Save the date: Sunday May 23rd 2010 isn’t just the day that Lost ends, it’ll also mark an end of a larger era: The era of successful serialized mysteries on network television. And Lost deserves a lot of credit for making that happen.
When Daniel Dae Kim says, somewhat self-congratulatory, “I don’t think you can have a conversation about television in the 21st century without mentioning Lost,” it’s not just hyperbole: That show, along with Battlestar Galactica, managed to set a new bar for long-running dramas that (in theory, at least) told one mystery story from start to finish without insulting audiences but requiring them to think for themselves, pay attention and offer up their own interpretation… and, just as importantly, then proceeded to fall at the final hurdle. Yes, it still has one more (supersized) episode to go, but with fans already complaining about last week’s mythology download and a lot of questions looking as if they’re going to remain unanswered by the end of Sunday’s two-and-a-half hour “The End,” I’m ready to call Lost exhibit A in the case against longform network TV storytelling. Here’re some reasons why:
There Is Never A Plan
Lost may have been based around one giant mystery (Essentially, why are these people on the island?), but it took a lot of detours and introduced a lot of red herrings along the way towards an explanation (For example: Hey, remember Charlotte? What was her story?), and as we approach the final episode, it’s become clear that a lot of Lost was made up as it went along and didn’t necessarily have the answers to those questions when they asked them (To be fair, showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have been talking about this very recently and, while I agree that never deviating from an initial plan is very conceited, I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to hope the creators know roughly where they’re going in the first place. YMMV, as they say). Battlestar Galactica had the same problem, and even though I’m down with the idea of letting the story and characters guide the writers and let everything grow organically*, the problem with doing that on a television show over a number of years is that, when you realize you’re going down Path D instead of Paths A, B or C like you thought you were, you’ve created all these expectations and questions for your audience that you’re not really interested in addressing anymore, leading audiences to the dual conclusions that (a) You don’t know what you’re doing, or (b) You’re the writing equivalent of, in the polite words of John Lennon, a big teaser. Neither of those are good things.
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(* If nothing else, that process gave us both Ben and Desmond, two of Lost‘s more interesting, important and by this point, most inconsistent, characters. I can imagine a Lost without both, sure, but it’d be a much more boring show.)
The Time Of The Season
Here’s a potentially controversial opinion: Lost only really got good when they stopped making 24 episodes a season, and knew they were heading towards a set end-point. Here’s a connected, but less-controversial opinion: Lost‘s low point was the episode about Jack’s tattoos. When you’re telling a story that has a set ending, an answer to the core mystery you’re trying to get to, there’s only so much story before you get there, and Lost demonstrated that more than any other show. How many flashbacks did we see that added nothing to the overall story? Or, for that matter, how many characters did the series introduce who had no real purpose beyond eating up time (Ana Lucia and Mr. Eko, I’m looking at you)? Lost demonstrated that there is such a thing as taking too long to get to the point, and it’s called “a full season of network television.”
(Of course, it’s not only network television that has this problem; getting back to Battlestar Galactica, there was a surprising amount of filler in that run, and Syfy’s seasons are generally shorter than ABC’s.)
(More on Techland: See all of Techland’s LOST coverage)
The Problem With The Real World
Or, to put it another way: Whatever happened to Mr. Eko? Lost‘s producers have almost delighted in being cavalier with their actors, killing characters off when you least expect it (Julieeeeeeettttttt! Sorry, Elizabeth Mitchell, but V isn’t nearly the same), or benching poor Emile de Ravin for an entire season in order to allow her to get mentally prepared for wearing an insane wig for the final season while cuddling a squirrel baby, but Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s decision to leave the series after one season felt like some kind of karmic payback, forcing them to lose one of their strongest characters and, presumably, rework whatever plot was already laid out at the time. These things happen, though; Richard went missing for much of the show’s third season, because he was off working on CBS’ Cane, and that network didn’t want to share him, to use another example. How successfully can you write a story when you’re unsure if you’ll be able to keep the same characters in it all the way through?
(Sure, there’s always the possibility to recast, but people still talk about the two Darrens in Bewitched; can you imagine the outcry if there were two Desmonds in Lost? Besides the alternate-universe ones, of course.)
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
This is the real killer: Lost‘s ending is going to disappoint fans. It almost doesn’t matter how good it is – although the backlash has already started, pre-emptively, born of the disappointment from last week’s “Across The Sea” and the infodump contained therein – because whatever the finale is, whatever the final answers given (or not given) are, they’ll have to compete with each fan’s imaginary perfect ending that they’ve been cooking up in their heads for the last six years. You can see the flop sweat permeating recent interviews with Cuse and Lindelof, as they (defensively, perhaps) explain that they’ve ended the story in the best way they could, and that all the questions won’t be answered, and and and; Lost‘s finale looks set to be a re-run of last year’s Battlestar Galactica finale, which managed to disappoint hardcore fans to such an extent – even though, I maintain, it really wasn’t that bad an episode, Dean Stockwell’s accidentally-comedic exit aside (Yes, spoilers) – that the entire series somehow became devalued in retrospect.
This isn’t really anyone’s fault, aside from perhaps the fans’ – After all, it’s some kind of weird tribute to the show’s creators for coming up with something that’s inspired such passion and imagination, surely – but, nonetheless, it’s there, and it’s the biggest danger to Lost‘s reputation. Can anything really live up to the finale that everyone currently holds in their head?
(What television producers should be worried is going to happen is that, if Lost‘s finale doesn’t blow everyone’s minds with some unexpected stroke of genius that lives up to the hopes and dreams of at least the majority of people, if it doesn’t earn all the hype and supersizing of the finale (Two-and-a-half hours had really better not mean we have several hundred endings, a la the last Lord of The Rings, is all I’m saying), then fans will think “Well, Lost sucked. Just like Battlestar Galactica ended up sucking. That’s the last time I’m giving up years of my life for a show, because even the best ones end up disappointing.” Of course, then they’ll watch Fringe when it returns and get sucked in again, most likely, so maybe there’s nothing to worry about after all – at least until Fringe reaches its endgame.)
This, ultimately, is the problem with shows like Lost (or Battlestar Galactica, or, hell, even The Fugitive or anything that last a long time, has a faithful following and hinges on answering a question or questions for its entire run): That, even if a show finds enough of an audience to survive, has smart and well-crafted writing that engages and challenges that audience, and through whatever twist of fate manages to make it all the way to an intended end somewhere close to its own terms, it will still become a victim of its own success, and unable to live up the hype that has grown up around it. The biggest danger to making a show like Lost might end up being not coming up with the right story or finding the right actors and directors and timeslot or whatever, but simply that, when it comes down to the ending, it ends up feeling like too much trouble to deal with all the expectations that you end up with by accident or intent, especially when it’s so much easier and potentially more lucrative to make a sitcom starring Charlie Sheen. Maybe we should all expect less from our television, in order to make it easier to get more.
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