dotinthesky | Lost in TV

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Lost in TV

I have finally watched Season 4 of Lost. If you are on the same dinghy boat as me, you must also be asking yourself whether this is the best TV show ever made. Well, in terms of American productions it certainly is at the top (can't say for international shows since Brasilian soap operas are still Da Bomb.) Is Lost better than Six Feet Under though? Perhaps not character-wise, but it certainly beats Six Feet Under with its many twist and turns, and its gorgeous cinematography. What about Twin Peaks, the ultimate American TV show? Well, there are actually a lot of similarities between the two shows - especially in the way they work to hook the viewers.

Twin Peaks and Lost flirt with America's B-movie past, which is why I think both shows are popular in America. Perhaps their popularity across the world has to do with the height of American imperialism coinciding with the popularity of sci-fi and horror movies - how we have all grown to think of that time as America's golden age, and therefore feel a strong attraction to any TV show or movie that flirts with it. And I'm sure we can all make a strong case for American culture being pure kitsch - something that David Lynch loves to explore in his work, and which I think also pops its head in Lost (the Godzilla-like island monster, for example). The B-movie aesthetic relies on mystery to drive its narrative forward. It shocks in order to seduce its viewers and propagate its narrative beyond the screen like a meme. How can anyone forget the first appearance of Bob in Twin Peaks? Or Michael freeing Benjamin in Lost's second season? Both Twin Peaks and Lost rely on setting - a remote place that can stand for a dystopic vision - to build its mystery. They also have a central character that focuses the mystery. In Twin Peaks, it's Laura Palmer, the popular cheerleader whose murdered body opens the show. In Lost, it starts out as the island itself bringing down Oceanic Flight 815 and behaving like a hostile Eden, then brilliantly shifts onto Benjamin Linus from Season 2 onwards.

The dark side of small town America. The dark side of Paradise. The characters in both shows are trapped in this setting for one reason or another, some intentionally so. Underneath each character's perfect facade lies a secret past. They are bound together by a type of paranoid schizophrenic reality, and with every mystery revealed in their small world new ones are created, like a spiralling psychotic fantasy that has no resolution. In fact, I think the makers of Lost must not try to wrap the show up when they decide to finish it. They must keep the hint of mystery, of unsolved questions, if they want to retain what has always been strong about the show. Solving the mystery in Twin Peaks was what killed it and drove away viewers.

I like how Lost is a homage to The Twilight Zone too, but also accidentaly apes that great example of kitsch TV from the 80s, Fantasy Island. The island's old technology, left behind by the Dharma Initiative, directly references America's sci-fi past; and each episode is structured with a reversal in the end which throws into question what the viewer knew up until then (like perfect golden age sci-fi/horror short stories). Some of the more popular episodes of The Twilight Zone (and the bread & butter of Fantasy Island) were the ones where ordinary people had their wishes granted. I believe Amazing Tales, from the 80s, also did the same; I particularly like the episode of the woman who found a necklace with the power to stop the world at will, and the child with quarreling parents who gets to then pick a new set of parents from a family zoo (remember Jack and Kate stuck in the cages, gaped at by the children of The Others?) So it's no surprise that the same happens to the characters in Lost, whether it's the wish to walk again, to escape prison, to find love, to be cured by cancer, and so forth. In Twin Peaks, the Twilight Zone episodes referenced tended to be the ones centred on murderers and freaks - a blend of noir with kitsch (again, seen through a disturbed lens, like a paranoid dream). Many characters in Twin Peaks would feel perfectly at home on Lost. Can't you just see the Log Lady stepping out of Jacob's cabin? Or the giant peering down at Locke as he lies inside the Dharma Initiative shallow grave?

The only thing that lets the show down, in my opinion, is Jack. He's one of the dullest characters because he plays such a two-dimensial "hero". His whining and tantrum-throwing in the fourth season, however, has turned him into an unlikeable character, and his screen chemistry with Kate has strangely died. Perhaps his character won't get to leave the island alive when the end finally arrives.

I remember how many fans in the past thought the writers were making things up as they went along; but I have now read somewhere that the writers knew all along how the story would begin and end, but it was a matter of stretching the plot once they realized how popular the show had become. Will the next season be the final one? And how brilliant was it of the writers to turn the flashbacks into flashforwards?

A few questions I need answered:

- The statue foot with four toes.
- The white-haired woman which Benjamin referred to as the real leader of The Others.
- Why did Charlie have to die if Desmond's vision was wrong? (i.e. it was not Claire and the baby he saw get on the helicopter?)
- The Dharma Initiative polar bear in the Sahara.
- Did Jin survive the boat's explosion?
- What happened to those survivors on the boat who the physicist was taking back to the ship?
- How did Locke get off the island and what's all that business with him being dead?!?! (or is he? I wouldn't be surprised if him and Ben put a wax head on another corpse, just to trick the Oceanic 6 into returning to the island.)

I'm assuming that the next season will start 3 years later on the island, with plenty of flashbacks to show what happened to Sawyer, Juliet, etc, during that period. It's going to be GOOD!!!

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It's got a lot better hasn't it? I like the shorter series too; I got rather bored waiting for something to happen in S3.

Questions
- ditto
- which white haired woman? the judge who branded Juliet?
- Maybe Des saw the baby on the helicopter and assumed it was Claire with him?
- Dharma were experimenting sending living things through the time travel tunnel?
- I'm hoping not, but I guess the viewers want them some Jin/Sun/Baby reconciliation
- They disappeared into the vortex and ended up with the island, wherever it is now.
- Locke got off the island the same way Richard (and Ben?) used to. Perhaps Widmore had him killed. Maybe he did commit suicide because he was back in the wheelchair off-island.

- Yup, the judge who branded Juliet and who told Ben she was "cleaning up his mess". I'm assuming she took The Others to the Sanctuary. She looked like a mega bitch to me, so I was saddened when she got dropped. But, thinking now, I think she may be Charlotte's mom! Didn't Charlotte get born in the island?
- Maybe Des had a vision further in to the future, where baby is reunited with Claire and another helicopter takes them home?
- re. Sun, I hope they don't turn her into an evil character now that she's sided with Mr Widmore (I'm hoping she was lying to him?) My boyfriend thinks her heart has hardened after Jin's death (you could be right that he's dead - the writers certainly had no qualms executing Ben's daughter or the french woman - a character I really liked, actually.)
- Locke couldn't have killed himself. The island won't let people that visit it kill themselves.

GOD I love this show. IMO it's better than Twin Peaks, and I *loved* Twin Peaks - I was riveted.

Jack bugs me. I'm so sick of everyone focusing on how GOOD he is just 'cos he's a massive cry baby - he's also a bully, a pain in the arse, a whiner and sometimes a really not very nice person who hypocritically takes the moral high ground. The bit where he harps on at Locke for killing Naomi - well, um, that seems oddly justified now, doesn't it, considering what's happened and Keamy arriving and stuff, doesn't it? Very sick of Jack now. Also very sick of Kate.

I'm guessing Locke got off the island in the same way that Ben and the Others managed to - using the Other's resources and Dharma Initiative resources as well. Maybe the island reappeared with a new submarine! :D

The four toed statue really makes me wonder - I wonder if Richard has only four toes? I want to know what's up with his not aging thing.

OH MY GOD, I'd entirely forgotten about Claire and the baby on the helicopter and Desmond's vision! Oh shit!

I can't wait for it to start again!

No idea about the first two.

I also want to know why Desmond's precog abilities seem to have vanished entirely in this season. Aside from for plot reasons, obviously.

The polar bear was being used as a test subject by the Orchid station staff?

I don't think Jin survived - Daniel Dae Kim was arrested for DUI on Hawaii last year, which seems to be the fastest way off the island for the actors (cf Ana Lucis, Libby, Mr Eko).

As for Faraday and the rest of the people in the boat, I reckon that they were close enough to the island to be taken with it. I think that Faraday will be a very important character in the final seasons and doubt they'd just let him fall by the wayside. The scenes of him looking through his notebook at the end of The Constant were too full of new mysteries :o) (And he had six or seven nameless 815 passengers in the boat with him - the show will need some random redshirts after blowing so many of them up with the freighter.)

Either Locke discovers how Richard has been going back and forth from the island all these years, and uses the method himself, or he's forced to move the island himself and is banished as Ben was. The latter isn't too likely, as (afaik) the writers haven't yet re-used a big deus ex machina like that one. I doubt it would work twice.

I love this series more than any other.

And I want to have Ben's twitchy little bug-eyed babies.

There are 2 more series - it's due to end in 2010.

Apparently they were supposed to deal with a lot of the mythology of the island this series (the foot with 4 toes etc), but I'm guessing they had to cut it out because of the writers strike and (even) shorter series.

I think the polar bear in the Sahara has something to with when the island moves - an earlier flash forward of Ben shows him waking up in the Sahara with that coat he put on to move the island... And Charlotte, who was on an archealogical dig in Tunisia when they find the polar bear, has just made it "back" to the island. Dunno how it all quite links up though.

Was the white haired woman, the same one who Desmond talks to when he's having his weird time travel, re-living parts of his life experience?

I'm thinking Jin may well survive the explosion as he was close to the edge of the boat and he could have jumped ;)

I still wanna know what's going on with the numbers and what Walt has to do with the island. Plus that psychic that told Claire she must get on the plane and actually bought her ticket for her. And also Rose - she went to see that healer in Africa who went all shifty and told her he couldn't help her, but then she got on the island and was healed, the same as Lock. I'm guessing she must be special too!

I quite like Jacks character. It's interesting to see what happens to him, because even now, he is so adamant that there's nothing weird about the island. Yet, in his flash forwards, he is the one trying to get everyone back. I wanna see what makes him change his mind!

And who and WHAT is Jacob?! Whenever any of the characters see dead people, is that Jacob?? They're not hallucinations as other people can see them too..... Why did Christian (Jack and Claire's dad) show himself to Michael at the end??

Aaaaargh! So many more questions...

Oh yeah! And the guy who never ages, what is up with that?!

Have we ever seen Ben off the island in seasons one to three? I can only place him in the "real world" during the S4 flash-forwards. Perhaps it's just Richard who can come and go at will.

I want to know where Abbadon fits in. There's a theory that he's Walt, all grown up, which probably says more about the poor diversity of the cast than anything else :o)

Ethan and Tom come and go from the island as well. I'm assuming that Ben did leave the island sometimes, but it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't, given he loves it so much and was the, er, 'administrator'.

I want to know where Abaddon fits in too. I don't think he's a grown up Walt, though - that's too strange and considering how fab they were at finding someone who looked like a young Swoosie Kurtz to play Locke's mum in 'Cabin Fever', he'd be a poor choice to look like a grown up Walt :/

Re: Charlie. There's some speculation that each one of Desmond's interventions to save Charlie's life subtly altered the destinies - and even histories - of the other characters when the "course corrections" kicked in.

Perhaps Desmond's original vision - of Claire and Aaron in the helicopter after Charlie's death - was true, but his own meddling by saving Charlie set another series of events in motion, one of which altered Claire's future.

She threw her lot in with Locke *because* of Charlie's final warning, and so was at the Barracks when Keamy's team attacked. (I'm assuming that she died of the head injury sustained in the explosion, and is now in happy cabin land with Dead!Christian.)

Had Desmond let Charlie die on one of the earlier occasions, there would have been no warning about the freighter, and the survivors wouldn't have split so dramatically. Claire may have boarded a helicopter with Aaron.

Of course, Keamy was under orders to kill everyone anyway, so it might have been a short trip :o)

Of course, Ethan and Tom. Doh!

I'm guessing that Ben wouldn't leave because that would bring him back into Widmore's world.

Possibly, but Widmore didn't only want Ben, he wanted the island itself...I'm sure Ben must have left at some point during his tenure as Other Commander in Chief. But perhaps not, he did have that whole 'devoted to the island/"I WAS BORN HERE" thing going for him.

Heh, I really did like seeing Tom in NYC in his hotel suite with champagne and stuff. Fab! :)

Bed did leave the island! The people hunting him had a photo of him that looked like it was taken in an internet cafe. :-)

I'm tempted to say it's better than Twin Peaks too...

That's very creepy if Abbadon is Walt!! Didn't he almost push Locke down the stairs in his wheelchair though? And wouldn't he know that there were more people on the island when he visited Hurley in the asylum for an interview?

Why are so many of them being caught driving drunk? I'd think being in a hit series, filming in Hawaii, would be enough of a high?

I agree with you on Faraday. There's still so much about him to be shown, including his relationship with Charlotte, and his discoveries on time travelling.

Ben is awesome. Kevin and I had a great laugh when Locke went "you just killed everyone on that boat!"

Ben: "So?"

That would make sense, re. interventions. With each change in Charlie's fate, a new woman climbed the helicopter with the baby (Claire, Kate, Sun). Perhaps he just saw Aaron in a woman's lap and assumed it was his mother.

Claire may still be alive. Walt appeared as a "ghost" on the island while still being alive in the "real" world. However, I'm willing to accept that it's more likely she died and there will be some future episode where they stumble upon her corpse.

I loved Ben's reaction to Locke's stupid questions in the Orchid bunker - the look of total incomprehension at the idiocy of the other, where he has to shake him head slightly as if to free himself of it - just before he gives Locke the orientation video.

I need an animated gif of that moment to use as an icon.

- I reckon Charlotte is one of the Dharma babies, conceived off island, and she wants to know the truth about the purge
- Claire's dead, dude.
- I think we've already seen the hardcore side of Sun. Plus everyone on the island has a nasty/nice side.
- Until their work is done....Michael died after his redemption. Although I think Locke might become one of the walking dead.

I hope they don't turn her into an evil character now that she's sided with Mr Widmore

My husband brought this up to me. I just assumed she was lying ... probably because I'm pretty fond of her character. However! If they do have to round all the survivors (and Locke's corpse?) up to return to the island, it would create a lot of dramatic tension to have Sun as a hold-out. Or as a potential "mole," leading Widmore back to the island. If that was the case, though, she might have qualms about bringing her daughter to the island with them. (I assume her daughter would have to tag along, as she was a fetus at the time of the escape).

I don't think that Jin is dead. Michael, though -- definitely. He saw Jack's father before the ship exploded, which is never a good sign!

That's brilliant that they'll film two more series. Do you know if they'll be as short as season 4, or back to the usual 24 episodes?

I don't think the white haired woman is the same. The one I'm thinking of looked like a mega bitch and nearly sentenced Juliet to death.

My theory on Jacob is that it's an expression of the island in human form, or perhaps some kind of projection from the future(!?) Good point though about all the dead people being Jacob - I can see that.

In terms of the characters having links to the island, I wonder if the answer lies in their families. In this case, Christian would have something to do with the Dharma initiative, as well as Sawyer's parents, Kate's, etc. I think Locke's real father - who ended up on the island anyways - may have visited it before (and didn't he contribute to the death of Sawyer's family? It could be they knew each other from the Dharma Initiative.)

Time travelling? The therapeutic qualities of the island?

If I knew how to make a gif, I'd make one of Ben doing his tiny mouth smile when he realizes something else has gone exactly according to his plans.

- We're gonna see a lot of Dharma babies, aren't we?
- Another thing I thought of last night: Desmond and Penny end up on the island (best place for Penny anyway to hide from Ben and his vengeance!)

It could be Sun hates Ben for Jin's death that she thinks she must help Widmore (she never saw the paramilitary guys, for example, so doesn't know the extent of Widmore's evil.) She'll have to go through a big reversal when she realizes she's helping the man who killed her husband.

Someone mentioned below that the actor playing Jin was arrested for DUI... which is not a good sign for his return to the show!

I think Richard has to make regular trips off the island to stock up on eyeliner. And to make a bit of extra cash by working as a Perry Farrell impersonator.

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