My Latest Obsession

This is going to be the post where, if it weren't already obvious, I'm going to be revealed as the total geek that I truly am. I have become an aficionado of the TV show Lost.

I still haven't quite gotten over the hole in my life left by this week's lack of a new episode, but I'll have to find a way since we'll all have to go without any new episodes of this obsession-inducing series until January. I'm already something of an obsessive person by nature, and when a show like Lost comes along, a show that manages to create a world full of depth and secrets within secrets, a show that isn't afraid of complexity and that rewards careful viewing with just enough clues as what lies at the root of it's mysteries to keep the viewer salivating for more, I can't help but be interested.

If you haven't been watching Lost up to now, I wouldn't recommend just diving in when the show returns in January. The numerous plotlines are so complicated that a first-time viewer would be completely and hopelessly..., well, you know. In the simplest possible terms, the show is about a group of people who are stranded on a mysterious tropical island after their flight from Sydney to L.A. strays off course and crashes in the Pacific. Life on the island that our diverse group of castaways finds themselves on is difficult because it contains--among other things--invisible pilot-eating monsters, polar bears, tantalizing evidence of a massive research project that occupied the island in the past (and perhaps still does; we're still trying to figure that out) and a mysterious, mostly unseen group of "others" who inhabited the island prior to the survivor's arrival and who seem to be pursuing an as-yet undetermined agenda. The show's main characters include a Korean who speaks almost no English, a former member of Iraq's Republican Guard, a lottery-winning multi-millionaire, a washed out heroin addicted bass player/former hobbit and a Kurtz-like hunter with messianic tendencies who miraculously regained the use of his legs after the crash.

If you think that sounds complicated, believe me, you have no idea. The show combines surreal events on the island with flashbacks into the lives of it's one or two dozen major characters. If you want to catch up, you're just going to have to do what I did; rent the whole first season on DVD, then find somewhere to see the episodes from season two that you have already missed (they are available on iTunes). I know, it sounds crazy, but I think you'll know after just a couple of episodes whether you are hooked. If you are, you won't be able to stop.

Although I am obsessed with this show, there are those who are a LOT further gone than I am. Through brief internet searches, I've learned several things that I completely missed in watching the show, like the fact that Sayid was visible very briefly on a TV screen during Kate's flashback to the army recruiting office, or the fact that there was a Dharma Initiative logo visible on the fin of the shark that harassed Mike and Sawyer on the raft:

If you haven't been watching the show then this all sounds like gibberish to you, but this is exactly the kind of show Lost is. It stacks layer upon layer of intrigue, obfuscation and even meaningless distraction, mocking those who strive to solve it's mysteries. Nerds like me find this sort of thing irresistible.

Theories abound on the internet as to what exactly is going on out there on the island, everything from the usual alien/government conspiracies to twisted behavioral experimentation by utopian scientists to "they all died in the crash and are in Purgatory." I think that in the end the answer a.) can only disappoint, and b.) isn't really the point anyway. Lets face it, the fun in books, movies and TV shows like this is the mystery, not the resolution. As long as they can keep you guessing and grasping as you try to fit together scraps of information, they have you in their clutches. Once all is revealed the wonder is usually gone from this sort of medium since nothing can really match our imaginations and expectations. In the meantime, though, it's bound to be a great ride.