MucheDumbre

Watching the promos for a new ABC series Lost several years ago, my impressions were of a show about plane crash survivors with a Michael Crichton touch.  You know, maybe an island with descendants of pirates on it.  Or perhaps a little Clive Cussler; the castaways find some ancient relics from Egypt or maybe Atlantis.  That was enough to get my interest to watch.  I knew whatever the mystery was, it would be a slow reveal, and it could last all the way to the first season finale!

And then there was the polar bear.

You just don’t throw a polar bear there in the middle of the jungle and not purposefully try to say, “Hey guys, where are we?” 

Obviously I wasn’t in the room when J.J Abrams first made his pitch to the execs at ABC for Lost.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t say, “ There is this island that moves back and forth through time and space, and it periodically throws people in all times and places and there are two godlike beings representing good and evil…”  at that point, Abrams would have been given the boot and told to pitch his idea to the Syfy channel.  Then Lost would have had a mega piranha or a giant snake in it.

But the creators were slyer than that.  And I’m not talking about what they told the ABC suits.  We, the viewing public were the primary ones that had to be fooled; or maybe led.  We couldn’t have the full scope of the show because we were not ready for it., and honestly, I’m not sure they knew where they were going at first.  They started us off slowly.  Polar bears, the Others, the hatch; all firmly rooted in the “real” world.  So that’s how I and I assume millions of others viewed the show.  A tantalizing mystery yes, but still rooted in at least a TV version of reality.

But from the hatch we went to the button, the other stations, Dharma, and mysterious electromagnetic phenomena.  Then rescue, time travel and we are still at the midpoint of the story arc.

Wait, did I say time travel?

We were given a wider picture of the Lost universe.  This was no more grounded to the real world than Back to the Future.  So, Lost is really a science fiction show.

Or was it?  I forgot to mention all the dead people walking, miraculous cures, the smoke monster, Kate’s horse.  So there was LSD in the island water?

There was the cabin, Jacob, the Man in Black, return to the island, Locke, the un-Locke, and the cave of light.  Then I realized this wasn’t science fiction.  This was a fantasy; a full on, Lord of the Rings style fantasy.  Powerful god like beings, protecting a source of power, and trying to keep chained an evil creature from  going out into the world and “end” everything.  This had quest written all over it, with Jacob starring as Gandalf!

**Spoilers below.  If you have not seen the series finale, you might want to hold off***

The finale left me with mixed feelings.  I would describe it as “mostly satisfying,” in spite of the multitude of questions still unanswered.  If I had a twinge of disappointment it was that the “alternate universe” was not really an alternate universe at all.  It was a holding area for the dead.   They stayed there until they could remember the moment of their deaths, and then they could move on.  Desmond and Hurley were not just remembering the island, they were remembering their lives, up till their deaths.  Some of those deaths must have occurred far in the future from where the story ends in “island time,” with Jack’s eye closing (yes he died).  But ultimately they all did.  Hurley and Ben referenced who knows how long a tenure with Hurley in the Jacob role and Ben in the Richard Alpert role.  Who knows how long that lasted, centuries?

This may not have to do with anything, but Kate (actress Evangeline Lilly) never looked sexier as when she was trying to coax Jack’s memory out of him outside the church. 

Wow.

OK that really doesn’t have to do with the story, but she can really turn it on when she needs to.

This almost seemed like it should have been two separate finales.  The prolonged post death 6^th Sense realization that they were dead, and then there was still that goddamn island.

What’s the light all about?  What does it do?  What were their destinies?  How did this whole island thing get started, what’s with the 4 toes on the statue….

That finale I don’t feel I ever got.  All the characters?  I guess they got their resolution because they’re dead.  Whether the alternate universe waiting room is something that everyone gets when they die or just the Losties because of their connection to each other and the island is unanswered, but what their destinies were in life is unclear.  What was Locke’s destiny?  To get strangled in a hotel room?  Jack’s destiny?  To fix something he had Desmond break in the first place?

I want to know these things because the show worked.  I fell for it and fell into the story and wanted answers.  Of course ultimately, the joke is on me because really, there are no answers.  This is a TV show after all and to a certain extent they were making it up as they went along.  They didn’t have the cave of light in mind when they penned the pilot episode.  If the show had ended after the first season, we probably would have been given the Crichton version of an ending.  A speech by the leader of the Others that they were all descendents of the survivors of the Black Rock.  However as the show gained in popularity the creators were stuck with upping the ante.  That’s how we went from mystery thriller to fantasy.  But… they did it well.  We were lead one step at a time slowly enough that we could shed our suspension of disbelief.  Being able to do that in a way that seems to logically flow is nearly impossible.  Imagine Law & Order suddenly dealing with a sex pervert from the future?  The show would lose all credibility.  It would seem ridiculous.   That Lost followed the path from thriller to fantasy, with a stop over in science fiction, successfully, is a testament to the writers.

I think ultimately, that will be Lost’s TV legacy.  A show that managed to pull off multiple genre switches without seeming ridiculous.  I don’t expect to see another show that can pull that off.