Thinking about ‘Lost’

  • 090220-jackseye.jpgIt says a lot about a TV series that I would cel­e­brate Greg’s birth­day by tak­ing us to a nearby hotel and stag­ing an island party just so we could watch the series finale of ‘Lost’ in a suit­ably fes­tive atmos­phere. And Greg was com­pletely okay with shar­ing natal-day-honors with a TV show, as I knew he would be.

    It also says a lot about a show that its par­tic­u­lar lex­i­con and par­a­digm enter your own vocab­u­lary some­what effort­lessly. So when we were pack­ing up to go, Greg gave me the last sip of his Diet 7-Up when I had my hands full of suit­cases and then said solemnly, “Now you’re like me.” And we both cracked up.

    Now, if you didn’t get that ref­er­ence and haven’t been watch­ing the show, you’re prob­a­bly think­ing every­one should shut up already and get a life. Which is always a suit­able response from a non-fan to a fan, because fans always sound a lit­tle whacked. But as a Lost fan, can I make a pitch? If you’ve been in the habit of eschew­ing all things shown on big screens and lit­tle screens because they’re such utter dreck, I totally agree and could cite the long list of blog posts on the sub­ject to back me up.

    But I would also say that you might want to make an excep­tion in this case, because I think this is some of the most inven­tive and cre­ative sto­ry­telling I’ve ever seen. And although the meta-messages and The Point of the show (which is what every­one is still fill­ing screens and screens pars­ing out) was not overtly reli­gious, as most peo­ple under­stand it, I thought it was actu­ally on its way to being down­right Orthodox.

    So if you’re at ALL inclined to take a peek and see for your­self, I’d say rent the first DVD of the first sea­son and just watch the first show, and if at all pos­si­ble, do it with­out think­ing of all the over-the-top hype that it has got­ten. Just watch for your­self and see what you think. I did that in ’07 and Greg and I were hooked. (If you’re the type that can­not func­tion with­out spoil­ers, you should read the first link I’ve got below, but I think it may actu­ally make things more dif­fi­cult, rather than easier.)

    So that’s my pitch to the non-fans. Now, if you are a fan … how ABOUT that finale?

    To begin with, I don’t think I’ll try to add to the really good (if some­what obses­sive) spec­u­la­tion and analy­sis that’s out there right now. Here are two good places to go to see some of the best of it:

    • Best sum­mary of the entire show in a few para­graphs HERE
    • One person’s take on the 50 ques­tions the show needed to answer in the last episode, with a score­card of how they did HERE.

    lost-logo.jpgAs for my own thoughts, mostly I’m think­ing what I’m always think­ing when TV shows and movies go epic, which is that when peo­ple go epic enough, they always end up brush­ing against the Chris­t­ian nar­ra­tive. Sin and redemp­tion, life and death, this life and the next, the ratio­nal world and the mys­tery of some­thing beyond that, good and evil, reward and pun­ish­ment … and so on and so on.

    It’s for cer­tain that there were Chris­t­ian Lost fans who were dis­ap­pointed not to have the Chris­t­ian mes­sages not be more overt, but I think it’s tremen­dously more sig­nif­i­cant, under the cir­cum­stances, that the show got crit­i­cism on sec­u­lar sites for being “too reli­gious.” Because even though sur­veys tell us that Chris­tians are out in there in large num­bers, you wouldn’t know it to watch tele­vi­sion or movies. And if some fans are com­plain­ing, there are prob­a­bly a lot more that may be won­der­ing. Not that they’ll end up ‘mak­ing their deci­sion’ (or what­ever the evan­gel­i­cal par­lance is), but they may start to think that there’s some­thing to talk about. They may take a peek inside a Bible or go talk to an old friend who’s a believer, just to see if there’s a hint more about that irre­sistable mys­tery that made the show so appealing.

    For my part, I think I need to watch the finale again, and I might have some more spe­cific points that cry out for a blog post (because there aren’t nearly enough out there already on the sub­ject, right? :-/ )

    But in the mean­time, I think the best point I’ve heard about the big nar­ra­tive of the show was some­thing Greg brought to my atten­tion: The rules of the Island, which every­one spends most of their time try­ing to fig­ure out, aren’t actu­ally rules. They can be bent, depend­ing on the cir­cum­stance and who’s in charge. So when Jacob is in charge, no one can leave the Island; when Hurley’s in charge, peo­ple can leave if they want to.

    If that doesn’t make much sense, I may have to think it over a lit­tle bit myself and see if I can put it in a bet­ter con­text. But it seems pro­found to me. Which is what you could say about many, many moments in all six sea­sons of the show. And that again is some­thing that makes it stand apart.


    Related posts:

    1. “Lost” queries
    2. Stand back. I’m thinking
    3. Think­ing in the hotel gym
    4. Thiev­ery and ret­ri­bu­tion in the elec­tronic age
    5. Back here, think­ing about back there

    May 28th, 2010 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 05.28.2010

    I thought that the most overtly Chris­t­ian and dare I say overtly Ortho­dox part of the show was the ele­ment of God and the after­life being out­side of time.

  • DebD

    I’m not a big fan of the show, but all my older chil­dren are. I did see the first episode — it was amaz­ing. I saw the next sev­eral episodes and enjoyed them. Then it started to remind me of a soap opera for thought­ful peo­ple. I stopped some­where in the mid­dle of sea­son one.

    Maybe I’ll go back to it some­day, but I’m not itch­ing to any­time soon, espe­cially with all those episodes of Doc­tor Who I missed ;)

  • Grace

    Mimi:
    The way they played around with time was get­ting me more and more con­fused for a while. But I guess the good thing — and, as you’re say­ing, the almost-Orthodox thing — is that even­tu­ally you get to a place where you’re see­ing a nar­ra­tive in *spite* of time shifts, and finally time itself seems a lit­tle disposable.

    Another runner-up for most overt Chris­t­ian mes­sage: Jack’s father, who kept show­ing up (even posthu­mously) and who explained every­thing to Jack at the very end, was named Chris­t­ian Shepherd.

  • Grace

    DebD:
    If you ever decide to make the long, slow trip through all six sea­sons again, I’ll tell you this: Sea­son 1 is an absolute page-turner, 2 and 3 less so. 4 starts to pick up steam again and 5 and 6 are pretty good. But by that time, you are try­ing to keep such a plethora of char­ac­ters and sto­ry­lines and unan­swered ques­tions straight that every show is just a lit­tle exhausting.

    One of the rea­sons I think it’s just an incred­i­ble accom­plish­ment is that I have no idea how the cre­ative team were able to keep all this stuff straight them­selves, let alone com­mu­ni­cate it one hour at a time.

    Dr. Who! Don’t remind me! I would love to intro­duce Greg to The Doc­tor, but I don’t know if the revamped ver­sion is any good. Also, I admit a prej­u­dice — Tom Baker is my favorite incar­na­tion of Dr. Who, and I’d really want to see those ones. But Net­flix won’t oblige — know any­place a needy girl can score Tom Baker sea­sons of Dr. Who?

  • DebD

    ahh, Tom Baker… sigh. He is my favorite too. Just watched the end of his tenure as The Doc­tor with hubby and the boys. I’m sur­prised your hus­band hasn’t heard about Doc­tor Who.

    Net­flix does have Doc­tor Who w/ Tom Baker. Here’s one:
    http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Doctor_Who_The_Sto…

    I’ve enjoyed the newer ones…but my kids and son-in-law are huge fans. I haven’t seen them all. I am a spo­radic tv watcher.

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