I held off on Lost for longer than I ever thought I could: past the over-hyped first season, past its disappointing follow-up, and through the third’s supposed renaissance. There were many motives for my disinterest. The reason I offered up to most who questioned my resistance was my hatred for Matthew Fox – specifically his whining that ruined Party of Five, my favorite 7th grade extracurricular activity. In reality, I just get bitter when sci-fi shows achieve critical recognition and high ratings. It’s a genre where mass appeal isn’t generally sign of quality. (And Charlie’s cancer really did throw Party of Five so far over the shark.)
From the random, legitimately horrible, episodes I caught over the last few years, I found enough ammunition to defend my arbitrary hatred and justify my status as non-viewer to myself. But now that Veronica Mars is dunzo, and Battlestar Galactica is on borrowed time, my primetime lineup is rapidly becoming mystery deficient. The fear of waking up one day to a life without serialized drama prompted me to finally start watching Lost a couple of weeks ago, and, as of this moment, I am officially obsessed. It’s yet to rival the great Gilmore-athon of 2006, but it’s already taking way too much of my time from more conventional and social pursuits.
Falling in love isn’t as easy as it could have been if I’d started watching earlier in the game; Lost’s ability to saturate TV coverage over the past few years has left me filled to the brim with spoilers. One bit that I somehow avoided was that the plot involved a mysterious group of jungle-dwelling baby-stealers, and that’s reason enough to keep watching right there. Better yet, Matthew Fox and I are finally getting back to that special place we shared in 1994.
Despite my newfound affection, I must maintain that the show’s 2005 Emmy win for “Outstanding Drama” was one of the more ludicrous injustices in the ceremony’s rich history of buffoonery. Having caught almost all of the first season now, I don’t see any material that competes with Six Feet Under and Deadwood (not to mention the shows that didn’t even see a nomination). I am able to forgive Lost though. The Emmys are a juggernaut of crap, and the winners are really just as innocent as the painfully overlooked bystanders.
Oh yey! welcome to the bandwagon!
The Emmy’s ARE a juggernaut of crap. Perfectly stated.
Lost is a much better show on DVD when you can rip through them. Enjoy!
If you can make it through the season 3 finale you will be richly rewarded. However, you will then suffer like the rest of us when the show inches along one hour at a time for seasons 4 and 5 (and 6? I don’t remember).
One of the best things about the show is how it makes you cheer for certain characters and wish untimely demises for others. And I often waver between the two (damn you Charlie!).
Lost really does have too many bad episodes – so far the beginning of seasons one and two have trailed for about 8 episodes before getting really interesting – still they end on high notes and cliff hangers, so it’s a show worth watching.
Also – BG is back in October, apparently – not 2008
[...] I often feel like the only person who is completely obsessed with her. For me, she’s the most interesting and dynamic character the show has yet to offer. My major obstacle with Lost was that I had a hard time getting into the survivors of Oceanic flight 815. You have to try to love them. This may be a failure on their part and it may just be my own laziness, but it was enough to keep me from watching until the demise of Veronica Mars left my TV roster mystery-deficient. Juliet hasn’t just fueled my interest in “the others” and the origins of the island, she’s made me care about Jack again. I’d sort of written him off as the same old Party of Five whiner, but his lust for the morally ambiguous Juliet (combined with his dismissal of the seriously not that swoonworthy Kate) has put our noble lead back in my favor. The first thing I’d like to see in this season’s potentially flash-forward-tastic season? Juliet’s role in Jack’s melodramatic descent into alcoholism. [...]