The X-Files Conundrum: Why Series Finales Usually Suck, And Why I'm Confident That LOST's Probably Won't

Endings are inevitable. Things die. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. But knowing it's coming doesn't make it any easier. Television finales are a funny breed though. They're not like the ends of movies, which are relatively the most painless in the general scheme of things, and they're not like the ends of books, which are possibly the most enjoyable in the general scheme of things¹. No, witnessing the finale of a television show is more visceral, more traumatic and heartbreaking than other forms of fiction, and this is precisely why we're so often disappointed by them.

Take, for example, The X-Files. The problem with The X-Files was that even as fascinating as its themes and mysteries were, they were essentially unanswerable, because the questions embedded in its mysteries involved truths of the universe that were unknowable, at least definitively so. The fact that Fox Mulder wasn't afraid to ask said questions was part of, if not all of, the appeal, but Chris Carter and Co. painted themselves into a corner with their mythology of alien abductions and promises that the Truth IS Out There, because that meant the Truth Is Out HERE too, in the real world. So all The X-Files could do was present its own take on unraveling the enigmas of the cosmos without presenting anything as fact. And in an audience's eyes, or perhaps just in my eyes as a child when I watched the final seasons, we wonder: what's the point, really? This is the X-Files Conundrum. And though perhaps the entire point of The X-Files was that we couldn't know the answers, that the truth was just obliquely "out there" and the search would tell us more than whatever we might discover at the end of searching, the presentation of unanswerable questions with the pseudo-promise of answers we knew to be unattainable comes off as more than frustrating.

Many recent shows have fallen under The X-Files Conundrum, most notably Battlestar Galactica, whose finale² infuriated its fans enough to nearly write off the series entirely. Again, by asking questions that inherently have no answers³, Ronald D. Moore and Co. were doomed from the start. But part of The X-Files Conundrum implies that when asking the Hard Questions, we're required to give an answer, no matter how flimsy it might be. Which brings me to Lost.

Lost's version of The X-Files Conundrum could have possibly been even more disastrous.⁴ It's Hard Questions are some of the Hardest there are, e.g. free will versus predetermination, science versus faith, good versus evil, much harder than simply "Does God exist?" or "Are we alone in the universe?" because these Hard Questions are even more personal, more deeply rooted in our own humanity and the essence of our society. In theory then, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof and Co. should be even more doomed than anyone before them, because these are not just spiritual questions or questions of morality, but metaphysical ones where taking a side one way or the other not only defines the show but makes a statement about the whole of Western philosophy. Lofty goals, no? That's exactly what makes Lost so enjoyable.

There's a not-so-small contingent of people out there that would say I'm giving the show a little too much credit. It's true that the show is a mega-pastiche of an astounding number of ideas and references, some of which may not seem to jive together smoothly. But Lost can get away with it because of its scope, because this is a show that transcends just being a "show." As a piece of fiction, it compiles all of fiction before it and spits it back at us as standardly archetypal, yet astoundingly self-aware, like Odysseus reading Ulysses while the 1997 television miniseries The Odyssey (starring Armand Assante) is on in the background⁵. It takes the whole of history of the world and puts it in the mouths of about 16 different people, thus packing every minute gesture with so much sub(and extra-)textual meaning that our brains might as well give up. In short, it's a rich tapestry of thoughts and ideas, neatly packaged in an entertaining and creative adventure story.

The reasons, then, for the absurdly high levels of anticipation, and thus, concern, should be obvious. With so many philosophies (and pseudo-philosopher characters) duking it out, the show runs the risk of upsetting us not just by disappointing our expectations, but utterly failing to unify the theories of 5000+ years of rational thinkers. It's The X-Files Conundrum to the umpteenth power. But the answer to the Conundrum lies at the heart of the show. The characters.⁶ Not because the characters are particularly interesting or well-drawn or are even in such dire straights that we can't imagine what will happen to them (though some of these cases are true for some of these people), but because the Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and Co. have pulled a clever trick on us. It's brilliant really. What they've done⁷ is created a philosophy of No Philosophy. The large, competing ensemble cast; the complex narrative structure, which has constantly shifted and changed through 6 seasons to highlight the complexity of the conflict itself; the mass dumping of literary Easter Eggs into every facet of the show; all of these things point to what the central tenet of the show has been all along: Nobody's ever really right. In fact, the difference between right and wrong is just as ambiguous in the context of the show as the debate between fate and free will. The big reveal of two men talking on a beach about the nature of man (vagueness intentional, as I'm not trying to ruin anything for anybody here) spells it out for us that these questions, like The X-Files's questions, can't be answered, but at least these two men are (seemingly) aware of it. The arguments over fate and free will and good and evil and the nature of morality and humanity and thought and Powers That Be have been happening for thousands of years, are happening again now, in the mouths and actions of these characters, and will continue for thousands more to come. Damon and Carlton and Co. aren't even attempting to promise answers to any questions that they didn't make up themselves⁸, and that is essentially, to use a Lost buzzword, their Fail Safe. I can guarantee that we will not learn who wins between fate and free will, or between good and evil, because in an age where we already know all the scenarios, where we've seen all the battles and what it would be like for each side to win, there are no answers left to give. This is the plight of postmodernity, and somehow, some way, so far, Lost has been able to sidestep it while unabashedly embracing it. And so, to paraphrase what has proven to be the most apt locution of Lost's No Philosophy philosophy: Whatever Happens, Happens.

But of course, whether or not our expectations are met, we will still feel that overwhelming sense of loss, the inescapable part of The X-Files Conundrum in which the Conundrum isn't the answers we seek, but those who sought them with us on screen. Our television shows are our escapist fantasies--rendezvous with people we understand like family and places we have come to know like our own backyards. And more than movies, which only last a couple of hours, or books, which contain much more to ponder than characters and places and plots, television shows are long-form⁹ adventures that invade our lives long enough that, when they're gone, we really miss them.

I've lived with Lost for a long time now, and it's been an exciting expedition for me from the beginning. There will be many more thoughts on Lost posted in this space, beginning this week with the hopefully mind-blowingly awesome premiere: LA X. The end is near, but we've still got some good times left to come, Conundrums be damned.

Addenda

1. The ending of a book, especially a good book, is one of the more enjoyable things one can experience in pop culture, leaving one with both a feeling of accomplishment and the added challenge of "Okay, now that I'm done with this, what does it all mean?" Just because you've finished reading a book doesn't mean you're ever actually done with it, most of the time. ↑


2. Not even the entire finale, just one scene in it, really. ↑


3. A religious debate this time, rather than conspiracy theories. ↑


4. So much so that it would probably have to be called The Lost Conundrum. ↑


5. Odysseus, as in not the actual legendary Odysseus, but the spoiled offspring of some delusional B-list actor who thought the name Odysseus was cool.^a Postmodernism! ↑


6. Perhaps not the characters themselves but the way they are used in the context of the narrative, as various voices of the audience itself^b. ↑


7. And what makes me think that a.) The series finale will not disappoint, and b.) The show will succeed in being the most unique, most complex achievement of American television to date. ↑


8. i.e. Island mythology, which I feel will be the most satisfying of payoffs the final season has to offer, even though they're probably the easiest of the payoffs to give. ↑


9. Refer to my very first post in this space for more in this regard. ↑

Additional Addenda
1. see also, "Pax" and "Pilot Inspektor" and "Kal-El."↑


2. See, very obviously: Hurley. ↑

Thursday Funnies, or: The NBC Thursday Night Comedy Line-Up Is Akin to The Best Supergroup You've Ever Heard or the NBA All-Star Game

Maybe a little superfluous, but let me explain.

From what I understand from reading "trades" (ugh.), NBC seems to be a 4th place network in a 4 man race (The CW isn't even running at this point, chugging along out of breath at about the 2K mark, if you wanna run with the metaphor, and make bad puns about running with the metaphor about running), and it's not exactly helping its own case most of the time. That guy with the chin that won't go away now takes up a full hour of primetime every evening, even though nobody (don't let the ads fool you) asked for that kind of "gift" from NBC. But if NBC doesn't have the best one-night lineup in all of television, I couldn't tell you what does. And that night is NBC Comedy Thursday.

Lemme break it down for ya:

Community
The new kid on the block, Community had the privilege of debuting with a lead-in from The Office, before being pushed to the beginning of the night to give 30 Rock its seat back. Community is like the DJ that spins at the party early, before anybody cool really shows up, but is playing deep cuts off The Knife's Deep Cuts for nobody but himself. This is a show that is in love with itself, though without a chip on its shoulder, a show that is too good for an 8pm time slot, a show that holds its head high in a crowd of giants. There are a few good reasons for this, but number 1 with a bullet in my book is Donald Glover.

I'll devote a lot more time and effort to the laudable qualities of Donald Glover here, but to put it shortly, I've never seen anyone on TV that makes me crack up like Donald Glover. Charlie Day comes close, but think about it: Donald Glover wrote for 30 Rock, jumped that ship (that's right. He was too good for 30 Rock) to star on Community, along with producing albums, updating a very funny twitter account and posting a blog with Kanye levels of cool shit, and generally being the funniest person on NBC. Aziz Ansari has been outstanding as well (more on that below), but Donald Glover has a je ne sais quois that makes me giddy. Check out this clip from this week's episode:



That is a dedicated delivery. Plus, Troy and Abed are truly a Dynamic Duo of Comedy. Those two could have their own show and I'd watch it. But aside from my career-crush (not a man-crush, but similar) on Donald Glover, the cast is solid (Joel McHale and Chevy Chase are two more strong points, as well as Annie, the most hopelessly pathetically endearing character on primetime), the writing is solid, the setting is solid. A good start to the evening. Which brings me to...

Parks and Recreation
NBC made a good choice putting its two most similar (and probably strongest, viewer-wise) shows in the heart of the order. P&R is the up-and-comer. No longer a rookie struggling in a new league, it's found its own way to contribute to the team, due in no small part to the mentoring it received from its predecessor The Office, a show it emulates without being a total rip-off of. Again, the cast is the show's ace-in-the-hole, with Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, and Nick Offerman standing out as the heavy hitters.

Aziz Ansari (who I once saw browsing the noodle aisle of Trader Joe's in Silverlake, which I will never tire of telling people about) is somebody to watch out for especially, as demonstrated by one particular sight gag from last night's episode that I can't find a clip of (the whole "Do I look sad? Look at my face." bit) that was particularly noteworthy. Plus he's friends with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, which I will always regret not knowing when I saw him at the grocery store, because I could have totally been friends with both of them. But yes, Parks and Recreation has gone from an awkward Office-Lite to something all its own, probably paradoxically by modeling itself after a show with its own growing pains that was based on something already beloved. That of course is...

The Office
The Office is the old veteran, still putting up good numbers but showing signs of age (though don't think it can't still hit it out of the park every now and then). It's the cornerstone of the comedy block, giving America a new, apparently much-needed Ross-and-Rachel, Luke-and-Laura situation. America needs to root for love I guess, because America is a nation of escapists, but that's beside the point (and not meant to stir up any shit), but The Office provides, and while the entire cast has arguably been turned into caricatures, the writers somehow manage to eke out new bits of character and emotion. It makes me think that this could be a show like The Simpsons (blasphemy to some people I know) that could go on for years and hit its stride somewhere between seasons 5 and 9, the difference being that it's much harder to hold a cast for that long on a live action show, and it's fairly obvious (or at least implied, if you think I'm reaching) Steve Carrell is gearing up for an exit within the next couple years, if not at the end of this one.

This week's episode reveled in the excruciating awkwardness of seasons past (always a good thing), and slowly continued the show's evolving plot of Jim's gradual decline into Michael-hood. It's really the most excruciating thing the show has ever subjected us to (and remember the Dundies? Excruciating. Am I saying excruciating too much?), watching who was once the show's most sympathetic, down-to-earth character turn into the show's most cartoonish, buffoonish, outright foolish one. It's an interesting set up, since Dwight's (and now Ryan's) plan to systematically destroy Jim may end up saving him from going full-on middle management, and becoming everything that he hates (but maybe secretly loves, or at least has empathy for?) about Michael. That is, depending on which side wins.

But anyway, The Office is basically the center star that the rest of the night revolves around, offering the peak possible comedy viewership, and for many might be the end of the evening. But those many are missing out on...

30 Rock
The comedy culmination. After an hour and a half of comedy, 30 Rock takes it to its logical conclusion: completely, absurdly insane. Those uncomfortable with 30 Rock's type of comedy most likely switch off after The Office, leaving Tina Fey for the rest of us weirdos. Sure the show saw a little boost with the elections and Sarah Palin, but that was mostly Tina Fey's exposure, not the show's, and didn't necessarily prepare anybody that saw her on SNL for the show she left it for. Because it's fucking weird sometimes.

There's been a backlash of late that 30 Rock "isn't as good as it used to be" (which in my opinion is so bullshit a criticism of any show it makes me blind, but I'll save that rant for later), and that in part could be blamed on the heaps and heaps of critical success piled onto it, as well as the SNL connection. People hear good things from so many different directions, they start to notice, and then the network notices that people are noticing, and things go to shit. In my opinion, and what is this blog but my stupid opinions, 30 Rock's been pandering a little, but not so much as to make it into King of Queens in a writer's room, and it's still capable of its former greatness, like Geovany Soto (at least I hope Soto's capable of former greatness, but that's a different blog). This week's episode was an edifying example of what 30 Rock is capable of, and what it's capable of is insanely layered self-referential winking postmodernism.

The whole show being about a show very similar to Tina Fey's old show, this week stepped it up a notch to include yet another allusion to real life: Liz Lemon leaves TGS (temporarily) to film her own talk show, and finds herself a victim of all the trappings of performing that she has to deal with with Tracy and Jenna in every fucking episode that came before, much like how Tina Fey left her (not-so?) cushy writing job on SNL to star in her own show (that show being based on the show where she had the cushy writing job that she left to star in her own show... whoa.). This is why 30 Rock is the perfect way to wash down a night of comedy. It's just absurbly meta enough to keep the smartie-pants intellectual NPR-types the show continually ironically lampoons (knowing that that's their actual audience, in yet another example of your typical 30 Rock headspin) watching, or perhaps not to continue watching, but turn on in the first place, as these smartie-pants intellectual liberal-types seem to think themselves too good for the old tricks of The Office (this smartie-pants liberal not included, for the record). But the fact of the matter is, those who decide to end their NBC viewing at 9:30 are missing out on the most demanding show on television (besides Glee, which is demanding in a different, more infuriating way).
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So why is NBC a 4th place network? My answer: Jay Leno. And Ben Silverman (the guy who ran the whole network into the ground in the past few years, who not-so-coincidentally is responsible for Jay Leno at 10pm). But that's missing the very funny forest for some stupid trees (or is it vice versa?). This is the best 2 hours on television (at least until the Lost season premiere), all on one network . Another great thing about Thursday? All your network comedy is over just in time to switch over to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Because who wants to watch the news?

Having said that (and I can now never say that without thinking of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I am considering as a topic for this space some point in the future), there remains the ever-looming quandary of on-demand viewing, where people can set their own TV schedules on a whim. I have my own personal lineup for these shows when I watch them on Hulu, but that's just my preference. In a dying age of TV programming (as in the literal programming and lineup choices, not necessarily the programs themselves), NBC has given us a lineup of Yankee-ian proportions. Mixed sports metaphors and all, it's a block I will continue to visit, at least until all these Thursday TV friends move away.