TEN YEARS AFTER

As Yahoo UK recently published:

"In the end, it was a Shephard — two of them, actually — who led the lost flock home. Ten years ago this week, the hit ABC series, Lost, brought it’s time-and-reality hopping narrative to a conclusion in the super-sized series finale, appropriately titled “The End.”

The final moments of the final episode feature the show’s hero, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), reuniting with his fellow Oceanic Flight 815 castaways in a heavenly dimension as they prepare to move on to whatever realm lies beyond death. “Where are we going?” Jack asks his father, Christian Shephard (John Terry), whose specter had haunted him throughout Lost’s six-season run.

“Let’s go find out,” Papa Shephard replies. At that point, father and son take their place in pews surrounded by the entire cast — even those who died early in the show’s run — and they collectively step into the light.

That may sound final, but “The End” turned out to be just the beginning of the debate over Lost’s place in the pantheon of all-time TV greats. Certainly, the show’s 2004 premiere was a seismic pop culture event, with action that rivalled big-screen blockbusters and ratings to match."

The first takeaway is that LOST was the first epic series that had a complicated mythology and Easter egg fan service to make it the pioneering show for the internet commentary community. Fan sites devoured each episode like an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Fan theories became more complex than the LOST writers best imagination. It was the first interactive television program, some of it in real time chat rooms. Today, some YouTubers live stream commentary during k-dramas, but that pales in comparison to the national media dedicating columnists for weekly recaps.

It was a critical and viewer juggernaut. But as the seasons progressed and the tangential story lines got more convoluted, the show runners hubris took the series down split road to a dead end. The biggest complaint was the land fill sized pile of unanswered questions. When one weaves an elegant story, with mysteries, viewers expected show worthy answers. Rambling into the series finale, Cuse and Lindelof acknowledged there was no way they’d be able to craft an ending that paid off every plot thread and satisfied every viewer.


“We have to have the answers to the mysteries so that there is something to work towards, but what we don't have are the stories,” Lindof said in a 2010 Wired interview.  “J.K. Rowling can sit down and say, ‘Here's how Harry Potter's parents were killed, and here's who killed them,’ but how am I going to reveal that information to the audience in the most emotionally impactful way? So we know what we want to do, but we have very little idea of how and when we're going to do it.”

Second, this confirmed in some people's minds that at a certain point, the writers were making things up on the fly. There was no concrete ending from the beginning. The show drifted on the ocean of fan support. In the end, the show runners confessed they decided to do was to design a finale that emphasized "character over mystery."

 But when you base six years of story on mysteries, many fans thought that was a cop-out. Especially true when the show's producers vehemently denied during the first season that the show was set in purgatory. But the End showed a mixed religious message that main characters had died in the past and the island was some other dimension (further complicated by another universe of the sideways world).

Third, LOST did get into the surreal story writing genre by not only having character flash backs but also "flash sideways," a different  timeline where apparently Jack and the rest of the castaways were back in the real world, albeit leading different lives than what we saw in the flashback sequences that were a major part of previous seasons.

But these did not add a layer of mystery more than one of confusion. A few critics thought this was mere annoying filler episodes. Others thought the writers "stumped" themselves in their original time frame ("painted themselves into a corner") so they tried to "re-boot" the series with another time line.

The evolution of the Man in Black as the personification of dead Locke really did not answer the confinement of Jacob and the Smoke Monster to an island where human beings were used as chess pieces in a sadistic game. But if you look to the religious elements, especially ancient Egyptian culture, one could find a potential answer that the island was the underworld which a soul would have to navigate dangerous tests in order to be judged by the gods in the afterlife.

But the show runners did not want LOST to fall into that realm. They wanted LOST to stand on its own mythology as pure fantasy. They decided that they did not have to answer all the questions or defend their creative choices because enough fans were fully invested (with their own ideas) it did not really matter.

Fourth, there was a sour taste of being hustled by a three card monte boardwalk shark. The End did not tie up loose ends. It made them more tangled as we see Jack "die" on the island while  Hurley and  Ben Linus remain on the island as "new protectors" only to "shut it down" in a hasty DVD epilogue. It did not explain why pilot Frank Lapidus miraculously gets everyone else — including Kate, Sawyer, and Claire off the island. Why were these characters "saved?" What did they do when they returned "home?" How did some find their way to Christian Shephard's church?

In the final scene, Christian opens the church doors to engulf the inside with a bright white light, symbolizing the moment between death and the after life. In the real world, “The End” wasn’t exactly the end that a lot of viewers were waiting for with half the fans found it a comfortable, happy ending while half felt it was a disappointing conclusion in a Hollywood trope way. It did bring to the forefront the debate on whether  the “Flash sideways” universe functioned as a kind of purgatory between life and death — the same theory that was advanced about the island itself when the show first launched. As one commentator put it: “I think the overall lesson is that we're all going to die eventually, so we may as well surround ourselves with as many attractive people as we can.”

Fifth, the LOST legacy may truly be the backtracking by the show runners.  Lindelof heard the criticisms loud and clear, and responded to them in public. “There was a very early perception… that the island was purgatory and we were always out there saying, 'It's not purgatory, this is real, we're not going to Sixth Sense you,’”


But three years later, he said  “Lost was all about mystery and questions and answers and [I wanted] to try to answer a mystery the show hadn't even asked up until that point… A portion of the audience was like, 'Oh, that wasn’t on my list, I'm not interested in that.' But we were.” Even as he stood by “The End,” the online reaction clearly took its toll.

Despite its still-divisive ending, the early success of LOST remains something that TV networks would love to emulate in an increasingly fractured TV landscape. In 2019, ABC hinted that it would not be adverse to rebooting the series.  But do not expect any of the original creative team to return for a potential revival. "I, personally, am not going to be involved with other versions of Lost because we told the most complete version," Lindelof said last year.  "I feel like I spent four years of my life begging them to end it and when they finally said yes, the ending that we did probably should stand as our ending."

LOST was highly entertaining, addictive and mentally stimulating but with all first loves, it had its bad points, questionable choices and nasty arguments.  As a series of intertwined and related episodes, LOST could never handle syndication re-runs because viewers missing episodes would themselves become lost. Syndicated viewers demand self-contained episodes like Star Trek.

It is hard to believe that it has been TEN YEARS since LOST concluded its run. There are very few blogs or sites that still contribute new content to the LOST community. But there are occasional posts of nostalgia about the series. And that is one of the hope's of any television production - - - a nostalgic memory.

QUEEN OF MYSTERY

Recently, a Korean television mystery-drama did the unthinkable - - - it fooled its fans with a crazy bad ending.

Queen of Mystery was a standard 16-episode drama. It had typical elements of a standard police drama: an unhappy police officer trying to solve a personal mystery, a civilian wrought by the murders of her parents, power brokers who manipulate the system for their advantage and a spider web of connections between the parties.

SPOILERS ahead for those who want to watch the program.

The police officer was born into a rich and powerful family. However, he sheds his status to become a police officer in order to find the true killer of his girlfriend who was murdered 17 years earlier. The murder was pinned on man with a snake tattoo by a working class cab driver, but the police officer, Wan-seung does not believe the official reports.

Seol-ok, a housewife of a local prosecutor, has turned into a mystery solving sleuth. She uses her deductive skills like Angela Lansbury's character in Murder She Wrote.  However, Seol-ok is really trying to track down the real killer of her parents. She was left an orphan who was taken in my a well-off family, eventually marrying their eldest son. His family does not treat her well, but Seol-ok is such a kind person she lets it all go.

Wan-seung was studying to be an actor. He was in a theater troupe where he met Hyun-soo. He fell in love with her. They planned to spend the rest of their lives together. But Wan-seung's powerful lawyer father did not approve. He wanted his son to join and run the family law firm. But Wan-seung does not care about power or privilege, just Hyn-soo. Then one night, she is abducted and killed. Wan-seung never believes that she is dead - - - that she was forced to leave Korea because she found out something bad about someone in power. Even though the police and prosecutors have closed the case file, Wan-seung is convinced that she is alive (her body was not found).

Wan-seung and Seol-ok cross paths to begin an uneasy partnership in solving other crimes. In one respect, they are both outsiders in both their professional and personal lives.

Throughout the series, their mysteries begin to intertwine. Seok-ok's father was the one who reported the man who killed Wan-seung's girlfriend. As the key witness, he and his wife were killed and their case was never solved. Seok-ok's husband had told her that he would look into it, but he never did. We would learn later that he may be part of a cover-up, orchestrated by Wan-seung's own father.

Whenever they get close to solving it, something blocks them. When Wan-seung finally tracks down the tattoo killer, who asks to meet him to tell all, he finds the perp already dead on the ground. Then Wan-seung is quickly arrested by Detective Go for murdering him. It was a classic trap. In order to get his freedom, Wan-seung has to surrender to his father's will to leave the police force and take over the family law practice. He leaves to study abroad then returns to Korea to begin what it seems to be a new life.

But in reality, he is still trying to track down all those responsible for Hyun-soo's death. His little band of detectives, including Seol-ok, have an off-the-grid command post to try to connect the dots.

Near the end, we see the diligence of the sleuths working together to unravel the conspiracy. Finally, they smoke out another police detective as Hyun-soo's murderer. Detective Go knows he is in trouble when the great "fixer," Mr. Kim contacts him asking to see her body. Go claims that he buried her with his own two hands. But Kim's benefactor wants DNA evidence (not available at the time of the crime) to confirm that Hyun-soo is dead. The benefactor is Wan-seung's father. They all met in the forest where Go has uncovered a shallow grave of human bones. As they take samples, the forest bursts of police officers. They arrest everyone for conspiracy.

Wan-seung goes to the grave to see the engagement ring still on the finger of the victim. He breaks down and cries while Seol-ok watches from the ridge.

It would seem that the two mysteries were wrapped up by the arrest of Wan-seung's father and his associates for the cover up of several murders.

But in the last moments of the last episode, the mysterious Mr. Kim is walking down a hallway when a young woman passes him then stops to ask him if he was looking for her. Kim is confused. Then the woman smirks that she is Hyun-soo. Bam. End of series.

Viewers were stunned by the twist. So much so, that they were angry. Several days later, the producers had to make a statement about the show. They claim they did the ending in such a manner because they were planning on a second season.

Reviewers were quick to point out that K-dramas rarely have second seasons. They are usually 16-20 episodic features (and long run series can go up to 52 episodes). And in the case of Queen of Mystery, the network had not ordered or committed to having a second season.

Viewers felt betrayed by the writers. How can you do a complete 180 degree turn of the story line at the end of the series. Wan-seung found the remains of his long, lost love. (DNA would prove the identity of the body - - - but it was clear that the ring was enough for Wan-seung). Who is this new mystery woman claiming to be the dead Hyun-soo? No one knows why she was killed in the first place. Wan-seung's powerful father is in jail but it appears that he was merely a fixer like Mr. Kim. And why did this mystery woman come after Mr. Kim? Who is he working for? 

It was a mean trick to play on the viewers. If writers give us mystery plot lines and clues, it is their responsibility to provide conclusive answers to those mysteries. Queen of Mystery's ending was actually worse than LOST's. LOST may have not answered all the burning fan questions about the island, its powers, the afterlife, etc. But Queen of Mystery threw the entire series in chaos with a massive new mystery in the last seconds of the show.

LOST BUTTERFLIES

In 1961, meteorologist Edward Lorenz entered a microscopically different value into his computer model -- .506 rather than .506127 -- and discovered that it had drastically altered the results of his weather prediction. His subsequent paper titled, "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?", officially coined the term "the butterfly effect." It is the theory that small events can have significant consequences.

What were the butterfly effects in LOST?  What little change(s) had dramatic effect(s) on the series.

1. The rework of the pilot episode. It was the most expensive pilot produced at the time. The network was going through management changes. It decided to fire the original writer to put the project in the hands of new Hollywood golden boy, J.J. Abrams, whose show runners made a few changes to the script and filmed the first show.

If the regular production company was in charge of the series, the emphasis would have changed from being a Jack leadership role back to Kate being the lead character. It would have been more a show about survival than a supernatural/mystery series.

2. The two-show story arc of Ben's character. Ben was only supposed to be a guest character for a two episode arc. It was to show how the island would change the 815 survivors into dark killers. It was thought that after Sayid went to find the balloon crash site, and learned that Ben was not Henry Gale, Ben would have died at the hands of the castaways. It would have been a commentary on the nature of normal human beings in pressure situations. But since Ben's evil character was so good, he was written into the rest of the series as the villain.

If Ben's character was killed off, the Others series arc would have less meaning and would have probably ceased in a short time. It probably would have truncated the Widmore involvement in the story as his main rival was Ben.

3. The use of flashbacks to tell the back stories. One complaint during the series was that the characters would not ask each other basic questions or want to learn information about missions, etc. If the production team let the characters converse with each other to pull out information, secrets, motivations, etc., the series would have had a different feel and story progression. It would have been more one to one dialog driven shows than the action adventure sequences.

Many believe the flashback technique was used as "filler" to keep the series main story line from collapsing or it was a means to save production costs by using more interior sets.  But when the reliance of flashbacks ran its course, the show runners did something significant to keep the format alive: invented "flash forwards" which led to the slippery slope of the illogical sideways universe story arc.

4. Locke being able to walk on the island. If Locke remained handicapped and in his wheel chair, his character would have never been able to be the fantasy outback survivalist. If Locke remained physically unable to run around the island on missions, his character would have quickly fallen to that of a beach extra.

But the action of giving Locke a "miracle" recovery on the island (as well as a cure for Rose's terminal cancer), it set off a series of theories about the special properties of the island. But it also led to the growing complaints that the writers were not explaining the miracles or supernatural elements. This led to fans breaking into their own story camps and heated arguments on the premise of the show (whether it was real; characters in purgatory; or just all a dream).

BEST MOMENT: WRITERS

Buzzfeed asked 51 TV writers for their best written show moments.

Damon Lindelof of LOST wrote:

One of the most agonizing questions writers get asked is “Where do you get your ideas from?” It’s frustrating because most of the time we don’t know… or we probably stole it from somewhere and we don’t want to be identified as plagiarist hacks. But I know exactly where this idea came from…

The final scene of “Through the Looking Glass” — the third season finale of Lost — was stolen from the movie Saw 2.

If you have not seen Saw 2, all you need to know is that Donnie Wahlberg is in it and that the twist at the end involves tricking the audience into thinking they’re watching something unfold in present time, when in fact, it is unfolding in the PAST. Also, Donnie Wahlberg is in it. Did I say that already?

ANYWAY.

Carlton (my co-writer) and I had just finally won the battle to have ABC announce an end date to the show (albeit three years out), which finally allowed us to break from the monotony of character flashbacks (we had one that explained where Sayid had his hair styled all lined up) and launch into flash-FORWARDS. But the divine inspiration of Saw 2 led us to the inevitable conclusion that the best way to do this would be to make our first flash-forward LOOK like yet another flashback. And then, in the final scene, we drop the hammer. Boom. You’re in the FUTURE, BITCHES!!! TAKE THAT, DONNIE WAHLBERG!

Writing that scene — the one where Jack waits on the outskirts of LAX as a car pulls up… the door opens… and out steps KATE — was awesome. My process is riddled with doubt and self-loathing, but this was one of the rare instances where I felt like I was doing something undeniably great. I felt like I had been crouched down in the darkness of someone’s apartment with all my best friends (the writers) waiting to shout out SURPRISE to our unexpected birthday boy/girl (the audience) — and I KNEW they’d be thrilled when we did.

And by time Jack was shouting, “WE HAVE TO GO BAAAAAAAACK!” (yes, I added all those extra A’s in the script) and I typed SMASH TO BLACK, my eyes were wet. I was inside the thing… feeling what these characters were feeling… knowing we were, at long last, working toward an actual ENDING now. And finally…for one fleeting moment…

HOW PATHS ARE RARELY STRAIGHT

Everyone's life path is filled with twists and turns. Opportunities, forks in the road, pitfalls, etc.

So it is no surprise that Evangeline Lilly's path to stardom was one of those curves from her initial career road. She was a model who was coaxed into auditioning for a role in a TV pilot. Since it was going to be filmed in Hawaii, it probably was a no brainer. A diversion. A lark. Because she says her real dream, she said, has always been to be a writer. 

She has acting as a means to pay her bills, but her passion is still writing. 

Lilly, 35, who landed her breakout role on the ABC series "Lost" in 2004, said that at the time, she wasn't even sure she wanted to act professionally. A few years later, she decided she "really hated working as an actress." 

"I was like, 'Well, then, what do I want to do if I don’t want to be an actress?' Because I didn’t really mean to become an actress. I was sort of an accidental actress," she said. "I wound up deciding that I wanted to make a go of a career as a writer." 

Ultimately, however, dream roles kept finding her. Lilly's childhood passion for J.R.R. Tolkien was the catalyst for accepting her role in "The Hobbit" film franchise, as was her desire to play a strong female lead. She then accepted a role in the upcoming Marvel film, "Ant-Man," because of her desire to work with its star, Paul Rudd. 

However, Lilly, who recently wrote a children's book, "The Squickerwonkers," isn't planning on doing any other acting projects at the moment -- not that she minds. 

“There are so many reasons why, for me, writing is superior to acting,” she said. “One of them is anonymity. Writers can live relatively normal lives. Most [working] actors can’t. Writers can work from home and be near their family most of the time. Actors usually can’t. Writers expend a lot of intellectual energy, but not so much emotional energy. And I have intellectual energy coming out of my yin-yang, but emotional energy — I am so lazy. I just don’t have a lot of emotional energy to give. I don’t like drama in my life, and I don’t like having to pretend [to have drama].”

DEAD ENDS & VERSES

How does one get one's self out of a painted corner?

The LOST writers continually put themselves into mystery corners without an explanation to free themselves from their own dead ends.

And there were too many such instances of huge plot inconsistencies to understand let alone explain.

Here are few of the nagging writing problems:

1. If Aaron was born on the island; why was he not born already in the sideways world?
2. If Ben was shot as a boy in the chest by Sayid, why didn't Ben remember him when 815 crashed?
3. Generally, why did so many characters fail to ask basic questions to their fellow castaways?

Here is a possible deux es machina explanation for the writing inconsistencies: multiverses.

Science is still trying to grapple with the workings of the cosmos. The discovery of the minuscule mass of the Higgs boson, whose relative smallness allows big structures such as galaxies and humans to form, falls roughly 100 quadrillion times short of expectations. Trying to put math to the known quantum pieces yields a result that none of us should be in our universe. Instead, there has to be another theory to explain our place in space.

Leading cosmologists like Alan Guth and Stephen Hawking envision our universe as one of countless bubbles in an eternally frothing sea. This infinite “multiverse” would contain universes with constants tuned to any and all possible values, including some outliers, like ours, that have just the right properties to support life. In this scenario, our good luck is inevitable: A peculiar, life-friendly bubble is all we could expect to observe.

Many physicists loathe the multiverse hypothesis, deeming it a cop-out of infinite proportions. But as attempts to paint our universe as an inevitable, self-contained structure falter, the multiverse camp is growing.

The problem remains how to test the hypothesis. Proponents of the multiverse idea must show that, among the rare universes that support life, ours is statistically typical. The exact dose of vacuum energy, the precise mass of our underweight Higgs boson, and other anomalies must have high odds within the subset of habitable universes. If the properties of this universe still seem atypical even in the habitable subset, then the multiverse explanation fails.

When a science fiction show can tap a real scientific theory (however unproven), it can free itself of the dead end badness of a misplayed plot line.

 Our characters were not jumping around in time travel when the island shifted, but our characters were jumping between multiverse bubbles, different parallel dimensions.

Instead of seeing a bubble, the LOST explanation is clear with a deck of cards analogy. In each island time skip, the deck was shuffled and a new card would be the "current" universe while the characters would continue on unknowingly in the other 51 parallel story verses. For example, boarding the plane in Sydney is Universe 1. When the plane hits turbulence, we are not shown a continuation of Universe 1 but a switch to Universe 2. As such, Universe 1's time line may continue the plane to LA (as seen in the sideways flashbacks). But then, when the island goes critical when Locke trips the numbers computer for a lockdown, Universe 2 switches to a different but similar Universe 3. When Ben turns the FDW, he triggers a series of multiverse quakes shifting through several different universes. This may be why we see Locke's paralysis come back on the island, for in a different universe he did not recover. When Locke vanishes the island with his FDW turn, this may be the clearest evidence of the multiverse concept: the shift to Universe X meant that the island was not in that X location.

After enough shuffling of multi-dimensions, a few individuals who can remember the "constants" in each plane of existence have a great advantage to control other people and events (such as Eloise Hawking and Desmond). One can guess more accurately if they had experienced an event generator of possible outcomes before making a final decision.

The multiverse explanation can help cushion the frustration of so many plot dead ends in the series, but it is still a trick to skip to a happy ending.

TOP 7

Yahoo recently named its Top 7 Worst TV Show Endings. Of course, LOST was mentioned:

At this point, "Lost" is synonymous with unsatisfying series finales. After six seasons of intricate plot build-up and a never-ending series of loose ends and questions about the true nature of the island and its inhabitants, the writers revealed they had written themselves into somewhat of a corner.

Instead of answering the audience's questions, the two hour finale "The End" ended up smoothing over most of the show's most important and unresolved problems by explaining that they all were in purgatory, though if they had really been there the whole time, no one knew.

Ask a "Lost" fan about the finale and you're sure to summon rage and frustration years later.

Well, reactions to the finale has been tempered as time has passed since Christian opened the church doors to add a final mystery to the series. Most upset fans have moved on with the viewing lives. But most are still waiting for their next, great adventure show.

Replacing a beloved television show is like trying to replace a family pet. It can happen, but it is never quite the same. You cannot clone the happiness, thrills and excitement of the old show because one tries to impart that impact in advance on the new show (which is not necessarily fair to the new writers and creators). For a short time, TV execs commissioned shows to be "The Next Lost, " but they all failed because no one can re-create the early mysteries and give us all the answers in a brilliant, neat package.

PLOTTING THE PLOT

Besides the leaked original writer's guide for LOST, one would like to know if the producers or head writers ever plotted out the series from the very beginning. This has been a growing debate since The End.

There has been floating around a J.K. Rowling photo of a page of her outline/plot spreadsheet for Harry Potter.

It is interesting because it shows how a writer begins to plan a novel from the beginning to the end through a series of sections to see if everything flows properly toward the conclusion.

From various web sources, I glean that spreadsheet plotting is a good tool to avoid the pitfalls of character or story continuity errors.

Using a computer spreadsheet program, writers divide up the grids in order place various story components in distinct sections. For example, the spreadsheet could have the following headings:

1. Act. This helps track the act to which this scene belongs.
2. Chapter/scenes. This helps the writer divide the story into chapters/scenes.
3. Headlines. This isn’t a summary of the scene’s events, but headlines of main events of the scene with emphasis on how it affects the main character(s).
4. Time. Time of year, time of day. This helps the writer track passage of time and keep events in order, or deliberately out of order for flashbacks.
5. POV or Characters present. This column helps ensure that each character has a proper amount of exposure. Writers may use the colored initials for each character for at-a-glance evaluations.
6. Setting. This lets the writer track movement. It can set the basis of reusing a narrative pattern.
7. Action. Similar to Headlines, but with a different function. The Headlines puts the event in context of the main character, while the Action can be more specific or give a context.
8. Pulse. This highlights the emotional tension driving this scene.
9. Words. If a writer wants to track the length of the manuscript, he can add a column for the number of words/chapter and set up the spreadsheet to keep a running total.
   
   Depending on the type of story, a writer could add more detailed headings such as "clue," "mystery," or relationships to other characters (siblings, business rivals, associates, motivations, etc.)

Many writers like computer spreadsheets because of the sort function. A writer can sort a character, a place, a clue, an object to find out who, what, when, where and how it comes up in various parts of the story.

A big advantage to writers is the ability to add columns to address any issues.  For example, if you know that setting is your particular weakness, then the writer forces himself to add a column to address that weakness. The columns can be as simple or detailed as the writer believes is needed to get a sense of what his story is about: going from general to specific  - -  from overall emotion of chapter, main emotion of scene, emotional beats of scenes, emotional reactions of various characters, etc. The flexibility of this approach is a real advantage. Many writers believe Spreadsheet Plotting has an additional benefit of creating an ongoing Inventory for a look at the Big Picture of the story as it is being developed and put into manuscript form.

When you are developing a complex, layered fantasy world story, a writer needs to put together the general elements of the story down in a universal framework from which the character's actions and plot events take place. Otherwise, the writer would be pounding away at the keyboard, totally in the dark.

THE HARD SELL

The conclusion to the LOST's Writer's Guide is entitled "The Hard Sell." It really is a summation to the network executives on why ABC should pick up the series and let TPTB create LOST.

The guide was the means of selling the show, its elements and concepts to the network in order to get a green light to produce the series. It was critical that what was said in the guide was truthful and useful to the network in its decision making process.

The guide concluded:

LOST is a unique animal in the television landscape. When we first considered bringing this idea to life just three -months ago, our knee-jerk reaction to what is - at its purest level, a castaway show- well, quite frankly, we didn't think it could be done.

We've changed our mind.

There is a show here. Not just a few episodes, but a real series. 

Hopefully, we've answered some concerns. The story ideas really are limitless- in fact, we've had several conversations about what a second and third season might look like. We've discussed ways to have characters recur and how to figure out limited arcs that don't infringe on our "self-contained" episodic mandate. Please remember, this format is just a SUMMARY of all the work we have done in the past nine weeks. 

We really believe that LOST is unlike anything we've seen before on television. From the unbelievable setting to the unique cast made up of mostly new and exciting faces (not to mention the largest ensemble of any show on the air), LOST offers something for everyone - a show tailor-made to appeal to the broadest audience possible.

Hip. Frightening. Funny. Mysterious. Romantic. Cinematic.

But more than anything, unexpected.

We thank you for your time. Your consideration. 

And again, the opportunity. Hopefully, we can all get LOST together. 

There are a few key statements to pull from this conclusion:

1. The writer's guide took 9 weeks to prepare.
2. TPTB admit that they had a network "mandate" to have "self-contained" episodes.
3. The story ideas, while limitless, were not fully fleshed out in the guide summaries.
4.  TPTB admit they had their own doubts about showrunning a purely castaway show.
5. TPTB state that they have only had "conversations" about what the second and third season might look like.
6. Everyone wants to appeal to the "broadest audience possible."

The credo for the show was stated as being hip, frightening, funny, mysterious, romantic, cinematic and unexpected (which must mean out-of-the-blue plot twists). Those are lofty goals, but used to help sell ABC on buying the LOST franchise.

There really is nothing contained in the guide that shows that the producers could actually pull off three seasons of LOST. To the contrary, it seems that the sales pitch was more on general expectation of greatness than a solid foundational mythology and direction for the show. The producers made their hard sell and won. But did the hard sell actually meet fan or network expectations in its story execution?

After 9 weeks of guide preparation, the producers found only 30 story ideas in which to cull a first season. For some reason, that seems kind of sparse. One would have thought it would raise a red flag that the producers had "doubts" about their ability to carry a survivor in lost paradise story for more than a season. But they only had ideas to bolster their own view that they could pull off something unique to television (what that unique aspect of the show was never addressed in the guide itself). The guide could have sprouted brain storm ideas with the network or other writers which would shape the first season, but that would seem to defeat the point of creating the plots in the guide. The network wanted to see a truly full formed series before green lighting the project. There were several good story ideas and character traits listed in the guide, which would be the foundational starting point to create a deep and layered continuity book, but for no apparent reason many of those elements were quickly abandoned or changed by TPTB. 

From a historical perspective, some of the ABC executives who were initially in on the LOST presentations left the network. There were new people who inherited the project, and may have either dismissed the prior briefings or decided it was best to give Abrams carte blanche to create the series he wanted to make (since he was the hottest talent in Hollywood at the time). But Abrams would soon not be a hands on producer for the show - - - he had bigger fish to fry in the movie world. So it could have been the timing of network approval, and schedule shifts and new production staff which caused LOST to lose its original guide outline focus to spin into supernatural tangents and character changes as the seasons progressed during the show.

BEAUTIFUL PARADOX

This came from a review of a bad, character story line heavy video game:

• Disjointed story that barely holds together through time-jumping structure
• No sense of agency or ability to meaningfully change the story
• A parade of overwrought, clichéd plot points straight out of high school creative writing class
• An utter lack of tension or anything resembling real drama
• Characters that can't hold together coherent motivations
• Insultingly easy quick time events
• Game play mostly boils down to "find the dot to continue the story"

 I immediately thought of LOST, especially in the last season.

For those whimsical souls who thought LOST was a roller coaster and they were going along for the ride, the 180 degree out-of-no-where turn to the spiritual conclusion was fine with them. They were content with The Ending.

Even though the basic questions to that plot twist were never explained:
Who was chosen and who was not?
What was the island if the sideways was purgatory?
When did the sideways world get created when no one knew each other before the crash?
Where was the island? (the first character question posed in the pilot episode)
Why were so many family members and friends left out of the final church scene?
How could one forget the "most important" part of your life while at the same time create a new sideways world?

It is unacceptable and contrary to believe the show's final story arcs were all targeted to the spiritual world from the very beginning. In the final season, we had so many new side stories like Jacob, MIB, Alpert, which seemed like more filler than story movement. Then we had the main characters criss crossing the jungle which seemed like more filler. I recall barking at the screen once "do something!" when the characters sat around a fire waiting for Flocke to return. There was no sense of urgency on anyone part to do anything to escape MIB, Widmore or the island. No one was motivated; they were all spectators which was opposite of their gung-ho, mission approach to survival in the first five seasons. There was little tension, little drama, and events fell off the board like old post-it notes (for example, Desmond in the well was a meaningless asterisk.) The characters kept bouncing back and forth, jungle to beach, to small island, to beach, to small island . . .  wandering aimlessly through the final plot.

On the other hand, there was a surreal beauty in the smiling faces in the church. Everyone seemed happy, relieved, and content. The quiet calmness was in stark contrast to nonstop twists, turns, dangers and anxiety of the first five seasons. In the church, they were all finally safe. Serenity is the goal for any lost soul.

But for the core group to have created the complex sideways world, which contained a fully populated world of people the churchgoers never met, is a troubling disconnect from Christian's speech to Jack. The further inconsistency is that Ben could be awakened but choose not to move on. One of the baddest characters in the series still retains the power to set his own selfish course? How did he earn that right or privilege?

It meant that the sideways world would continue on, even though it was allegedly created by the core group so they could gather and move on together in the after life. It is just as likely when put into that perspective that Christian's statement on the sideways world was totally wrong. Was it truly "real," or was it another smoke monster illusion?

We may never know except that the series was filled with inconsistencies and paradoxes that erased any clear path to a final resolution of the main story lines of the series.

CONTRA VIEW

In the previous post, we outlined an alleged show insider's statements on the meaning of the LOST series. We are not convinced that that person was an insider, but we published his or her theories and explanations. Now, we examine this fan theory:

“ It is the difference of opinion that makes horse races. ”
— Mark Twain

The counter-points:

1. "It was real."

That is one premise to the show. The other premise is that the characters were already dead and their survival journey was not on Earth but through the Underworld. There was never broadcast clear evidence.

 2. The Island's role was to balance good and evil.

The show being about “good and evil” may be the greatest myth of the show. Good people died. Evil people prospered. Bad behavior was rewarded. There was no morality in the story line or in The End. For example, Ben was never punished for his sins. He killed the entire Dharma collective in his purge. That open pit contained more than 40 bodies. He put Sayid into assassin mode during the O6 story arc. He kidnapped, tortured and lied to everyone he met. But in the end Ben alone got to decide his own fate. He chose to stay in his fantasy sideways world playing house with Rousseau and Alex (two people who died because of his decisions).

The island as a balance point between good and evil does not stand scrutiny either. There were more evil actions, pain, suffering, anguish, fear and death on the island than good moments. The concept of “free will” seems inconsequential. All the candidates were brought to the island against their will. They were trapped like lab rats in an experimental maze. Their actions had very limited effect or consequences to Jacob or MIB.

Also, the concept that the island was the sole mechanism to balance good and evil on Earth makes little sense. It would mean that the island emits some form of elemental wave of both good and evil into the world. It would mean that mankind’s concept of individual freedom and free will is a fiction. Man’s soul is being nourished by both good and evil spiritual energy.

If that is the case, then the island is a self perpetual machine. There would be no need for a “protector.”  And there is no evidence that the island was “out of balance” that either Jacob (good) or MIB (evil) had the upper hand.

3. The problem that had to be solved was the Man in Black.

The idea that the Island was the stage for Jacob’s plan to bring candidates to the Island to do the one thing he couldn’t do: kill his brother, the Man in Black. The fallacy to this argument is simple: Jacob’s brother was already dead. He was buried in the cave next to Crazy Mother.

MIB was the release of some supernatural demon, the smoke monster, caused when Jacob killed his brother (and his body somehow “uncorked” the island’s light cave to allow for smokey to roam the island, corrupt humans and cause time travel). There was nothing “super human” that actually ended MIB’s reign of island terror.

The problem that really needed to be solved is the inconsistent, tangental and mixed up story lines of the characters which was not tied to a solid science fiction mythology fact set.

The problem could be that Jacob was conned into being the external jailor for the devil. The only way he could “move on” was to have MIB destroyed by someone not from his world. But that would negate the concept that the island was “real” on Earth, and the characters were on Earth battling for their lives.

4. Dharma was brought to the Island to kill MIB

The idea that Dharma was brought there by Jacob as part of his plan to kill the MIB also has huge flaws. We never saw any indication that the scientists were actually studying the smoke monster. In fact, all evidence points to Dharma being deathly afraid of the smoke monster by creating sonic barriers around the barracks.

5. Ben was a pawn of MIB and not a servant of Jacob.

The theory that MIB was aware of the Dharma plan to kill him so it sabotaged the plan by “corrupting” Ben is also speculative. There is nothing in the story lines to show that MIB corrupted any individual to the dark side. All the characters came to the island with a fully developed individual belief and moral compass. The island events did not alter their basic instincts, personality traits or motivations. In most cases, the events reinforced those elements.

In Ben’s case, he was influenced by Alpert, who was tied directly to Jacob as his liaison to his candidates. There was never a direct offer of power, wealth or immortality given to Ben by either Jacob, Alpert or MIB. Ben himself was manipulated by his emotional strings being played like a violin by MIB when Ben confronted Jacob for the first time in the Tawaret statue. It led to Ben treacherously stabbing Jacob and MIB burning his body.

6. The one variable was free will.

The theme of “free will” is common in the series, but if is nebulous concept in practical terms. The characters had the free will to make decisions, but the deck was already stacked against them. Their decisions had no bearing on the resolution of the Jacob-MIB conflict. They did not have the “freedom” to leave the island. The candidates were all marked, kidnapped and captured on the island.

The key question posed is fate vs. free will.  Fate presupposed a predetermined set of personal events to one conclusion. The universe will course correct you to the final point. This concept excludes free will if it is already predetermined what your destiny will be in the end. There is no science in a universe that predetermines the final outcome. There is also no faith to change the outcome by prayer to a higher being if the universe is one of pure destiny.

7. Jack's role and destiny was defined by the first episode.

It is acknowledged by TPTB that originally, Jack was going to be killed off early in Season 1 to increase the dramatic effect and horror of the island. The show was going to focus on Kate as the leader. But many fans were emotionally drawn to the Jack character, so TPTB kept Jack as the focus. So it is incorrect to state that Jack’s role was defined from the pilot episode to the end scene.

In addition, Jack never “saved” anyone in the church.  Jack never saved Locke. In fact, Jack’s total disgust and disregard of Locke and his position led to Locke’s demise. Jack never saved Kate from her running away from her problems or commitments. Jack never saved Sawyer from his lying and conning ways. Jack never brought Bernard and Rose back together; they found each other when the Tailies were reunited with the beach camp.

8. The sideways world represents a humanistic religious philosophy.

The sideways world is not a mix in of theology and metaphysics. Even if the show's creators were proposing is that we’re all linked to certain people during our lives (“soul mates”), the writer’s explanation of the sideways world literal nonsense. The people in the church made up a vast and complex fantasy world because they shared  “the most important moments of their lives?”  The explanation is that subconsciously, everyone created the “sideways” world where they exist in purgatory until they are “awakened” and find one another.

Well, how can one create a subconscious purgatory existence without first being dead. As I have theorized for years, if one takes the ancient Egyptian beliefs of the after life, a person’s spirit is separated into a ba and ka, who separately journey through the after life, to be reunited and reborn in either paradise or darkness. The characters only met each other within their journey to the purgatory sideways world by banding together their lost soul in their underworld events after their deaths on Earth. This clearer explanation defeats point number one, that everything was “real.”

9. The spiritual premise of the show was throughout the series.

If the LOST story is a spiritual take on various religious doctrines, then there are problems with that explanation. If one could not “move on” without making amends for their sins, like Ben, then the church members never atoned for any of their transgressions. Murder, fraud, lies, adultery, kidnapping, stealing, and deceptions were never judged and the characters never punished for their deeds. In fact, the series had no moral compass at all. People who did bad things actually got rewarded with control, power or wealth.

And the statement that all the main characters were “supposed” to be together on the plane seems disconnected. There were other people on the plane. They were all basically strangers except for family members traveling together. Unless this is a take on Albert Brook’s concept of passage into the after life (Defending Your Life), where individuals dream of their own means of their demise (plane crash, etc.)

10. Each new island mystery was a piece of a larger plot mosaic for each viewer.

The idea that everything stated on the show one was puzzle piece in a giant mosaic is a fine goal, but it would appear that the box was missing thousands of pieces because there is no complete, unified theory to LOST that everyone can agree on. There are still more unsolved mysteries than solid answers. If a writer’s job is to create series of plot mysteries, it is the expectation that the writer will reveal the answers to those mysteries by the end. The ending in the sideways church did not definitively answer anything. It caused more questions to be raised by the fans.

11. Season 6 sideways world was to contrast the island events.
Season 6 was the most messed up season of the series. Some fans lamented that it appeared that TPTB were creating wild tangents so characters could have a new “show reel” for future auditions. The creation of a sideways world (purgatory) made no sense in resolving any of the island characters main personal issues. The purgatory sideways world did not judge, punish or redeem any of the island characters.

 12. Those who made it to the sideways world were linked by mutual destiny.

Further, the link to the main plane survivors is tenuous at best. They were not the most important people in their lives.  Example, Juliet. The most important person in her life was her sister. She had devoted her work so her sister could conceive. She also was in love with a colleague who was killed by a bus. On the island, her only strong connection was Goodwin. She was in the church only because of the unexplained time travel arc and her hook up with sheriff Sawyer. Penny had no connection with the church goers except through the small window of the O6 rescue. She had stronger ties with her father (Widmore) than any islander. Desmond also did not have a deep connection with the 815 survivors. He had one brief encounter with Jack while running stadium steps. How that became the most important person in his life (since Jack is alleged the most important character in the series) is a stretch.

How all the characters were “supposed” to be on the plane pre-supposes that there is a grand finite plan for the entire universe and in inhabitants. The main characters had no connection with each other. They had families. They had friends before boarding Flight 815. But all of the back stories are erased to irrelevancy by the statement that the characters were eternally linked from the very beginning to move on in the afterlife together.

If the one lesson was supposed to be “live together or die alone,” the series failed to make that point in the end. In life, everyone dies alone. Each person’s human spirit is unique. The sideways world takes a mirrored or opposite view of that statement. In the sideways world, it is “die together or live alone (in the afterlife).” I don’t think that is a philosophy that would hold much water with American viewers.

13. Ben could not move on with the Flight 815 survivors.

In the final scene, Ben “could have moved on” with Hurley, but Ben chose to stay. So it is a specious argument to say Ben could not move on because he had no connected with his own group that has yet to awaken to their island time. The people who Ben would connect with would HATE him! He murdered his own father. He kidnapped Rousseau’s daughter. He got Alex killed by Widmore’s men.
Unless you take the tact that all the pain, suffering and blood shed by Ben was all “make believe” like kids playing combat on the school yard, there is no way that group of people would state that knowing Ben was the “most important” thing in their lives.

14. The reason Ben was excluded from the Church scene was because it was written with the pilot episode.

The idea that all the church characters were linked from the first episode is also false.  Juliet, Desmond, Ben and Penny were not season 1 characters so the statement that the church scene was written with the pilot does not hold water. Ben was only signed for a three show arc. But his performance and fan reaction made TPTB keep him on as a regular. Further, each person in the church had long standing links with their pre-island friends and family members. The prime example of this deep pre-existing bond was Juliet and her sister. That bond was unbreakable. But in the end, Juliet’s sister was not part of Juliet’s after life.

15. LOST was an important show that dealt with big themes.

LOST may have dealt with big themes, but had big problems in meshing those themes into a rational overall premise. It was chunky and vague in giving us a clear explanation of the writer’s viewpoint on  faith, the afterlife, spiritual questions, and sci-fi elements of the show. The biggest problem with the ending to LOST is that it did not explain itself and what TPTB wanted to show us about ourselves. Instead, it jumped off a writer’s crutch cliff to the perceived happy ending with the reunion in the purgatory church. That turn led many to wonder out loud what about the time travel? What about the island? What about electromagnetic energy? How was everything interconnected? Who knew what and when? And was the conflict with Jacob and MIB even relevant to the conclusion? 

The problem with raising big themes even in a television show is that the writers need to deliver big explanations by the show’s conclusion.  If you pare away every element of the LOST saga to just see what was truly necessary for the reunion in the sideways church, it would come down to this: everyone died on the island. Even if the show revealed that Jacob was a reaper bringing dead people to the island to find some form of redemption or friendship, the vast majority would accept that premise and still enjoy the show (and understand the church conclusion). But the writers never dealt with the big themes in such a way to adequately conclude the show.


The previous post does not stand up well to cross examination. If the show's writers' idea was let the viewers draw their own conclusion episode after episode, character event after character event, then writers were not writing a narrative but tossing scenes against the wall to see what would stick in the hearts or minds of the fans. The bottom line that the show is "what each viewer thinks it is" is a white wash. If the writers' had a grand, unified metaphysical explanation to all the show's mysteries, then why not just come out and tell us by the end of Season 6?

RANKING LOST

LOST still has some lasting impression in the Hollywood writing community. In a poll of television and film writers, the WGA announced the best television shows of all time, with LOST being ranked at No. 27.

The Top 50 TV shows were led by The Sopranos, Seinfeld, The Twilight Zone, All in the Family, MASH, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mad Men, Cheers, The Wire and the West Wing.

The second ten were The Simpsons, I Love Lucy, Breaking Bad, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hill Street Blues, Arrested Development, The Daily Show, Six Feet Under, Taxi and The Larry Sanders Show.

Shows 21-30 were 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Frasier, Friends, Saturday Night Live, The X-Files, Lost, ER, The Cosby Show, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Other science fiction/supernatural shows in the Top 50 were Star Trek (33), Twin Peaks (35), Battlestar Galactica (38) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (49).

Television has always been considered a commodity geared toward the lowest common denominator. Networks, in order to generate ratings and ad revenue, had to tailor their weekly shows to draw in the most diverse segments of the viewing public. So base line humor and gags would water down what writers could actually get away with in their scripts. Unless one had an aggressive star-producer, it would seem that most shows are interchangeable formatted bland fare.

Many of the shows listed were considered "ground breaking" because they changed the standard one camera sit com format, or allowed their characters do say and do things that would have been considered inappropriate or outrageous. The writers job was to put the show's characters into places and story lines which were new and exciting - - - with a grand pay-off in a laugh (in comedy) or a cry of shock (in drama). LOST certainly had a lot of characters and (almost too) many story lines which hooked viewers in for six seasons.