Lost in Primetime
Categories: DVD
In Lost time, the stranded island inhabitants have only been marooned for three months. For us, it's been four years. Think about the discrepancy: Our fictional friends flew away from a world only recently embroiled in Iraq; the economy was strong; the iPhone hadn't even been introduced. Meanwhile, here in the real world of today, we just elected a guy for president from Hawaii, where the series is filmed, who was basically unknown four years ago.
Time is all messed up in season four, which relies so heavily on flash-forwards that the show's producers have supposedly renounced the temporal device. Also essential this season was the replenishing of characters. Too many of the castaways got killed off; so more had to take their place. And the third essential characteristic of the 14-episode arc was that Jack seriously began to get on our nerves with all his flaky behavior...
He's a natural leader. He's a basket case. He's an accomplished surgeon. He's a drunk and drug addict. He sees dead people (chiefly his father). He's a rational man of science...just make up your mind, dude!Jack (Matthew Fox) has always been a character limited by his probity. The writers of Lost have overcompensated, in a way, by trying to make him more "interesting" and flawed. Whether this makes him a more effective rival than bad-boy Sawyer (Josh Holloway) for Kate (Evangeline Lilly) or Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), I will leave to the women of America to decide. Is Jack the guy you want to marry, or the guy who reminds you of your annoying first husband who always had to do everything his way?
If, and this is after the jump and a few spoilers are permitted, Jack is one of "the Oceanic 6" who made it off the island, why should the five other returnees listen to him ever again? His behavior on the mainland does not inspire confidence.
Meanwhile, new hitman Sayid (Naveen Andrews) appears to be in the vengeful employ of Ben (Michael Emerson) in yet another strand of the flash-forwards. And he, an Iraqi, actually goes back to Iraq. Topicality! He's part of the surge, perhaps? Also, his new relationship with the lying, conniving, mastermind leader of the Others looks to be the most promising new seed of season five. Ben apparently time-transported (or teleported) himself off the island by crawling to the center of the earth and turning a big giant iron wheel. It was pure H.G. Wells, and Emerson, the best actor on the show, seems aware of how limitless his part has become.
Back on the island, the so-called "freighter folk" (in the secret employ of Penny's evil magnate father) haven't proved to be a seamless cast addition. Forever fidgety Jeremy Davies, as the mad scientist, is just being Jeremy Davies again. This secret boatload of false rescuers was originally to have been developed further in season four, but then the Hollywood writers' strike intervened. Whole episodes and backstories evidently got scissored. (None of which I missed particularly, but for the opportunity to see more of Death Proof's stuntwoman-actress Zoë Bell.) As for the other newbies Charlotte and Miles, they might as well be the red-shirt guys on an old episode of Star Trek. Disposable.
Still, the freighter folk have introduced yet another tribe into the mix of Lost, which makes the factionalism of Iraq look simple. Now we have 1) the original Others who inhabited the island, 2) the plane crash survivors, 3) the freighter interlopers, 5) their boss, the tycoon Widmore (Michael Dale), 5) the Oceanic 6 who've left the island and must now strike deals with Widmore, and 6) Ben, seemingly pursuing his own reckless agenda, and now apparently a free agent forever banished from the island. How many possible combinations is that: varying deals, side-deals, alliances, betrayals, détentes, and handshakes made with the other hand crossing fingers behind one's back? So many groups, such a big cast means that the permutations are almost endless. Yet we know the show only has a few more seasons planned, lest we all succumb to Lost fatigue.
In theory, the show is only supposed to last through a sixth season, ending in 2010. By which time we could be out of Iraq, out of our economic recession, with the Huskies and Seahawks winning again? But that's probably too much to ask. And if, in the show's chronology, only a few more months have passed and it's only nominally 2005, I wonder if the temptation for ABC won't be too strong--like any good soap opera--to scramble time and character history again and cast us back to, say, 2002. That way they could recycle all the characters killed off, relate their stories pre-crash, spin off one or even more series based around their most charismatic stars. Call it Pre-Lost or Before They Were Lost.
But I'd vote for a kick forward in time. Ditch the island and rboot in 2012 with a host of new problems, mostly new actors, a few familiar faces, and call it Found.
Lost: The Complete Fourth Season - The Expanded Experience, Walt Disney Home Ent., $59.99. On DVD Tues., Dec. 9.
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