"Lost" Is Wrong
Sure, at first I was a soupçon disheartened when it became clear (as we all were)... but, upon further review, isn't it a good thing we're finally getting somewhere?
I'm talking about, of course, getting to the bottom of "Lost."
And the bottom is very clear to me now.
Yes, the scribes on that South Pacific island have labored vigorously to keep us in a constant state of interruptus, fervently winding us up in their seemingly treacherous "yarn barn" of obfuscation, racing our hearts and clamping open our eyes with improbable twists, pumped-up synthesizer music, erratic and antic actors, and the perpetual threat of "revelation," which--about two seconds later--turns out to be yet more "pseudo-revelation."
Cliff hanger perched precariously upon cliff hanger... I've bitten my nails down to the elbow--help!
Where to begin, where to begin. First off, let me point you toward a huge pile of money. In other words: I guarantee you'll win the lottery with these numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. You will win, and you will share those winnings with about sixteen thousand, three hundred eighty two others.
I won't even touch on the irrationality of those numbers popping up everywhere in this series. That part could be a dream. If that were the end of it, I'd say, "Fine; have your dream; enjoy your fantasy; take a break from your studies; relax after work; etc."
But that's not the end of it. The true test of the mettle of a story/movie/series is consistency. A story establishes rules for itself; a good story stays within those rules.
So how has "Lost" failed to comply with its own rules? Let's examine the episode that aired Wednesday, October 5th, 2005.
Is Jack Shepard a real doctor? Of course not, he's an actor. But the writers at "Lost" portray him as a real medical doctor. That's a self-imposed rule: he's gotta be a doctor. Unless it's a comedy. Which it's not.
Unirregardlessly, last Wednesday Jack viewed an "orientation film," a film that discussed, among others, B.F. Skinner. Skinner was a psychologist who's famous for his rat and pigeon behavioral boxes. Some of Skinner's rats learned that if they pressed a bar, a pellet of food would appear.
Being hungry, they pressed the bar.
Then Skinner changed the ratio: two taps would cause the release of one pellet. This led to his rats pressing each their own bar twice, eating, then pressing their bar two more times, eating again, etc. Then Skinner upped the ante again--four taps per pellet, eight taps per pellet, et cetera. After awhile, Our Man Skinner observed his rats pressing their bars all day long, tapping hundreds of times before each morsel of food would roll down the chute.
Back to Jack Shepard, M.D. Jack, being a doctor, had to have been an undergraduate at some point. There are certain requirements for undergraduates to, well, graduate, go on to med school, stuff. Is one of those requirements the passing of at least one sociology or psychology class? I suppose it's possible to make it all the way through college without ever hearing of B.F. Skinner, or his behavioral boxes, but I just don't think it's likely. To matriculate in anything it's required to take a few "soft" science classes, though I suppose one could satisfy these requirements by taking, say, economics or political science. But since practicing medicine most assuredly has its social and psychological aspects (aspects helpful in diagnosing psychosomatic conditions, for example), it doesn't seem likely that someone aiming to become a physician would take steps to avoid peripherally-related areas like sociology or psychology.
And if Jack, the pre-med actor, took even one soc or psych class, he would have heard of Skinner. He'd know that he was little more than a rat in a box.
Being experimented upon.
And then it's his turn to punch in 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 on his experimenters' computer. And then hit the "execute" button. Or the world would blow up.
Yeah, riiiiiiiiight.
All I'm saying is for "Lost" to be consistent with itself, the part that Jack played this past Wednesday--the critical button-pushing part--should have been played by someone without his educational background.
What Jack should have done is agree to push the "execute" button, hover over it so no one else could push it, tell the others he's gonna push it with one second to go, then--with that one tantalizing second left--jerk or flinch toward the button, make like he's fixin' to push it, but then not push it. If for no other reason than since doing it the "old way" hasn't worked, i.e. hasn't led to a rescue from the island, perhaps it's time to try a new way, i.e. the "not-pushing" way.
Obviously the experimenters want to see how long their subjects will still perform their "bar-pressing" behavior without any gratification... just like us viewers: the producers of this show want to drag it out longer and longer without anything tangible or substantial happening.
A completely different way "Lost" fails itself unfolds on the beach in the opening sequence.
Suppose your name is Sawyer and you're a little scruffy, a bit of a con man, someone who occasionally dabbles in the "gray market" and you're not really a "black market" kind of guy, and you've just made landfall after being Shanghaied on the open sea, and you notice Jin, one of your crewmates, tied up and stumbling/jogging toward you; Jin's bleeding and yelling urgently, yelling something like "Others!" or "Hunters!" Then five strangers with big sticks appear on the beach. And the biggest one of them starts jogging toward you, holding his stick aloft like a samurai.
He's obviously got malice on his mind. And he's jogging toward you. In sand. So it takes him a good fifteen or twenty seconds to get within striking range. Of your head.
And you, Sawyer, tough guy, you wait till the last second to attempt to retrieve--wield even--the stick in front of you on the beach.
Oh, but I failed to mention one other little factoid.
You've got a pistol, a functioning pistol, in the waistband of your trousers. You've got upwards of fifteen seconds to pull it out and defend yourself against imminent danger. But instead you reach for a stick.
OK ok: he forgot. Sawyer forgot that he had a gun in his waistband. I'm reminded of the old Steve Martin joke about someone forgetting that "...it's illegal to rob a bank."
Yes, I probably could forgive a slip or two like the above, especially if a show had quite a few redeeming qualities (which I suppose it's nice to look at a televised image of the ocean once in a while, and "Lost" is not without its scenic distractions), but the below finds me reaching for the remote. For the last time.
In case you missed it, there's another group of survivors from Flight 815 on the island. They're not civilized like our heroes from last year. No, not hardly. They're conniving and ruthless, they hit people with sticks, and they lock people up in holes with bamboo bars.
And who are these bad people?
We're not sure yet. We don't know much about them. Except one critical factor: they're from... "coach." Well, either coach or business class. But they’re not first class like our heroes. No wonder they're nasty: they can't afford a first class ticket.
I guess the main directive we can glean from "Lost" is: for everyone who has more money than you, do them a favor; do all those cool people luxuriating in first class a favor; most of all, do yourself a favor by thinking of yourself as a bad person if you can't afford to fly first class.
And what do we do to bad people? Do that to yourself.
Or, if you're financially limited to flying coach or can't even afford to fly a tall, yet you maintain you're a self-respecting decent person, quit watching "Lost."
to a Skinnerian pigeon bar-pressing experiment
...after a struggle, those from coach will soon enough be bringing coconut smoothies to our heroes, shining their shoes, etc. I'll be missing out....