You might have heard this morning that there was a television event last night of some cultural significance. Heck, you’re probably hearing about it today around the office or from your e-mail or Twitter accounts. You’ll be hearing about it at least through the week as folks continue to analyze the cultural impact of Lost, the show that came in with a great crashing plane wreck and went out with…well…something, maybe.
I watched the series finale last night, which made me one of a bajillion Americans who did so. What sets me apart from those bajillion “LOSTies” is that the series finale was the only episode of the show I watched. If you want detailed analysis of the last episode, you can find a lover here, a hater here, an artsy-fartsy puff pastry review here, and a philosopher here.
My short analysis of the show is this: if you watched the show because you were drawn in by the many mysteries in the plot, then you probably hated the finale; if you watched because of the characters, then the finale was your big marshmallow cloud of pure happiness. I’m neither one. Like I said, the finale was the only Lost I had ever watched. Now, you might think that might disqualify me from having an opinion. Please. I scoff at you with maximum scoffery. This is the internet! People have opinions based on scant contact with the facts all the time!
Still, please bear with me, I think you’ll find that my analysis is a bit better than uninformed. As a television geek, I do know a thing or two about story arcs and soap operas. As it happens, Lost tried to be both a soap opera and a story arc mystery. In the end, it only succeeded at one. You’ll never guess which.
When I graduated high school, I took a job where I had my afternoons off and I got hooked on a certain soap opera, Days of Our Lives. This was back in the show’s late 80s heyday, the era of “Bo and Hope” and “Patch and Kayla”. One of the things I noticed was that soap opera writers didn’t have to worry a whole lot about continuity. They could write an entire alien abduction story arc (and “Days” actually did that at one point later on) then completely forget about it once it was over. Almost nothing that happened in a soap had any real lasting effect unless a writer decided it had to. I can’t imagine how many binders full of plot items “Days” has accumulated over its many years, but I have to figure that it’s driven more than one continuity mook completely insane. Lost siblings? Evil twins? Marriages and divorces? Murders foiled and successful? Frame-up jobs and righteous smack-downs? Yeah, soap operas have all of that and they don’t much worry about the future when they’re writing for the characters in the now. Indeed, when soap operas wrap up, they often bring back popular or important characters from the past to give them either their comeuppance or their happy ending.
On the other hand, all those niggling little details do matter in a mystery show which is, like it or not, what ABC said the show was in virtually every advertisement and promo I ever saw for it. In a Mystery Show, there are two rules: 1) The Rule of Chekov’s Gun, and 2) Every Explanation is Consistent. Viewers will agree to suspend their disbelief and follow the writers down any number of odd light-filled rabbit holes so long as the writers follow those rules. People watch mystery shows for the chance to, well, solve a mystery and all they require is a fair chance to do that and a timely revelations so they can see if their solutions were correct or not. Satysfying mystery viewers isn’t all that difficult. It requires enough patience to write ahead in the story so that you aren’t scrambling to answer the questions you asked a few shows before and enough respect for the viewers to know that they deserve a carefully-plotted story arc. In all my years of watching story-arc shows, there’s only been one guy who got this right — J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5.
Lost had writing problems from the very beginning, according to this summary. The show was greenlit with big funding before anyone had written a single script. The show’s mythology, which is just a fancy way of saying “story arc”, didn’t get built until the show was underway. The head writers said they had to “let the show organically tell us what it’s going to be”, which is exactly the wrong way to write a mystery story arc. Lost isn’t the only show to have this problem. Heroes’ writing went south a couple of seasons ago and its ratings went with it. Battlestar Galactica hit a serious plot bump around the “one year later” mark and limped into a profoundly unsatisfying finale.
But none of that really matters if Lost is really a soap opera. The writers can introduce a strange four-toed statue, blow it off as “too weird”, and go on to the next brain-bending continuity twist. They can jump anywhere in time they want so long as they’re pushing the characters forward and they make sure each one of those characters get a payoff in the end.
That, really, is what last night’s Lost came down to, a gleeful romp to a mostly happy ending for everyone. Details like “where the hell did they get a jet airplane with a reverse gear??” were tossed in with abandon because the real aim of the finale was to get everyone to that glowing church with the “Christian Shepherd”. If you were watching the show for the payoff, then you got just what you wanted. If you watched for real answers to the manifold mysteries of the past few years, well, you were just watching the wrong show.
Tags: Television
[...] today, I had a twitter debate whether or not Lost had a mythology. Jimmie, who admitted to not having ever watched an episode prior to the finale, which I have issues with*, [...]
I didn’t watch the episode, so I can’t be certain what particular scene made you mention ‘jet airplane with a reverse gear’…but, that said, jet engines do have the capability for reverse thrust. It’s normally used for braking during landings, and it’s less powerful than the forward thrust, but it can in fact move the plane backward from a standing start. (Planes are normally pushed back from the terminal by a special vehicle, because it’s safer, quieter, and more efficient–but in an emergency a jet could back away under its own power.)
I haven’t seen a single episode of Lost. I did, however, watch the entire J.J. Abrams series Alias. The lessons I learned watching that series taught me not to get involved with Lost.
Now, I didn’t watch when it began oh-so-many-years-ago because its time-slot interfered with another show I was watching at the time (in the days before DVR). But I had planned to catching up via DVD or marathon reruns. Except Alias did to me what Lost did to its fervent viewers.
Alias was primarily an action series. But it was also a mystery series as well. Unfortunately, Lost did not learn the lessons of its older sibling. Too many plot holes. Too many unresolved questions. Too many cast-asides. Yes, the major questions were answered. Yes, plot lines most important to the show were resolved. And, yes, the characters were the most important part of the story. But they weren’t the only reason I watched. I was hooked by the questions and mysteries posed as well. To leave so many loose threads is unacceptable and flat-out lazy. But at least Alias had the excuse of being rushed due to cancellation.
(An aside: While BSG wrapped up all of the shows questions and mysteries, it did a ham-handed job of it. And that left a sour taste in my mouth as well.)
Look. I get it. You want to keep the audience guessing and on their toes. You want to get them emotionally and psychologically vested in your characters and story. But at some point, all questions should be answered. All threads should be neatly (and within the reasonable realm of possibility as pertaining to the show) tied up.
To be so sloppy in the final season you knew was coming years in advance … well, that just shows how Lost you are as a story teller.