Lost In Translation

The TV phenomenon of the past few years (I found myself writing ‘the noughties’ and then realized that whenever I read or hear that phrase being used I feel like inflicting physical harm on the user, so I didn’t) returns tomorrow. Lost has had five (generally) brilliant seasons and I am very excited to see what happens in the sixth and final one. I’m also nervous. Nervous because I don’t see how J.J.Abrams and his crew can possibly wrap up every story thread and tie-up every loose end. We’ve come so far since Oceanic 815 crashed and washed it’s collection of survivors up on that beach. What started as a fairly simple Robinson Crusoe meets Lord Of The Flies tale has morphed beyond all recognition into a time-traveling, globe-spanning, mortality-changing morality epic of such scale, featuring so many major and minor characters with huge background histories and complex plot arcs that I fear the planned 18 episodes that remain cannot possibly have time to resolve everything.

Here, off the top of my head, are just ten of the many questions I’ll want answers to:

1) How is it that Locke is dead, and yet reincarnated as who-knows-what as the nemesis of Jacob?
2) What the hell happened to the Polar Bear?
3) The smoke monster, the island’s defense system, is…?
4) What actually happened to Clare and Christian Shepherd in Jacob’s cabin?
5) How come Richard appears to be the only Islander who is immortal?
6) Who used to be those skeletons that Kate found in the cave in series 1?
7) How come everyone has returned to the island except Charles Widmore?
8) The numbers. The six numbers that seem to tie everything together, mean what?
9) Who keeps dropping those Dharma food packages on the island?
10) Where did Daniel Faraday disappear to for three years, and what the hell was he up to?

I believe in J.J.Abrams. Before Lost he created Alias, a show that was equally twisted into knots, equally as brilliant and yet resolved itself before the final credits rolled. He resurrected Star Trek to fabulous heights and in doing so created the most entertaining blockbuster of 2009. He is a geek like the rest of us and would never knowingly short-change the fans of the show. However, I just feel that this is a show that is so loved, so adored and so scrutinized by it’s loyal devotees that nothing he does can actually live up to expectations.

Personally, I blame The X-Files for my worries. There was a show that I invested so much time in, and for the first six seasons it was fantastic, running stand-alone stories alongside an ongoing plot involving conspiracies, aliens, shape-shifters and God knows what. The problem was that the makers kept it going too long. Instead of bowing out at the top of the game they took the money and stretched the idea way too far. The leads left and were replaced, ideas and threads were dropped like a stone, and it all wrapped itself up in a tragic two-hour finale that tried to address eight years of questions in around an hour. If you rocked The X-Files, if you championed it and talked about it from the beginning when no-one else did, then it felt like a betrayal from a lover.

Lost will finish this year, at it’s peak, and it will go down as one of the finest television shows ever created. I’ll be with it every step of the way, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone. I just hope that the parting is sweet, and not tinged with bitterness. We’ve all come too far for disappointment…