The reviewer of HBO series "Westworld" said his problem was not that thw show would not be enjoyable, but that it was that it’s the kind of show that invites obsession. The kind that presents Big Questions—that never get answered. - - - essentially, that it was going to be the next LOST.
LOST began to get viewers to deep dive into episodes to find clues. Apparently, Westworld was trying to accomplish some of the same tricks of the old ABC series. It started with logos . . . do they mean something else?
In the episode, "The Riddle of the Sphinx,"opened with a montage: James
Delos (Peter Mullan) is in a finely appointed modernist apartment. He
walks through what appears to be his morning routine: drinking water,
smoking a cigarette, getting in a few minutes on a stationary bike. All
the while, he’s listening to the Rolling Stones’ “Play with Fire.” If
the scene felt familiar, here's why: It's just about exactly how Lost introduced Desmond at the beginning of Season 2. (Yes, Season 2! The same season in which Westworld
currently finds itself.) In that montage, Desmond made a smoothie,
typed a series of numbers into a computer and pushed “the button,” and
got in a few minutes on a stationary bike—all while listening to another
1960s hit: Cass Elliot's "Make Your Own Kind of Music."
The reviewer reminds those that don’t remember, LOST ended almost exactly eight years ago, on May 23, 2010. And, after six seasons of giving its audience diamonds-in-the-sand
clues involving hieroglyphics, philosophy (there’s literally a character
named John Locke), flashbacks, flashforwards, smoke monsters, and 4, 8,
15, 16, 23, 42 (aka “The Numbers”), most of those hints led exactly
nowhere. The ending was satisfying in its way, but most fans still to
this day throw up their hands in frustration when asked what it all
meant. (Seriously, if you didn’t watch and want to feel good about all
the time you saved not doing so, Google “unanswered Lost questions.” It was a lot of setup without a lot of payoff and was
frankly a little annoying.
The reviewer concludes with "But."
That show also changed the way a lot of us watch TV. It taught people to look for clues, to not take everything at face value, and to not always assume that narrative answers would be spoon-fed to them. And in that regard, it was revolutionary.
So LOST has now become a turn-of-art meaning, its own genre in the televisions universe. When a show that does not want viewers to passively "follow" the story as presented, but challenge the events seen in real time to see if they make sense or mask some hidden meaning. As a story telling template, LOST will endure as a quirky, frustrating, roller coaster of tangent plots, red herrings and Machina moments that will drive obsessive viewers crazy. And maybe in an era of instant smart phone gratification and a ten second twitter attention span, TV needs obsessive shows in order to survive.
That show also changed the way a lot of us watch TV. It taught people to look for clues, to not take everything at face value, and to not always assume that narrative answers would be spoon-fed to them. And in that regard, it was revolutionary.
So LOST has now become a turn-of-art meaning, its own genre in the televisions universe. When a show that does not want viewers to passively "follow" the story as presented, but challenge the events seen in real time to see if they make sense or mask some hidden meaning. As a story telling template, LOST will endure as a quirky, frustrating, roller coaster of tangent plots, red herrings and Machina moments that will drive obsessive viewers crazy. And maybe in an era of instant smart phone gratification and a ten second twitter attention span, TV needs obsessive shows in order to survive.
