Lost Without The Internet

What I'd like to discuss here is Lost and how the Internet, arguably, has become a fundamental element of the show for good and for bad. It may surprise you to know (though, really, the healthy response for you to have is one of absolute ambivalence) that I was something of a late-starter to the Internet-aspect of Lost. I didn’t even look at the Internet regarding the show when I watched Season One. I knew a few people that watched it and we just discussed it amongst ourselves. Imagine that! What old-fashioned conventions we used!

It was at some point during Season Two I discovered Lostpedia. I’m not sure how. But I distinctly remember getting into the routine of watching an episode and then logging on to Lostpedia to take a look at the details I might have missed and some of the theories people may have had. Take, for example, the Blast Door Map.

A great moment on the show, for sure, but after that initial ‘wow’ moment what you really want to do is check out that map in great detail. The Internet provided such facility. This was a major turning point in the show because there was no way you could glean any information about the Blast Door Map from watching it on television. You either needed to get a copy of an article about it at the time, or you had to log on and find out about it for yourself.

Personally I feel the Blast Door Map is an example of Lost using the Internet right. The show presented something you could either investigate further online, or simply allow to slide by. Your enjoyment and understanding isn’t diminished either way, but for those that checked out the map’s notations they would have opened the door to ‘Valenzetti’ and ‘PRD’ and more Dharma Stations that could fuel debate and theorising.

Point is, you needed to look online to get more information. Those that didn’t learned nothing more. A clear faction developed: The Lost Fans, and the Online Lost Fans. I’d argue that it’s to the Online Lost Fans that, from Season 2 onwards, Lost started to cater for and this is a trend that has been continuing ever since.

As if to emphasise this point, look what happened for the first time during the break between Season 2 and Season 3. The first Lost ARG – The Lost Experience.

I don’t mind admitting that I did start this game but, at the time, I wasn’t particularly an online enthusiast about Lost. So I started it, but I got fed up of it. Those that stuck with it would have tumbled down a plot involving The Hanso Foundation and Rachel Blake and Joop and Alvar Hanso. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry about it – as with all the ARGs since, the online games were designed to link in to the show without ever actually presenting anything pertinent to the complete understanding of it.

Subsequent ARGs took in a search to find Oceanic 815. . .

. . . to becoming a member of the Dharma Initiative. . .

. . . to pre-empting the fated Ajira 316 crash. . .

All of them, in hindsight, had neat thematic links with the Season they prefixed but none of them could ever be considered essential. And that was entirely the point. Keep the online fans happy - invested - to tide them over the long breaks. As I said, I believe Lost has geared itself towards this group of fans (since you’re reading this, and I’m part of that group, I guess I’m talking about us here!) more and more.

Of course, this is surely by design. An audience that takes the trouble to go online and discuss and theorise is an active fan-base that is going to keep tuning in week after week. That’s what it comes down to. In some ways the Online Lost Fans have become more elitist than ‘regular’ Lost fans.

Think about it. How many times has someone in your real life told you they like the show? How often have you thought to yourself, I’m pretty sure you don’t like it as much as me! These are the ‘fans’ that don’t know their Hydras from their Orchids and, more specifically, they don’t even care.

Personally, I’m impressed with anyone who sticks with Lost without reading about it online. Seasons 4 and 5, especially, probably prompted plenty of casual viewers to throw the towel in and call it a day. I live with one such casual fan. Mrs. Comet only ever reads the Analyses I write because I shove them under her nose, trying to keep her up to date with the time travelling, flashbackforwarding madness. Without me, Mrs. Comet – once a big fan of the show – probably would have quit a while back. Sawyer’s torso helps ease matters for her when the time travel stuff taxes her brain, mind.

If the Blast Door Map got the balance right, between entertaining a casual audience and feeding the Online Lost Fan, I think that balance has been tipped over quite some time ago.

To give an example, I also watch Battlestar Galactica. I don’t check out websites about it. If you ever looked at my blog for that show you’ll see it’s nothing like the laborious overhaul and investigation and analysis that I produce for Lost here. At time of writing BSG is entering its final few episodes and some of the latest ones have been absolute knockouts. Seriously. There were a couple in particular that elicited knuckle-shredding tension that had me physically stressed out and feeling an emotional drain throughout. I found myself wondering, When was the last time Lost ever made me feel like that?

Truth is I don’t think Lost has ever truly delivered anything knockout since the Season 3 finale, in an emotional walloping sense. That finale was, of course, the grand reveal of the flashforward, but it was also tense (Sayid, Jin, Bernard at gunpoint) and exciting (Hurley steams in driving the Dharma van!) and emotional (Kate and Jack’s hopeful disbelief that rescue was coming) and edgy (Ben’s warning of doom for all concerned regarding The Freighter). In hindsight that finale feels like a last hurrah before the show got clever-clever.

I started participating on Lost theory sites at some point between Season 3 and 4. By the time Season 4 started I created this blog here purely to capture all my thoughts and formulate my ideas for when the show re-started. A Lost Place was born. Thanks for dropping by. If this is the only site you visit to read about episodes then I commend your sophisticated taste, but I’m certain you go to other places, probably contribute to other sites. You are an Online Lost Fan and probably you can’t imagine how you’d like the show if you were anything else. I can’t either.

Lost has become more of a cerebral affair, with flashforwards and flashbacks and Island stories all forcing us to work out the plot and piece it together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Fascinating, inventive and unique for sure – but emotional? The only emotional moment I can think of was Desmond and Penny’s declaration of undying love at the end of The Constant. Choked me up at the time, has choked me up since.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, since the moment Lost was provided with an official end date (prior to Season 4), the show has become this way. Where episodes could previously take their time with the characters it’s now all about plot plot plot. Most of the time the question is not about what happens next, it’s more about how what we know happened came to be. That’s not particularly great for generating drama, but ideal for fulfilling the Online Lost Fan’s theory-hungry sites and blogs.

We know ‘Darlton’ (you know what that means because you’re an Online Lost Fan) are aware of the Lost community theories and discussions. There’s always been that devilish notion circulating that ‘Darlton’ read Lost Theory sites so they can cherry pick good ideas for their show. I like to believe that’s definitely not true. I can’t guarantee it isn’t.

Fundamentally my gripe here (and it’s somewhat ironic, given that I write online posts after each episode) is that the moment an episode of Lost finishes I don’t feel totally satisfied that I got everything I needed. I know that the full story will be filled in online. Most of the time I don’t mind it, but surely there’s got to a break in that trend!

There’s light at the end of the tunnel. As of Season 5, Episode 8, Lost is almost poised to get back to a point where we don’t know what happens next. The Island has stopped moving around in time. There’s Locke and Ben, with Ajira, on the Island in the ‘present’ day. All that needs to happen is Jack and Sawyer and co get back to the present with Locke’s group and then we will, finally, find ourselves back on the Island with an unknown future for our main characters.

Maybe then Lost can settle back down and give us some genuine emotional drama to compensate for the intellectual plot gymnastics of recent times. As much as Lost catering to the Lost Online Fan may produce crowd-pleasing episodes (Young Rousseau and the science team spring to mind) I can’t help but feel like the best episode of Lost is one the most casual of fans will get blown away by.

Not blown away by the revelation of some obscure reference from the show (Ms. Hawking is Faraday’s mother! WOW!). Not blown away by the validation of some bizarre theory (Widmore was once on the Island! WOW!). Not blown away by the later understanding discovered by reading about it online (Jack on his back in the jungle for his second arrival was a mirror inversion of his first appearance there! WOW!). An audience at home, Casual Fan or Online Fan, should be blown away purely by sitting in their seat, watching the show, and nothing more.

Lost should still have what it takes to rock our hearts rather than rattle our minds. Lost can still be Lost without the Internet. So say we all, right?