LOST AS A TERM OF ART

In a recent WIRED article, the writer uses the LOST franchise as a term of art.

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.

PITCH

Could LOST have been pitched to network television today?

The three main networks grasp on American entertainment has fallen by the wayside. Cable channels took over the edgy content market. Now streamers such as Netflix and Amazon are creating their own content on demand.

Would a concept show like LOST be able to be sold to any major distributor?

Let's check the initial reaction to a network programmer to the elements of the show:

It is about survivors of a high altitude airplane break up who fall to earth to land on an island.

Highly unlikely that survivors would survive such a mid-ocean crash.

It is about airplane survivors who wind up on a dangerous, unchartered island.

Probable. There have been many stories of shipwrecked survivors on unknown islands.

The survivors encounter hostile island natives.

Probable. There have been many stories of people finding dangerous tribes.

The survivors encounter a quasi-military industrial cult that begins to experiment on them.

Strange, but it could be feasible as much of the Pentagon R&D is under black ops.

The island has strange electro-magnetic properties which allow it to change time, disappear and time travel individuals off the island.

Though some elements may contain scientific speculative theory, impossible to accept time travel narrative as being true.

All the characters have secret and troubling back stories which slowly get revealed during the series.

Likely. Everybody has dark secrets or skeletons in their closets which they don't want other people to know about.

There are other characters who are immortal super beings who manipulate the main characters like pawns on a chess board.

The improbable fantasy element brings into question whether there is enough reality in the situation to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief to accept it as a possibility.

Near the end, the show splits into two different realms including a parallel universe or afterlife setting.

Confusing. Stories have a linear time line, but to put a second narrative concurrently with the unresolved story lines of the main plot is an unnecessary mess.

The main characters resolve their most pressing fear, anxiety, regrets in an afterlife reunion.

As most major religions believe in an afterlife, there is acceptance to that premise. Most viewers also want a happy ending to their favorite characters after a long journey during the series.

 So it would be hard to imagine that any network or cable channel would invest in a large ensemble cast shooting a mixed message series at expensive remote locations when overall viewership is in decline.