It would almost seem a ‘given’ that a blog about philosophy and television would be full of articles on ABC’s “hit” show, Lost. I mean, they NAMED A CHARACTER JOHN LOCKE!! (And in later seasons, he even starts to go by Jeramey Bentham, Locke’s real-life pseudonym) How can a show NOT be smart if they name its characters after famous philosophers! I’ll give you a hint: changing your name to Andre will not make you any taller!
I realize that I’m not likely to make many friends here by bashing Lost, so I probably should preface this by saying: This will not be a typical post. But, being the giant that Lost is, and the hype of how “smart” and “philosophical” it is, I thought it would be important to mention, and I’d like to get it out of the way as soon as possible! Also, I mean no disrespect to Abrams: I think anyone who has seen his re-imagining of Star Trek knows that J.J. can direct a bad ass movie.
Lost begins promisingly enough: 40+ people crash onto a seemingly deserted island. There’s a monster (who no one really seems to be that affected by… I would have peed). A man with a crushed spine is instantly cured. (The infamous John Locke.) All of the elements to a promising mystery were in place. What. The. Fuck. Happened?
Now, as I mentioned in my last post (you know, the one I put up like a couple of hours ago), I’m a huge fan of Joss Whedon, and I’m well aware of how his fans are stereotyped. (Here is where I would insert a joke about how, upon receiving the news of Dollhouse’s cancellation, I fulled my mini-jet to kamikaze Fox Network, but after 9/11… who’s that at the door?) No, I can assure you, this is not a “Joss-fan against the world… of television thing.)
I’m well aware that when it comes to fun and original (well, mostly fun) characters, and witty dialog (or at least we think it’s witty; Joss seems to make up most of his own language), Joss has spoiled me. So I went into Lost set to be disappointed in those areas, and Lost certainly didn’t fail to… um… disappoint in those areas… (Kinda thought that by the time I finished that sentence I’d have come up with something more witty to say, sorry about that.)
When creating the characters for Lost, I sort of imagine Abrams or Lindelof saying: “You know what would be great?!? If we took every cliche character from the last ten years and stuck them on an island together!” We have:
The Dr. With the Over Bearing Father
The Bad Boy who uses his chiseled good looks to con women out of their husband’s money
The Magical Negro (This is not a racist thing; the Magical Negro really is a standard TV/Film/Book trope.)
The Hot Chick who just had to kill her abusive step-father (why always step-dad?) defending her mom’s honer who is ratted out to the police only to be chased by an agent who has an over-zealous need to bring her to justice. (And I understand why he needs to bring her in, but does he have to do it with such vitriol? and after the nearly four full seasons I watched, we never got the answer…)
THE MAN OF COMPLETE FAITH
The rockstar-turned-junkie (bonus: he’s got an accent!)
And the list goes on and on and on. I’m sure by now you get the point. (And if not, I really need to re-think my strategy.) And this I was willing to forgive in exchange for an interesting story, but Lost didn’t only fail to deliver on that end, it… well, imagine something like 10x worse than “fail”, and that’s what Lost did.
The second season of the series introduced us to the “tail-ies”, a vastly more interesting (and more believably written) group of survivors separated from the others when the plain trisected mid-air. We were introduced to the incredibly sexy* “Ana Lucia” (played by the equally-sexy Michelle Rodriguez), our islands resident (and much hotter) Nietzsche. (And I found this connection quite delightful considering Nietzsche himself said that a woman such as Ana probably “suffers from a sexual disorder”.) But, it turned out Ana was too interesting for Lost to handle, so she was murdered in what was one of the most frustrating finalies in television history. (I am aware that she wasn’t shot in the very last episode, but close enough. And when I say frustrating, I mean BAD, as in, “I think it’s time to stop watching” BAD.
And then came season three. When the show became down right redonculus. With the Dr., the bad boy, and the hot chick all kidnapped, the show devolved into a weekly soap-opera of “who’s bed has your boots been under” (or, who’s cage have you been bonking in out-doors, and in front of the many cameras that are recording your every move). And as if that wasn’t enough, each week brought us SEVERAL new gun-filled stand-offs, where NO BODY EVER GOT SHOT! Even when it would make NO SENSE FOR A CHARACTER NOT TO SHOOT SOMEONE, NO BODY EVER GOT SHOT. BUT JUDGING BY THE INTENSITY OF THE DIALOG, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE THAT EVERY SCRIPT FOR SEASON THREE WAS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS.
Just shoot Sawyer already, for fucks sake! Season four (I couldn’t make it all the way through) tried to dial down the melodrama in exchange for a return to its “syfy” roots. Except I’m not too sure Lindloff, or any of the other writers for that matter, have ever read ANY real science books, or even any real science-fiction books. All I can say for certain is, with the direction the show is going, its sixth, and final season should re-name the show to Really Lost.
So, in (not-so)short, that is why you won’t find many articles of Lost, even if it is heralded as one of the most philosophically engaging shows of all time!!!
Agree or disagree, or if you want to point out a pint of suck that I missed, let me know below! Thank you for reading (whomever you are)
Cody Hobbs
*I use the word “sexy” to describe Rodriguez’s portrait of the character: it’s not just her looks, she made the character sassy!
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write for my first post. More to the point, I’ve been pondering about what show to choose to write my first post. And, like the Langoliers, it’s been the latter that’s devoured most of my time. Now, anyone who knows me personally, and as I’m sure you, dear reader, will soon (and painfully) discover, I’m somewhat of a fan of Mr. Joss Whedon, and I’m certain that I could maintain an entire blog – nay – an entire series of blogs on his corpus alone. (And yes, I am referring to his body of work, not his physical body…) In just a single episode of his latest creation, Joss managed to open a philosophical can of worms (tasty??), and paint us a portrait of some of the most engaging characters to hit television (huza for the mixed-metaphor!). (See: Dollhouse season 2 opener “Vows”.) 
It’s unlikely that you’ll see me opine on the pacifism of Dora, or discuss the art-imitating-life-pretending-to-be-art that is reality television; though I must admit I do occasionally check up on Lauren Conrad, and I think Dr. Drew is brilliant. (And for those of you not in the know, they are on two separate shows, though a crossover might be fun…)
