Lost, Ten Years Later

Esquire published an interview with Lost showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the brain trust* that had a hand in developing the show and took the reigns from JJ Abrams through "The End".  It coincides with the tenth anniversary of the series premiere.*

* Rare occasion I'm not using "brain trust" facetiously

** What should be the starting point whence we count such anniversaries?  Because we're seeing the stuff about the tenth anniversary of Friends, counted from the series finale.


In the last year I read two books which had significant portions focus on Lost.  Battle of the Networks*, which focused on the development of the series, and The Revolution was Televised, which touched on the development but focused more on the series as it was on, the creative influences, and how it affected the contemporary state of television.  So it was interesting seeing Darlton speak about the series candidly with that information in mind.

* The voice of "Previously, on Lost..." is Lloyd Braun, ousted television executive who is essentially the reason Lost got on the air.

Some of the big knocks on Lost (it doesn't know where it's going, it's making it up as it goes, it's not answering questions) stem from both the viewers desire for closure in every possible form, and the fact that the point of television is not to make the best show but to make the most money. The most significant thing Lost did was negotiate an end date...three years out.  It allowed more planning in storytelling and was a case where ABC decided to run six solid(er) seasons rather than milk ten with mediocre viewership.  ABC understood that the draw was the mystery, which has a beginning middle and end, and without providing the end to the creatives in charge, they were going to lose the viewers anyways if they didn't agree to an end date.

I've talked before about Lost's end date, and the ebb and flow of the series in relation to the end date's announcement.  Darlton discuss their worst and favorite episodes, and it's not surprsiing the worst one, which we can probably agree, is "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Jack's tattoos in Thailand) which was pre-end date announcement*, but toward the end of the show running out of ideas for flashbacks and Darlton was treading water desperately while they negotiated the end date.

* In the article Lindelof teases the last five minutes of the Season Three finale, which was when we learned it was a FlashForward.  You can tell the negotiations allowed them to make this change in Season Three and prepare for the end in a few years. 

The other big knock I mentioned is how many of its own questions Lost answered.  They raise the point in the interview of how can you really answer the the macro questions (good vs evil, science vs faith) when those answers don't actually exist.  And we saw what happens in "Stranger" when they try to answer a question that's too small.  All they can do is show how the song played out for the characters.  So they gave us as much closure as possible.

I've talked about how a series can always go farther, meaning there are always unanswered questions about the next step after a finale for a character.  The example I use is (Breaking Bad finale spoiler still recent enough and off the original topic enough that I'm tagging it....). Jesse speeding out of his meth lab prison at the end of the episode.  Does he get away?  Do the police catch up with him?  Even Gillian acknowledges the dude's prints are all over that lab.    But with Lost, they talk about how they show all the character's deaths and then they go a step further and show what happens after they are dead!  Even if you don't like the execution, one cannot argue that you can't go much furtehr than that.

With "Stranger" being the Britta of the series, I was pleased to see they agree with one of my favorites, "The Constant".  Personally, my enjoyment was augmented by the influence one of my favorite books Slaughterhouse Five, had on the episode. 

* Because gmail keeps everything, here's the gchat I got first thing in the morning after "The Constant"  - "LOST was fucking great!"

Anyways, both Cuse and Lindelof have new shows starting soon.  Cuse is working on The Strain on FX and Lindelof is at Home Box Office working on The Leftovers