No, no NBC hackles-raising YouTube (GooTube? Scratch that, SueTube? SueRube?) videos; I just am, in fact, having a lazy Sunday afternoon. So let's talk about some things, yes/no?
First of all more about my favorite pet concept over at
Wikipedia. I actually only ever thought that flotsam and jetsam were things like driftwood and shreds of seaweed, so that's something I learned. I also, coincidentally, have some things to say about Beck vis a vis his usage of the image and identity of the "derelict" (so academic, I know, I'm sorry) -- which maybe I'll get around to really figuring out while his latest album is still fresh.
But I think what I'm going to try to sink my teeth into today is television's
Lost. I watched the first season regularly, if not entirely religiously, but mostly missed out on the second season, save the occasional updates from one of my many friends who were and are (understandably) addicted. But I have friends, too, who think the show's absolute trash. This latter group's main argument is that the show's ever deepening and multiplying mysteries are just a smoke and mirrors scheme to hide the fact that the show actually lacks any creative content, meaning, appeal, etc.
Well, I'll go on record as saying that, in the final analysis, I'm more of a fan of the show than I am a detractor, but also that I not only understand our naysayers' point of view, it actually all struck me scant episodes into the opening season as well. Part of that is that the show's influences and precursors are pretty obvious, one of the most often cited of which is David Lynch and Mark Frost's
Twin Peaks. There are other, maybe even stronger, influences and precursors, but I think the point I want to make centers around
TP's dissolution over the course of the second season (accompanied by nose-diving ratings) and how
Lost has successfully entered its third.
David Foster Wallace's essay "David Lynch Keeps His Head" probably sums up that dissolution best when he writes "Like most storytellers who use mystery as a structural device and not a thematic device, Lynch is way better at deepening and complicating mysteries than he is at wrapping them up." And here maybe is the key difference, because I think
Lost uses mystery as both a structural
and thematic device, which has to do mainly with there being no central mystery (a la "Who killed Laura Palmer?"). The mystery has been figuring out what the mystery is (a perfect conceit for our paranoid times, no wonder the show's a hit); just imagine if we'd spent two-plus seasons wondering just why Agent Cooper had shown up in town. If the next episode (of
Lost) revealed something completely new about the French Lady or some other character, people would be surprised -- but not shocked. Has she really been working with the Others all along (perhaps unknowingly)?
Lost's more open-ended structuring means alliances between the different characters and groups are bound to be ever-shifting, as we can see from the constant betrayals and mistrust. Mystery is identified with the locale of the island itself, establishing a sort of exotic and unknowable sense of place Lynch never really sought to establish in his Pacific NW (though it's worth noting that both the island and Lynch's PNW have the same duplicitous over/under type of revelatory dichotomy. Twin Peaks is All-American but corrupt; the island is lush and beautiful but also full of threats both natural and manmade -- and maybe even supernatural).
All of which, I think, is okay. Seeing how many balls the juggler can get into the air and back down again has been part of the pleasure of serialized narrative since Dickens (if not longer) -- but the balls are supposed to come back down again. If, years from now, the show is still dragging through the same mysteries, I will have to admit to have been mistaken about the show's worth, because it is finality that seperates Dickens from, say, your typical day-time soap. I doubt it will descend into that kind of silliness, but one or two more seasons past this one will probably be enough.
