Every time I read something about the backlash against LOST, or read someone’s complaint to Matt Roush or Michael Ausiello or Kristin Veitch, it annoys me all over again.
What is the problem people have with the show, pray tell? I mean, seriously. If you start talking about declining ratings, my eyes are going to glaze over, and then I’m going to scream.
Of course ratings were huge for the first season. It was a novelty. Nothing like it had been done. It was only natural for people with the attention span of a kindergartener and/or casual viewers who either didn’t have the time or the inclination to watch such an intricately detailed show that demands a week-to-week, don’t-blink-an-eye-or-you’ll-miss-it commitment to bail after a while.
Guess what? As ABC (and the producers) have said, ratings haven’t actually declined all that much with the advent of TiVo/DVRs/iTunes/etc. And as Matthew Fox said (so awesomely) in Entertainment Weekly, good riddance to the detractors who turned off the TV in a huff because their every whim and desire wasn’t fulfilled. Those aren’t the type of “fans” they wanted anyway.
(And my gosh, the show is always consistently in the top 10 shows viewed. The horror.)
Carlton Cuse described the process of LOST perfectly: it’s a mosaic. Each episode is a tile of the mosaic. Of course 66 (or however many episodes) pieces isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense. That’s where you trust the artist.
People complain that the mysteries of the island are still left unsolved. Excuse the juvenile answer, but, um, DUH. Why in the world would they reveal the answers when doing so would mess up the overall picture they’re trying to paint?
Still more detractors whined about the six-episode block this past fall. While I might not have chosen to stagger the episodes as they did, with such a long break in between mini-seasons, I also can’t fault ABC. They were only trying to please the whiners who complained week in and week out about the reruns.
I personally liked the six episodes. So we didn’t see a lot of the beach. So frakking what? We needed to see that slice of life that existed among the Others. We needed to see how they lived; we needed to get some insight into Ben and Juliet and some of what motivated them so that the rest of Season 3, when it unfolded, would make more sense.
And yet, when the show returned full-force in February, we still got whiners. Even whiners who claim to like it. I’m sorry, but “Stranger in a Strange Land” was phenomenal. Sure, I didn’t like the Jack-backs as much, if only because Bai Ling is such a — ahem, excuse my French — whore, but even that revealed some key details in the overall nature of who Jack is. But Elizabeth Mitchell was frakking amazing. She had Emmy nomination stamped all over her in that particular episode (as she had all season.) Plus, what transpired between Jack and Juliet was so pertinent to what I believe was her ultimate decision to betray Ben. I don’t think she knew she could trust Jack or his motives until he risked his life to save hers.
Every episode this season was spot-on. And yet people still aren’t happy. When the show was deemed too dire, or too Jack/Kate/Others-oriented, people whined. When the show took a nostalgic turn, with Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Charlie, and Roger Workman’s VW bus, people complained that it was pointless. When the writers finally addressed Paolo and Niki and gave them a fascinating ending (because people whined that they were stupid), people whined some more.
Seriously. Stop the whining. And stop watching LOST already. It’s obviously not for you.
I’m glad Damon and Carlton don’t pay too much attention to the whiners. I’m glad they choose to continue to craft their own masterpiece and reward those of us who are patient enough to trust that they know where they’re going.
As Carlton told Matt Roush recently, there are “48 more tiles in the mosaic to go.”
I can’t wait to see what happens next.
