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…
Very good post. Possibly my favourite. Starts out with some good discussion about writing those WTF moments, and then all of a sudden we're talking about Lost as a metaphor for life, and maybe a generation.
Well done, Nathan.
Television show writers, what a sweet job. Less than a year ago I got asked by a (big) movie producer to turn a manuscript into screenwriting format. After jumping up and down for two days, I learned that style, re submitted and ultimately got rejected. As a writer I guess there are a million things to learn from television script writers. Those really fortunate people.
The concept that suspense is borrowing from the future is brilliant…I never thought of it that way…
Great post, Nathan. I've been a faithful Lost fan and until now hadn't made the connection and drawn parallels you've just done to our times. You're spot on.
I think what I love most about Lost is the incredibly rich characters. We were given intimate glimpses into their lives. They surprised us, and made us laugh or cry. The ones we hated, we loved to hate. It's the same thing I love in a well-written book.
Very cool post. I've never thought of it like that, but I like it. I never was a Lost fan, but I heard that the ending was a letdown.
Lost was like media chemtrails. Didn't it always leave you a little agitated and edgy, feeling like something was undone or off kilter? Always at the moment of truth but the truth never comes. That is aughts for me.
I never watched the show. I felt like I already had to many shows that I watched. Now I'm glad I didn't. From what I've read, I would have been really annoyed to have been left hanging like that.
LOVE this post! Thanks for taking the detour.
Wow. Bring up LOST and look what happens. But, I love the application to our craft.
The structural mysteries of something like "Lost" can never be brought to a satisfying catharsis; the question is always more fun than any possible answer.
However, the ensemble-cast structure and the shifting paradigm allows it to deliver constant surprises. A show like this is one of few kinds of narrative constructs where anything can happen. There are enough major characters that a protagonist-level cast member like Locke can reach an extremely bleak resolution that would be too unpalatable in a narrative with fewer protagonists. Well-developed characters like Shannon can die unceremoniously without derailing the momentum of the narrative.
Comedy and tragedy bounce off each other; and characters like Hugo or Desmond or Charlie can shift among them. Simpler narratives have a way of becoming predictable; once you understand structurally how a twist can get set up, you can predict it. "Lost" creates a story where unknown things can come in from outside the story without feeling like cheats, and that means "Lost" can surprise you.
In case you hadn't heard, here's the epilogue of LOST. No, seriously, it's not a parody. They actually made an extra chapter:
https://jezebel.com/5606489/
Thank you for this one, Nathan. I always like to see WTF scenes answered too. And when they are not, it shows the writers were not teasing us with plot lines they controlled. Rather, it was all just a mess and they couldn't tie it together because they never really had a handle on it in the first place.
I abhor that sort of writing.
I think I can solve one Lost mystery. On the doomed Oceanic flight, Jack bought some vodka from a flight attendant. Aus>LA flight attendants always ask passengers if they'd like to purchase some awesome (and unavailable in the States) duty-free Bundaberg rum (I have 4 bottles of it stashed right now). Bundy's unmistakable yellow/black/red logo features (incongruously) a big white polar bear. It probably became incorporated into his last blink's journey from life into dreamtime.
I think I can solve one Lost mystery. On the doomed Oceanic flight, Jack bought some vodka from a flight attendant. Aus>LA flight attendants always ask passengers if they'd like to purchase some awesome (and unavailable in the States) duty-free Bundaberg rum (I have 4 bottles of it stashed right now). Bundy's unmistakable yellow/black/red logo features (incongruously) a big white polar bear. It probably became incorporated into his last blink's journey from life into dreamtime.
Just finished watching Lost here in the UK, and while I felt totally cheated by the ending (I'd have preferred a more scientific explanation) I still think it's the best thing I've ever seen on TV and feel quite bereft that it's over.
Great post :o)
What a great post. Well said. However, I cried like a baby during the finale. All the waiting, yearning and desperate hoping for resolution and it never came. I was so emotionally spent and yet glad for it to be done. As a writer, I felt cheated and a little pissed that they were allowed to get away with it. Then again, smashing rules to bit is fun when millions are tuning in each week. But what do I know?
Nathan, you are truly brilliant.
Cheers-
Georgia McBride
Excellent writeup! Thank you!
@maine character and others…
This show was about characters? Then it FAILED even worse than those who whine about not getting all the minutia answered could ever imagine. Lost trashed its once great characters in season six (though for some the erosion started much earlier) and particularly in the finale. It obliterated them!
How was Lost about Locke?
Locke not only died for an entity that turned out to be completely IRRELEVANT, he died like a pathetic loser because we went around asking the Oceanic Six to go back to the island without telling them WHY and they said hell, no!
When he finally went to The Big Characterization Dumpster in the Sky, he was all cool with that and with his faith and struggles meaning absolutely NOTHING and proceeded to go to cheesy heaven with “the most important people in their lives” like oh… Libby, or Penny. Just not with Helen.
How was Lost about Sayid?
Sayid’s characterization started out beautifully, he was a sympathetic Iraqi torturer! He suffered for Nadia, he betrayed his military oath for Nadia, he became a rootless Jason Bourne-like figure in search of Nadia, he fought to get back to Nadia and after a brief respite of happiness with Nadia, he lost her and with Nadia’s death lost his soul and became an assassin. Because of Nadia.
And when he finally went to The Big Characterization Dumpster in the Sky, he went there with the most important people in his life, ie the hot blond he once banged on an island after having known her for a grand total of 20 days. Just not with Nadia.
How was Lost about Juliet?
Juliet’s characterization showed promise because she started off as the ONLY woman on Lost with a decent plot not centered around her being a mommy and/or a girlfriend. She was an educated, mysterious, morally complex, stand on her on two feet woman who was actually involved in the plot. This being Lost, that didn’t last long. She was quickly stepfordized into a meek, insecure, basketcase jealous girlfriend. Damn irrational women blowing nukes out of jealousy (wait… Kate stole a baby because her Sawyer dumped her and broke her heart… this is small change!)
When she finally went to The Big Characterization Dumpster in the Sky, she went there as a smiley zombie who had imagined for herself some 15 years and a son conceived not with the great love of her 40 mintues of screentime in season five, but with Jack. Sure, they both promptly forgot all about the makebelieve son, but at least they went to cheesy heaven with the most important people in their lives. In Juliet case, that’s Desmond and Locke and Jin. Just not the sister and nephew she fought so hard for and was desperate to be reunited with for three years.
How was Lost about Jin and Sun?
A captivating couple with an ever shifting, interesting dynamic, we cared about them to the point of READING freaking subtitles. This character story had emotional peaks and valleys and made us CARE about these crazy kids in love who went through so much and evolved and grew together, reunited and then tragically separated again just as they were given a miracle daughter. Unfortunately, they were not Caucasian enough to have a story, any story that wasn’t a lame retreading of their separation with two dumbass lines a week and, most infuriatingly of all, decided they’d drown together and screw that miracle daughter. Hey, what’s a little extra orphanhood? Needless to say, they went to cheesy heaven without her since they didn’t care about her in life either. But at least Boone and Charlie were with them in Th Great Characterization Dumpster in the Sky!
Um… one character still counts… right?
Don’t be fooled, Lost was not about Jack either. He went to cheesy nondenominational heaven after being stripped of every trace of the wonderful character he once was so he can give lip service to “faith” in an entity who apparently was worth sacrificing young men’s lives to and transformed in a lame sheep who constantly spouts things like: “Don’t you be talkin’ trash about the great John Locke!” In The End, he was humiliated and turned into a man who went around frowning at everyone who ever gave the great John Locke a wedgie, though aside from the fact that he was under the influence of powerful drugs for a couple of weeks, his characterization never bothered to tell us WHY. Resolution with his father when it really mattered came via Sawyer telling him his dad loved him a billion episodes ago and he died after he sacrificed his life pulling a buttplug in and out of the island for some reason. He also died so the powerhungry, genocidal maniac, the formerly immortal guy who instructed the above mentioned genocidal maniac to commit genocide, the multiple killer of innocent and/or elderly guys who had surrendered and the other killer (unrepentant to the very end) and baby-stealing pathological liar could go on living wonderful lives which we mercifully didn’t get to see.
At least there’s that.
I never was tempted to watch 'Lost' because to me it seemed to promise to be too much like 'Twin Peaks'. I stopped watching 'Twin Peaks' when I suddenly realised I, along with other viewers, was being taken for a ride. At best, having my leg pulled. I don't appreciate that.
Disappointing a reader is the worst thing a writer can do. Readers and viewers deserve the pay-off and if the writer can't deliver, then, well, its a fraud.
I'm sorry, but once bitten, twice shy.
Thank you, Nathan Bransford, thank you. I'm grieving; not because LOST ended but because of how it could have ended. Ya know? As a writer, I had come up with a bazillion ways to creatively close the show. To have my favorite characters in a church heading toward the light… not exactly what I had in mind. Plus, the writers were asked in season one if LOST was a heaven/purgatory theme and they said "no." And the whole flash sideways thing ends up being, well, NOTHING. Can you feel my angst? The morning after the finale, I was so pissed I deleted all my saved episodes off my DVR. A co-worker, who was handling it way better than me, explained, "How you determine the ending is up to you. You're not really supposed to have all the answers." Huh? Then, about a week later, pissed that I'm still thinking about it, I wake up determined there will be a LOST feature film (ala Sex and the City). Jack will be the the new MIB – Hurly & Ben will fight him off. After all, Jack entered the "fountain of golden whatever", right? A feature film might finally ANSWER our questions. Of course, this is all just wishful thinking…
Thank you for the closure. Good post. *sigh*
– Jennifer Swan