Series six of the television mega-drama Lost has just started in the US and is due here soon. I guess many of you have watched it and if you have, then trouble your heads no further with this post. If you haven’t and you want to envelop yourself in a truly engaging bit of mindless commercial television, then get thee to a DVD store and rent or buy it. It’s a hoot.
I bought the first series before Christmas and we are now up to season four and I am completely engrossed with this over-the-top story of the fate of the occupants of a Australia-US flight that crashes on an island somewhere between the two countries.
I’m certainly not going to give away any of what unfolds as the survivors gather themselves in the aftermath of the catastrophe, though the fact that it is now into its sixth series probably allows you to guess that this isn’t just yer regular old survival story. I’m not giving anything away when I tell you that, in the words of executive producer JJ Abrams, that the island itself “is a character in the story”. How do I know that that isn’t giving anything away? Because having heard him say it on the “bonus feature” disc in series one, and having now got to series four, I still don’t know WTF he was talking about.
Well, I sort of do, but not specifically.
For all its story driveness, the success of the show revolves around the core cast of characters. They range from a fairly typical hero-type in the form of the resident doctor, Jack, to a fat but strangely attractive young dude, Hurley, to the newly married Korean couple, Jin and Sun, to feisty love interest Kate, to … well, there’s a lot of them. But surely the greatest of them all is the character called Sawyer who, as the resident redneck-come-hothead, manages to alienate everyone on the island with his overbearing self-centredness and his penchant for christening everyone he meets with his very own, specially chosen nickname. This habit of Sawyer’s becomes a running gag throughout each series and some of the names he gives people are truly inspired. Still, as great as Sawyer is, I have to admit my current favourite is the alluring yet entirely creepy Juliet.
The story is told in “real time” on the island, interspersed with continuous flashbacks to each of the characters previous lives, and their ain’t one of them without a story to tell. Or reveal. Part of the genius of the show (though sometimes it does stretch and strain credibility) is not just the way these previous lives coincide with the story evolving in their post-plane-crash world, but the way the writers actually work those stories into the overarching narrative. In other words, these guys (the writers) aren’t making it up as they go along: so much of the overall story, not to mention its details, must have been worked out well in advance of filming. Writers of Australian (or any other nationality) television drama would do well to make a study.
One the great aspects of the show for Australian viewers is that, given the doomed flight originated in Sydney, there are several Australian actors in the show as well as many “flashbacks” to scenes in Australia. And when I say “great aspects”, I mean it in the sense of mindless American howlers about the land down under. Given that the show is filmed entirely in Hawaii, there are some fantastic visual faux pas as the CGI guys try and construct a Sydney-like street scene or an outback panorama, but the real laughs come when American bit actors are given bit roles as Australian characters and are asked to speak in an Australian accent. Excruciating doesn’t even begin to cover it.
In fact, I constantly wonder in watching the show what would’ve happened if there had been many more on Australians on this particular flight. I can’t help but feel that they would all be safely home by now. The show, in other words, is awfully revealing of the gung-ho, individualistic ethos that drives so much American self-image. The men are all real men with a can-do attitude, and a gun if they can get hold of one, and they are just as likely to let their fists as their mouths do the talking. Boo-ya! Makes for great drama, but if you were actually stranded on an island with them you’d be telling them to pull their heads in.
Maybe that’s why we Australians tend to make such crappy drama ourselves: given a scenario such as this, it is hard for us, pratical sods that we are, not to want to solve the problem through sensible co-operation, rather than exacerbate it by wanky heroics.
Anyway, don’t let that last little burst of jingoistic hubris put you off. Lost is great, and if you are at a loss for something do on the odd night, you could do worse than get addicted.
The details: Lost starts again on February 10, 8:30pm on Channel 7.
In other TV viewing, Inside the Great Magazines is on tonight, ABC, 9:35pm. It’s the final in a three-part series. Last week’s episode was about passion, provocation and a great idea as the founding principles of magazine success (with Playboy, Cosmo and Rolling Stone as prime examples). Tonight it’s about new media — and the increasing role of the corporation. The first two episodes can still be seen on iView.
Err, heard of The Wire dvd set? that requires real survival rations to cope with the extended hours.
I heard this too, but I couldn’t get into The Wire. The Shield was much, much better.
The problem with Lost was the amount of padding in the first three or so series. The scenario and mysteries fascinated me, but with the glacial pace and constant flashbacks I kept wanting to scream at the screen “GET THE F*** ON WITH IT!!!!”.
Still I stuck with it, although obviously plenty of others didn’t, as each series got scheduled later and later.
Then a funny thing happened… The last two series have been fantastic; the pace has sped up, the plotting has become more adventurous, the playing around with time (flash-forwards as well as flashbacks) has become bravura stuff (on a par, seriously, with Stephen Moffet-written episodes in Dr Who) and generally it has finally fulfilled its early promise. This coincides with the series getting an end-date – I saw an interview with the writers saying that they felt they could “stop stalling” once this happened.
Now we’re up to the last series, the denoument of what’s become one of the best drama series on TV (and one of the very few US shows we watch religiously), and 7 has pushed it onto HD… Ironic; the better the program has gotten, the harder 7 has made it to watch.
Anyway, if you gave up on Lost in the early series (as I nearly did) give the series another try for its last season.
PS – “The show, in other words, is awfully revealing of the gung-ho, individualistic ethos that drives so much American self-image. The men are all real men with a can-do attitude, and a gun if they can get hold of one, and they are just as likely to let their fists as their mouths do the talking. ” Yep, my only gripe with the show is its two-fisted All-American attitude that any problem can be solved by grabbing a gun.