Not Just Romantically Challenged

Sitcoms have a bad rap. Yes, most of the time they're hoary, glacially unfunny mastodons of television, but that's no reason to declare the subcategory dead. If there's one positive thing to come out of postmodernism, it's that nothing is ever too old or antediluvian to dig up, brush off and make relevant again. The sitcom will never really die. It's too massive to go extinct, like algae. Having said that,¹ ABC's Romantically Challenged will not be the fittest that survives.

Using a trope that has kept fiction alive since it ran out of creation stories to tell, Romantically Challenged focuses its razor-sharp commentary on el-oh-vee-ee love. As ever-so-right troubadour James Murphy has recently said, love is a murderer, though if that was the premise of this show it might be a lot more interesting. Instead love is just that elusive unicorn that we're all hoping is real enough to spot. The cast, in the sitcom-perfect 4-pronged approach, all have different ideas on catching said unicorn, whether that be naive innocence, bitter reluctance, or boisterous carnality. Alyssa Milano is bitter² about her luck in love, particularly a barely-referenced-except-to-serve-the-plot divorce five months ago to a man already remarrying. Sitcomically said, that's the basic premise: the perils of dating.

Sadly, at least so far, there's nothing new said about these perils here. In fact, the whole thing plays like a midseason coaster of an episode in the middle of an already moderately successful sitcom's waning golden years. To put it bluntly, it's lazy. But the problem with the whole criticism is that sitcoms are always lazy, to an extent. That's the nature of the sitcom. It's a rarified genre that allows its conventions to be used and reused ad nauseum because said conventions are societal fractals, containing infinite possibilities. There will always be a new scene to be written where two people who don't particularly get along at the moment are trapped in an elevator/stairwell/mine shaft, and infinite degrees of comedy in each new configuration. It's a beautiful mold to work from, honestly (at least to some of us), like a jazz standard. So reusing old sitcom standards isn't enough to doom Romantically Challenged.

It's the jokes. The reason that situation-comedies' "sit" portions are allowable is because there is room for experimentation within the form, i.e. how can we make this funny again? Community does this by being delightfully clever and meta. Parks and Recreation leans on the strengths of its cast. How I Met Your Mother uses strong characterizations in conjunction with a wonky framing concept that gives the writers room to experiment with presentation and structure. All of the above are good. Romantically Challenged does none of these. The characterizations are weakly standard, and there's nothing particularly groundbreaking in a concept that never goes beyond, as Buckwheat sang, wookin' pa nub in all da wong paces. If your characters are stock and your premise is stock, then guess what your show is going to turn out like?

Pilots are tricky buggers though, as most of them have the burden of introducing all the characters, all the central settings, on top of actually making some sort of self-contained conflict within the episode that exemplifies the types of conflicts we might be dealing with in future episodes. It's a tough line to walk, and Romantically Challenged I suppose you could say 'succeeds' at skirting the line by not attempting to do any of the above. I honestly couldn't tell, of the four main characters, who was dating, who (if anyone) had dated whom in the past, or who was related to whom. And that made the whole thing really really dirty-feeling. Was the guy asking about spanking advice talking to his ex-girlfriend? His sister? Or just some girl he knows somehow? Shouldn't I know by now? Well, I don't. Pilot fail. Same goes for the settings; here, the obligatory way-too-nice apartment and their "hangout" spot, which appears to be some sort of restaurant. Again, things are unclear. The plot was self-serving enough, pretty middlebrow sitcom fare,³ and I admit I chuckled slightly a few times (but only because I'm pretty liberal in what I chuckle at), but overall didn't achieve what pilots should strive to. Again, tricky buggers, but also again, laziness. Oh well.

Sitcoms have been called a dying breed in some circles, but hopefully what's actually dying out are bad sitcoms. Because for every Romantically Challenged that hopes to coast through our screens by "playing the sitcom hits" as it were, there's a Modern Family that can take the oldest of tropes and make them feel fresh, new, and relevant again. Just like stereotypes, tropes are usually tropes for a reason, but at this point shows have to do a little digging to find a new way to show that reason. And at this point, the only thing Romantically Challenged is digging is its own grave. Zing!⁴

Addenda

1. Stay tuned for my long-promised Curb Your Enthusiasm/Seinfeld reunion cogitation, now that I've made my way through the latest season a second time. Thank God for HBO/Larry David's long-ass turnaround time. You may understand the placement of this footnote better upon reading that future post. ↑
2. About her career? ↑
3. Milano tries to start dating again 5 months after her divorce, mostly because her ex-husband sent her an invitation to his marriage, which is totally a dick move, and totally not a good reason to start dating again just for the sake of it. I suppose you would call that the A-story. The B-story was funnier, slightly, as one of the dudes finds the perfect girl with one glaring flaw (again, pretty wonted when it comes to sitcoms): she likes the dirty talk, and our gentle soul ain't the kind of man to give it to her. This was mostly funnier only because the actor had a semblance of charisma that was absent from the other ligneous cast members. C-story, also tropological sit-comedy, had the "goofball" "writer" character getting his short stories evaluated by a high school English teacher and getting a B-. The plots are relegated to a footnote because they are as inconsequential to this blog post as they were to this show. ↑
4. And if you have to say "zing!" after a joke, it probably shouldn't go into your sitcom. ↑

Sometimes The Blogs Just Write Themselves

These days, the only things I see that inspire me to write blogs are twofold: Lost and The Real World. And so instead of constantly writing about Lost and The Real World, I hesitated. I waited for the episode of either that best exemplified television watching at its finest. And it just so happened that The Real World's finale came first.¹

This season of MTV's Ph.D-level dissertation/social experiment has proven to be a delight beyond measure after a rocky start not only for me, but for the housemates themselves. After bitter beginnings with The God Argument, The Don't-Beat-Me-I'm-Fragile Crusade, and The Nervous Breakdown, the remaining roommates have had a long enough stretch of peace to form the scar tissue of True Friendship. Through their collective sufferings and woes, these misfit toys banded together to prove to The Powers That Be that their Machiavellian meddling will not control them anymore! You couldn't buy a logline better than that. And with the clubhouse poison of Erika 'Milton Bradley' Rocker-Girl (never did find out her last name) out of the picture, the strong that survived came together tighter than drying rawhide. Their farewells were tearful, their last actions meaningful, their sorrow palpable. It was adorable. Like kids saying goodbye from summer camp adorable. They wrote on the walls, played a final (and especially 7th-grade-risque) game of truth or dare, and finally got really really fucked up (at least one of them did). And most importantly, Ol' Yellow Eyes (Callie) had an art show.

But first, some backstory from episodes lost in the abyss: The Boy Who Lies stopped lying long enough to get himself a real actual girl, not just a vagina with a torso and stems. Incredible, I know. This week we meet them in the throes of love's blossom and the wonderful Powers That Be felt them worthy for the happiest of endings. Despite initial dramatic pauses and important hesitation on whether he could handle it, Andrew agreed to have Andrea (seriously, this is not made up) move in with him, beyond the realm of The Real World, in the real world.  I believe in them, their love is real.² This newfound infatuation with the Greek goddess Andreathena, however, seriously diminishes his need to give a shit about anyone else. Callie asked him for a favor goddammit! Our Original Oh Yeah I Forgot About Her gathers the three artistes in the house--that is, herself, Andrew the cartoonist, and... Emily?... the... poet?--to display their corporate sponsored [Buy a Five Dollar Foot Long on any sub, that's right, ANY SUB. foralimitedtimeonly] personal vision of DC in a gallery. Of art. So goddamn Andrew better get goddamn painting. But in a beautiful moment of planting and pay-off, we hark back to Andrew's near-disastrous, short-lived political cartoon career. The man's a procrastinator--and I for one, can relate. I've been procrastinating this whole season.

So then Richard Alpert sez, he sez--oh wait, what show are we on?--So then Andrew does the paintings, but he's almost late, blah blah blah, just one last bit of drama where we learn characters like Andrew have bettered themselves oh-so-slightly from "a procrastinator who turns things in late" to "a procrastinator who turns things in with just enough time to let the ink dry;" Inspector Instigator even made a last villainous showing when he decided to say to Callie The Budding Yet Fragile-To-Criticism Photographer that anybody with a finger and an eyeball can take pictures. But again, The Inspector has gone from "instigates until he makes someone cry" to "instigate until you can say sorry and sound like you mean it." That, or everyone has just learned to ignore him. But in the end (or "in the deep end" as Ty or the proverbial She might say), the art is a success, if a little damp. She even sells some photos. So naturally, it's time to celebrate.

And celebrate they do, and the best bit of drunkenness of the year manifests in the form of The Formerly Bisexual But Now Pretty Much Gay Boy tease-boxing some guy literally called Hockey Guy and getting thrown into a wall. Now his nose is all busted! On the day his dad is coming to town! So they can both go to a fancy (and probably expensive! -- my occasionally Republican and entirely fictional editor) DC dinner party, featuring Obama appearance #2!³ Oh what a Marcia Brady conundrum! But luckily, he's the kind of man who's not afraid to wear make-up. You know, like Andrew. He goes to the dinner with his dad, and they fist bump and clap hands and jump up and down screaming "Barack!" in little girl voices, and all is going just dandy until, riding the high that comes with mob mentality, the FBBNPMGB accosts the most interesting protester ever to have his face blurred on television. I had no idea the Darwinists were against gay marriage. Apparently there are evolutionary zealots as well? But back to the accosting, the Darwinist is berated without a chance to retaliate and Mike's uncomfortable dad teaches his son a valuable lesson about giving each other a chance and he makes him apologize to the now wimpering Darwinist. Parents connected with while in DC: 2 of 2 for Mike!⁴

That means our final Oh Yeah I Forgot About Him goes to Lenny Kravitz, who didn't do much except look like a total badass by blowing off everyone in the house in his final goodbye confessional, instead saying that he'll be most thankful for his band. Peace out Lenny!

And slowly they trickle out, and you can tell how much they love each other by how hard they hug each other, until there are none left, only the voiceover of The Formerly Bisexual But Now Pretty Much Straight Girl, summing it all up with a "What I Learned..."moment. So in the end, it turns out, we found ourselves forged together in the fires of Calamity, we found out who we really are, we found True Love. All in all, not a bad social experiment.

----------
Postscript: The Reunion Show
It was exactly what you would expect. They bickered and laughed, and talked unironically of True Friendship and Love. Also, there was swearing. Liberal amounts of Friendship swearing. But overall, the same shit happened, rehashing the Big Events of the series and reinforcing the fact that none of these people will back down. Only Erika cried (big surprise), and it seemed like everyone settled back into their original roles, pre-Finale. The Bisexual Duo voraciously defended their bisexuality, Callie was sweetly naive (though it was tantalizingly hinted at that she may be a closet hipster?! Hipsters can't be nice Cal!), and Inspector Instigator was less a Snively Whiplash-scheming sort of villain than a Dastardly and Muttley-comedic sort of villain. The guy's never going to look good when he opens his mouth. But at least Andrew's True Love has continued post-camera-bombardment.

Somewhat sadly, the most interesting part was watching Andrew fidget in the background when the spotlight wasn't on him, because who gives a shit what you're all doing now that you're not on TV anymore. It was surprisingly unjuicy and anticlimactic overall, and their bickering felt as uncomfortable as it was way back in Week One, only this time, as I said, there was Friendship swearing. Maybe I should start watching The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat 2 (quite the unruly title), because it looks like those people really know how to fuck each other up.

Addenda

1. Yeah, it came first like two weeks ago, apologies for the constant delays here. ↑
2. This newfound belief in the wondrous machinations of The World's Greatest Social Experiment ties into the housemates as well, as my relationship with them grew as they grew with each other. And when clubhouse poison Erika 'Barry Bonds' Rocker-Girl left, we were all free to let loose and have fun with each other. I felt like I was 13 again. ↑
3. At which point I had one of those sublime moments of realization and appreciation of the time we live in, where historic things are happening, in a country emerging from a time of hopeless dark despair and moving into a future once again filled with possibility rather than more of the same. Yes, The Real World made me remember that it's a good time to be alive. If that doesn't prove a.) the show's relevance, and b.) how far I've come in this season of nonsense, then I can't do anything more for you. ↑
4. Though his political hopes might be dashed by the previously mentioned drunken tickle-fight that resulted in a nose gash, which was broadcast on national television. But then again, without the national television part, would he have had the opportunities to participate in the politicking that solidified the dream in the first place? A real monkey's paw situation indeed--wait, am I talking about Lost again? ↑

Two Overly Serious Treatises

Treatise The First:

The Bachleor: Meditations on American Sexuality
White Female America was riveted as All-American-Male Jake the Bachelor chose his bride-to-be, and White Female America released a collective squeal of disgust as Jake the Bachelor chose the shrewier of two shrews. Was anyone really going to be pleased by either outcome?

In the wake of trashier cable reality shows featuring the increasingly shallow premise of "looking for love," The Bachelor now emerges as a hyper-conservative punchline in most respects. Touting everlasting heterosexual (and entirely Caucasian) love as its goal, The Bachelor peddles unnaturally straight white teeth and shallow cliches as the American ideal of love. Roses, tropical locales, flowing evening gowns, tailored suits and stilted emotions abound, and we are meant to yearn for something similar. Women swoon over large hunks of mineral ore and men on single knees, and The Bachelor presents no alternative, instead adding in helicopter rides and long-lensed cameras and a heaping sense of façade.

I find myself wondering the percentage of people who are swept up by the theatrics of network pandering compared to the percentage who are purely in it for the schadenfreude. Watching The Rejected's face contort into ugly expressions heretofore unseen on her until-now perfectly composed visage held a slight bit of satisfaction, a sort of "welcome to the real world, honey" kind of scoff at her pain, partially in self-defense because we know in our hearts (though the word "heart" is thrown around so much on The Bachelor that it's elevated to the most Platonic of ideals rather than the thing that works the hardest in our bodies to keep us alive and smiling impossibly clear-enameled smiles) that she came a helluva lot closer to that American Ideal of Romance, of being swept away by a Harlequin figure to exotic locales to be proposed to on bended knee and kissed oh-so-softly as the sun sets behind us and fade out the end. But we in the real world, watching TV with the man or woman who probably farts in bed, who proposed at Benihana when the chef flipped the ring out of the fried rice, who not-so-sadly lacks six-pack abs and a completely fabricated smile, we know it's just a dream. An impossibly white, WASPy, heterosexual, so-called "American" dream, presented to us as fact, though it's indubitably undoubtedly fiction, the most reaching definition of "reality" there ever was.

Treatise The Second:

Canadian Stereotypes on the International Stage
Where most countries might try to enlighten or educate the world about their culture when offered an international audience to appeal to, Canada stands alone. And their resistance, their utter denunciation of the Chinese precedent of grandeur and majesty shows that Canada's got a lot more balls than we give them credit for, and they somehow stood up to this in the most Canadian way imaginable: pure, innocent ignorance.

Canada is the friend that will smile and laugh as you completely eviscerate his manhood through taunts and pants-ings. Canada takes the ribbings in stride, without a hint of torment or sign of the sort of bottled-up-anger warnings that signal an impending emotional explosion. Which begs the question: Do they just not realize? Oh no. They realize. And they don't give a shit.

Canada's closing ceremonies made no effort to subvert stereotypes of moose and mounties and maple leaves, instead opting to have each of those dancing to what can only be described as Canadian Pop Music, accompanied by giant inflatable beavers and Michael Buble And His Incredible Quebecois Chorus Line. It takes a serious amount of nuts (Canadians love puns) to stand up in front of all of your "friends" and say, "You know all that shit you make fun of me for? Well here it is, bigger and more incredibly 'Canadian' than your piddly little international brains could ever dream of, because if there's one thing a Canadian knows how to do, it's laugh at himself."

Canada gave the world a treat by being as absolutely Canadian as it could possibly be, with no shame. The prospect of being a dancing maple leaf girl could have brought even the most desperate Broadway wannabe to ignominious tears, but I can only guess that there was a line of Newfoundlanders and Saskatchewanians ready to don a giant symbol of their country and flap around like a cocooning caterpillar, and good for them. They showed this cocky American that they could care less what I think about them and their one-road country, and for that, I salute them.

Recap Recap: Watch Me Watch You Watch Me Watch Others Watch

Pardon my negligence of duty, but between the Olympics¹ and the hazard of this space becoming purely devoted to Lost², I've lost track of much of what I set out to do here. Fortunately for me and you, the rest of the internet has not been so hebetudinous. So here I am, passing the buck on the things I've missed, and using a crutch to get to the things I haven't yet:

The Present

• The Real World
  The Real World has been wayyy too postmodern for me. It seems like every wanton epithet I attached to each housemate is accurate to the point of insanity.  These people are not people; they are avatars³ of the darkest recesses of the human experience, and they all FUCKING LIVE TOGETHER. They continue to fight about things that make us sad, instead of fighting about ridiculous nonsense that makes us laugh. Dark secrets like physical abuse, depression/suicide/homelessness, or being a horrible singer seem to come out of the woodwork over seemingly innocent things like pizza, laser tag and being bisexual, and it's really bringing me down. At least no one's been carried out on a stretcher yet. That's next week. Can't somebody just get too drunk and make out with somebody else's crush?!
  
• Lost
  Three truths: John Locke episodes are always the best. Kate episodes are usually the worst. This season of Lost is shaping up to be a doozy.
  
  Instead of spelling everything out for us like I imagine a lot of people wanted them to, the writing staff has chosen to be as cryptic as ever, perhaps the most they've ever been since season one, and instead of infuriating me, I'm enthralled.⁴ New mysteries abound, mysteries that are have been steeping in old mysteries like darjeeling and go down just as sweetly, mysteries that I am still profoundly confident will tie together in the most elaborate bow the world has ever seen. The Glimpses get more and more intriguing as things get intertwined to Crash-like levels (for better or worse), and it's beyond even any hint of possibility that they don't know exactly what they're doing. How could they not?

The Past

• The Sopranos
  I sadly remain stalled at episode 4 of season 1 here, mostly because new television has dominated my attention too much to be reliving the past.⁵ I hope to continue on my inhuman quest to chronicle the chronicles of Tony Soprano, but only time will tell. Sadly, I sense that my initial hesitation toward the show is flaring up, because there's not much of an urge to jump back in just yet.
  
• Carnivàle
  The same cannot be said for Carnivàle however, but since the return of Lost, there's not much room in the metaphysical sections of my brain for another show whose answers are buried in mythology and symbolism. Plus the fact that I know I'll never actually get any answers for this show makes me reluctant to get involved when there's answers to be had on another show at the moment. But at the same time, I have been endlessly intrigued by this show, and its imagery is astoundingly evocative of the time it represents. I anxiously await the day after the Lost finale, when my brain can once again handle being perplexed on this kind of level.

The Future

• Caprica
  The pilot of the prequel series to Battlestar Galactica was surprisingly good, mostly because it actually managed to feel like a different show while maintaining the world already established by BSG. It's a testament to Ron D. Moore's world-building abilities that Caprica actually evokes a sense of the past of a fictional (sort of?) universe, and I'm excited to see what disturbingly close-to-home scenarios this series can give us like BSG was so good at doing. I've only seen the two hour pilot and the next episode, "Rebirth," but I'll be making sure to find time to catch up at some point soon. The acting is exceptional, especially for SyFy standards, and the themes are fascinating enough to keep me on the hook for a good while to come. Let's just hope it doesn't get canceled first.
  
• Archer
  The only reason I even wanted to watch Archer in the first place is because of H. Jon Benjamin. I would venture to call him a "voice acting legend" but only because of the memories of giggling to the point of pain at every line Coach McGuirk uttered on Home Movies. Also, can I just say: Assy McGee. The man is funny. So the voice alone was enough to get me to watch the first two episodes, and I wasn't entirely disappointed. While not quite up to the absurdity level of Space Ghost or any of the other various Adult Swim programming he's appeared in (and really, how could it be?), the show is consistently funny, and it's good to know Aisha Tyler still has work somewhere.⁶ Plus, Jessica Walter (aka Lucille Bluth). Is that enough for you? No? Okay, well Adam Reed, the creator, also happened to create Sealab 2021⁷, a show so far out there you might as well quit the race. It's got potential, and I want to see it through.
  

So there you have it, the quick and dirty Recap Recap. I would like to say I won't have to resort to this kind of skulduggery in the future, but let's be realistic: I watch way too much TV to feasibly cover by myself.⁸

Addenda

1. Any sport that requires a gun strapped to your back will be watched by me, every time. But NBC's so-called "coverage" of these Winter Games should and could be a topic here in its own right. ↑
2. Which is and always will be a danger here. ↑
3. No, not Avatars, though the jumps in what should be normal human logic are equally ridiculous. ↑
4. Relieving my fear that I was going down the dark and dangerous path of being a fanboy. Glad to see I'm not a fanboy^a, just a fan. ↑
5. Albeit for the first time. ↑
6. I guess. ↑
7. As well as Frisky Dingo, which I've never seen, but heard is similarly harebrained. ↑
8. Intern wanted -- unpaid, uncredited, unappreciated, but hey, maybe you'll get to watch TV with me. But only if you pay for the pizza and beer. ↑
Additional Addenda
1. Fanboy -- n. one who thinks that by merely committing unwarrented and exorbitant amounts of time to a product, brand, or work, one is somehow entitled to think that one knows better than the creators of said product/brand/work and how said p/b/w should be handled ↑

Watch Me Watch: Lost 6.1 -- "LA X"

I thought I was the good kind of Lost fan. The kind that was ready for the final season not with lofty expectations that had to be sated OR ELSE, but one that was ready to enjoy the story being told, no matter how differently I might have done it myself. So maybe I was wrong. As I watched the 2 hour premiere, "LA X," I felt just the slightest bit of let down. Perhaps it was remnants of The X-Files Conundrum, which I had thought I had purged from myself by writing that last post, but apparently not. Perhaps it was the moderate amount of spoilers I had caught in the 8 month hiatus, because as I read them I often found a longing in my heart that they turn out not to be true, that the rumors were just rumors, odd speculation by rabid fans that really have no insight into the inner workings of the show itself, but in reality, I should have just avoided the spoilers.¹

But as the 2 hours progressed, it became apparent that it was not actually a sense of disappointment, though there might have been a little, or of being spoiled, though I most definitely was in some thrust, but rather an unavoidable hazard of cliffhangers: The Momentum Killer. The season 5 finale, "The Incident," was the kind of finale that makes Lost fans Lost fans, and Lost haters Lost haters. Take the execution of the plan that's been building all season, throw in a couple of deaths, and cut us off right at the peak of the climax and there you have it. I can guarantee that when that screen went to white at the end of last season, the entire viewing audience yelled some variation of "AAAAAAGGHGHGHAAHGHGH!" at their TVs, and fell back against the couch, spent. We were almost literally blown away when the bomb went off (or did it??). And then we had to wait 8 months to find out what happened.

The writers have often said that their premieres are the 2nd half of their finales, which is a fantastic, if frustrating, strategy (like knowing how to write good transitions in term papers), but in this case I feel like it hurt them a little bit. This was the kind of finale that begged for a major sea change in the following premiere, something like the massive jump in time Battlestar managed to pull off, because by picking up exactly (EXACTLY) where they left off, they lost all sense of urgency and momentum they had built up so beautifully in "The Incident." So a lot of things I've read so far of the premiere are usually along the lines of, "The 'flash-sideways'² bits were so much more interesting than The Temple business." This in itself is "whaaaaa?"-worthy, since we've been waiting to see The Temple since way back when Ben obliquely mentioned it in Season 3-ish. But they're right. The Glimpses, which I'm assuming is the shadowy new "narrative device" that the writers have chosen for this season, were amazing, although I don't really see how much you could call them a "narrative device" yet.³

So they might have flubbed a bit on the continuation of the drama, but premieres aren't as important as finales on Lost, so my minor complaints here are even more minor in context. Quibbles like these can be overcome quickly, and as the 2 hours romped along, I found myself getting caught up in whole new momenta; now that the finale is behind us, and the immediate repercussions have been handled (for the most part), we're free to really get our hands dirty. The premiere was an epilogue--a season 5 postscript--that prepared us for the sequel of season 6, and for all my gripes here so far, I'm on board. Maybe I'm not as bad a fan as I thought.⁴

Addenda

1. Damn you io9! But that said, I could have done a lot worse in succumbing to spoiler temptation, because for a while there they were coming out with Brangelina-tabloid-rumor-like celerity. ↑
2. Which seems to be the term being kicked around so far, but I'm going to go out on a limb and christen them Glimpses, for my own clandestine purposes. ↑
3. But more on that later as the season develops. ↑
4. Yes, it took me a full week to compile my thoughts about the premiere, which may say more about it than anything I've said above. It was complex, exciting, surprising, and more, which looking back on it should be more than I could have ever asked for, but I guess I'm just spoiled. That's what film school does to you. ↑

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. ↑