Friday, August 9, 2019

STRANDED

Waltzing through the deep cable channels, I came across an old Simpsons episode. One of the sub-plots was about Homer's obsession with a TV show, called STRANDED. Yes, it was a parody of LOST.

Homer started watching the show on the Internet on his TV. He quickly became addicted to it, trying to solve all the theories with the show. Homer held a meeting to discuss the show with his friends, but he has only seen the first three seasons. Homer gets mad that  they keep telling him future episode spoilers.  Marge, now annoyed at Homer's addiction to the show, then revealed the full plot to the show, upsetting Homer. Homer eventually was invited to her Stranded-style bedroom where Homer was happy to go to bed with her.

 The plot of the fictional (parody) series is described as:

A plane crash leaves several people stranded on an island. One of the islanders opens up a coconut to find his childhood pet cat with the plane flight's number on its collar. Another islander was telling someone else not to believe anything he said in the past because that was not him, but it was him now, but in less than a second he would be gone forever. Then, the lava being takes him away. In an episode stated to solve one mystery, the islanders find a wall covered in a strange writing.
It is revealed that the island is 15 miles from Long Beach , Throwaway 3 leads to Hell, despite the series creator's insistence that it did not lead to Hell and the entire "Strandiverse" is a piece of gravel in a cosmic kitty litterbox. 

Homer is shocked to learn that the characters were stranded on the island due to a plane crash, and also is baffled by a flashback raising more questions than it answered. Eventually, one of the main characters, while opening a coconut, discovered a cat he had as a child inside, as well as his nametag having the numbers of his flight, with the cat purring "purgatory" and their wondering where they were. Homer got so attached to the series that he ended up spending more time watching the show than actually exercising. A major antagonist for the series was the Lava Being. Marge eventually discovers Homer not actually exercising and gets mad, especially when he had earlier blew off the series with her. Eventually, she spoils the last episode, revealing that the island was 15 miles from Long Beach, that the Al, Doorway Three led straight to Hell despite the writers insisting it did not actually go there, and the whole "Strandiverse" was merely a gravel in a cosmic kitty litter box, outraging Homer, although he forgave Marge when she offered a romantic evening to see the last episode.  

While the Simpsons will continue to be shown for eternity on every imaginable broadcast distribution method, LOST will continue to ride along as be a footnote in parody episodes.