A Tale of Two Series

It was the best of shows, it was the worst of shows; it was the series of wisdom, it was the series of foolishness; it was the plot of belief, it was the plot of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the cave of hope, it was the drain plug of despair; we had answers before us, we had questions before us; we were all going directly to series finale Heaven, we were all going the other way.

Lost was a great television series crippled by its own success and lack of foresight. It was lazy writing and bad storytelling mixed with flashes of brilliance and inspiration. It was filled with wonder and mystery that was befouled by a really craptastical final season, which itself was capped off by a finale filled with copouts and heartstring-plucking inanity. It was all of these things, and I’m both happy and sorry that I bothered watching any of it.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I was predisposed to hate Lost. My ex-wife loved the show, and so-called ‘Lost parties’ proved to be her gateway into the land of infidelity. She would leave the house a bit before the show aired each week and spend most of the night with the sweaty-palmed hipsters she was milking for free prizes, then come back around again sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It didn’t take long for suspicion to get the better of me, and I soon had all of the hideous truth I could handle. I blocked it out and endured her unhygienic treachery for a very, very long time before I finally came to my senses and filed a marital version of the Emancipation Proclamation at the county courthouse. So, as you can see, I went into Lost already hating the snot out of it.

I’d tried to watch it in those early years, but found the opening episodes so devoid of interest that I never allowed myself to fall under its thrall. I went back and gave it another go from time to time, but it never quite seemed to stick. Heavy handed and deliberately opaque to the point of absolute frustration, I didn’t feel the desire to push myself to like a television show, not matter what who my ex-wife was doing while I wasn’t watching. Now, grab your remote and fast-forward several long and miserable years until I’m divorced and once again a happy man – but keep your finger on the button and keep zipping along through the past couple of wonderful years I’ve had with a new life, a new wife and my new family, and you’ll eventually get around to the present day. Or, actually, back it up a little bit. No, keep going. Yeah, there. Right there. Hit Play.

It was about a month ago, when suffering through the painful transition from one job to another (minus an expected payout that led to a brief but seemingly interminable period of financial despair) that I finally gave up and decided to fully commit myself to figuring out what the heck so many people thought was so great about this horrid little television program called Lost. We were broke, so our entertainment options were limited. Fortunately, Netflix was offering up the first five seasons of the show, so I added them all to my Watch Instantly queue and sat back in my comfy chair to join the survivors of Oceanic flight 815.

With the final season currently underway at the time, I decided that if there were actually some hidden merit to this show, I’d do well to catch up before the Internet was burning through spoilers like an Avada Kedavra through a Dumbledore. And, with just one week to spare, I accomplished my goal. I’d powered through all six seasons in just a few weeks and managed to watch the series finale with the rest of the world. I regretted it immediately.

For all of its good points, the show’s only real failure was singular: poor planning. Whenever you create a serialized bit of continuity-based fiction, you have to plan for everything. Everything – even your own success.

As a character study, as I had one friend point out to me, Lost was a great success. Regardless of how I felt about the tangled and untangled, then tangled again convolutions of the plot, the characters were what kept me watching. I absolutely hated Kate from the beginning, and it was fun to loathe her for six seasons. I identified most with Sawyer (for reasons obvious to anyone who knows me), and it was interesting to watch the evolution of his character go from self-serving assface, to a guy who eventually only cared about protecting his (chosen and extended) family. Locke was a fascinating exploration of the True Believer, Sayid was a great conflicted hero who didn’t know where the good guy ended and the bad guy began, and Benjamin Linus was every scheming little weasel you ever knew from high school. Of course, all of this ended with the first episode of the sixth season, when the show threw out its own rulebook and started paving the way for an easy out with its series finale, but I’m not here to criticize…much.

As I said, Lost had only one flaw, but it was an important one. The writers didn’t plan for everything. One of television’s most successful (in terms of plot, character and overall fiction) continuity-based series was Babylon 5, created by J. Michael Straczynski. When cooking up the five-year plot of the series, Straczynski considered as many angles as he possibly could, going so far as to give each and every character a trapdoor from which they could either be written out of – or back into – the series. The construction of the plot was solid enough to have a beginning, a middle and an end spread out over five seasons, yet malleable enough to allow for the major adjustments that will inevitably befall any budget-conscious production. It was also a painful series to get into, having to adjust to low budget sets and effects, but once you got over that initial learning curve and let the narrative carry you away down its fascinating character-and-theme driven river, it was a great and rewarding ride. Lost? Not so much.

Perhaps it was because I watched all of the episodes in such a short period of time, but all of the many plot holes were all too apparent in my mind as I sat down to enjoy endure the final season. But again, I’m not here talk about how bad Lost was. In many ways, it was a tremendously successful series, if only we ignore the plot and a ghastly final season written purely as a way to end the series on a finale that resolved nothing. Even the characters – normally Lost‘s strong suit – were unappealing and tiresome in the final season, simply because everything that had once made them interesting was now being set aside in service of supporting a new plot designed to lead up to the disappointing series finale. It would have been better to have not answered any questions in any way and have simply closed the series with strong characters rather than a quasi-religious message wrapped in contrived examples of so-called ‘symmetry’ – but that’s just my opinion.

I won’t spoil anything more for those of you who’ve never gotten around to watching the series, as well as for those of you still waiting to get around to finally hitting Play on your Tivo. (I’m looking at you, Unca H.) Instead, I’ll end this little ramblepiece by saying that Lost is well worth watching, so long as you never put the first disc of season six in your DVD player. Seriously, just trust me on this. Lest there be any doubt, allow me this one teensy spoiler as a word of warning: the island has a giant drain that’s plugged up by a small stone stopper. The bad guy pulls it out and the island starts sinking. No, I’m not lying.

Now, if you have watched all six seasons – or if you just don’t care anymore – here’s a great little video a friend of mine found over at College Humor. Thanks, jjz!

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NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
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This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.