Swans, Monsters, & Cass Elliot

  What is a guy to do in the absence of a show in which, between each passing episode, the next felt head-scratchingly distant? Well, there isn’t much a guy can do except wait.

  It’s been over a year & a half since the show's finale, & in keeping with the proportions of each seemingly-overlong passing period between each episode, a year feels like a thousand lifetimes. It’s not bad enough that the show’s over; us fans still have to sit around with our thumbs up our asses while CBS & NBC plaster every new promo or TV spot for every new, boring series with the words: ‘From the Writers of LOST!’ as if that does anything more than induce depression. I have to watch the ending to the series finale once a week in order to stay sane.

  I’m not gonna lie - I’m gonna tell it straight: my November entry on Breaking Bad very much came out of this hunger for a new, weekly TV infatuation. This isn’t to say that I don’t love Gilligan & co. with all my heart. I honestly do! But as friends. That’s the real difference. & it will remain the real difference for what I’m predicting to be close to an eternity.

  I started off cynical in this thing, yes. But only to add clout to what I really wanna talk about, & that’s not Breaking Bad.  What I wanna talk about is LOST & what made it great, what made it loved, & what, now, made it missed dearly, by me personally.

  Not to sound like a writer for Cracked magazine, but it’s a true-to-heart fact that LOST is the first thing (whether you’re considering television, film, video games, fiction, etc) to make it not only perfectly ok, but entirely fucking cool to be a complete geek.

  & I was one, & still am.

  People may have thought twice upon seeing a fuzzy, round gentleman standing at the corner of Hollywood & Vine wearing a beige Dharma Initiative jumpsuit & holding an empty jar of peanut butter. But only until you made them understand why. Of course, like all great things, LOST didn’t come without its band of haters riding the ‘minority-plus’ wagon, whose only real beef was that the show was liked by many.

  Granted: beyond that there have been some more personal, more reasonable arguments against the show. For example, people tended to react with much negativity to the show’s mediocre-quality visual effects, but what do they expect from goddamn network television programming? & ABC of all places!

  Though, there still remained some complaints aimed at the story itself, & the characters; one of which I agree with: the collective disliking for & questioning of Nikki & Paulo. However, there is another that I strongly, strongly disagree with, & will contest until the end of time. That is the negative view toward ‘the Monster’ (or, more specifically, ‘the Smoke Monster’). Off the top of my head, I couldn’t name for you five movie OR television monsters that have stuck - positively - with me. Of the ones I can name, at the top is ol’ Smokey. Nothing that Carpenter, nor Wes Craven, ever did seemed to impress me, as many of you may very well know. The only other on-screen creatures & beasts that ever left any kinda impression were the gremlin from “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” &, yes, the red-faced demon from Insidious (my love for said demon having catapulted my praise for the film).

  The opposition directed at Smokey walks hand-in-hand with the same opposition that is directed at the latter two. & what most people dislike about these ‘things’ is what I, on the whole, find most diggable. Creativity is key - for both the writers & the makeup artist(s) - when bringing movie monsters to life. & creativity is what all other films lack. Either that, or just don’t show us the monsters at all, ala Blair Witch. & like Blair Witch, what I like most about the monsters is also what I like most about the context: mystery. The makeup/CG designs for these characters aren’t weighed down with jaded back stories in the writing (even if the entities or personas are); they look the way they do because it’s cool. & why not! 

  The most common line people drew from the red-faced demon led straight to Darth Maul & Freddy Krueger, an obvious combo derived by the filmmakers - a combo I don’t have a problem with, as long as the result works. 

LOST was & is the archetypal 21st century epic, & will remain the best thing to happen to television since, well, television.

Here are my personal top 10 favorite episodes of the series:

10. "316," S05E06
A perfect example of LOST's versatility. This episode hardly feels like television. 

9. "The End," S06E17
The episode that the entire series hung on; a series that, in the end, never forgot what it was about.

8. "The Man Behind the Curtain," S03E20
Some villains work better without a backstory (MIB being an example), but others work even better with a backstory. & Ben is one of them.

7. "LaFleur," S05E08
Possibly the most significant episode of season five, & one of the most sought-after & longed-for reveals in the show's run. 

6. "Cabin Fever," S04E11
Possibly the most unconventional episode of the entire series.

5. "Through the Looking Glass," S03E22
There was a time when I not only would get annoyed with Charlie, but would hope for an episode of simply not seeing him. But with all his flaws & inadequacies, this episode still remains heavy & heartbreaking.

4. "The Constant," S04E05
The show also gave us one of the greatest love stories of all-time.

3. "The Incident," S05E16
A finale that the series was never able to live up to, before or after season five.

2. "Man of Science, Man of Faith," S02E01
The only episode I would describe as perfect, with its ability to equally balance (& equally engage us in) the events on the island & the events in the flashbacks.

1. "The Shape of Things to Come," S04E09
The episode that Locke'd down season four as not only the best of the series, but the best season of television that I had ever been a part of.

So, tell me: what is your favorite season of LOST? Poll in the sidebar. &, hopefully, your thoughts in the comments. 


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