Get 'Lost' in television

My television and I have always had a rock-solid, mutually beneficial relationship. It keeps me company when I'm lonely or bored and I try and make sure it stays healthy and happy by never forcing it to play competitive poker programs or hour-long, crime-solving serials. For the past four months or so, my television and I have made a special point to rendezvous every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. for a meeting with our newfound love, ABC's "Lost."\nI am compelled to clue everyone in to the wonder that is "Lost" primarily because ever since the first season of CBS' "Survivor," the only television programs I've ever found myself truly wrapped up in (aside from the blinding brilliance of "The Sopranos," which I can hardly find myself even placing in the category of television) were the so-called "reality" shows. I once tried to enjoy "CSI" and its ilk, but if its one thing I can't stand in real life or on television, it's the grossly extrapolated process of law enforcement, criminal justice and forensics. I even recently tried watching the much-hyped "Desperate Housewives," only to find that it was essentially "Sex and the City" with a tame dose of murder and no gratuitous nudity or saucy curse words.\nBack when the $10 million "Lost" pilot aired on September 22, 2004, I expected just another overblown drama series with poor writing and even poorer acting. My fears were amplified because, let's face it, when was the last time ABC ever had a decent scripted program? Fourteen out of 24 episodes later, I can look back at my early apprehension and chuckle. Rarely have I ever been so appreciative of the efforts of a single group of television producers and writers. Chief among those creators is J.J. Abrams, who, amusingly enough, also created "Alias," a show whose single, perfunctory purpose is to package Jennifer Garner in as many outfits and hairdos a week as possible, and Damon Lindelof, long-suffering scribe of such upstanding programs as MTV's let's-watch-high-school-and-college-students-ALMOST-have-sex-but-not-quite dramedy "Undressed."\nI suppose anyone who's never seen "Lost" yet somehow made it this far down the column deserves a brief description of the show. Forty or so people miraculously survive a violent plane crash only to find themselves stranded on a mysterious desert island seemingly inhabited by strange animals; a giant, predatory beast of some sort; and quite possibly the survivors of a past plane crash. No one in the outside world knows where the survivors are and no communication equipment is available. Now before thoughts of "Cast Away" meets "Jurassic Park" start swimming about inside your head, rest assured that "Lost" has a whole lot more going on than that.\nOf the 40 castaways on the island, there are 14 main characters. Each of the 24 episodes in season one takes place during the course of one day on the island. Each episode provides the absorbing back story of one of the main characters, with some characters receiving two full episodes of back story. The show's writers, aspiring sociologists all, deftly weave each character's past with his or her present situation, and show how their progression through life reveals itself by way of their actions on the island. The threat of an extended stay on the island proves to be even more menacing when the characters begin to realize that this bump in the road of their lives could well turn out to be an extended and dangerous exercise in personal karma.\nAt the existential heart of the series is the island's own often heard (to everyone) but unseen (to the audience) beast, who few characters have seen and even fewer have survived. Those who've seen it and lived regarded it with amazement and awe. What this beast and its actions tell us about the very nature of life on the island, as well as the very lives of those stranded there, is the key to "Lost" and the very aspect that raises it up above most of the rest of today's television drama. If more audiences and demographics could accept the fact that the crime isn't always solved at the end of the episode and the twists and turns don't always come with a wink and a nod, more networks might be in the process of developing better drama programs. As it stands, we must subsist on what we've got.\nAnti-TV snobs, as I like to call them, or those who turn their nose up at television as a worthless medium which succeeds only in rotting brains, will no doubt scoff at the concept of a show like "Lost" trying to be something more socially significant than your run-of-the-mill weekly hour-long series. As far as I'm concerned, those folks can stick their faces back in their Ayn Rand books (even though "Lost" represents objectivism at its most pure), or even sadder, the notion that they don't have TIME for television. Meanwhile, the rest of us are free to enjoy what "Lost" provides, which is a wealth of characters we can actually care about stuck in a situation they're all trying in their own unique way to free themselves from.\n"Lost" is a series that will work far better on DVD, and I can't wait to get my hands on the boxset whenever it may be released. ABC packs their airings with overly long commercial breaks, which have their way of detracting from the overall experience for those of us with even medium-length attention spans. Even still, if you've found yourself flipping through the channel lineup lately and lamenting that you're actually paying a monthly fee for it, don't hesitate to give "Lost" a shot. You might struggle at first to catch up on what's happened so far, but just like the island's disparate but equal castaways, your effort reflects your reward.