Wesley’s Week (Feb. 12-18, 2007)

by Wesley

Is Lost living up to its name in terms of direction?

I say this warily, because I hate to indicate that I am losing confidence in what I feel has been TV’s best written, most complex action adventure series on the air currently. And I know that I have only seen the first episode of its “second season” this year to make a judgment call. Even so, based on what I have viewed so far and what I have learned is planned for the rest of the year, I am gravely concerned that the series is bogging down into the same chaotic plotting and characterization that made Twin Peaks go from being “must-see” TV for a few months in the early 1990s to “What the heck are they doing with that show?”

What bugs me about Lost are several areas, namely these:

1) The Characters: Simply put, there are too many of them. By my count, the show has at least 15 regulars (or actors who appear regularly enough). That, my friends, is about the same number you would find on As the World Turns or any other daytime soap opera, only they come out five times a day, while Lost has just 24 episodes a season. Now, I am sure the actors on it appreciate the regular paycheck, and probably enjoy spending their time off on location in Hawaii, but there is no way many of them can receive much airtime unless the episode focuses on them. And most of the longtime regulars have been barely getting any time on screen at all recently thanks to the focus on the Others, which brings me to my next point ….

2) The Plot: OK, I was willing to go along with the show when they found out it had other people on them, and when they learned it was a test site too. But now having them on a different nearby island that no one had known about before even though it could be seen from the other one, and those people having all the modern conveniences set up for them … I swear, it starts to give Gilligan’s Island more credibility in my book. Why they wanted Sawyer and Kate on their island only to cage them and try to kill them as they fled likewise escaped anything resembling logic in my book.

3) The Questions It Raises: Some Web site (I forget which one) said there are more than 200 valid queries raised by events in the show’s storylines over just three years. The show’s unwillingness to answer more than a few of them in any episode – plus raise several more at the same time – is now just frustrating and indicative of a lack of respect for its audience. Remember, Alfred Hitchcock always made sure to let the audience know at some point information that his movie characters did not in order to make them feel they were ahead of the game and thus generate true suspense for the unwitting protagonists. Lost seems to have forgotten that excellent strategy.

I am afraid my discontent has already manifested itself among many other viewers who have simply given up and stopped watching the show. Formerly a top 10 hit, the show now is scraping to make the top 20 as it finishes behind in the ratings opposite its competition on CBS, CSI: New York and could end up losing ground even more if viewers keep being disaffected by what is going on, which is what I worry will happen. That would mean more shakeups behind the scenes, defections by cast and crew, and inevitably a decline in quality and cancellation.

I have seen this process happen before too many times for other shows that I felt were among TV’s best, and I would hate to see it recur here. Lost is such an incredibly inventive, original series that it puts 90 percent of the other dramas on TV to shame. To see it sputter out would be just as tragic, but on its current path, I really wonder if that can be stopped in time. Here’s hoping so.

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