Lost in TV

[dotinthesky]

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!!!

Comments

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

- 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.

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

- 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.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

- 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!)

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

Are Desmond and Penny the skeletons in the cave (Adam and Eve)?

I'm disappointed there'll be no more Ben-Locke double act. I loved them together, it was nice that the directors allowed Michael Emerson to do a little light comedy. More Ben, less Jack! And more Miles too.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I'd forgotten about Adam and Eve!

Another question: when Widmore goes to that auction house, for the diary of a ship captain (and Desmond goes to meet him there), was it because the diary contained info on early visits to the island? The way the island pops around the ocean might explain how it ended up having a slave trade ship stuck in the middle of it.

I'm sure we'll get lots of Ben in the next season. He is, after all, their ticket back to the island.

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

Another question: when Widmore goes to that auction house...

Sounds about right. I reckon Alan Dale was a Dharma employee all that time he was under cover in Erinsborough, and ever since the Dharmas were purged (about the same time Scott moved to Brisbane), he's been threatening revenge on Charlene, I mean, Ben.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

WAH??? :-)

[amanda-mary.livejournal.com]

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!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

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!

[amanda-mary.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd heard that (about Daniel Dae Kim)! Designate a sober driver, people!

It's somewhat reassuring to know that, although a DUI-related curse does seem to have befallen several castmembers, the actor who played Mr. Eko (a character I loved!) is reported to have begged off the show because he disliked the isolation of living in Hawaii. Yeah -- living in Hawaii on an television actor's salary does sound pretty rough ;-)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

But I also heard that Mr Eko was caught drunk driving... maybe he just said that because he didn't like the idea of being fired?

I can't imagine they spend much time in Hawaii; they must catch flights to LA constantly.

[amanda-mary.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he was charged with DUI, too. Probably drinking to numb the pain of living on a beautiful island and getting a healthy paycheck.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Fools! All of them.