LEGACY SHOWS

Since LOST there have been many iconic and epic television shows that critics and fans stressed over.

Breaking Bad was a media darling based upon its premise, its script and its compelling actors.

Currently, the fantasy epic Game of Thrones is on everyone's radar. The coffee room talk is very high on this series as fans are eagerly anticipating the climatic ending.

But it is very hard for a show to keep itself on the rails when fan expectations are so far ahead of the ability of the writers and staff to meet those expectations.

There are the big, deep film franchises like Avengers: End Game which will set in the next few weeks a world wide box office record of more than $3 billion.

But there are iconic series, like Star Trek and Star Wars, who have had their spin-offs, sequels and prequels not being received as highly as the original shows. Some of that is viewer burn-out of the franchise's story. In some cases, the original show fan base has aged out and the material does not hook younger viewers. There are more diversions now for people to spend their entertainment time, such as video games, YouTube broadcasts and Twitch streams.

LOST is still considered a legacy show because it long running series that captured the imagination of both critics and fans to the point of obsession on every detail. Game of Thrones has many similar attributes as fans are trying to figure out who will survive to the End. And the End is the key to the legacy of a series.

For many, LOST's ending was weak to a fail. For others, it was the perfect happy ending for their favorite characters. Many thought the questions had to be answered about the mythology of the show. Others thought the final character development was more important. Insiders have tried to conceal many of the production issues which partially caused major shifts in scripts and settings which may or may not have caused the strange, disjointed final season to come together.

The debate of LOST's End is a continuation of the in-season debates about the motivations of the characters, who was good, who was evil, and what everything meant to mean in the Big Picture. This on-line fan community debates were just as important as the show itself.

The only problem with LOST's legacy is that it is frozen in time. People still remember it, but memories will fade over time. It is not in syndication because it is a series that builds upon each previous episode. It is not like a sit-com that has a self contained 30 minute story line resolution. As such, LOST does not have the continuing traction of Star Trek, which continues to be syndicated and shown on a daily basis across the cable spectrum. In that regard, LOST will never be as popular as Star Trek.  But it may be more important to future screenwriters on the pitfalls of expectations in creating a legacy show.

BACK IN TIME

New research by quantum physics infers that it may be possible, in theory, to time travel. However, the scientists believe that one could only go back in time.

LOST had a bad mix of time travel events. Did the frozen donkey wheel create the time travel episodes? Or was it the containment field from the Swan station? Or was it all a red herring by the writers?

The island's "rules" lacked clear continuity. In the Star Trek universe, Gene Roddenberry set down a specific set of rules, including science fiction elements, which carried the series through to today. LOST's showrunners did not take the time or have the patience to forge a realistic, compelling and believable sci-fi doctrine.

The weird science is explained by the strange electromagnetics of the island, inferring that those island experiences are in a different sequence in time and space. When Sayid gets the radio working, they hear a radio broadcast from the 1940s. When Sayid, Frank and Desmond left the island, they experienced events in a different sequence. When Desmond survived the Swan implosion, he began seeing future events. When the freighter doctor's corpse washed up on shore, it was out of sequence with the real time on the freighter (where he was still alive).

In the orientation film for the Orchid station, scientists talked about the island allowing DHARMA to conduct experiments to move rabbits ahead in time and in space. When Ben and Locke turned the frozen donkey wheel under the Orchid station, they found themselves 10 months in the future in a desert halfway around the world.

When the survivors left behind after Ben's wheel turning experienced a time travel change, there was a blinding purple flash (similar to when the Hatch imploded). After Locke fixed the wheel, there was one last flash, but this time the flash was bright white, rather than purple. In all instances, the travelers experienced severe head pain, most likely caused by the extremely loud noise occurring during the flashes. 

People who weren't affected by the time travel appeared to be unaware of the blinding flash and loud noise. For example, Danielle didn't react to or mention the noise or light before Jin disappeared, and when he reappeared in her future, she thought Jin was sick because he disappeared.) It was the inconsistent treatment of people in the same situation which left the story weak and confused. There was no justification for allowing only certain people on the island to time skip while others did not.

For there to be a rational explanation for the differences in time travel on individuals, one must take into consideration that it may not have been time travel at all. How one experiences the passage of time is through consciousness and memory. If one can take an individual and alter, through mind control or neurologic drugs, their consciousness and memories, one could instill false memories including false time. It get backs to the possibility that much of LOST's story is not based in reality, but in the altered mind, memories or subconscious of the characters.

SEXISM

In the past weeks, Hollywood's dirty open secret of sexual harassment by powerful men has led to a landslide of resignations and terminations. The casting couch mentality is still prevalent in the entertainment industry. It is not exclusive to the United States as many stories are surfacing in South Korea about directors abusing actresses with non-agreed sex scenes in productions.

Sexism is a prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. This happens frequently in the choices producers make in casting and developing series.

In LOST, the character of Kate Austen was supposed to be the main focal point. She was the one with the troubled background who would become the leader of the 815 survivors. It would have been interesting to see her use her charms to manipulate the male characters to do her bidding (like she did in her flashback crime sprees). In some ways, her character could have been on a parallel track with that of Ben.

But after shooting the pilot, the producers dramatically changed direction. Jack Shephard, the good looking, caring doctor was supposed to be killed to show the "reality" and danger that the island posed to the survivors. But since Matthew Fox had a previous network series with some fan following, the producers decided to make him the lead character instead of newcomer Evangeline Lilly.

It is not that a female character could not lead a network series. For seven seasons, an actress led the crew of Star Trek Voyager on a dangerous quest to return home from the Delta Quadrant. Kate Mulgrew, a stage actress, could command the center stage of the bridge. She could be tough, decisive and kind or introspective during an episode. No viewer questioned her competency as captain because she was a woman.

The leader of a star ship or band of castaways on a remote island controls how a series can unfold its stories. It can show more growth from an underdog character such as a small town woman in Kate who has to learn on the job, balance the inequities and fight the demons of prior prejudices against her. Jack's character had already garnered respect as a talented surgeon from his colleagues and patients. He was used to being in charge of a group in the operating room. His growth as an island leader would not be as great as it would have with Kate.

LOST could have been a totally different series if the original plan of Kate was the 815 leader instead of her secondary role as being a supporter of whatever man she needed to use to continue her own personal survival.

MEMORY OBSERVATION

Last month, William Shatner was being interviewed on a Chicago radio station. He was on to promote his new book, Leonard, a retrospective of his life with Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy.

He wrote the book as a tribute to his late friend. But in the process, he had an interesting observation on life.

He said that people share experiences with friends. And in order to remember them, re-live them, they have to be together - - - "do you remember the time we did such and such?" Then laugh about it.

He said those conversations keep those memories alive.

But once someone dies, a person loses that connection to the other person. Those strong memories begin to fade because the deceased friend is no longer around to share them with you.

That was why Shatner wrote the book. It keeps his memories of Nimoy alive in a tangible form.

This is a deep observation that makes logical sense.

Our memories fade of lost loved ones because we don't see them anymore. A daily, weekly, monthly or annual face-to-face helps reinforce past memories because you re-connect with the person, their face, their voice, their mannerisms, their personality, and humor. The stronger the bonds between two people, the clearer the memories will be retained.

So when we lose people, at some point we will lose the memories of those departed souls.

That is a sad dilemma. You want to remember. You need to remember.

We have things to help us remember. Family photograph albums. Pictures speak a thousand words. Grave stones. We visit the departed to pay our respects and to remember their life. Their children and siblings. They are the living images of their departed family members.

If you are a film star, friends can find  the permanent footage of your acting career. It helps ease the problem of losing touch.

But those are mere substitutes for the real thing. The real experiences in life hold more meaning than just mere memories. But at a certain point, memories are the only things left to hold on to.

In LOST, there was the odd notion that the main characters "forgot" their island past while "living" in the sideways world. Perhaps, they lost their memories because people died and they faded from conscious memory.

A NEW EARTH

NASA is looking to have a manned mission to Mars.

And one benefit to this mission would be to determine if there was evidence of life on the red planet. Or, as some believe, the basis of life on Earth.

A theory called panspermia, which dates back to the 5th century BC, posits that certain life forms can hop between planets, and even star systems, to fertilize them with life. 

Following this theory, science theorists suspect that the first life on Earth never formed on our planet at all, but instead, hitched a ride inside planetary fragments from Mars that were flung into space after a powerful impact and eventually fell to Earth. 

This travel between different planets has a parallel in the lost time-travel/sideways universe arcs.

There is still no clear cut conclusion between the island world and the sideways world, which mirrored the lives of the characters on Earth. Various theories believed the sideways universe was connected to the island by some portal or electromagnetic time-space machine.

If you take this old science theory and apply it to the fiction of LOST, could the sideways world be actually another planet - - - a second Earth that was being colonized by removing human beings from Earth and teleporting them to a distant, similar world?

Why would anyone do this? In some sci-fi series, like Star Trek, there are advanced races of aliens with vast technologies who use it to help to reverse the decline in their own humanoid species. By taking humans from Earth and re-creating an Earth like setting (as was done in The Cage), with a group of people who are close knit friends, the alien planet could have its new gene pool.

So the sideways world was not purgatory but a New Earth, replicated for the benefit of the LOST survivors who were deemed dead by their families but kidnapped by the aliens to bond together on an island adventure in order to accept their new home in a distant galaxy.

HARD WIRED BRAIN NET

A recent story in WIRED shows how close science is to science fiction. And the sci-fi is the Star Trek collective mind think called the Borg.

The premise is simple. Brains work better than computers. They’re faster, more creative, and can store a vast amount of accessible memory. So computer science has tried to emulate the brain to create faster, better and near human computers. One way to do this is to network brains.

Researchers at Duke University announced they have wired animal brains together so they could collaborate on simple tasks. Network monkeys displayed motor skills, and networked rats performed computations.


Lead researcher,  Miguel Nicolelis, is a neurobiologist who has been wiring animal brains to machines since 1999, when they connected a rat to a robot arm, says this is the first time that anybody has directly wired together multiple brains to complete a task—a so-called brain-to-brain interface.

To build the monkey network, Nicolelis’ team first implanted electrodes in rhesus macaque brains, positioned to pick up signals from a few hundred neurons. Then they connected two or three of the macaques to a computer with a display showing a CG monkey arm. The monkeys were supposed to control the arm, directing it toward a target like a boat crew rows forward. When the monkeys got the arm to hit the target, the researchers rewarded them with juice. The monkeys don’t think “move my arm” and the arm moves—they learn what kind of thinking makes the arm move and keep doing that—because monkeys want the juice reward.

The rat study was even weirder as it involved the transfer of data.  The neuroscientists directly wired four rats’ brains together—using the implants to both collect and transmit information about neural activity—so one rat that responded to touch, for example, could pass on their knowledge of that stimulus to another rat. Then the researchers set the rats to a bunch of different abstract tasks—guessing whether it might rain from temperature and air pressure data, for example, or telling the difference between different kinds of touch-stimuli. The brain collectives always did at least as well on those tests as an individual rat would have, and sometimes even better.

The goal of the research is see if networking brains might help accelerate medical rehab in people who have neurological damage such as relearning motor skills after a stroke or brain injury. Normally, this rehabilitation is a long, painstaking process. Nicolelis wants to learn if a healthy person’s brain could help a stroke patient re-learn how to move a paralyzed leg faster than current therapies do.

A few LOST theories speculated that the real premise of the show was a vast neuro-network linking various individuals together in a vivid, digital universe like Ghost in the Shell. Memories, emotions, experiences, goals, aspirations, fears and knowledge combine to be one's ghost in an alternative, cyber-reality.

If the main characters were not "real" in the sense of being humans surviving a plane crash on a mysterious island but virtual selves caught up in an illusion of surviving a plane crash on an island filled with the collective memories, emotions, experiences, goals, aspirations, and fears - - - that could create a very real looking, complex world. It would also explain how certain continuity errors, mistakes and criss crossed fantasy, science and sci-fi elements could co-exist in the same main story line.

The idea that the characters are actually institutionalized individuals connected by brain electrodes is not a new theory. Some speculated that this set up would be found in a mental institution (where Hurley went) or a medical research facility (like DHARMA) or even a prison hospital ward where illicit medical experimentation on mental patients used to be performed in secret. 

If this was the true premise, sedated or coma patients were linked together to share their dreams and nightmares in shared space, would this make the show experience any different to you? Would the ending make more sense to you?

THE CHANGE OF COURSE

It was fairly clear in the LOST writer's guide that LOST was going to be a condensed, episode based adventure drama in which causal fans could miss an episode but not be "lost" in the current hour long plot. Each episode would have a self contained plot, which may or may not move the ultimate theme along a linear tale toward a final conclusion (i.e. rescue). This standard format is what was promised to the network executives in order to green light the project.

Of course, there is a set universal theme to any television series. In Star Trek, it was the exploration of space. In MASH, it was the daily routine during the Korean War. Both Star Trek and MASH were episode based dramas. Each show began an episode with an event, action or investigation which would be resolved by the main characters by the end of that half or full hour. Self contained entertainment is most functional form of television production for viewers. This format is also the easiest to plan because writers only have to concentrate on an hour at a time instead of plotting the course of 26 episodes at once.

On the other end of the spectrum is the open-ended soap opera type serial. In those type of programs, the plot line is stretched out for weeks, months or even years. As the main plot line slowly crawls forward, soap writers throw in twists, turns, betrayals or clues to open questions to keep viewers watching to see what will happen next. This type of audience needs the patience and time in order to keep up with the various character changes, story line twists and turns. The traditional soap opera genre is pretty much gone because of viewers modern lifestyles and new entertainment technology.

Then there is a compromise format, the mini-series. In this program, each episode is supposed to add elements to build to a final conclusion. It is like taking a 2 hour movie and stretching its content to 7 or 12 hours shown over a week to 10 days. Mini-series were popular in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s but again fell out of favor because one would have to commit every evening to watch the series in order to understand it.

So, as originally planned, LOST was to be an episodic adventure like MASH or Star Trek with the theme of island survival.  But the guide never mentions how LOST was supposed to end - - - what was the point? Where were the creators going to take us? In MASH, it was the end of the war and the break up of the camp. In Star Trek, it was the reaffirmation of friendship as the characters would continue their missions without the viewers.

LOST changed its course almost immediately to focus on back story secrets and character conflicts rather than self-resolving episodes. It became format over substance as the story engine chugged along after ABC committed to the show. There are several untold reasons for this change. One, the show's initial creative team was preoccupied by other projects to clearly steer the LOST saga. Two, the show runners got cocky and decided that they were going to do a "different" kind of show - - - smarter than previous ones. Break the usual format for their own sense of jarring editing sequences. Three, the writers began to pander more to popular demographics of the characters than the character's guide traits to fashion stories. Any cohesion between plot and character development eroded along with continuity. If LOST was trying to become the premier intellectual adventure drama, that was a fine goal. But that was not what was originally pitched to the network.

In today's modern viewing options, a condensed series can be purchased, streamed or downloaded at one's leisure.  As such, viewers can readily compare and contrast their old favorite shows with new ones. I have recently began to re-watch a very good intellectual adventure series called DEATH NOTE. In a sad way, LOST should have been more like this anime series.

DEATH NOTE was an extremely popular manga series in Japan, selling more than 26. 5 million copies serialized in 108 chapters. The manga was then adapted into a very popular animated television series, shown in Japan and later in the U.S. and Canada (dubbed in English).

This series has a simple yet complex premise which incorporates many of the same themes as LOST (morals, life, death, mystery, supernatural, judgment, criminality, and mental issues). Light Yagami is a bored young high school genius who resents all things evil. His life undergoes a drastic change when he discovers a "Death Note", a notebook dropped to Earth by a shinigami ("god of death")  that kills anyone whose name is written in it. After experimenting with the notebook, Light confirms its authenticity and is joined by an unexpected house guest - the notebook's previous owner, a shinigami  called Ryuk, who  purposely dropped the note book into the human world for fun because he was bored in his after life job.  Light tells Ryuk of his plan to exterminate all the criminals in the world, until only people whom he has judged to be honest and kind remain. Light insists that he will create a brand new utopia and rule it as "the god of the new world."

However, the authorities find it suspicious that suddenly hundreds of known criminals die of heart attacks. Interpol joins forces with a mysterious,  world-famous detective, called "L" to solve this matter. At the same time, the general public realizes that something strange but cool is going on: someone is ridding the world of the bad guys. The public begins to start posting sites praising this new force as "Kira," which is Japanese take on the word "killer.")  L quickly learns that Kira is really the serial killer, that even though he killed globally,  is located in Japan and can Kira can kill people by supernatural means. When L calls out Kira on a television broadcast, Light realizes that L will be his greatest hindrance to his grand plan. So the series quickly begins an intellectual cat and mouse game between two geniuses who believe they are doing the morally right thing.

DEATH NOTE is an excellent series. It brings all the elements of this conflict in clear focus but in an unusual way. The viewer is put in the position of being able to watch each main protagonist in his own element trying to figure out the clues, misdirections and next move of the other. The viewer knows what each person is trying to do, but there are stunning and jarring plot twists along the way to the conclusion of the 37 episodes.

Now some may say that series like DEATH NOTE had original source materials to help them along with structuring the long plot format. However, there is nothing to stop LOST's creators from writing their own origin materials to guide the entire series. Gene Roddenberry created a complex and detailed continuity book prior to filming Star Trek series. He was aware that he had to create a realistic universe in which viewers could suspend belief in the science fiction elements in order to enjoy the stories. There is no warp drive in reality, but viewers accepted it because it was an explained core concept in the show. There is no teleporter technology in reality, but viewers accepted it because it was explained on the show as being a duplication device run by a massive supercomputer. People thought photocopier plus super computer to buy that premise. So long as the show maintained that kind of continuity, it would become second nature and not bog down viewers in that detail or further explanation. There was no mystery on how the series technology worked.

But LOST was big on mystery but light on explanations. And the latter is the intellectual criticism for the series. It brought to the forefront known concepts and theories such as quantum dynamics, worm holes, dimensional portals, time travel, stealth technology but failed to explain how any of those concepts were relevant to the main plot, its climax or character development.

A political commentator recently opined on the intellectual dishonesty of the U.S. Congress as "kicking the can" down the road instead of actually solving the nation's problems, which most were actually created by Congress itself. In some ways, LOST continually kicked the story down the road, episode by episode without actually resolving any self-created plot problems. This would not have happened if the show stuck to the episode based story telling format than the serialization that dragged out themes instead of a meaty main story line.

The guide should have also been more clear on what the point to LOST was going to be. Every show tries to have some landing point, some moral or lesson to impart on the viewer. The closest thing discussed was the idea that the plane survivors would have to create their own new island society, with elected leaders, a form of government and rules in order to survive. There is no great plot plan for rescue. There is no plot path mentioned that the survivors would actually end up getting rescued. So even if the characters would never leave the island, what would be the conclusion to their saga?

Every good story has a beginning (set up/premise), middle (conflict) and end (resolution). In an episodic show like Star Trek, you could leave open the ending since each show was self-evident and resolved. But when LOST decided to become a long form soapy type of story telling, it needed the clarity of purpose, conflict and resolution. Fans will continue to debate whether LOST met all those criteria. But evidence in the writer's guide points to the fact that the producers did not have "a solid written plan and ending" from the very beginning. Instead, the final reasoning that LOST was a "character" driven show, through individual vignettes, does not necessarily add up like buying your first home with a jar full of pennies.

LOST starts with the set up of 48 people surviving a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island. It's main conflict is supposed to be how these urban and ill-equipped people are going to survive on the island. What was left unanswered in the guide was how were the characters going to resolve their survival conflicts (rescue? kill each other off? die by natural occurrence like a hurricane or tsunami?) The lack of a final goal line is the critical flaw in the story foundation of LOST. Many critics believe the sideways story of Season 6 was writer's cheat to create a "happy ending" for the main characters after years of action, adventure, life and death unexplained mysteries. The final conclusion, which is a major change in story development, was to leave the mysteries unanswered and allow the viewer to come to their own conclusions.

CARRY ON

A correspondent from Forbes magazine was at a Disney event last weekend.

The report was from Disney's D23 Expo. This is the Disney-centric expo version of comic-cons.

At the show, visitors got to see glimpses of new materials from  Pixar, Disney Animation, Marvel Studios, and some of the upcoming live-action tent poles. Some stars made appearances, like Angelina Jolie, to plug her next movie,  Maleficent, in which she plays the Sleeping Beauty villain in a film told from her point of view. 

But the reporters' big news item from the expo was on  J.J. Abrams’s upcoming summer 2015 tent pole Star Wars Episode 7.  Visitors learned absolutely nothing about Star Wars Episode 7.
 
There was no title announcement, no casting confirmations, no teaser posters, nor any major acknowledgment behind ‘Yes, J.J. Abrams is still directing’ and “summer 2015′ is still the goal. 

How refreshing. No spoilers. No news. Nothing.

It was a shock to the fanboy collective when Lucas sold his bounty to Disney. Disney is in the "franchise" business and Star Wars is an iconic franchise. The reboot has the entertainment industry on pins and needles. (Especially this summer when Hollywood' had a record number of blockbuster box office busts.)

There are two camps in regard to Abrams, the movie director. Younger audiences tend to like his Star Trek reboot. Older, original die hard Trek fans do not care for the Abrams version of the franchise. It overwrote much of the canon elements of the original series. So there is some unease when Abrams was tapped to make the seventh Star Wars installment.

In retrospect, there were very few spoilers in the LOST saga, in part due to its long story format and its disjointed segment sequences (flashbacks/real time/flash forwards) and its inability to answer deep questions without raising more mysteries. For example, even today, no one can definitively say what the smoke monster was, or what it truly represented.