Lost: a fan worries she’s lost her faith

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in response to Emily Nussbaum from NYMag.com

" . . . last week’s premiere filled me with dread. What was this wild goose that I had been chasing so loyally for five seasons? Lost is almost finished, with sixteen episodes to go, and I, like any fan, was relieved when ABC set an end date: Now the writers could hammer out a true conclusion, without any more episodes analyzing Jack’s tattoos. They could do a conclusive shake-up on their highly original mix of genres. . . "

I also have my doubts.

I stumbled into this review while wandering the webway, and was immediately intrigued by the title alone, as this echoes my own anxiety towards the conclusion of the series. I am still deeply scarred by the unsatisfactoriness of the BSG conclusion, and in light of the scandalous finalé for the Sopranos (even though I was never much of a fan of that show), I'm growing more and more certain that they will be unable to satisfy me with the conclusion of Lost. I think that there are too many threads running, too many questions hanging for Lindelof and Cuse to reach an actual dénouement. Ron Moore was (is) very good at the middle part of a series, but the things that make him good at that make him bad at finishing (return to that at a latter date). Lindelof and Cuse may demonstrate a similar problem.

Anyway, that's what attracted me to the article, but I was entranced as soon as I read the first paragraph:

"I first watched Lost in a binge, on DVD, shortly after my older son was born. I’d never recommend that anyone acquire a newborn in order to properly enjoy a television show, but this turns out to be an excellent technique, at least if you want to be imprinted on a series, like a duckling on a goose. Up at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and 6 a.m., with headphones on and the lights low, I experienced the show less as a story than as a loopy, unforgettable dream, the kind that alienates you from strangers when you try to explain the damn thing."

Deeply evocative and moody, Nussbaum conjures up a believable atmosphere with a minimum of sensory detail, the 2am, 4am, 6am repetition stitching into the narrative foreground the repetitiveness, the sleeplessness of caring for a newborn child (reinforced by the use of duckling), giving an immediate impression of the cycle of interrupted sleep, the exhausted bliss of a new parent. Headphones and low light flesh out the intimacy of her initiation into the series, emphasizing her consumption as a deeply personal experience, specifically at the threshold of sleep, one foot in the hallucinatory territory of dreams. Loopy means crazy and wild and pleasant, but it also means cyclical and reinforces the periodic repetition of her experience; it's almost like a brain-washing. She refers to the show as a dream that she had, a declaration of ownership, a profound internalization. She identifies her experience with the show as a thing that separates her from other people (strangers -- whose the strange one?). Almost a spiritual vision. And all of this in the briefest, most economic language possible. That's a good paragraph, equally intimidating and inspiring.

But more to the point, Nussbaum echoes my own apprehension towards the show. She writes that her investment in the show is based more upon the deep characterization then the flashy "structural experimentation." She writes:

"Maybe the writers themselves developed manipulative coping skills. A show can be held captive by its own success, as the audience, roaring for action, smashes at the narrative piñata. But what if what is on the inside is just some stale candy?"

Part of the show's success is based on its ability to generate a sense of amazement in the audience, a bombastic cognitive dissonance. I repeatedly encounter people whose main enjoyment of the show is the sense of pleasurable confusion it leaves them with -- for these people, resolution of the myriad mysteries of the show would be besides the point, even anti-climatic. They might even be more satisfied with a final cliffhanger, in the manner of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, than in any sort of traditional dénouement. Currently, we are three episodes into the final season, and the writers seem to be addicted to capping each show with a WTF moment. They almost seem convinced that answering questions instead of posing them will let the air out of their audience's enthusiasm and leave the series to dribble out indifferently. I think Nussbaum has found Lindelof and Cuse's weak spot. I think they also worry about the prize not being worth the journey.

Nussbaum sees the show undermined by its success. Whereas she originally hoped "that there was something more perverse, more adult, buried beneath, that the show had something to say about guilt, about the way society (and individuals) re-form after a crisis," she now fears that "those themes are gone for good, that the island is just a chess game played by Egyptian gods." She worries that the subtle characterization that initially brought her to the show has been traded for superheroes and stereo-types.

Her dissatisfaction with the show grows from her perception of a deviation from the original journey of the narrative arc. For example, she sees Juliet reduced, "shriveled from a fascinatingly ambiguous player into a beatific sacrificial sweetheart," a disappointing and unexpected shallowing of a admirably complex character, a weakening of a formidable female antagonist, "shriveled," wilted, disgraced even. Juliet, who was once a rare and interesting character, has been whittled down to a plot device, a motivation for Sawyer's heroics.

I have to agree with Nussbaum. I am also worried that the piñata is filled with stale candy. Maybe the flashy, colorful exterior was merely a rube goldberg machine that dissolves into nothing as soon as it stops chirring and spinning in place. Maybe all Lindelof and Cuse ever had was the ability to ask these strange questions, and create a sense of wonder at all of the confusion. They seem to rely on the audience's willingness to interpret the smallest gesture and invest every detail with significance. Perhaps when forced (by the impending terminus) to supply their own answers to the many riddles, there is no way for them to provide answers as wondrous and satisfying as our own speculation. Nussbaum has already seen them pull away from the destination she had hoped for, how many more of us will end up not where we had hoped?

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