Lost





If you’re interested in TV shows with fantastic themes, this isn’t the TV season for you. The vast majority of new dramas from the networks all cater to what I call the “shut-in demographic.” That’s older viewers who want shows that reinforce a worldview where younger people, particularly teens, are greedy, murderous and all around evil, and where it’s safer to stay home and watch TV than go out and do much of anything else. So as the networks ready CSI: Bangor and Law & Order: Parking Enforcement Unit they wonder why the key demographic advertisers pay money to reach, people 18-24, are turning to other forms of entertainment.

The sole “genre” offering from the networks this season is Lost (ABC, Wednesdays at 8:00), from writer/director J. J. Abrams, who also runs Alias. For some reason ABC elected to cut the two hour pilot in half and made it into two episodes, so the first episode last week ended abruptly and didn’t do as much to set up the show as a first episode should. Hopefully when the second episode runs later this week the contours of the mystery that is central to Lost will become clearer.

The first scene of Lost takes place on a beach of an uninhabited Pacific island. The beach is scattered with wreckage of an airliner and survivors of the crash. The survivors, lead by surgeon Jack (Matthew Fox) work to organize until they are rescued. It soon becomes obvious that they aren’t stranded on any ordinary island. At night there’s the sound of a giant monster moving around just beyond the tree line. Later Jack heads inland with Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) to find the front half of the plane and hopefully the cockpit transponder to call for help. They find the other crashed part of the plane, but the wounded pilot reveals that the plane was 1000 miles off course, but he didn’t tell the passengers. Before the pilot can answer any more questions, or explain why the radios don’t work, he’s pulled through the window by the unseen monster. Later our heroes find his mutilated body in a tree.

That’s about where the first episode ends. The preview of the second episode shows that there are more survivors than the 15 or so we saw in the first episode and that at least one survivor may have been a prisoner of some sort. Finally we see Charlie saying “Where are we?” This last moment suggests that the survivors are given some concrete reason to think that they aren’t on any regular old island.


"I'll be okay so long as that damn Jeff Probst doesn't show up."

Ultimately Lost will live or die based on how good the twist is. What is the nature of the island? How does this explain the as yet unseen monster? Is the situation complicated enough to keep a show going multiple seasons?

Here some guess as to what may be going on. Please keep in mind that I know nothing about the series other than what I’ve seen in the first episode. TV critics and the like actually got the full two hour pilot to preview, so there may be reviews that already contradict a lot of what I have to say.

- The Twilight Zone option would be that none of these people survived the plane crash, and they are lost (eh, eh?) souls waiting in purgatory until they figure out how to overcome their fears, as represented by the monster. There certainly are hints that the monster isn't strictly physical. No one ever catches sight of it, and it makes many different sounds. Sometimes it sounds like a lion, or a dinosaur from Jurassic Park, or a train. One woman observes that it sounds familiar. I hope this isn't it, because this would make Lost the shaggiest of shaggy dog stories. This version doesn't really lend itself to a continuing series.

- In the Outer Limits option the plane was kidnapped by aliens, who in turn dumped it on an Earth-like planet somewhere in space, just to screw with us humans. I think this is most likely.

- Another option is that the plane has moved in time, either forward or back. Probably forwards, to explain the strange nature of the creature.

- Or maybe it's just a Bermuda Triangle thing and a whole lot of weird stuff just happens.

There are others too, but these are the most likely. The first episode was certainly enjopyable, and I'll be back for the next.

Posted: Mon - September 27, 2004 at      

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