The great TV show Lost may already have begun fading a bit from the cultural waters after its much-discussed finale, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately. I thought I’d take a slight detour from our normal topics into the world of television and culture. (Spoilers below and all that, but seriously, you’ve had enough time now.)
The first season of Lost in 2004 was a tour de force – it combined the chills and thrills of classic suspense and sci-fi television with the promise of deeper characters with relevant and complex backstories. While HBO had been experimenting with more intelligent TV and the DVD/Tivo era was affording more narrative possibilities for serial shows, Lost was really unlike anything that had been attempted on network television.
In case you have never seen the show, it revolved around castaways who crashed on an extremely mysterious tropical island with a strange smoke monster.
I loved the Walt!!! out of this show. The elements that elevated it above X-Files meets Gilligan’s Island were twofold:
1. The flashbacks, which interwove the events on the island with the mysteriously intertwined back-stories of the characters.
2. The mysteries, which layered upon further layers and folded back on each other like a Matryoshka doll wrapped in a seashell buried in quicksand on a planet where EVERYTHING IS MINDBENDING. There is a massive website devoted to keeping it all straight.
But if there was one signature element of the show, above all else it was the WTF moments: strange, unexpected, thrilling, out-of-nowhere moments that added to the mystery and blew our minds. Whether it was the discovery of a hatch on the island, then a light coming through the hatch, other people on the island…. all the way to time travel and immortality, these WTF moments were the show’s fuel. But not all of the mysteries ended up being solved.
The High Price of WTF
Introducing a shocking mystery in a TV show (or any story) is kind of like borrowing from the future – the viewer gets a jolt of excitement in the short term with the expectation that they’re going to be repaid with an explanation down the line. When a polar bear comes running through the forest on a tropical island, you naturally think, “WTF!! How did that get there!!” And then you keep watching/reading until you’re told how it got there.
Thus, the price of a WTF moment is that the storyteller owes you an explanation. They’ve borrowed, narratively, from the future.
But throughout the entire run of Lost, just when it looked like the characters were on the cusp of figuring out something meaningful and giving the viewers some answers, BOOM, the writers hit the audience with another mystery. Jacob! Time travel! Russian with an eyepatch! Walt is soaking wet! Ben is good! Evil! Good! Evil! Good! Meek! Giant statue with four toes! OMG the island is at the bottom of the ocean!
The writers spun mysteries upon mysteries upon mysteries, all the while maintaining the illusion that there was a master plan, that they had everything under control, that there was an explanation for it all, and the mystery would be solved in the end. Pretty soon the number of mysteries had exploded and snowballed to the point that I was tuning in just to see how in the world they were going to explain it all.
And when the debt came due in the final season, rather than spend the precious final episodes tying things together and giving the viewers the explanations they had been craving for six years, what did they do? Introduced further mysteries!!! The “flash sideways”, and a light at the center of the island with a giant stone cork.
In the end of the show: sure, there were some nominal explanations involving beams of light and chosen ones and saving the world and all the rest, but at the very end the characters were literally left in church, staring at a white light, waiting to escape purgatory via multi-faith divine intervention.
Basically: throughout the show, the writers kept borrowing against the future. When in doubt they introduced another mystery. And when the bill came due and it was time to give the viewers all of the explanations they expected? Well, the writers couldn’t quite pay, as this College Humor video demonstrates all too well.
Not that I needed to know who built the four-toed statue in order to still love the show. (Okay, it kind of would have been nice to know who built the four-toed statue.)
A Show for Our Times?
And in that sense, what show better encapsulated the aughts, the decade when we overspent and overextended ourselves, and when the bill came due found ourselves hoping for a miracle? And ya know, at the close of this decade does it not feel a bit like Purgatory, what with a lingering recession and a bunch of oil in the Gulf of Mexico?
Smoke monster? Meet the Great Recession.
Lost encapsulated the aughts: a great deal of running around with the sense that something ominous was lurking in the forest until it all caught up with us and we ended up hoping for a miracle. It was the decade when America, individually and collectively, lived for the present at the expense of the future and is now left hoping for divine intervention, which unfortunately hasn’t yet arrived. (Still waiting, Chuck Norris! I thought you had this under control!!!).
People, we are all Oceanic Flight 815.
Now if I could just get this polar bear out of my office…
Locusts and Wild Honey says
When the final season began to air and they were STILL introducing new mysteries and NOT wrapping things up, I KNEW that very soon the Lost house was going to be foreclosed on because of missing its payments.
If only they could have passed a Lost Bailout and the writers were given another season to EXPLAIN THEMSELVES.
I must say, it was a great show for a long time and then, in my mind, it was one of the biggest disappointments of all time. So sad.
Love, this post.
Seleste says
LOVED this.
I loved LOST all the way up to the end, holding out for answers and closure. As much as I wanted to love the ending, I was left really meh.
But you are completely right, it was the perfect show for the decade in which it aired. Sad but true.
JD says
Yes, I felt very cheated with the final season of Lost. They didn't explain much at all, and when they did, it felt a little too forced, as though it was simply the best explanation at the time rather than something that made logical, long-term sense. I don't think that any of the answers really caught me by surprise anyway. It was a great show to watch, but I'm glad we can put it to rest now.
Also, I wanted to share this infographic I came across today, about books vs. e-books. There's not a ton to it, but it's interesting. I thought you might want to see it, if you hadn't already. This is the link:
https://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/03/back-story-books-vs-e-books.html
Mesmerix says
Nathan: Brilliant post. "Smoke monster? Meet the Great Recession." How apropos.
Anonymous says
Wow.
(you wouldn't believe my word verfication. "vomet")
Shelli says
Brilliant analogy. I did feel let down by the finale, for exactly the reason you mentioned. No, I didn't need an explanation for everything, but why the heck bring in all that physics crap if it was meaningless? I was a true fan, but Lost finally lost me with the finale.
A.C. Tidwell says
My problem with Lost is that it had absolutely no follow through. There are some insane pieces watchers are expected to take; a few lengthy leaps. I just recently started watching the series and can tell you I ran out of steam at season 5. I just wasn't being rewarded for my labor. When I say labor I mean "WTF, are you seriously trying to get me to buy this?"
dandellion says
I love your parallel of the show and the last decade of the real life. Indeed, it's all borrowing from the future and not thinking much about what will happen when the debts are due.
Though, after the finale, it seamed to me that something changed the planned development of the show in the middle of the last season. Things were developing in one way and then, out of nothing (or better, from something behind the scenes) everything changes and cheesy "purgatory" ending comes.
Robin L says
BRILLIANT analysis. Especially the tie in to the aughts.
Bryan Russell (Ink) says
I'm gonna have polar bears run through all my stories.
Anonymous says
Why can't I see the polar bear???
word verification: cogit
Dave F. says
I wasn't a LOST fan. For some reason I didn't see the opening episodes and never took the time to catch up. However, I did watch a large portion of the final show and realized just how "unsubstantial" and "vaporous" the ending was.
Stories have three parts – beginning, middle and end. LOST gave the viewers parts one and two but not three. That's poor storytelling.
LOST will be remembered not as a great story but as a story with an asterisk — the lack of satisfying ending.
We have seen TV shows with great endings and final episodes that satisfy and delight the viewer. LOST does not have that.
ryan field says
I used to wonder if the writers just sat around laughing about what they were going to do next while we tried to analyze and make sense of it (wtf?).
But whatever the case, the concept was brilliant…and so was your analogy.
Yamile says
I love this post. I confess I only watched the 1st season–which I loved–and I have yet to catch up. But during the Lost years I had 4 kids! So, now, I'm finally finding myself and catching up.
I love this kind of spoilers! You know why? Because when I'm actually watching the show, I'll go, "AAHHHH, That's what Nathan meant by 4 toed statue…"
Aimee says
I loved LOST so much that I am still in denial that it is over.
When the sixth season started, I figured they had decided on one way to solve all the mysteries with one big answer. I was half right. They hardly answered any questions, but they literally told the audience to "let go" and accept what they couldn't change. I totally got it and loved it.
Culturally, LOST was pretty important. It paralleled what was going on in the world, economically, spiritually, politically, or at least it did from my perspective. And I believe the message of the show is something that everyone needs to learn: just love and let go.
I don't even watch TV anymore. I read a lot though. And my writing really is inspired by LOST.
Wow. I am incredibly obsessed.
Anonymous says
Nothing annoyed me more than that College Humor video. Almost every question it asked was either irrelevant or answered.
Lost tied up almost every single loose thread. There are only 2 or 3 important questions that remain unrevealed. And half of those are going to be answered in the short epilogue added to the DVD set.
This annoys me to no end.
gsfields says
Hated it.
Loved the first season, but their explanations of the WTF moments became just plain silly and disappointing.
I felt the writers of the show pulled explanations from a giant BINGO hopper.
patlaff says
Nathan,
Did you ever watch Twin Peaks? WTF moments from beginning to end. Just thought I'd bring it up because it was on network television a dozen years prior to Lost.
Peter Dudley says
My wife and I are probably the only people in the lower 48 that haven't seen a single episode of LOST.
But now that I know I've been living it the past ten years, I don't have to see it. Thanks for the liberation.
Sommer Leigh says
I actually loved the way Lost ended and I didn't need them to lay out all the explinations of what happened. I could put two and two together with most of the big stuff. I was fine with not getting a blow by blow account of the statue or the smoke monster or the physics of it all. Sometimes there are just awesome, mind bending mysteries in the world.
That being said, this post was brilliant and beautiful and I am happy to have read it. Thanks Nathan!
John Ross Harvey says
This is the only show I had to watch. Not since Airwolf in the 80's was I obsessed with a primetime show. Mostly I watch reality type shows, DWTS, Amazing Race, Celeb. Apprentice, Survivor. Family had a LOST-ish show with HSM's Corben Bleu called Flight 29 Down. Not as complex, less characters, less seasons. To me LOST created the best character on TV, LOCKE. Not Jack, I still could care less about Jack, yeah the eye thing, I get it, he never really mattered to me. Locke was a parapalgic, caused by his estranged father, could walk and lead on the island, whereas at home he was mostly a failure. He understood the island as a place to start over. No the island was not purgatory, that was after the island. Was he possessed by the Man in Black the whole time? Maybe? But I don't think so.
Why did Richard tell him he had to die? Why did Ben kill him? Why did Man in Black never have a name, fans I conversed with always called him Esau. If he was favoured by the adoptive mom, why didn't she give him a name?
Hurley being the next Jacob was satisfying, as he had more connection to the island than Jack, Jack was a always a temporary fix. Desmond was always pivotal, Daniel was underused, and I wanted Eko back. Christain Sheppard was the eventual purgatory guide noted standing by the multi-denominational window.
He was a drunken neurosurgeon.
Everyone changes.
I wanted the real Sawyer aka Locke's dad Anthony Cooper to have a better role than to be killed by James "Sawyer" Ford.
We could never be sure which was more evil, Ben or Charles Widmore.
I've never liked and hated one character more often then Ben.
Were the people MIB helped build the donkeywheel, the original others? Was Richard initiated into them?
Another show ABC pulled the plug on too early was Sports Night, an Aaron Sorkin masterpiece. Watch the episode with current Housewife's real husband William H. Macy discussing executives vs. show producers. A classic story about the invention of television.
LOST may have needed another season
and at first I hated the finale, but I've come to accept it. Eventually I'll get the box dvd set, but not yet.
Nathan Bransford says
patlaff-
That's true about Twin Peaks, shouldn't have said unlike "anything" that had been attempted.
Rowenna says
LOL@ Walt. Anyone else ever play the "My Boy" drinking game? You watch Lost and take a drink every time Michael says "my boy" in reference to Walt? Ok, maybe that was just me and my roommates…and it wasn't fun after the first couple seasons.
I love this explanation–mysteries and twists are borrowing against the future. Such a perfect way of explaining exactly what I'm having trouble balancing and smoothing out in the freshest draft I'm working on.
I guess I'll just give in and throw in a polar bear.
Madeleine says
(Now I need to collect the seasons of LOST and watch them.)
What a great post, and it's a fascinating way of viewing things. I actually RTed this twice.
John says
Nathan, I agree with you 100%. I was an avid follower of Lost, and can honestly say I was frustrated with the final season.
Here's why.
Several of the mysteries introduced over the first five years were never fully explained. Time Travel, the Dharma Initiative, Walt's specialness, etc. And the flash sideways, while an interesting experiment, in no way connected to the previous seasons. In a way, the sixth season was a stand alone story. That was a mistake, because people watched this season for closure.
And what bothered me the most about this was how Darlton (creators Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof) said in an interview that they didn't feel they owed their audience any answers, beyond the flash sideways. For the record, yes, they did owe us.
As storytellers, they, and we, set up certain expectations that the audience wants fulfilled by the end. Like Chekov said, if there's a gun in the first act, it'd better go off in the last act.
Lost was vastly entertaining a lot of the time, and kept me coming back every week. But its ultimate lack of an interconnecting through line fragmented the overall story and diluted its potency.
So it seems like the lesson here is the importance of a story having a strong spine. Every plot or character introduced needs to connect naturally to each other.
The best stories seem to be shaped like an unbroken circle, the end always calling back to what came before. One too many elements added, or one too few, and it falls apart.
Almost like a palindrome.
Jet Harrington says
I've never even watched LOST and I love this post. I saw the analogy coming, and couldn't agree more. Also, I think it is an important thing to be mindful of in our own narrative – it's okay to leave a few red herrings out there, but if we bring up a smoke monster or a polar bear in our story, we should give our reader the satisfaction of knowing WHY it is there.
Sue Campbell says
I don't think it was quite that deep Nathan. What it was a great run for a bunch of people who got to work in Hawaii for six seasons.
Keep the mysteries going, keep the hype going, stay on the air, get paid for living and working in Hawaii! Such a deal. I loved the show; never missed it. What was most fascinating to me was the whole fan community and interaction that going on. All their protestations to the contrary I don't believe for a minute that the writers (Cuse and Lindleloff) had any farking clue where they were going with it, and that they were definitely mining the message boards for directions. That why it kept veering off in new and charted territory. What we saw was a highly collaborative work—and possibly why fan based stories almost never work. They couldn't possibly pay off all the debt they incurred and if they had actually tried the ending would have been worse that it was.
Not to say it wasn't fun. But it really wasn't an allegory for our times.
Joann Swanson says
Wow – incredible post. Really, really incredible. On the Lost side, we stopped watching mid-season in the third year after one of the characters receives a mysterious phone call that made absolutely no sense. Hubby: "If they can't even tell us who's on the other end of the *** phone, they're not going to tell us anything…" (nice version with less swearing)
Fast forward from that episode to the finale. I LOVED the finale. Loved, loved, loved it, but only because we essentially went from season 2, when the characters and storyline still felt accessible, to a beautiful wrap-up that actually made sense. I was completely blown away.
Now…if only we could approach The Great Recession in the same way. 🙂
John says
P.S. the word verification for my previous post was lessism. Seems like that's a concept Lost could've implemented. 🙂
Jacqueline says
Ah, but now they've left room for a big-screen movie.
And its sequel.
And the next sequel.
🙂
maine character says
Good point about borrowing from the future, but I feel LOST pulled it off. After all, some shows don’t even try to resolve anything, and I feel the creators of LOST did the best they could’ve done. Nothing can fully be explained, anymore than the world outside your window can be fully explained. But there’s sure a bunch of stuff to keep us guessing and finding level on level of meaning the more we look.
They could’ve kept the show going for five more seasons, but chose to wrap it up rather than lead us on and on just to rake in the bucks. Unfortunately, they didn’t give themselves a lot of time to do that, and I felt they wasted an episode with the story of the twins growing up on the island, but as for a laundry list of questions, in the end the show came down to the characters, and that’s what they focused on. (And weren't the polar bears more cool when you didn't know where they came from?)
Anyone who’d like to read how the show’s writers tried to work with these issues will find good insights in these NYT interviews, in which they go into some depth of the problems they faced and how they set to resolve them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/arts/television/16weblost.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/arts/television/18manl.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/arts/television/31lost.html?_r=1&fta=y
Tahereh says
lost is like inception. THE TOP NEVER STOPS SPINNING, DOES IT?
please tell me you saw inception.
Sarah Allen says
This is so great! Ben Linus I think is one of the greatest television characters of all time, and its so true that he totally goes from evil to good to evil to good and somewhere in between all the time. I think this show in its entirety was genius, and I know the finale was controversial, but I'm glad they left us with a more ambiguous, softer, philosophical ending then the easier, action oriented route. Anyway, thanks for this! Lovely to reminisce.
Sarah Allen
(my creative writing blog)
Amy Lundebrek says
Wow! Great connection to make the show relevent! I gave up around the middle of the second season, dubbed it a "fractal show," and moved on. My friends ignored me and kept believing there'd be some answers.
MJR says
I never watched LOST, but I do get annoyed with lost threads. Maybe it's the result of too many writers working on a show? I'm a huge MAD MEN fan, but I always wonder what happened to Peggy's baby and didn't she tell Peter she had his baby at the end of one season? Some threads in that show peter out… maybe all those writers need to get together and talk sometimes….
Anonymous says
They did the same thing with Alias. And when Abrams and his bunch couldn't wrap that up neatly they started Lost.
It's a soap opera on steroids designed only to get you to watch the next episode. Imagine trying to wrap up Days of Our Lives. You can't. That's the point of soap operas. They go on forever. But you're right because in a way they are like the Ponzi schemes of the aughts: when they end everyone is disappointed.
BTW, "high price" is relative. In this case, I think it's like charging Bill Gates fifty bucks for a Big Mac.
stra778 says
"Lost" was really unlike anything that had been attempted on network television.
Ha.
Sorry, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Have you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Even the exec producers of Lost credit it as an influence for boundry-pushing and genre-defying televiion. There's a great article in NY mag about how Buffy, The Wire (and a little bit The Sopranos) were the pioneer shows of the late 90s/early 2000s that redifined the television show. Lost came after, borrowed from a lot of places.
Reena Jacobs says
I think the final episode of Lost would have been way better if they'd faded to the Double Rainbow Song at the end. "What does it mean?"
Mira says
Lol, Bryan.
Great post, Nathan. I loved the concept of borrowing narratively from the future. I've never heard of that before, but it feels absolutely right.
I agree the show reflected the decade, but my interpretation is darker than yours. I think it reflected the growing lack of corporate responsibility and increased manipulation of consumers.
I'm sure the writers of Lost would have loved to write a true story. I think the networks and producers were telling the writers to write to audience reaction and for ratings.
You can always tell when a show is being controlled by the network executives because the writers will just give the audience what they want. A true writer writes to the story, not the audience.
Honestly, if the Wizard of Oz was a T.V. program today, the call from the networks would have been that the viewers love the Wicked Witch of the West, and don't kill her, because she's getting her own spin-off. Which destroys the story, because Dorothy needs to melt the Wicked Witch, a metaphor for melting away her own fears.
So Lost is an example of a story being used to manipulate people into continuing to watch it – in order to gain advertising dollars. There's no actual accountability to give the audience what was promised.
And the ending was just as manipulative as the rest of it.
If there is one thing that defines the 'oughts, it's corporate irresponsiblity and greed running rampant, and extraordinarily destructive, up to and including their power in Washington.
Nathan Bransford says
stra778-
HahahahahahahaWhyAreWeLaughinghahaha
Different elements of the show had been done, but I'd still argue that the combination of the high budget (most expensive pilot in TV history), WTF-ness, complex storyline, etc. etc. hadn't been attempted. There had been WTF-ness ("Twin Peaks"), there had been genre-bending ("Buffy"), there had been we-expect-that-you've-seen-every-episode ("The Sopranos"), there had been high budgets ("Alias"), but all in combination?
I still think it was a pretty groundbreaking show even if I could have phrased the post better or included a dozen caveats.
Livia says
TV shows often have this problem, where the later portion doesn't resolve the WTF moments. I think this is because most series are written as they go. If you need a demonstration of the dangers inherent in "pantsing" the plot, just tune into network TV. I've seen too many shows that introduce awesome mysteries only to cop out at the end or just plain veer of into the twilight zone. La Femme Nikita, "24", even Battlestar Galactica wasn't all that satisfying.
Carol Riggs says
Great post, and I loved the Walt! and College Video vids, having watched Lost all the way thru to the disappointing end. Stories for stark entertainment value without a good plot (or answers) is NOT good entertainment, in the long run. The same goes for books. They're just junk food. (I still enjoyed watching Lost, however; those Doritos taste incredible!)
I agree with Ben being fascinating, with his morphing from good to bad to good, etc. I mean, totally the opposite of a stereotypical villain, right? We can use this when we write our novels–the bad guys aren't ever 100% evil and the good guys are never 100% good. They're much more REAL that way. And more interesting!
D.G. Hudson says
I saw one or two episodes of LOST and even that was confusing. Interesting premise, but. . .
I'm not a big fan of TV shows, and seldom watch anything on a regular basis. IMO, TV is only good for movies, and specials–music concerts, old mystery serials, or VOD. I will always prefer to read than to be tied to watching a weekly serial.
As to the WTF effect, one must ensure that the road one weaves does actually end somewhere, and avoid the temptation to keep upping the ante.
Kim Batchelor says
I would add that it was a perfect show for the aughts as many of us felt very untethered from reality: two wars, our democracy unraveling, and Ben as president with crazy Claire and her gun as the VP.
Mira says
Actually, the metaphor is that Dorothy discovers that problems, when faced directly, will melt away.
Let's get our metaphors right.
Wonderful discussion.
I just love your blog, Nathan. It's been a blast this week. So intelligent. It's great fun to really dig into a topic.
lodjohnson says
I agree with Tahereh. Inception is the ultimate WTF just happened. It does in a little over 2 hours what Lost took 6 seasons to accomplish.
We scratch our heads and ponder, but in the end we still have no clue what just happened.
Brilliant! Nathan, you have to see Inception. I'd love to hear your take on WTF.
Sara says
I also never watched Lost. When I started hearing people talk about the mystery factor, I knew I couldn't watch it. I don't have the patience for long, drawn-out, mystery-upon-mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma plots. ESPECIALLY with no pay-off.
I recently saw "Inception" and had some of the same frustration. There were a few things that were never fully explained, and some that just defied explanation. When I invest however much time, money, and energy into reading/watching something, I want the pay-off. I want the full explanation and nothing less.
I know, I know. I'm a tough customer. 🙂
Joseph L. Selby says
Hopefully we take the lessons from lost that we should have been taking from the Great Recession: never charge what you won't be able to pay off.
Whether you tell the reader or not, when you the author introduce a mystery, know the answer to it. Don't just say you'll figure it out later. The edges will fray and people will tell the difference and, like Lost, you may not be able to cover the check when it comes due. Then you have to wash the dishes.
Rick Daley says
For me, the disappointment is that I don't trust Damon Lindelof or Carlton Cuse to deliver on a good story. I'm not sure what they have planned for their next ventures, but I'll be hard pressed to watch, whatever it is.
For me, they borrowed so hard from the future that they bankrupted their next project.
Jenny says
I LOVED Lost. I loved the end, I thought it was perfect. Especially when I considered that Jack was always the main character. His arch was complete–Man of Science to Man of Faith. In many ways the writers are asking the viewers to take those WTF mysteries on faith, demanding as much from the viewers as they demanded from their main character. And in the end, the viewer has to make up his/her own mind. In that way, I thought it was beyond perfect–genius even.(Whether the arch is preachy, overdone, or whatever is up for a whole other discussion.)
Whenever the writers tried to explain the WTF, I thought it felt forced–throughout the entire series, not just at the end.
Part of that sense of WTF and mysteries left unanswered is the fact that the writers, when writing a big ol' chunk in the middle, had to fill some space because they didn't know how long they had to tell the story. This was about season 3ish. After that big awkward season they set up that they would finish in 2010. Some of the mysteries that are brought up between season 2 and season 4 and some of weirdness (like Kate being married to Nathan Fillion's cop-what was that?) are the result of filler. You can see the narrative shift when they established the endgame. It got a lot more cohesive–time travel or not.
Had it gone on any longer without an end in mind, I can't imagine how unwieldy that would have been. So the question seems to be more about "The Narrative Price of a Network Schedule".