HOW ABOUT WE ALL CUT "LOST" SOME SLACK?

April 14, 2006

Oh, "Lost," how you befuddle and enrage your dedicated followers.

Hit up any TV-based Internet message board shortly after 10 p.m. each Wednesday and you're sure to find large groups of couch potatoes ranting away about the show's many faults - its reluctance to move the plot forward, the characters that fade in and out of view, the questions that keep piling up while answers are doled out so infrequently. None of those are claims I could argue against, by the way. But while the millions who watch "Lost" grow more frustrated each week, I find myself compelled to ask: Can't we all just cut the show some slack?

Yes, after almost two seasons of strange goings-on at that uncharted island, "Lost" is beginning to pop at the seams. After the brilliant first two episodes that jump-started the second season last fall, ABC's fantastical mystery has hit a series of road bumps over the course of the year. The show has no chance to count itself among TV's very, very best when the writers mismanage the little things, like keeping the behavior of John Locke consistent from one week to the next. "Lost" also suffers the occasional stinker now, like the recent Hurley-centric episode that showed us a little more of the big man's past in a psychiatry ward and was incredibly hindered by the overdone "invisible friend" trick.

Despite all this, I still find myself sick of all the weekly complaining about the show, and I remain convinced that "Lost" is must-watch TV that deserves your 60 minutes of attention every week. This is a wildly ambitious show that tries to balance several different genres, a huge cast, and complicated flashbacks while sustaining a cohesive whole. I got news for you. That's just about impossible. But I credit the writers for even attempting it and am willing to overlook the small problems because of it.

Speaking of the writing staff -- which, despite the big cast, are really the people who make "Lost" sink or swim -- let's discuss them for a minute. They suffered two key losses going into this year. Co-creator J.J. Abrams jumped ship for the season to go off and film Tom Cruise dodging explosions and stuff in "Mission: Impossible III," and veteran TV genre writer David Fury, who penned some of season one's most important and show-defining episodes, including "Roundabout" and "Numbers," left to go write for "24."

Fury recently told Rolling Stone magazine that the people behind "Lost" are making it up as they go along - that there's no master plan in place. Heck, I thought that was obvious from the beginning, no matter what Abrams and co-creator/show runner Damon Lindelof were telling the press when the show first premiered. But you know what? That's okay. That's how storytelling works. No novelist knows exactly where his book is going when he starts out. He may know certain dramatic beats, perhaps have an idea of the ending, but the road to telling a great story is always full of sharp turns, many that the teller himself won't see coming. It's even harder for a TV show, when the writers must appease a large group of actors and the series' fan base, without knowing how many seasons their show will air.

So it's always going to be a challenge for the people behind "Lost" to stay on that road without veering wildly over the driver's side cliff. This year's team doesn't quite seem to be up to the challenge. I also suspect that Lindelof and company have convinced themselves that little details like character continuity doesn't really matter because "Lost" is about larger, more important issues, such as atoning for one's sins and science-versus-religion arguments.

And, hey, the show is about those things to a degree. It's one of the only regular TV series that has the guts to examine such heavy themes. That's why I'm going to keep watching, no matter how much individual episodes can be picked apart each week. No other show has the ability to blow our minds on any given week like "Lost," so how about we lay off the little things (as annoying as they can be) and just enjoy the ride?