Forget the Super Bowl. Who cares about the Winter Olympics? The television event of the year (at least until May) is finally here: the season premiere of the sixth and final season of “LOST.”
On Tuesday night, ABC will air the first new episode of “LOST” since May 2009. Now, eight months might not sound like a long time, but after a fifth season that saw the show’s creators pull out all of the stops, the wait hasn’t been easy.
If you’ve been under a rock since 2004, “LOST” is about what happens to the survivors of a plane that crashed on a mysterious island. Yeah, and “Gilligan’s Island” was about a three-hour tour.
“LOST” is an incredibly complex and addictive show that has simply gotten better and better over the years.
Since the beginning, the show has flirted with the notion of science fiction, but only in the last two seasons have the creators actually embraced their inner geekiness and allowed the show to become both a gripping drama and the kind of show people can talk about for hours and hours while using words like “space time
continuum” and “electromagnetic disturbance.”
If you’re not a “LOST” fan, chances are you probably know one. While the show’s fans might not be as widely recognized for their dedication as those of “Star Trek” or “Twilight,” they are no less passionate (read: obsessed).
The popular satire Web site The Onion recently ran a spoof about the show’s fans, in which they revealed the “new slogan” for the show: “The real mystery is how anyone is friends with these people.”
So what’s so special about “LOST”?
For starters, it’s one of the few major network shows that attracts both casual viewers and the aforementioned addicts. And though the show’s ratings have declined as it has gotten increasingly more complex, the fifth season still managed fairly impressive ratings. The fact that geeks and non-geeks alike can enjoy the show while both getting something different out of it is an impressive feat by the writers.
And that’s what really makes the show so great: The amount of care and detail the writers have put into it is nothing short of incredible. They have woven together intricate, interweaving storylines with a huge ensemble cast of characters who have all received pretty thorough back stories.
And then there’s the mythology.
Few works of fiction are as dense and rich in detail as “LOST,” and the way the show is designed means you can watch the entire series several times over and still pick up on something new. New episodes are always referencing past episodes, and some plot points are introduced and then don’t show up again for several seasons.
The fourth and fifth seasons provided more answers than any of the first three, mostly because the creators gave themselves a firm end date. Toward the end of the show’s third (and arguably its worst) season, ABC announced “LOST” would be finishing its run in 2010 after a sixth season.
Since that announcement the show, which started to lose gas during its sluggish third season, has been reinvigorated. The fourth and fifth seasons furthered the plot in many unexpected and brilliant ways, adding new characters and showing flashbacks (and flashforwards) that provided glimpses of things fans have been longing to see since season one.
The show is famous for its mysteries, the majority of which have been slowly building since the very beginning of the show. The fact episodes usually raise more questions than they answer means the show’s mythology is constantly expanding.
It’s not surprising, then, that Web sites like Lostpedia.com have been created as both a compendium of everything in the show and a way for “LOST” fans to share their intriguing (and often elaborate) speculation as to where the show is going next. It’s easy to get lost (pun completely intended) on the Web site, clicking through page after page for hours without even realizing it.
For most fans, the fact this is going to be the last season of the show hasn’t really kicked in yet. The anticipation and excitement for the show’s return is greater than ever before, and until the May finale is closer, most fans will try to ignore the fact that this really, truly is the end.
And if you’re one of the people who have given up on “LOST,” have never watched it or have bluntly refused to watch it — give it a chance. Watch the pilot, and if you don’t get sucked in, by all means, never watch an episode again. Yeah, good luck with that.