LOST: The Disappearing Distinction Between TV and Cinema

My all-time favorite television show, albeit only slightly above Ronald D. Moore’s brilliant Battlestar Galactica update, is LOST. I love it for the mystery, the ensemble cast, the emphasis on visual storytelling, the seamless blending of science fiction, the paranormal, and mundane human drama. This re-imagining of the common tale of castaways on an uninhabited island mixed, coupled with supernatural and sci-fi undertones reflects my favorite theme in fiction—the mundane versus the fantastic.

Although LOST, with its very high production value, feels very much like a movie to me. However, unlike Battlestar Galactica, which is filmed on digital, LOST is one of the most expensive shows on television—the two-part pilot being the most expensive ABC had ever produced. It was created when ABC wanted to make a television series that was a cross between William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, Robert Zemeckis’s Cast Away, Gilligan’s Island, while capitalizing on the success of the reality television program Survivor. Other inspirations were the work of Rod Serling, particularly the paranormal and suspense aspects of The Twilight Zone—another all-time favorite of mine, and the video game Myst. Jeffrey Lieber, who went on to write many episodes, initially wrote the pilot, title “Nowhere,” based on his pitch for the show. ABC was not satisfied with his teleplay so they contacted J.J. Abrams, essentially as a “fixer.” Abrams had been a revered icon within the television industry for creating and producing hit shows like Felicity and Alias. He began collaborating with fellow geek writer Damon Lindelof from Crossing Jordan. Abrams had one demand—that the show have a supernatural angle to it. The rest came together as the cast came together. Many of the characters were scrapped altogether to accommodate actors who may have been perfect for the show, despite not having a character in the initial draft that suited them.

The show is my favorite for infinite reasons. As a unapologetic fan of M. Night Shyamalan, I love the supernatural backdrop and emphasis on characters and their relationships to one another. I love the non-linear structure of episodes. In the first three seasons, every episode would take the point of view of one of the principle characters and intercut between their story on the island, and their story before the plane crash that marooned them there. Then, in a stroke of genius, they changed things up in the season three finale in an episode titled “Through the Looking Glass.” We assume we’re watching flashbacks of one of our lead characters (and would-be leader of the survivors), Jack Sheppard (Matthew Fox). However, his character is a drunk, scruffy, and suicidal, contradicting all of his previous flashbacks and what we know of his character at that point. Then, in the last minute of the show, he meets up with a fellow survivor, and we realize that what we’re watching is not a flashback, but a flash-forward! In the middle of its planned six seasons, it is revealed that many of them actually get off the island. The show’s title can then be thought of as a clear double meaning. The show is not about survivors lost on an untraceable island. It’s about people who are lost in their own lives.

My favorite episode is the season 4 episode, “The Constant.” It focuses on my favorite character, Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), a Scottish man who was stranded on the island before the survivors of the plane crash were. He, in a nod to Homer’s The Odyssey, is trying to get back to his love Penelope. In the episode, Desmond’s consciousness keeps going between the present (on the island) and the past (before the island). He is essentially being jolted back and forth through time, although nothing in his body is being physically moved. It is merely his consciousness going back, in a highly original take on a classic sci-fi trope, time travel. This was the beginning of the show’s delving into cerebral science fiction. The jolting back and forth in time will eventually cause a short circuiting in the brain that will kill Desmond if he doesn’t find his “constant. The constant that the title refers to is revealed to be Penelope, as she is the only figure present both in his past and present. By hanging on to her, his life is saved. As a reward, he makes contact with Penelope and her team of rescuers at the end of the episode in a very heartfelt moment. It is the juxtaposition of these elements, science fiction and humanity, that make this transcend typical television fare.