Lessons Learned from "Lost" (SPOILERS THIS TIME)

Spoilers follow.

No matter how many people you murder for hire or revenge, no matter how many people you torture (even if it’s for asthma medicine), no matter what dark forces you serve who are trying to destroy the world, you still get to go to heaven.

If you are a doctor who violates the Hippocratic oath, deliberately killing a patient, cut open a dural sack to blackmail people into saving your friends, even if you become a drug addict after ratting out your father for the same offense, and order the torture of an innocent man, you still get to go to heaven.

If you steal a woman’s child, raising her as your own and then allow her to die to save yourself—even if you bring a woman to an island so that you can claim ownership of her—if you constantly lie, cheat, even murder an entire village of people (not to mention the island’s protector) to advance your own interests, you still get to go to heaven.

You can blow up your stepfather’s house, killing him, get your husband killed while fleeing the police, rob a bank just to get a pair of plastic wings, and you still get to go to heaven.

You can con people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, strangle a bound man, shoot another for revenge, have a child out of wedlock, rob dead bodies to keep their items for barter, and shoot a polar bear, and you still get to go to heaven.

What did you have to do to go to hell on “Lost?”

"Lost"

No spoilers! Feel free to read if you've never seen "Lost."

I wasn’t watching “Lost” when it started in 2004. It was still baseball season. And while the Tigers weren’t in the race, I was just getting back into baseball after a long absence and I couldn’t get enough. My wife kept telling me about this great new show, and while it sounded interesting, I couldn’t tear myself away from the Tigers. So, I missed the first few episodes and figured that I’d just have to watch it later. When they started rerunning the show on Saturdays, I was still watching baseball but it started to occur to me that the show must be pretty good. Then, in December, when baseball was long over they started showing the first season over again on Wednesday nights. I was hooked.

I’m not going to try to convert anyone into becoming a fan of this show. Like my reaction to “Watchmen” last year, I loved it and I don’t really care who else does or doesn’t. I don’t care what the ratings were, how many people watched the finale Sunday night, or what anyone else thinks about it. For me, “Lost” was the ultimate TV experience. Like “Twin Peaks” before it, “Lost” kept you guessing. It was non-formulaic. The one thing I hate about TV series is how they repeat the same formula, over and over again. I don’t understand how anyone likes “Law & Order,” “NCIS,” all of the “CSI” shows, or even “House,” although the latter has been surprising lately. I like shows such as “Hill Street Blues” and “The Wire,” which were episodic, yet told a very long story with ongoing subplots, like televised novels.

“Lost” was the ultimate water cooler show. Scenes and events were open to interpretation. Where the show looked initially to be just another version of “Cast Away,” (the producers did use the Tom Hanks movie as inspiration), that notion was quickly dispelled in the first two hours when Sawyer killed a polar bear. But when the pilot of the crashed plane was yanked bodily from the cockpit (which was suspended high in a tree) by some unseen monster and slaughtered, it was abundantly clear that the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 were not on a typical tropical island.

People who weren’t familiar with the show have asked me over the years, “Isn’t that the show about the plane crash?” I always responded sarcastically and said something like, “Yeah, and the Star Wars trilogy is about two robots that crash in the desert.” It’s hard to describe the show, though, to someone who hasn’t experienced it. The first season was primarily about survival on the island, but it’s so much more I don’t know where to begin. The show is about survival, yes. But it’s more about faith. It’s about destiny. It’s about redemption. It’s about purpose, greed, leadership, guilt, love, hate, fear, revenge, compassion, perseverance, jealousy, protection. It’s about people.

“Lost” was a great show partially because of storytelling techniques. When we first meet the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 they have already crashed. We see how they act under the worst conditions imaginable. Through flashbacks, though, each character in turn is fleshed out, their motivations examined, their previous interactions with the world and even the other characters revealed. Through the looking glass into the past, the viewer finds that each character has his or her own flaws, and more than a few secrets.

Over time, “Lost” became a show that Magi and I watched together. We found ourselves having conversation after conversation after each show about the mythology surrounding the island and the interactions of the characters. Then, when that wasn’t enough, we started watching it together. We’d have conversations during the commercials. Sometimes the commercials came so abruptly that we were upset by the interruption, but other times we appreciated the chance to reflect together on what had just occurred. I don’t know how many times we both said, when an episode ended, that it was the best show ever. It was dozens of times, at least. We often found performances that we thought should earn Emmy awards. Josh Holloway, who played Sawyer, had a number of scenes last season that should have made him a shoo-in. Sadly, when any kind of science fiction or fantasy element is added to a show, your Emmy chances drop like a hot potato, and “Lost” has its share of those. Actors of the highest quality are often relegated to other science fiction shows of decidedly lesser quality when their shows go off the air. I hope that doesn’t happen with these people. They deserve better.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the music, here. It’s so important to the pure emotion of the story. Michael Giacchino, whom I’ve mentioned before, is one of the real stars of the show. His Academy Award-winning score for “Up” is really a spinoff of his work on “Lost.” The montage that introduced us to Carl Fredrickson is indicative of his previous work on this show. Often, the directors would just shoot a montage of the interactions of the cast of characters with Giacchino’s score over it to close an episode. There was no need for dialogue. And in the series finale Sunday night, his Oscar win was shown to be entirely justified.

If the music wasn’t beautiful enough, the setting of “Lost” certainly was. Filmed almost entirely in Hawaii, we were treated week after week to lush, gorgeous scenery that I had not fully appreciated until I saw it in high definition. I typically watched the first several seasons in standard definition, often on my 20” television in my basement office. With Netflix streaming the show in HD to our newer television, we are gaining a new appreciation for the way this show was meant to be seen. We always noticed that the credits were half on the screen and half off, when we watched those first seasons. “Lost” was working ahead of its time, with the full intention of being seen on higher-quality screens, much like “Firefly” was, three years previously. Sometimes we need to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new, more enjoyable experience. I can hardly wait until the series is released on Blu-Ray in August. I have never purchased “Lost” on DVD, so I won’t feel cheated for having waited.

Another amazing quality of the show was the fan following. Like Star Trek before it, “Lost” has a cult following. Scads of websites exist in support of the show, cross-referencing character appearances, settings, objects, and events. There are blogs aplenty about it. People comment on Doc Jensen’s blog by the thousands. I have to wonder now what Star Trek would have been like in the 60s if the Internet had existed! I bet it would have looked a lot like this.

I do marvel, though, at the way some of the reviews of the finale have been written. I don’t know how many times I have read something to the effect of, “I haven’t watched ‘Lost’ since the first season but the finale stunk.” People who have hated the show since the beginning have decided to pop by different websites to express their sympathy or disgust for those of us who have watched it for six years. I’m not sure of their motivation for doing so, and I never quite understand the loathing that geeks like us seem to attract, but there’s one thing of which I am sure. These snobs could really learn some lessons in humanity from actually watching the show. The messages sent and the lessons taught therein could benefit them far more than they have benefitted those of us who have seen it through. They shouldn’t feel sorry for us. It is we who should feel sorry for them. On those people, the irony is lost.

Attention, Joss Whedon!

I have someone who would like to audtion for the Dr. Horrible sequel:

The "LOST" Premiere is Finally Here!

Was it really that far back that I posted this? "Lost" gives me a reason to make it through the day!

The Late Night Controversy

I could not possibly care less about who goes on at what time. Virtually every show I watch has been recorded and I watch it when I want to. That's why people invented DVRs, Hulu, and Netflix.

Also, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" is consistently funnier and smarter than Leno, O'Brien, Letterman, and Fallon combined.

Sketchy Saturdays

Some of the blogs I read are by comic book artists who try to include a daily sketch. Mike Wieringo used to post his daily warmup sketches as blog posts, and I followed them every day.

I know I simply don't have the time to do one every day, but I think I'm going to try to do one per week. I haven't drawn in I don't know how long, and this will at least force me to keep track of my pencil box better. It took 10 minutes to even find it. That's how long it's been since I drew something.

So, here's Dr. Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory," one of my favorite TV shows. It's about geeks and I get every joke, so I feel like the show was written just for me.

Logan's Run

Great article about one of my favorite novels, Logan's Run, over here. Lots of information about the movie, TV show and comic book, too.

"Lost" in Space

My buddies are big "Stargate" fans. I hated the movie so I never watched the TV show. They have followed all of them, so there must be something to them. Having recently switched to Comcast for my television service, I started checking out the On Demand feature when I needed something to watch during my daily exercise yesterday. Since the newest Stargate TV show had been a topic of conversation at dinner the other night (I thought it would be an appropriate time to use the restroom since I hadn't seen it) I gave the pilot episode of "Stargate: Universe" a shot.

I liked the show well enough. It's just that I'd seen it before. The premise is simple: There are stargates that go to various places and planets and people on Earth have figured out how they work...mostly. The stargate in this show is on a planet that has unique properties seemingly designed to operate the mysterious "ninth chevron." I'm guessing that the other eight have been solved in previous incarnations of the show. Young Eli Wallace, a normal civilian video gamer, solves a puzzle in a game. Of course, it turns out to be the key to an alien code that the smartest guys on Earth couldn't figure out, so they embedded it in a video game to find someone smarter than they are. Eli is recruited to join the Stargate folks on the alien planet in exchange for health care for his mother. If that doesn't say something about our health care system, I don't know what does. This is just a little bit like "The Last Starfighter." Eli is played by a previously undiscovered clone of Jonah Hill, because he is most definitely a Jonah Hill character. He is the awkward smart guy with no confidence, formerly known as the comic relief.

Eli finds himself on the alien planet, consulting with Dr. Smith--I mean, Dr. Rush. Dr. Rush is the scientific genius who twists the stargate experiment to his own ends and no one knows whose side he is on. I fully expect he will call someone a "bubble-headed boobie" before all is said and done. Dr. Rush is also a retread of Baltar, from the newer version of Battlestar Galactica, with his hairstyle, sideburns, and British accent.

The stargate experiment is interrupted by an alien attack. It's probably not relevant who is attacking, but it is critical to the plot that the planet is attacked, and so it is. Dr. Rush is ordered to set the Stargate to return the people on the base to Earth, but he decides to push forward and sets the Stargate to go to wherever the ninth chevron is supposed to take them. So, the ragtag assembly of military personnel, scientists, politicians, and bureaucrats escape into the Stargate and end up on an ancient space ship. The ship is travelling at faster-than-light speeds, and in short order our heroes find that they are several galaxies away from Earth on a course away from it. And their doctor is dead. It's too bad they couldn't have borrowed an Emergency Medical Hologram as long as they were borrowing "Star Trek: Voyager"'s (formerly "Lost in Space's) plot anyway.

The story is told in clips alternating between the present and flashbacks to the past, not unlike "Lost." The only difference is that the flashbacks on this show serve no other purpose than to tell us where the characters came from. They do not, upon first viewing, reveal anything about the characters that would advance the plot.

I'm going to watch this show because a few of the characters intrigued me, even though we've met before. I'll be interested to see if they move further away from their archetypical doppelgangers or closer to them as the plot advances and the characters grow.

I am not naive enough to think that borrowing doesn't occur between television shows. I guess, though, that I am too familiar with the source material and too cynical because I recognize the source of so many plot structures and character types. I hope more episodes will change my mind about it because the real "Lost" doesn't start until January.

No Wonder...

It's no wonder we didn't get a really good view of the new Enterprise in the Abrams movie. It's ugly.

"The Haunted Lighthouse"

Spoilers follow.

In the second episode of the "Adventures of Superman," "The Haunted Lighthouse," Jimmy Olsen vacations on Moose Island, an island off the coast of Maine, where he visits his Aunt Louisa. Jimmy explores the island and hears a woman's ghostly voice crying out that she is drowning. Jimmy encounters a stranger named Mac who tells him to go get his cousin Chris because they have something to load. When Jimmy gives Chris the message, Chris is enraged at Jimmy, accusing him of spying. His aunt calms things down and encourages him to forget about the encounter.

Later that night, Jimmy sees the lamp in the lighthouse lit, despite the fact that it's supposedly been shut down for 20 years. Being the good reporter, he investigates. Unbeknownst to Jimmy, Chris is following him. As Jimmy tries to open the door of the lighthouse, Chris throws a knife into the door, over Jimmy's shoulder. Chris threatens Jimmy, who goes back to his room. In his room, he finds a note from his aunt, asking for his help. Jimmy's cousin finds him knocking at the door to his aunt's empty room and leads him outside. Aunt Louisa surprises them and sends them back to their rooms.

Jimmy calls Clark Kent, back at the Daily Planet, and tells him to come right away. The call is disconnected, and Clark takes to the skies through the window of the storage closet. Arriving at the door of Aunt Louisa's house in his guise as Clark Kent, he runs into Jimmy, who tells him the whole story. Jimmy leads Clark to a cave, where they find the tide coming in. Kent clearly suspects something as fog starts rolling in. As Jimmy goes back to the house, Clark changes to Superman and flies out to a Coast Guard boat where he enlists the commander to help.

Meanwhile, cousin Alice brings Jimmy a note from Aunt Louisa which makes Jimmy go to her aid. He makes his way into the cave, followed by Chris and Mac, who he spots too late. They knock Jimmy out and turn a hidden lever, trapping Jimmy behind bars in the cave. He comes to, but can't escape as the tide is rolling in. He then hears the voice again.

Back at the house, the horn of the Coast Guard cutter is heard. Mac and Chris leave with a gun, hoping to hold them off. Back on the cutter, Superman spots Chris and hears Jimmy. He rushes to his aid, bending the steel bars aside. As they exit the cave, Mac tries to kill them by pushing a large rock down, then tries to stab Superman with a knife. Mac finally tried to crush Superman's head with a large rock, but Superman sidesteps, and Mac misses, him, falling to his death off the cliff.

Superman explains to Jimmy what's really going on as Jimmy compares a note written by Aunt Louisa to an old recipe she had sent him and finds out that the Aunt Louisa he had met was an imposter! The real Aunt Louisa is freed from the lighthouse, and captures the imposter, now revealed as Mrs. Carmody, her former housekeeper. Chris is brought in by the Coast Guard, and the smuggling operation is revealed to the Coast Guard by Clark Kent, as he joins them in the house. Then the secret of the drowning crier is revealed has Aunt Louisa's parrot, who's been shut outside all the time. A good laugh is had by all. Well, all except Mac.

A couple of interesting things about this episode: Superman allows a man to simply fall to his death by sidestepping an attack that would not have harmed him. I'm not quite sure how this fits Superman's current code against killing, but I thought it was based on the idea that life is sacred. This must have been more of the 1930s Superman, who routinely did such things.

This episode is also narrated by Superman/Clark Kent. I don't remember that being a common device in this series, but we'll have to see as we go through more episodes.

"Superman on Earth"

"Come with us now on a far journey, a journey that takes us millions of miles from the Earth, where many years ago the planet Krypton burned like a green star in the endless heavens. Here, civilization was far advanced, and had brought forth a race of supermen, men and women like ourselves but advanced to the absolute peak of human perfection."--From the opening of "Superman on Earth."

"Superman on Earth" was the first episode in "The Adventures of Superman." In this introductory episode, we meet Jor-El, a scientist who warns the council of the planet Krypton of its impending doom. Packing his son Kal-El into an experimental model rocket to escape the planet's destruction, Jor-El and his wife Lara face Krypton's doom together.

Eben (pronounced "ee-behn")and Sarah Kent, out on a drive, witness the crash of the infant's rocket and rescue him from the burning wreckage. As Clark grows older, he finds himself different from other kids and questions his strength, speed, and other special abilities that no one else his age seems to have. Sarah tells the 12-year old Clark of how they found him, and he seems to understand. A visual montage later and grey-haired Ma and Pa Kent are getting ready to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their adoption of Clark, when Pa has a heart attack and dies. Ma sees Clark off at the Smallville bus depot. She explains that the costume she made for him are made from the blankets he was wrapped in the day they found him and Clark is off to Metropolis.

Clark Kent takes a job at the Daily Planet so that he can be alerted to emergencies that need his attention. He tries to meet curmudgeonly Perry White, the editor of the great metropolitan newspaper, but White is too busy to talk to him. Unphased, Kent makes his way out through a broom closet, along a ledge and through White's window. As he enters the office, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen get a lead on a story of a man hanging from a dirigible 1,000 feet in the air. Clark suggests that if he gets the exclusive story, White should give him a job. White agrees, thinking him crazy, and Kent makes his first storeroom costume change and takeoff. After Superman saves the man and Kent gets his exclusive (and job), Lois asks him how he got there so fast and got the exclusive story. Clark smiles and says, "Maybe I'm a superman."

When I was in junior high and lived with my dad, I used to come home every day from school and run next door to my grandma's house. There, at 4:00 I would open a can of pork & beans or Franco-American spaghetti, eat it cold, and watch this show. My dad would come over when he got home from work and I would tell him about the episode I'd watched and he would tell me about watching the show when he was young. It started on television when he was nine years old, and my grandparents had one of the first televisions in the area. The show became something we had in common, as this was just before the first Christopher Reeve movie came out. I even bought the book Superman Serial to Cereal by Gary Grossman because I was so interested in the show. There's a list of episodes in the back and I used to mark them off once I'd seen them. I saw this episode only once and it was much later than I'd seen the rest. It was very exciting to see the origin of Superman on TV. Of course, we've all seen various versions a dozen times since in various video incarnations, but this was the first. I bought my dad the entire series on DVD over the past few years, and now I have it to enjoy all over again after 30 years. Good stuff, good memories.

2010

I never thought of a year with such a sinking feeling until ABC teased the last season of "Lost" by using "2010." I really have to wait that long??

Monkey Fighters

"I have had it with these monkey fighting snakes on this monkey fighting plane."--Samuel L. Jackson, in the TV edit of "Snakes on a Plane."

I am a big fan of swearing euphemisms, but this one must be the champion. Isn't it amazing, though, that you can see someone die violently on television but you can't hear the word that is replaced by "fight?"

Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming

This would have been cool. I would have enjoyed it much more than the piece of felgercarb that's on now. Don't get me wrong, I loved the reimagined BSG until they jumped the shark when half the main characters were revealed as Cylons.

Stuff to Do

I have a few things to do this weekend. First, I need to start a new blog. There is a growing list of math teacher blogs and I want to contribute my two cents and change. This isn't the place to really do that, since most of my friends probably do not care about math teaching, at least as much as I do, and I don't want to bore you. I am also going to use it for the development of my book project. I am ready to start putting out images and ideas to get them out in public before someone else does them first.

Second, I need to work on my web presence. I have a deviantart.com account that has a few of my pictures up but I want to have more. I have dozens if not hundreds of pictures to add. I want to get some of my photographs up there, too. I need to get my eBay store restocked, too. I have some 50,000 comics that need to be sold and they're not selling themselves.

Just as I have written in my blog every day (some days I am more prolific than others, but I'm working 11 hour days and working out for an hour every morning, so time is limited) I think I want to try to discipline myself to draw something every day, too. Cory Walker, co-creator of Invincible, does this every day on his blog and I really enjoy seeing what he comes up with. Mike Wieringo used to do this every other day and I lived for what he did. Now that I have a scanner again, I can get my stuff online in a matter of five minutes.

I also want to read...just to sit down and read for a couple of hours. I just picked up three trade paperbacks of X-Men First Class, the newly-created adventures of the original five X-Men when they first formed the team. I got an oversized tabloid edition of the first four issues at Target last year and really liked them.

I need to watch tonight's episode of "Dollhouse" tomorrow morning while I ride my bike (I should be in the 290s by next week, down from a high of 340 last summer, by the way). I hope the second episode is better than the pilot. I like Joss Whedon, but the pilot left me a little flat. This whole exercising while watching TV thing has just been wonderful.

I need to get some dishes done, make pancakes for Sera's breakfast tomorrow, and cook on the grill. We got ground beef on sale at our butcher shop today, and I want to make the most of it.

You know, when all is said and done I really have a great life! Let's see what I can get done.

Speaking of Draconian...

This is the funniest thing I've read all week. Dave Campbell used to write "The Velvet Marauder," as well as "Dave's Long Box." Great stuff.

I was Right

Nathan is a schmuck.

Jonny Quest

I've been going through some old animation and comics seeking inspiration for my book, and I can't find a better example of classic television animation than Jonny Quest. Jonny Quest was originally a prime time show that only lasted one season, beginning in September 1964, three months before I was even born. However, it found new life in syndication being shown on Saturday mornings in 1967, which is when I first saw it.

Jonny Quest is the 11-year old son of Dr. Benton Quest, a scientist who often works for the US government. Both Quests are accompanied by Roger T. "Race" Bannon, who serves as tutor, bodyguard, and pilot for the Jonny, as well as his Indian friend, Hadji, who joins the family in the second episode. As Dr. Quest travels the world working on various scientific projects, Jonny and Hadji learn at Race's side. He teaches them Judo, SCUBA diving, as well as academic subjects. They were often faced with international intrigue, as villains would try to steal Dr. Quest's technology or research.

From the opening electric guitar notes of the theme song, with its jazz beat and horn section, quick cuts, lasers and explosions, I was hooked. This show, obviously inspired by the James Bond movies, shows the hopeful optimism of the pre-Vietnam 1960s, when American know-how and might were thought to be unchallenged. The Quests had lasers, submersible vehicles, jet packs, hovercraft, portable telecommunication, you name it. It was like every Q gadget wrapped up in one cartoon. It's this early 1960s sensibility that you can easily see inspired Brad Bird's "The Incredibles." He even appears on the DVD set's special features, singing the show's praises.

I'm watching the first episode right now, "Mystery of the Lizard Men," and the McGuffin that the bad guys are after is a (finger quote) LASER (/finger quote). It's funny that something so futuristic in 1964 that they were afraid the technology would fall into enemy hands is sitting in my drawer upstairs where I use it as a toy for my dog to chase in the back yard.
Jonny Quest is also unique to cartoons in its violence and intensity. They shoot real guns that fire real bullets that kill real people in this show. Race throws a grenade into the lap of a thug in a Jeep and it blows up all four passengers.

An unfortunate side effect of the 1960s sensibilites are the racial stereotypes shown. Asians were very often the bad guys and they were colored a most unnatural yellow. Mexicans were shown to be swarthy and untrustworthy. Germans were more often than not former Nazis. Unless you were an American on this show, or a friend of the Americans, you were eeeevil.

Still, the show in its historical context is the best example I can think of, of an action show. It was the target of parents' groups in the late 60s and early 70s, and yet I somehow managed to grow up a non-violent person. I wish there were more shows like this now.

44,321

Yesterday I wrote about "The Prisoner," starring Patrick McGoohan. Yeah, turns out he died yesterday. I'll be accepting donations via PayPal to not write about you next!

Ala Harper's Index:

Number of web and print articles remembering Patrick McGoohan that are either entitled, or contain the phrase, "Be seeing you:" 44,321.

A funnier quote that might be more appropos here would be from his role as King Edward Longshanks in 1995's "Braveheart:"

"Arrows cost money. Use up the Irish. The dead cost nothing."

"The Prisoner" was "Lost"

I've just been watching the first episode of Patrick McGoohan in "The Prisoner" at AMC's site, and I was immediately struck by the similarities between that classic cult show and another newer one, "Lost."

I guess it's been 20 years since I last saw "The Prisoner," but as soon as I saw the bouncing ball sentry, the thing roared with the same sound as the smoke monster from "Lost." But the thing that really got me was the pantry in #6's apartment. All of the food had Village Foods labels, just as in the hatch, the Dharma Initiative has their own food labels. Then when I started looking at it thematically, people trapped on an island where the storyline provides more questions than answers is basically what "The Prisoner" is about, too.

I guess it just goes to show you that there really are no original ideas left.

Be seeing you!