Tuesday, May 28, 2013

THREE YEARS

This month marks the third anniversary of the conclusion of the LOST series.

What has become of the television program that many thought was "ground breaking" or
"one of the best" in a generation?

It skidded off the runway and into a footnote of television history.

Its main cast members have not been able to catapult their six seasons on LOST into
a blockbuster, starring role acting careers.

And after three years, the rabid fan base quickly defused away. The fan sites and commentary communities have faded away to probably less than a hand full.

And after three years, there has been no definitive answers to the major unanswered questions. Even after a full rewatch of the series, there are actually more questions that were missed during the first viewing.

If there is a reason, the blame would be on the confusing Season 6 new tangent story lines and the whole sideways arc leading to the disingenuous happy ending in the sideways church.

One would have thought that the main writers, showrunners or executive producers would have leveraged the confusion and published a clear vision of what the series was truly about. One would have expected that the authors of the series would have had the back bone to tell us in their own final words what was happening on the island, what was the island, what were the characters going through, the big premise and explanation of the big mysteries. But that has not happened, and we can expect it never will happen.

Which feeds the content ulceration in the pit of fans that the series did not a have true vision. That it was a creature of its own success; that it was a formula series of throwing out shocking twists, random easter eggs, and double-switch dead end plot lines. The only thing that appears to have been mapped out from the beginning was Jack's eye opening and eye closing. The rest appears to have been random confusion in order to maintain fan curiosity interest. When the actors readily admitted that during filming that they had no idea where the series was heading or what certain things meant, that was truly a bad sign. It all feeds the worst case scenario: that TPTB were making it up on the fly.

That is the bitter after taste of the series. A choking Castor oil measure of truth that nothing has been truly resolved and nothing shall ever be resolved to anyone's satisfaction.

The reason so many die-hard fans quickly accepted the happy ending reunion was that was a simple farewell to the characters they grew fond of during six seasons. But it is also the reason that the vast majority of those viewers ended their community posting, blogging and fandom for the series because they could not explain what just happened to their favorite show. Some felt tricked. Some felt disappointed. Some felt relieved that it was over. The investment of time of watching the show when it aired was multiplied by those who researched, commented up and theorized about each show on the internet. Suddenly, they had their own lives back. They have drifted back into the shadows with their own thoughts and opinions.

There has been a great back lash against the "leave them hanging" ending to television series like The Sopranos. I have compared it to reading a long and intense novel only to find that the publisher had ripped out the last chapter of the book. There is an unwritten bond between television show and its loyal viewers: a mystery show needs to explain its mysteries otherwise it is a farce to the genre.

Why do I continue to write about the series? It is a nagging proposition to find something hidden in plain sight to alter my perspective on the show's ending.

One could say that TPTB silence reinforces the notion that they did not need to tell us in plain English what the series was about because all the clues were present. But in my fan communities, we analyzed, broke apart, reworked, debated and debunked so many clues to make the show's continuity in reality clueless. The producers silence is not a pardon for not properly ending the show in a manner where the conclusion is still open to such wide ranging debate. It is like watching an expensive Broadway play, but at the beginning of the third act the director comes out on stage and tells the audience to finish the production by themselves.

There is an old expression: time heals all wounds. I doubt there will ever be a time when the true meaning of LOST's ending is found.