Why LOST Still Matters

Full disclosure: I'm a LOST nerd. No really, I'm that guy. The one who has all the crazy theories about the Island, who Jacob is, etc. I'm going to try to be objective about my appreciation for this show...actually I won't.

For those of you not similarly addicted, here's a brief summary (is that possible?) from Wikipedia:

LOST is an American serial drama television series. It follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles, United States crashes somewhere in the South Pacific. Each episode typically features a primary storyline on the island as well as a secondary storyline from another point in a character's life, though other time-related plot devices change this formula in later episodes. The pilot episode was first broadcast on September 22, 2004, and since then five full seasons have aired.

When ratings began to drift in season two and early season three and accusations flew that the writers didn't know where the show was going, ABC did something unprecedented. They allowed the writers to set an end date for a successful show.

Now LOST did shed some viewers in the process (in the five seasons, they've gone from 16 million viewers to 11 million). LOST is essentially a niche show on a broadcast channel, yet it has managed to be relatively successful both by critics and viewers. How has it done that? I have no clue. But I have some ideas about why the show still matters:

(1) The writers of LOST, unlike most other broadcast shows, have decided to reward obsessive compulsive viewers like me, while leaving causal viewers in the dust. Some studies have shown that though LOST doesn't have the best ratings during the broadcast hour, it does fabulous online. It's one of the highest recorded shows on DVR, frequently tops iTunes for downloads and tops hulu in views as well. So despite the moves other shows have taken to become more procedural on broadcast, LOST has maintained it's serial nature.

(2) LOST has complex heroes. Usually the idea of the hero who saves the day is ceded to procedurals. Serial shows win awards, procedurals don't. Serials are the "don't-miss-an-episode-or-die-shows" (24, Gossip Girl, Mad Men, etc.). Procedurals are your typical cop/hospital dramas (CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI: New York, CSI: Humpsville, Ill., etc.) On the other hand, procedurals get higher viewers. There are a lot of people willing to see Horatio rip off his glasses and deliver dead-pan lines night after night (example: Horatio walks into a bedroom and finds a woman dead. He whips off his sunglasses, "Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed"). Here's the LA Times take on that:

"Procedurals offer the basics of storytelling that people want to
hear," says "Criminal Minds' " Bernero. "It's very Arthurian and basic
to human experience. People like to think that, while they can be
scared and pull the blanket up around them, there are heroes out there
who will save the day. It's very comforting, and that's why there will
always be a huge market for cop shows: People need to know there are
heroes."

I'm not sure all viewers want that. Certainly not those in the younger generation who watch online. Serial shows play to the strengths of the online medium. "What did that smoke monster look like? Lets rewind and look again." And there's a reason LOST has been successful online. It has heroes whocontinue to be heroic despite hefty character development.

(3) LOST knows how to play the current television game. In the aftermath of ER, the idea that any show will command a majority of the viewership is pretty clearly dead.The current game is how to get people excited about your show online, but preferably watching during the actual airing. This is easier on some channels than others. Gossip Girl can afford to be serial because on the CW, the timeslot only requires them to nail down 1-2 million viewers. FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS still want to be top dogs. But LOST will be remembered for being able to stick it out with the big networks while being able to stay true to a storyline. Not every serial in the same scenario has been able to (Heroes, I'm talking about at you. How did serial-killer Sylar end up a donut munching cop for half a season?)

(4) The writing is still spot on. A lot of shows have jumped the shark long before this point. It takes a great writer to keep a serial going this long and this well.

Washington Times on "Obama, bin Laden"

The Washington Times online product today carried this headline for Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia:

"Obama, bin Laden vie for public notice"

Yeah, I saw it too. I'm not going to jump the gun and say media bias, but this is one they should have caught...

H/T Chris Moody

Classic Quote from the Blogosphere

From our friend Julie, reflecting on her CPR training experiences:

I named my dummy Sid and he was an excellent patient. I saved his life five times in one hour and I could definitely see the gratitude on his hollowed-out face.

100 Confessions: Wrestlemania

(47) My cousin and I used to wrestle with the family friend Steven Bishop. Steven was 17 and HUGE. Wrestlemania usually required frequent assurances to my parents that this was completely safe, and, no, no one ever gets hurt. We would go crazy wrestling, occasionally stopping to make rules like "no fair throwing me upside down."

Eventually my cousin and I would carry on with this alone which required even MORE assurances to parents. As I recall, we ended up breaking at least two tables, some glassware, and there was at least one hospital visit--my cousin, not me.

100 Confessions: Night Adventures

(46) My cousin and I used to go on night adventures when I stayed over at his house. For some reason, exploring their house was much more fun if done in the middle of the night with flashlights. This did become problematic (!) though. One time my aunt woke up, heard hushed voices and saw flashlight beams passing by her door. She was convinced we were burglars. As I recall, some spankings did occur--for my cousin, not for me.

Other adventures included ripping out all the sprinkler heads in the yard and replacing them with golf balls, convinced that golf-ball trees would emerge. I tried to explain to my grandfather that I'd done him a pretty big darn favor, planting all those for him, but for some reason he seemed unconvinced.

100 Confessions: Big words

(45) I love big words. Recently I've become a fan of "emblematic" and "problematic." Using those two words can make just about anything sound academic. Example: "The financial troubles at the Palm Beach Post are emblematic of the larger struggles in journalism in general. Increasing staff cuts could make current circulation problematic."

For those who don't like academic-ese, I'm also a fan of malaprops--if it's any consolidation.

Undercover with the Evangelicals

Imagine this book: a student from an Ivy League institution goes undercover and spends a semester at a Jewish university to study the Jewish students there.

Imagine another book: a student from an Ivy League institution goes undercover at an Islamist university to study the Muslim students there.

Don't sound plausible do they? In my mind it even seems, well, kind of racist. Well, that's exactly what happened but at an evangelical Christian university (Liberty).

Taking a semester off to travel and focus on writing isn't that unusual for a student at Brown University. But instead of studying comparative literature in Europe, Kevin Roose decided to go to Lynchburg, Va., and enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

I'm must admit my feelings on this subject are torn. In one sense, I feel like evangelicals are one of the few religious groups that it's socially "okay" to mock (this being an example of a chance to peek in on the "weird religious people"). But, I also have to applaud some of the results of his work. According to the article, Roose left Liberty with a much better understanding of evangelical Christians:

"My goal was to see the real, unfiltered picture of life at Liberty University," he says. Even though his method required deception, Roose says the intent was honest. It "really did allow me to get a more accurate — and actually a fairer picture — of what life at Liberty was like."

Two things I think are key to remember in response to this:

(1) Liberty University may get the most press of an evangelical university, but Liberty University does not represent Evangelicals anymore than Andrea Dworkin represents all feminists. Or, to state it in a more extreme case, anymore than Ayatollah Khomeini represents all Muslims.

(2) The student's thesis, despite how he went about answering it, was spot on.

Roose, the product of the "ultimate, secular, liberal upbringing," got the idea to go undercover after meeting a group of Liberty students while a freshman at Brown. "I had never really come into contact with conservative Christian culture," he says. "It became clear very quickly that we had almost no way to communicate with each other."

I can speak to this from times I've had friends who are evangelical Christians out with those who are not. Sometimes there really is a language boundary. And in the past it's led to a lot of misunderstanding. Let's hope this book doesn't bring more of the same.