Lost Faith

I’m feeling a lot like Locke these days. Not the 17th century philosopher but the bald, boar-hunting Locke of Lost. Having discovered the hatch is just a pointless psychological experiment, the mystical Locke appears to have given up on the mysteries of the island.

I haven’t abandoned my faith yet, but it is wavering. The finale airs tonight and I hope to get some sign from above (I’m looking at you J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof) to justify my devotion, or at least to convince me that I’m not following a deranged cult that is making it up as they go along. I have defended Lost against those accusations before, but I find myself wondering if it isn’t true.

The runaway success of the show came as a surprise to the creators and now, due to the business models of network TV, the pressure is on to continue the show as long as possible and that means drawing out the storyline. To quote a recent Entertainment Weekly cover story: “(Executive producers) Lindelof and Cuse say that they would love to write the drama knowing that it has an end point, ideally about five seasons. But Cuse believes the show can survive on character-driven redemption tales for years…” They say they know they need to deliver the goods and here’s hoping. I can’t follow blindly for much longer.

My crisis does not come solely from the show, but also from my foray into the “Lost Experience.” I just finished reading Bad Twin, a mystery purportedly written by an author who disappeared on Oceanic Flight 815. The book was the first entry into the real world by the fictional world of Lost – a copy of the manuscript was found on the show and Jack grabbed it from Sawyer during a recent episode and threw the last few pages into the fire. I should have been so lucky. Anyone looking for clues to the mysteries of the island could make better use of their time watching each episode frame by frame for all it revealed. The Lost references were few and far between, with only two brief mentions of the Hanso Foundation, despite what a recent ad by the fictional creators of the Dharma Initiative alleges.

The book is a cliché-filled piece of crime fiction, littered with references to redemption, faith and fate and even the author’s name – Gary Troup – is an anagram for purgatory. Which is fine, except that the purgatory theory has been thoroughly debunked: “We have said it is not purgatory, but people don’t want to believe it… These human beings have hearts, and when those hearts stop beating, they are dead,” Lindelof told EW.

With yesterday's announcement of a Lost video game (can I play Charlie on a heroin high?) I worry that the story will get burried in an avalanche of marketing tie-ins. What ABC is trying to do to keep viewers engaged is laudable, but they are going to have to maintain the quality of the show if they hope to be successful.

For a list of Lost Experience sites and other tidbits, check out my friend Jen’s recap over at Dose. Speaking of which, I have another friend named Jen who’s twin Nikki Stafford is writing a guide book called Finding Lost that will be out in September. Which twin is the bad twin is not for me to say, but I have much higher expectations for her book than Gary Troup’s. She is interviewed about tonight’s finale over at Canoe.