An absolutely astonishing debut season,
| By | Robert Moore (Chicago, IL) |
LOST has generated critical praise almost as strong as BUFFY, a core of fans nearly as passionate, but unlike BUFFY managed absolutely stunning ratings. It is one of the few instances in recent television history where what is arguably the best show on TV also managed among the strongest ratings. In fact, LOST would be considered a cult show based on the number of websites that it has inspired and the passion of the fans, except that the ratings instead make it a mainstream hit.
It is almost impossible to acknowledge everything that LOST does well in the space allotted here. Above all else, it is a superbly written show, not merely on an episode by episode basis, but in the way all of the episodes mesh with one another. The continuity is the best that I have seen in a long time. For instance, the first time we see one character in the show, she is rubbing her wrist. Later, we learn that she had been a prisoner of a U. S. Marshall and had obviously gotten rid of her handcuffs just before we first met her. Almost any detail like that will be dealt with at a later date. But the scripts are just as strong on character development, humor, excitement, and adventure.
Structurally, the narrative shifts between the efforts of the survivors to adapt to and understand the island on which they are marooned and flashbacks that explain the personal history of each character. Some people object to this, wishing instead that they focused exclusively on the events on the island, but I think that this is wrong. If you focused merely on the events on the island, it would be only an adventure story right - what I tht it was & so was not int, but through the flashbacks we learn so much about what makes the people tick that the series becomes as much a character study as an adventure.
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