Alright so I was planning on writing about the Oscars, but then everyone wrote about the Oscars and I didn’t want to turn this into an Oscar blog (P.S. I’m going to start an Oscar blog), so this is kind of last minute and thrown together.
The other day, I attempted to watch the season six premiere of Lost, having not watched seasons four or five. I gave up on the show a while ago, once everyone on the island got a gun, there were Others, and then Other others, and then Other others who were different from the first set of Other others. I think I really just wanted to watch a remake of Gilligan’s Island, except with more attractive people, a smoke ghost and an Iraqi guy who can “tri-angulate” everything.
Anyway, in my opinion, the show has jumped the shark. Lost now features time travel, an island that can vanish and re-locate itself, hydrogen bombs, a body of water that brings you back to life, two characters who can talk to ghosts, alternate dimensions, and two mystic leaders named Lennon and The Man in Black. I retract what I said before. The show hasn’t just jumped a shark, it has hired Patrick Ewing to slam dunk over a tank of sharks while wearing water skis. It was honestly more confusing than watching Cirque de Soleil. And I really don’t get Cirque de Soleil.
Again, to be fair, it’s hard to skip two full seasons of a show and then jump right back on the horse (to use a second animal/jumping idiom), but I don’t think it ever would have been as much of a problem with Gilligan’s Island. In any case, watching the show led to this exchange between my friend Kate and I. There are no spoilers below. Unless you are about to read Little Women for the first time.
Andrew: Watching Lost pre-show. When did this show become the most ridiculous, absurd, mind-fuck of a show ever?
Kate: Well it time travels so there’s a nerdy answer to the “when” question that I can’t think of. Yay for watching it!
Andrew: It’s also that I’m delirious and have been sitting on the couch all day.
Kate: Delirium will help. Like Peyote during religious ceremonies.
Andrew: I’m on a vision quest right now.
Kate: Bring me back the spleen of a coyote.
Andrew: Too late. Already ate it.
Kate: Then just take notes when you watch the show so you can discuss it at obsessive length tomorrow.
Andrew: I think it will be less of a discussion and more you telling me what the hell I am watching.
Kate: Maybe but it’s been a while. I haven’t watched so don’t text me any details yet!
Andrew: They realize they’re not on an island but just stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.
Kate: Beth dies at the end of Little Women.
Andrew: Good. I hope they all do.
Kate: Somewhere, a precocious, bookish 11 year old girl just turned slutty. Good work, jerk.
RIP. Never Forget.
I watch Lost on and off. (It’s much more confusing if you haven’t seen the first three seasons and skip every other episode.) One night, doubtless with some kind of artificial enhancement, I started to work out a theory of the show as a critique of the Enlightenment and colonialism. But the writers haven’t proven to me that they’re that smart, so I’ve put my theory on the shelf. Now I’m just like, “Oooh, evil smoke!”
Yeah, I remember noticing when the show first came out that they had characters with names like Locke, Rousseau and Carlyle. But basically, the creators could have just taken a Philosophy 101 class and decided to throw those names into the mix.
“They realize they’re not on an island but just stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.” This would actually make it all worthwhile! I might even go back and watch the all the seasons I skipped after it first got ridiculous, when Sawyer and Kate were in Gitmo-esque cages.
I did, however, quite enjoy this 8-minute retrospective of all five Lost seasons. It’s a classic of compact narrative.
Ooh, that was already more informative than the pre-show was.
Previously on The Great Whatsit.
I think some comments on this post have gone missing, or wound up in the spam file. Or were they sucked into an alternate reality? Did the same thing happen to today’s Monday photo? Am I really dead and everyone else has gone on in another space/timezone?