Thanks to Wood reminding me what day it was, I was able to catch the first episode of Lost in many, many weeks. In the interim, I have managed to hook myself completely on Alias (courtesy of Netflix). Since they share a creator (J.J. Abrams), it’s hard not to draw some comparisons between the two shows. And while it may sound sort of trite, I think that the Lost folks have learned and benefited from some of the problems with Alias.
I read an early review of Alias on IMDB that went on and on about how awful it was and how the show’s portrayal of the CIA was unforgivably bad and blah blah blah. I find myself reading stuff like that and slapping my forehead. Duh! The point of the show is not to realistically portray the CIA or even the natural world in which we live. I mean- the principal source for MacGuffins in the show is a 15th century Nostradamus/da Vinci/Rasputin guy? Right. Just like MY grandpappy.
More and more, I find myself sucked into shows with some sort of fantastic or supernatural bent. Conversely and probably not surprisingly, I sort of loathe reality TV. I think the reason that I prefer shows that are by definition unreal (as opposed to ER or Friends where we are sort of expected to assume that this stuff goes on every day) comes from the increased attention to character development through metaphor. This characteristic in particular runs throughout Joss Whedon’s work, which is one of the reasons I love it. I think the strength of the writing on Alias was in character development and in asking specific questions about who we are and why we do things. What drives people? What makes them change? What makes them turn on their friends and family, and what brings them back? And, most importantly, how much choice do we have in what we inherit from our parents? Can we redefine ourselves without cutting them off completely?
But it has to be said- even with the element of fantasy, how many times can Jack get in trouble saving Sydney before it gets comically tired? How many times can Vaughn get shot before he freaking dies? How many times will Sloane reform himself and then sell everyone out to pursue his own agenda? At this point (I’m in the middle of the last season now), I know that the series is about to end, and I still care about these characters, but it’s hard not to think “oh my gosh- again?!” when these same plot devices come up repeatedly. I say that particular problem, more than any of the issues (which I believe were mostly caused by ABC) with the slight deterioration of the show over seasons 3 and 4 (so far I think season 5 is a notable improvement over the two preceding seasons), the focus on Sydney and what impacts her emotionally became too limiting after a while.
Which brings us back to Lost. I have actually been a little irritated with the focus on Jack, Kate, and Sawyer because so much of what I (and I would guess others) like about the show is the arsenal of complex characters, none of which are really the singular star. I know that Jack is The Man, and I do love his character, but I also love love love Locke and Sun and Jin and Hurley (and Eko, rest in peace). I want to know more about them! And, up until this fall mini-season, we were learning about them. While I love the characters from Alias, the focus was almost always on Sydney and what made her react emotionally. Now we don’t run into that “ugh, again?” problem because the writers have given us multiple characters with an exponentially greater number of possible emotional triggers. That being said, I think the series spent too much time in those first episodes on the little Alcatraz, BUT. But I LOVED Juliet’s backstory. We now have a lot of mystery to get through with her, but I am so happy that her pre-island story has been included in the cannon. The character backstory is the central plot device for Lost, and I don’t think it will get tired for a long, long time. In fact, I’m guessing that the series will end well before we get sick of these peoples’ back stories because there are so many of them and they all have such great secrets! Of course, I am also glad to see Kate and Sawyer moving off the island with a new character, mostly because I’m ready to get back to the other characters. Especially Desmond. He is hot.
Anyway, I think that Lost asks different questions than Alias did. I’m less inclined to define what they are since the series is still plugging away, but I think it IS pretty clear that it asks if we can ever escape our past and those we have impacted by our actions.
EDIT: I would just like to reiterate how frustrating it is for me to read/hear people criticize a show like Alias for being unrealistic as if the creators of the show weren't conscious of this fact. Can we just revisit the season 4 finale for a second? We have a woman, her fiancé, her half-sister, her father, and her mother (who also killed the fiancé's father) all parachuting out of a plane to stop her half-sister's father and her aunt from starting armageddon. Cause I'm sure whoever wrote that put down his/her pen and said "hey- it could happen!"
