1 of 2
When ABC's Lost premiered in 2004, the show's premise—that a group of plane-crash survivors found themselves stranded on a strange and apparently uninhabited island—exhibited all the trappings and clichés of an archetypal, humdrum Hollywood drama: mortal danger, a tropical island locale, and of course the requisite beautiful women and muscular men whose good looks are somehow sustained in the absence of showers, shampoo, and a clean shave. Factor in an ongoing leadership struggle and the tribal atmosphere, and it seemed the inevitable result would be an over-dramatized cross between Lord of the Flies and Survivor.
But from the pilot to the present—with season 5 just completed—Lost has rewarded sustained attention, not least by posing questions that keep viewers thinking about the show between episodes. To begin with, there's the puzzle of the island itself. An island patrolled by a seemingly sadistic smoke monster, where a paraplegic is healed completely and instantaneously. An island where the dead don't always stay silent, or still. An island with unique magnetic properties, pockets of energy, and other scientific anomalies. (In other words, the ideal environment for science-fiction plot twists.)
Still more captivating than the mysterious island are the capricious and conflicted characters stranded on it. Despite having one of the largest casts in television, and a richly diverse one at that, Lost has devoted valuable airtime to back stories and characterization, deliberately exhibiting complexities and flaws in every character—a rarity in television. But ultimately, these flaws must be revealed, because stripped down to its core, Lost is about the potential for redemption, even if some of the castaways fail to recognize the nature of their own story. For some of the castaways—the ones who've adopted the aphorism, "Live together, die alone"—redemption appears to loiter on the other side of philosophical conflicts that have emerged as ongoing themes. Dr. Jack Shephard and John Locke represent opposing sides in the "Science vs. Faith" debate, and most of the characters have pondered the merits of "Fate vs. Free Will."
John Locke? Yes, Lost employs so many allusions—incorporating history, philosophy, mythology, literature, religion, art—that each episode serves as a veritable playground for the erudite. Lost introduces, for example, a physicist named Faraday and a time-travel aficionado named Hawking. Philosophers, however, are most prevalent. There's John Locke (who temporarily uses a pseudonym, Jeremy Bentham), Mikhail Bakunin, and Edmund Burke. On the island, one can also encounter a Rousseau, a Hume, and a Carlyle. And to make things even more amusing, there's an Oxford-born woman named Charlotte Staples Lewis.
Speaking of C.S. Lewis (Clive, not Charlotte), Lost has evoked comparisons to Narnia and Lewis' Space Trilogy, as well as works by a host of other authors. As devoted fans comb each episode for clues, book titles have become fodder for conversation—and conspiracy theories. Episode titles include "There's No Place Like Home," "The White Rabbit," "Through the Looking Glass," "A Tale of Two Cities," "The Shape of Things to Come," and "Stranger in a Strange Land" (which probably references Heinlein's novel, though Books & Culture readers might associate it with a certain bi-monthly literary column).
In season 3, when viewers first suspected the possibility of time travel, one character was shown reading A Brief History of Time. More specifically, he was reading the seventh chapter, "Black Holes Ain't So Black." In spite of the deserted island setting, the castaways could compile a significant library of literary classics. Characters are shown reading everything from Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret to VALIS, Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time, The Fountainhead, The Brothers Karamazov, and Ulysses. Most recently, the season 5 finale revealed a prominent character reading Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge. Considering the backdrop for this scene, those familiar with O'Connor's portrayals of violent revelation will find its inclusion especially poignant.
share this page
RSS Feed
