For the past couple of years, I’ve somehow managed to avoid being sucked into the broken-off plane engine that is the Lost phenomenon. Lost was one of those shows that became extremely intimidating the further the episodes progressed. Fans of the show were downright rabid when it came to analyzing every single frame of each episode, looking for some sort of symbol that I think has something to do with Jenna Elfman. (Don’t tell me: That joke was made 3 years ago.) And by the time I started to give a care about the show — read: about 2 weeks ago when the new season started — I realized that in order to catch up, I would have to watch nearly 50 continuous hours of episodes, assuming I could even find my catheter. On top of it all, I’m one of the few remaining literate people without a Netflix account. So even though I wanted to watch, I couldn’t! No, I have better things to do than stay at home and catch up on historic dramatic television, The Wire.
Then, a perfect storm of lazy events: A friend tells me that every single episode of Lost is available at abc.com, for free and in HDTV. Fair enough, I said, but what about “spare time” and “showering”? Between blogging and blogging, my skedj is packed! Strangely enough, only a few moments later, I was hit with a minor strain of the flu. Yes, by Friday evening I was reduced to a sniveling pile of bed-ridden tissue plucking, and really, how many episodes of Say Yes to the Dress can one girl sit through without killing herself? (The answer is 4.) So I grabbed my nearest laptop, ordered 48 hours worth of soup, and decided this was it: I was finally going to get into Lost, starting at square 1.
And I won’t lie: The show is amazing. The production quality shockingly high. As someone who had always adored the movie Cast Away, I found that the addition of talking to other people really helped to move the plot along. And really, who doesn’t love flashbacks? Lost was delivering in a big way.
“So what, pray tell, is my problem?” you are wondering? My problem is that I am four years behind the rest of the world. So while most of you had the pleasure of standing around your watercooler a few years ago asking “What is the deal with those polar bears?”, I show up to work to find an empty breakroom, a watercooler bubbling with bile and jealousy.
I am watching Lost in a social vacuum! Any questions I have about the extremely early episodes are met with eye rolls and slaps to the face. When I told one person over the phone that John Locke reminded me of equal parts Creed and Dwight from The Office, she slowly and silently hung the phone up on me. And that was my Mom! Speaking of which, what’s the deal with polar bears? Hell-o!
Which leads me to my MILLION DOLLAR IDEA: Lost for Dummies. A season-by-season recap book that serves as a silent companion to those who are only just now getting into the program. Funny enough, a google search of “Lost for Dummies” returned a post from this very blog dated November 2005, promoting a funny albeit brief article by BWE’s own Paul Scheer. Which is all well and good…
But my complaint remains the same: Watching Lost 4 years after the rest of the civilized world just really sucks. Not having anyone to share the excitement with, the theories, the late nights scanning each frame like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. Am I all alone? Or are there others of you out there? Others who have never seen the show? If enough people speak up in the comments, perhaps we can start some sort of “Lost Book Club”, recapping 5 episodes each week, so that we, too, can feel human again. ps The same idea applies to every season of Sanford and Son, so let me know!
**Note: This post brought to you by Dayquil. Dayquil: Causing bloggers to be cranky and unintelligible for nearly 3 days.**
