A collection of writing

This article was originally featured on StudentPunch.com, which is a student online magazine that I write TV articles for. I will be archiving all of my articles that that were featured on Student Punch— Andrew.

Lost, the show that made crashing into a remote island cool has just started back for its sixth and final series.

To anybody that has watched Lost from the beginning, you know that it started out as a very interesting show that had a basic premise: a plane crashed onto an island and the survivors of that crash wanted to get rescued. As the show went on, however, it started to get more and more ‘weird,’ for the lack of a better term; strange storylines were being introduced and nothing was ever straight forward. In the last season, however, the show transformed from ‘weird’ to complete and utter science fiction. Obviously, it would be far too easy to spoil the show for anybody that hasn’t watched all of the seasons, so I will stay away from anything specific, but let me just say that Lost is crazy.

There is nothing wrong with science fiction, and Lost moving into that was expected as the show progressed, but now, after all these years, I am finally starting to get frustrated with the way in which Lost presents pretty much everything. Every new plot twist is usually a ‘dramatic’ cliff-hanger at the end of an episode, which does grain on you. As humans, we always want to know the answer, and with Lost, they always make you wait a while for that answer. In fact, it could be argued that we are still waiting for some answers from something that was set up several seasons ago, and this is really the big problem with the show; it’s extremely fragmented. Due to the sheer pace of the show, it can be hard to keep up with everything that has happened, and while the show does well to remind you of important events at the start of every episode, there are still important things it misses out. It almost seems like the show is just too crazy for itself and the writers never really know where they are going with a plotline until the very end.

While the overall story can be confusing and frustrating, the show has something special. It has a core mixture of characters that have been there since the first plane crash, and still, for the most part, they remain with each other as a group. As the audience, we are following this core cast at all times, through their triumphs and tribulations. Over the years, many other groups and characters have been introduced and have mingled with the core group, and this has lead to interesting developments. The characters are extremely interesting, and the show has made sure that we know each of their individual stories, allowing us to know them and what drives them. One of the most unique aspects of Lost that I haven’t encountered that much in a TV show before, is the critical importance of the location, which in Lost, is the island. I would go so far as to say that the island is an extra character in the show, and it is probably the central character of the show. Everything revolves around the island; so much so that when the show moves away from the island for small sections, the show has a different feel to it, and there is always a driving force for us to return to the island.

I am both happy and sad to announce that, on the basis of the season premiere, Lost has still not changed. The new season starts right back up from the cliff-hanger of the previous season, and it takes us on the same, crazy, journey. The show seems to have set up an alternate time line for the start of this season, which might be a flash-forward, which they have done before, or it might be something else entirely, who knows? It certainly looks like this season will be interesting as the current storyline progresses further. At this point, though, I really just want to see how the hell the writers can wrap up so many years of confusion – I just hope they manage it well.

While I really do love Lost, I would never recommend anybody to start watching this new series right now with no prior knowledge. If you do want to get into Lost, you would need to watch it from the very start and never miss an episode. I have watched every episode of every season and I still get regularly lost in Lost.

AC

The original article can be found at http://studentpunch.com/lost.html