It's easy to get lost in 'Lost'

I’m not really what you’d call an inveterate television viewer. There are literally dozens of programs currently on that I have never watched, nor do I have any intention of watching them. No particular reason for that; I just haven’t gone there.

For example, I have never watched any of the so-called and completely misnamed ‘reality’ shows. I don’t like seeing nasty people at their most base. I can see enough of that watching the news – which I also rarely watch. Any of the ‘idol’ programs are well beyond my radar. Why do I want to watch predominantly talentless people being judged by equally talentless jerks?

I’m not judging those who enjoy the foregoing. Television is at best a diversion, so chacun a son diversion.

But, there is one TV series that consistently sucker-punches me. That one is Lost. Each year I vow I am not going to be dragged back onto the ‘island’ and each year I invariably am.

Right from the beginning I believed Lost was doomed to a premature demise. It would, like a couple of much-hyped predecessors that also started with promise, lose its mojo along the way and just become stupid. So far, that doesn’t seem to have happened.

The most egregious example of what I am saying is Twin Peaks. Great first season. Amazing cast. Absolutely gripping theme music. Wonderful first season. But, that was it. Then it was all downhill into inanity and contrivance. Northern Exposure was another serialized epic that began with promise and, despite a great cast and terrific first season writing, lost its way. And lost me. For those reasons I scrupulously avoided X-Files and 24.

Yet, right from the beginning, Lost pulled me in and it seems to have kept going. Confusing as hell it is, and even more convoluted but, for some reason, I still care about the people who were on that Oceanic flight into something or other.

It always helped for me that it is filmed on Oahu and the Hawaiian scenery eases something in my soul. It also boasts some striking women, like lovely Evangeline Lily and (for me especially) Yunjin Kim, the amazingly striking Korean cupcake who plays Sun.

Actually, a high point in my jaded life was in 2005 when we stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and the entire cast from Lost came around to call one afternoon. And there they were, Sun and Kate, talking and laughing with each other. I fell instantly in love with both of them, and especially Kim who is just amazingly stunning in real life.

For Wendy it was sufficient that ‘Sawyer’ and ‘Sayid’ were there. Oh, and our man, Hurley, who is as girthful in real life as he is in the series.
Anyway, I think from that point we almost felt an obligation to continue with Lost because we had, you know, a ‘connection’. They were real people to us.

So, last evening we watched Lost’s offering. I asked Wendy if she found it confusing. She conceded that she did. I asked her if she wanted to stop watching it. She replied in the negative, but did sometimes think it was kind of like mastering a course of study in which you have to draw in earlier knowledge you have acquired.

“Sometimes it’s too much work,” she suggested.

Not many network TV productions could earn that criticism.