LOST: Why I Never Left The Island & Why You Need To Go Back

By M. Bevis

I’m not a big fan of television; you might even say that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve removed daily TV consumption from my life to the point where it is almost totally absent. I just can’t seem to sit through an entire show these days, mostly due to incessant advertising and the seizure-inducing graphics and attendant volume. But as a reformed couch potato, it isn’t easy kicking the habit. I still get my required fix of quality programming via the web or DVD. When my TV is actually switched on, you might catch me watching the news, or maybe the odd PBS special. But there is one show that always commands the remote, the only show that I am hopelessly, unapologetically addicted to: LOST.

The Numbers

Now, I must admit that I was drawn to enigmatic, mysterious television shows long before LOST crash-landed onto television screens in the fall of 2004. Some I wasn’t able to watch from their initial runs due to my age (38), such as The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, or The Prisoner. Some I was able to catch from the beginning—Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Twin Peaks, and The X-Files. All were critically lauded in their time, both for writing and vision, although admittedly some have fared better in retrospect as to their ultimate legacies. Unfortunately, for some of these programs, the very concept of limitless boundaries in storytelling was their undoing, and caused either premature burnout or dragged-out mythologies that gave precious few answers and too much filler. Few shows have a shared consensus among viewership regarding consistency and continuity resolution, and it has almost become an industry slang to not “Twin Peaks,” or X-Files” your show: ending on a down note after amazing episodes and the rapid growth of a rabid fan base in the initial years.

This is why a great many fans see LOST as an important show, one that might just beat the curve. It was conceived as a “B concept with A methods on an island of mystery” by ABC execs, is filmed in a cinematic style and manner, and from its inception has hooked a wide audience of geeks hungry for something new as well as epic-television fanatics. Of course, it didn’t hurt to pepper the original cast with attractive young actors/actresses augmented by some capable but lesser known players. Add hotshot writers and producers; gorgeous, menacing music; and pathos on the grandest of scales, and the show really couldn’t miss. And it hasn’t, for the most part. LOST has been one of the highest rated shows on TV, and still holds fast to the highest posted download numbers on the web for post-premiere streams and DV-R recording.

The blast door map

This isn’t to say that LOST is the savior of television, as in only a few seasons the show has both swelled and receded in viewership. Fans have slowly left the show behind after what they say are too many plot twists, belabored love triangles, and a mythology that only Joseph Campbell could unravel. Adding to those issues were stilted seasons, months of waiting for a new episode, and a writer’s strike that made the ability to keep the show fresh in the mind of the casual viewer almost impossible. Fans of the show have asked from the beginning if the producers had any concrete idea of what they were shooting for in the long view, and for a time it did indeed appear as if they were just spinning their wheels. And then of course, LOST is one of the few shows in television history that you really do have to watch from the very beginning, which can be rewarding for some and annoying to others.

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