, who’s Jacob?
You: Jacob is the island’s protector.
Me: What’s he protecting it from.
You: The smoke monster, I think.
Me: So why is the smoke monster bad?
You: …
The show is filled with ENDLESS open-ended plot devices that don’t make fucking sense anywhere. While we may have gotten an answer to where the fucking polar bear came from, we never understand why in the first place the Dharma Initiative had interest in the island, and to what end. It’s these leaps in basic story logic that are not only grating but insulting to me as an audience member and still make me fucking sick whenever I think about this series.
Stage 3: Bargaining
Naturally, I did everything in my power to try and find things to like about the show after the fact. It’s preaching to the choir in saying that on a very base level, the acting was good in many episodes. Standouts such as The Constant and Everybody Hates Hugo still stand as some of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen in a series, which only makes the pain hurt more. Everybody Hates Hugo has a brilliant sequence wherein, despite the insanity of what’s going on around the island, Hurley decides to try and get the Dharma van then find on the island up and running. It serves as an episode that separates itself from the rest of the plot because it stops any of the overall storytelling in favor of telling an emotional, character-driven tale about where Hurley is now in his life versus how he was treated at home. The episode ends on a brilliant note, with Three Dog Night’s “Shambala” factoring heavily into the end scene, so much so that it swells and becomes the melody of the episode’s score. It’s a beautiful moment, seeing Hurley drive the van in circles on his own, having won the day, that still chokes me up a bit just because of where that character was in that time and space. But I can’t judge the entire series on this one episode alone. Hitler may have been really good at chess but that wouldn’t excuse him from mass genocide and murder, and as such I cannot excuse Lost just for having momentary brilliance.
Stage 4: Depression
I’ve never been in a bad relationship or experienced a horrible break-up, but I have always felt that how Lost left me in the end was that break-up, emotionally, for me. Yes, Lost was just a show, but it was also an overall experience, and as such occupied a lot of my thoughts on a day-to-day basis. It was fun trying to anticipate and figure out where Lost was going to take us from week to week. Having that taken away from you in such a brutal way is akin to a parent taking their child to Chuck E. Cheese’s only for the pizza. It’s devastating for a mind so focused on one goal, and for me it was a really dark time that made me question my ability to judge good from bad. I’m still reeling from Lost to this day, but have done my best to suppress the memories. In writing this article, I’ve come to remember many moments that I hadn’t thought about for years. Sayid shooting Ben Linus as a child and the surprise of that made for great television, but only in the moment. Seeing Sawyer’s role turned 180 as a cop with Kate on the run was really cool, but ultimately aimless. I won’t throw myself into any particular stories anymore based off of how badly Lost scarred my friends and I. I would even claim that Lost took my innocence when it comes to quality television entertainment.
Stage 5: Acceptance
The only solace I can find in the Lost debacle is the fact that since Lost, I have been able to pinpoint the main focus of my hatred and scorn, and that is Damon Lindelof. With Prometheus and the recent Star Trek Into Darkness, it has been made abundantly clear to me that Lindelof is in large part the issue with Lost. I accept Lost for what it was; an ultimately empty waste of time written by a guy whose track record suggests that he never was the right guy for the job. I accept the fact that Lindelof sucks at writing stories based on his shoddy work in these respective projects. I accept the fact that Lost wasted 5074 minutes of my time here on earth. I accept the fact that despite some standout moments Lost misled and betrayed my friends and I. I accept all of these things and make my peace with them for the moment…but that doesn’t mean I have to like any of it.
Concluding Thoughts
But seriously, although I took the time to be thorough and professional, fuck Lost. Never before have I seen something that so earnestly wasted my time with shitty writing than this. I mean, I’ve seen bad movies before, but none that misled you like this one. All the while I put up with all the ridiculous shit. From the ghost sightings to the scientific properties unique to the island to all the insane time travel to the fucking HEAVEN SUBPLOT IN THE END this show takes the cake as the overall WORST fucking story I’ve ever seen. Thank god Breaking Bad didn’t drop the ball like this, otherwise I just might have had to quit movies and TV altogether.
I believe I heard John Cleese refer to comedy as being brittle. He spoke about how with comedy, the tone has to be exactly right because if it fails at any point, you can lose your audience and, in turn, lose the joke. A lot of filmmakers struggle with comedy. Even the veterans, like the once god-like Mike Myers stumble and fall when attempting new things, like The Love Guru. Anchorman 2, for all intents and purposes, should have been an easy slam-dunk. You have the entire original cast returning, plenty of juicy celebrity cameos and the blessing of fans everywhere. So why is it, then, that Anchorman 2 so horribly mucks things up?
I used Mike Myers as an example earlier of how comedians sometimes mistake what the audience wants with what will actually work in a film, and to see that look no further than Austin Powers vs. Austin Powers 2 and 3. 3 and, to a lesser degree, 2, both have compromised elements that work against the finished product, such as shoehorning in Seth Green’s transformation into Doctor Evil. The problem is, when you take from earlier films in a series, no matter how funny/interesting the idea was the first time, but the second time you see it it feels wrong. Case in point, SPOILERS, the fight scene at the end of A2. I’m sorry, but I didn’t find one piece of that scene funny. Not only did most of those celebrity cameos do nothing for me, but the inclusion of ass-clown Kanye West was like a bitch-slap in the face of comedy. While in real life that guy is a walking punchline, the fact that a group of talented individuals I personally like and appreciate gave him a paycheck to star alongside them is betrayal on par with when William Wallace nearly slits Robert The Bruce’s throat in Braveheart.
Devastating
