by Jonas Kyratzes

We’re getting closer to the end of Lost, and I’m starting to get excited. In fact, approximately 10 episodes from the end seems to be the place where a lot of shows that I was previously ambivalent about seem to grip me. I think it’s the promise of a wrap-up: the idea that everything we’ve seen so far, and often doubted the meaning of, will turn out to be meaningful after all, and add up to a powerful ending.

But will it?

There is a fundamental difference between a show like Babylon 5 (cited by the creators as an influence) and Lost. Babylon 5 begins with the question being “What is going on?” But after a while, it answers that question, and the question becomes “What are we going to do about it?” Lost, on the other hand, has still not answered the first question.

But without that answer, it is impossible to fully understand the implications of anything going on in Lost. Sometimes this makes Lost all the more fascinating; other times it makes it very hard for the audience to become fully immersed in the show. Combined with Lost‘s obsession with twists (sometimes at the expense of just telling the damn story), a certain amount of mistrust is created. Are they really just making it up as they go along? Can it still make sense in the end?

Not every show with an arc manages to pull it all together in the end. Loose threads are one thing – real life is full of them – but messy, patched-together endings are another. Battlestar Galactica is a depressing example of how not to do it: none of its visions, dreams and prophecies added up to a whole lot, with the famed Opera House vision (introduced in the first season) being a particular disappointment. Looking back at the story, it makes sense only if we force it to – upon rewatching the show, nothing really fits together properly. The attempt to fix the holes in the story with Battlestar Galactica: The Plan only served to highlight its massive flaws. And let’s not even get into the brain-numbing technophobia that turned a complex show into a shallow luddite pamphlet.

Another show that somehow managed to build up some excitement in me was Dollhouse. After an unbearable first season and a boring few second-season episodes, the show started picking up some momentum. Finally we were getting away from identity-of-the-week episodes and getting into some real story. Real threats were popping up and we had to wonder about how the characters would deal with them. Events had large-scale implications. And the actors (many of whom I liked a great deal) were finally getting to actually do some real acting. And then it all fell apart in the last two episodes – to a degree that makes the finale of Battlestar Galactica look like the most coherent, brilliant piece of writing in the history of mankind. Rarely has a show crashed and burned so quickly and decisively. In the name of having a twist, logic was thrown out the window and the plot of the show damaged beyond repair; and then we got a healthy dose of brain-numbing technophobia.

So what’s going to happen to Lost? Unlike the writers of BSG, who prided themselves on their planlessness (ironic for a show whose intro ended on “…and they have a plan”), the writers of Lost claim to know where they’re going. For the longest time, I didn’t believe them – the first season (still the show’s best) seemed entirely disconnected from the rest, and there were so many plot threads that just didn’t seem to fit in. What’s the point of Charles Widmore? Why spend so much time on the Ben-surgery storyline? What about Walt? And what about Claire’s thrice-damned baaaybay?

I was convinced it was impossible to make it all make sense. Too much of it seemed random, too much of it seemed to be there only for the sake of a twist. I’m still not convinced it can be done.

But I am starting to get excited. Episode 6, “Sundown”, had some wonderful moments – and finally broke with the glacial pace of the beginning of the season. Things are happening, and… believe it or not… things almost seem to be coming together. I already felt a twinge of excitement in the fifth season finale, when the story finally came back to the idea of two forces fighting each other on the Island. We still don’t fully understand what’s going on, and there’s probably still a million lies we’re being told, but maybe, just maybe, we’re starting to get a sense of the overall structure of the story.

On a line-to-line basis, Lost is one of the best-written shows around. It is full of precious character moments, hilarious one-liners and interesting philosophical discussions. Its actors are phenomenal (though sometimes underused) and its cinematography often very beautiful.

And, like Battlestar Galactica, it has ambition. This isn’t just a bunch of people putting random stuff on the screen for money – these are storytellers trying to tell a great story. I admire this greatly.

That’s why I hope that Lost can pull it together. It doesn’t need to answer every single question; in fact, some of its questions are clearly meant to be unanswerable. (Such as the numbers. Why are people still expecting a literal explanation of what they mean?) But if it doesn’t pull it together, it will fall apart; it needs to become more than simply a bunch of interesting episodes. It needs to become a story, a whole – something we can look at from a distance and perceive as a single entity.

If the writers of Lost can manage this, they will have created something truly wonderful: a story of real scale and complexity.

If not, let’s at least hope it won’t be a mess.

Interesting links:

• IMDb entry
• Wikipedia entry
• Lostpedia