The World Enjoyed Getting Lost

by: Kurt Anthony Krug

photos: ABC photo

Javier Grillo-Marxuach knew Lost would be a big hit when the pilot screened at the San Diego Comicon eliz

in 2004.

“At Comicon that year, when we screened the pilot, that brought home how special Lost was gonna be,” he said. “It was gonna be huge!” Grillo-Marxuach, an Ann Arbor Huron High School alumnus, served as a supervising producer/writer on Lost for the first two seasons.

Grillo-Marxuach didn’t know how right he was as the final season of Lost ended with an unforgettable 2-hour conclusion on May 23, becoming perhaps the most important series finale since M*A*S*H ended in 1983.

The Lost series finale boasted a respectable 13 million viewers. ABC dominated that Sunday night with a 2-hour recap, the series finale, Target commercials with Lost themes (one Target ad featured the Smoke Monster followed by encouragement to buy a smoke detector), and text messages from fans about their love for the series. Finally, there was a cast interview with Jimmy Kimmel and a screening of three alternate endings on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

“I’ve always loved finales because for some reason everyone feels like, ‘Okay, I can afford to put all my eggs into this basket and push this way,’” explained Elizabeth Mitchell, who played Dr. Juliet Burke on Lost. “I always think they’re great, dramatic fun.”

Debuting in the fall 2004 season, Lost – created by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof – centered around the survivors of Oceanic 815 who crash-landed on a mysterious island where things were not what they seemed. Each episode explored each character’s origins as well as the mystical trappings of the island. It was full of deft twists and turns, a tribe of bad guys called the “Others,” the enigmatic “Man in Black” who turned into black smoke, and a “sideways” alternate reality-- and this synopsis is just the simple version.

Grillo-Marxuach was invited by Abrams to be a part of the show when it got picked up by ABC, joining a writing staff that won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Best Dramatic Series in 2006. With the writing team, Grillo-Marxuach helped develop origins for the characters and flashback ideas.

“They were great people – very creative and engaged,” said Grillo-Marxuach, who left Lost to work on Medium and The Middleman.

According to Peter Coogan, a Michigan State University alumnus and pop culture expert who teaches at St. Louis-based Washington University, Lost was an interactive experience. It was the first show to fully embrace a trans-media approach.This included webisodes, podcasts, web-games, and extended previews on the official website. Fans could also share their theories on the show in online chat rooms.

“Lost is the first show to do that and certainly most effective show to do that,” said Coogan. “Lost is popular because it hit at the right time when the DVR revolution took off. It made it possible to follow storytelling like that; it might not have been possible to do it before [DVRs]. It had good luck coming along at the right technological moment.”

Besides the trans-media aspect, Lost also boasted complex, intelligent storytelling – no mean feat in this day and age where mind-atrophying reality television prevails. It’s self-reflexive approach changed the face of serialized storytelling on television, becoming one of the most influential shows in the last decade. Lost spawned many would-be heirs to the throne, such as ABC’s recently-cancelled FlashForward and NBC’s recently-cancelled Heroes.

“It doesn’t cater to casual viewing. To watch Lost, you have to commit to it,” said Coogan. “You can’t just watch Lost and do something else. It’s impossible to sit and do e-mail and watch the show. It started a trend of smart pop culture that rewards rereading and rewatching it.”

Mitchell offered a different perspective on what made Lost such a phenomenon.

“I’d like to think that the writers had a vision and they stayed true to that vision,” said Mitchell. “We got to see it and I think that made it really fun. I think it was a wonderful mix of actors, and that’s not including myself. The characters they created were so strong and so interesting. It was a situation where we all in our lives thought, ‘How would we ever do this? How would that ever happen?’ All of that wish fulfillment seemed to happen on camera. I believed them. I believed all these people. You couldn’t help but identify with someone. I think that’s what made it work.”

According to Mitchell, Abrams and Lindelof had her in mind when they created the character of Juliet. Because of that fact, she felt that she didn’t need to read the script before taking the role.

“It was a chance to work with Damon and J.J. They said they had a strong, interesting, motherly sociopath. I thought, ‘I’m perfect!’” she said, laughing. “‘There you go!’ That was my choice. It was definitely a situation of having a tremendous amount of faith in the people who were part of it rather than the role itself because there really wasn’t anything. We created what was there.”

Coogan stated that the creators mastered the art of the cliffhanger. After each episode, this strategy kept the audience wanting more. It also posed many questions that went unanswered once the series ended.

“In serial storytelling, that’s an important reaction on the part of the audience,” said Coogan. “With Lost, they’re proposing what things mean, but they’re not telling you what it means. Leaving it unanswered gives you space to fill in the holes; it pulls you in and leaves you space to enter it. Those gaps make you wonder about everything.”