LOST: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly---The Dick of "Mystery"

With the passing of the two “Ch” holidays, the one “Kw” holiday, and the entire year of 2009, only one thought now lingers on everyone’s mind---it’s almost time for Lost! Considering how that thought was on everyone’s mind BEFORE the holidays---fuck it was one everyone’s mind right after the season 5 finale---I’m making it pretty redundant by saying it. However, considering Lost is just a string of petty redundancies made interesting only by how fucking weird they all are, then all I have to say to keep your eyes on this is that I am a frankfurter.



I’ll wait a second for your senses to all freeze in amazement at how gripping this article has now become.

…


Okay, in all seriousness, if the fifth season of Lost taught us anything about the human mind, it is that the human mind is susceptibly drawn in to anything that leaves it going “what’s going to happen next?” Now, most of us knew that fact before Lost even aired---


(I have officially become redundant)


---but Lost is the first gigantic bit of television programming to make us not care if we like or dislike what happens next. For example, if I told you a story about how I was attempting to clone leech intestines in my garage, most of you would probably place a restraining order on me and advise me to seek psychological help immediately.


(I am also weird)


However, if one of the main characters on Lost said that they were cloning leech intestines in their garage, most of the viewers would be blown away by how “creative” that idea was and ponder how it fit into the overall show. Before you ask, yes this is me harping on Farraday’s “rat brains through time” experiment, which still sounds like the dumbest thing in the world to me.


(I now also harp)


Yet, it works, doesn’t it? It’s interesting, isn’t it? Only Lost could make transporting rat brains through time enthralling in some way. The sad truth is: that’s not hard to do. Let’s rewind here; if I told you I was attempting to clone leech intestines, that’s very disgusting and I’m weird, if not insane; if I then added that I’m adding a special enzyme into their gene structure, that’s a little intriguing but not that interesting; if I then added that this enzyme allows the leech intestines to jump through time, past or future, then this idea starts to become very appealing; and then finally, if I tell you that I’m sending the leech intestines back to the Big Bang to insert a flurry of microscopic particles that will forever alter the fabric on the universe, that’s where someone’s going to want to get involved and thus a story begins to unfold.


That’s how the mystery is done. Rat brains through time is a bullshit idea by itself; but set against the backdrop of a mysterious island that travels through time where dead people aren’t really dead and a 18th century boat is parked at it’s center, then nobody bothers to question Farraday’s dainty little experiment. There are bigger problems to worry about, like what the fuck the Dharma…::sigh::…Initiative is all about and what the island itself “really is.”


(I am also dramatic)


All the writers need to do to distract the audience is create a big problem they can wrap their heads around; plant a seed in the back of their minds, some desire that the audience keeps thinking about and pondering and pondering, a “mystery box” as J.J. Abrams calls it. It is hypnotism: as long as the writers can get the audience ro keep their minds on some sort of gigantic swinging amulet like, say, “the Island”, then anything can be added to the story. Most of the people that praise the show keep citing its interesting use of mythology and it epic stylization, which are both major elements; but that is not why it has 20 million viewers, and that’s not why people are addicted to it. It is because the writers/producers are on-purposely hypnotizing us.


If you want an example, go back and watch Mr. Abrams’s "Star Trek". In fact, you can turn this example into a drinking game: every time you see flashing lights in a shot, you must drink(blinking lights on the ships and sets don’t count).


Please do not actually go play this drinking game, because you will be dead via alcohol poisoning before the main title even comes up. Yes, it’s in there THAT much. The flashing lights distract the audience, taking them out of their brains and keeping them focused on the events unfolding on the screen. In short, it is cheating. J.J. Abrams cheats.


It is okay to cheat sometimes, but no matter what, cheaters never prosper. Maybe Lost is doing the same thing, and then again maybe not. I suppose any good bit of storytelling needs a little hypnotism to keep the attention on the story, but I feel as though Lost does it without a purpose. I do believe them when they say that they already knew how it would end when they started, but since the third season there has been a thread of thought that I cannot help but go back to every time I see a new episode---the show isn’t genuine. It’s addicting, thoughtful, fun, and funny(when it tries), but fake.


Epics and mythology are repeated for a reason, just like fairy tales and limericks are told to us for a reason. Good stories are not designed to be listened to; they are designed to be told. Good storytellers want nothing for their stories other then to simply tell them, and whoever chooses to listen can listen. But it is not essential that the most people possible listen. This is where my criticism of Lost has always started from. Is the story more important to them, or is the audience? I understand that to write for television you have to want to please the audience, and I respect that; but nothing I’ve seen or researched(articles, interviews, profiles, etc.) indicates that the writers give a crap about their story; when they need something to add to it, they simply grab the myth encyclopedia, find the first thing that will work, and throw it onto the show. It’s almost tragic: for the first time in my life, I’m hearing numerous people across numerous demographics discussing destiny, choice, purpose, the meaning of life; ideas that philosophers, scholars, and legends have pondered for millenia; ideas that everyone needs to take seriously; but discussing them as if they were trading cards.


The stories that inspired this show changed lives; for warriors, these stories defined who they were; the lessons learned in these stories meant whether they lived or died on the battlefield; these stories inspired wars, helped unite different peoples against greater foes. Some are the only remnants left of ancient societies. I’m going to be paying careful attention to season 6 to see if these writers truly respect the mythological material that inspired this show, or if they are simply using it to turn Lost into the latest fad that they can count to a million off of.


That is the question that season 6 needs to answer. I will give Lost this credit---and this is huge coming from someone like me---it is a stand-alone, one of the very first successful realistic myths. People will try to perfectly repeat its formula, but I doubt any of them will ever succeed. However, Lost may also turn out to be one of the most destructive shows ever to come out. That is because the fucking producers are too busy sucking off the Dick of “Mystery” to realize that popularity is, and has always been, one of the most destructive and destabilizing forces in history and IS NOT SOMETHING THAT ONE SHOULD FEED!*


That being said: it’s almost time for Lost!


Which also means that it’s almost time for the Lost reviews(Ah ha, notice how I hypnotized you into thinking that this was about how Lost hypnotizes you while my real intention was to inform you of the changes I’m making to the reviews this season. Or maybe the “changes” section is the actual hypnotism, or maybe both, or maybe neither……in time…)!


(I am officially cynical too)


I’m going to be making some changes to the reviews this season; not too many but enough to make it a little different.


For those of you who keep blasting me on the fact that I did absolutely no research for season 5, you all can either sit still and take my criticism or fuck off this season because I did my research(back in July, yes, but I’m going to update it soon). I may include citations if I have enough time to do so.


This year marks the first year J.J. Abrams will not be involved in any way with the show, so I will remove him from my reviews. That being said, my final judgment of the man is that he is very young(though I’m one to talk). As I said before, he is already good at telling stories, and I do not like that he cheats. However, he certainly knows how to keep people entertained, and he is partially a geek so I can never be fully mad at him. He needs to prove that he can keep an audience’s attention without flashing lights and dangling sweets on a stick in front of our eyes. Nevertheless, I am very interested and excited to see what he will produce as he gets older.


Now, as for Dharma; my opinion of the made-up organization hasn’t changed because nobody still knows what the fuck Dharma is. They dig holes, know how to contain a massive magnet and a smoke monster, raise animals, make their own supplies, have(had) a submarine, are not natives…I mean, they’re just there to add to the mystery. I don’t know if I’ll keep making up different names for Dharma since that was something spawned as a rebuttal and then subsequently grew to be one of the trademarks of these reviews. We’ll see.


I am currently debating whether or not to include a three-pronged grading system. Seeing as though I want people to actually read the review, putting in a three-pronged grading system might be dangerous. This is another “we’ll see.”


(I also am honest-or-at-least-try-hard-to-be)


That about does it for the changes. Everything else, including the structure, will stay the same.

Remember, anything on this planet that is called “the best” of something needs at least one critic to look beyond what is on the surface, even if that person does not have the means of communicating his ideas to a broader audience.

For those of you who continue to give me shit for these reviews(as a whole), welcome back and keep on trucking, because I guarantee you there is no one more critical of myself than myself. I’m a redundant, weird, harping, dramatic, cynical, honest-or-at-least-tries-hard-to-be frankfurter trying to communicate to you that the universe that the Dick of “Mystery” has you worshipping could be false. Now, let’s get this primetime television drama underway.


Ciao.


*P.S.: Science fiction/fantasy(and pretty much mythology in general) is one of the last genres that hasn’t been dragged into the popular culture world and, in my opinion, it needs to stay that way if it wants to retain its uniqueness. I am not someone who hates change; I am just someone that cannot stand it when people try to make certain things “mainstream”.