I’ve said this before, but LOST is my favorite show of all time. Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, The Wire, True Detective and Fargo all provide something different that I love, in their own genre, in their own regard. None is perfect. You have your own list, I’m sure. But nothing, for me tops the journey of LOST.
Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the LOST premiere. For a decade now, ‘The Next LOST’ has been a TV industry grail quest. The leading purveyors of small screen entertainment have been trying like mad to replicate the success of a pop property tailored to our Comic Con culture. Ingredients that include mystery, monsters, moral ambiguous heroes and misunderstood villains, fighting or surviving supernatural beings, weird science and/or secret history, debating things like faith and reason, fate and happenstance as they go. Throw in some quips, sex appeal, and a TON of literary and philosophical drops and BAM, certified hit right? Meh, not so much.
I am a voracious consumer of dark fantasies, puzzle narratives, and epic-sized pulp fiction that dares to reach for profundity when maybe it shouldn’t. But I don’t need any more of them. Not right now, at least. I hunger more for something unique and challenging, something that clever variations of a cherished classic can’t provide. I want a mold-breaking, genre-expanding, zeitgeist-capturing storytelling machine that looks and feels unlike anything else on television right now. In other words: I want a show as original as LOST was when it captured our imaginations and colonized our brains back in 2004.
I like stories with “mythology” — but I don’t want another divine/diabolical conspiracy saga spanning decades, centuries, or millenia. I like supernatural and sci-fi elements, though they’re not essential, and I don’t need them to facilitate another meditation on the tension between religion or science. I like “complex” and “flawed” and “morally ambiguous” characters as much as any other pretentious pundit, but I don’t need more cultural avatars of redemption or vengeance. Similarly, while I yearn for the next zeitgeist show — one that knowingly or not captures the spirit of the times, that calls or expresses the moment — I’m tiring of 9/11 aftermath-recovery allegories. Unless a writer has something new to say on the subject.
I’d agree that there seemed not to be a concrete plan at all times, and that some LOST was a bit unbalanced. Problem is, not many shows know going in how many seasons they’re going to last, so there’s a bit of the unknown in the writing process for everyone. They did what they could with an enormously complex plot and list of characters. Bloating the show is their own doing, so I get why people bash it, but, for me, I’d rather something aim crazy high, even if it doesn’t always reach that potential.
I’ve always felt LOST would have another incarnation at some point, and that’s why I wasn’t bothered by every question not being answered. I figure those things can be some of the building blocks of the return of the show, as well as new mysteries to chew on. But, if LOST never comes back, I’m still one hundred percent satisfied. For me, LOST was majestic. Beautiful. Poignant. Unparalleled. It was lightning in a bottle, and I’ll always treasure the amazing experience I had watching it and coming up with ridiculous theories.
-Dagobot

Get at me on twitter: @markdago
Like me on THE Facebook: facebook.com/markdagoraps
Download my latest EP for free: markdago.bandcamp.com
Listen to MY podcast http: http://poppundits.libsyn.com