The final season of the critically acclaimed and widely popular TV show Lost is coming to a close.
To wrap up the show with only four episodes left, the creators have got a lot of explaining to do.
But in a recent Wired interview, co-creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof said that they only owe one answer. To a question that they raised in this final season.
The legitimate viewer concern
If you’re not a Lost fan, over the past five seasons, the show has raised a heck of a lot of questions. Because it’s about a mysterious island that the characters can’t seem to get unstuck from.
The show has touched upon destiny versus free-will, faith versus reason, good versus evil, and time travel, complicated physics, and multiple timelines (which led to to online Lost “university”).
The creators planted tons questions in the viewers’ mind since the beginning, and like little threads those questions tugged viewers along. The legitimate viewer’s concern is that they’ve been tugged along all this time, to get little to no answers to all these questions when the show ends. Because the creators were more interested in ratings than answering their own mysteries.
Deflecting the legitimate viewer concern
The point of this article is not to say how LOST should be finished off, or to critique the silly season six tactic where character B asks, “Why are you taking me to that part of the island?” and character A responds, “Trust me, that’s not important right now. You’ll know when the time is right.”
(Character B is the audience, character A is the creators.)
The point of this article is to point out five ways that Cuse and Lindelof deflect this legitimate viewer concern in their interview with Wired.
1. Evading accountability to the fanbase
LOST opened up a wormwhole of questions about the island and the characters. It’s opened up some very existential questions about life, meaning, and the universe.
In the interview, Cuse says:
“These heady questions are ultimately unanswerable, and we know the audience is hoping that those things are going to be answered. The great mysteries of life fundamentally can’t be addressed. We just have to tell a good story and let the chips fall where they may…But the fact that we’re nervous about it and that we’re actually attempting it—that is what we had to do. We had to try to make the dive.”
It may sound like Cuse is being diplomatic about the ending. But it’s a given that the great mysteries of life “fundamentally can’t be addressed.”
Of course the human mind cannot physically fathom all the fundamental truths of the universe. But that has nothing to do with answering the mysterries that drove the show. If they didn’t have the answers, then they didn’t have to use those questions to keep viewers glued.
Instead of acknowledging this outright, saying, “We’re not going to answer all of the viewer questions and we’re sorry to disappoint some — even though we promised that the final seasons would answer the big questions,” he says, “Answering those questions that we imposed on the viewer is actually, impossible!”
2. Using metaphor as a distraction
Okay, let’s look at another of Cuse’s deflections, with a visual metaphor cleverly deployed:
“We are going to take a stab at providing a conclusion, and one that we hope will be satisfying on a character level. The bigger questions, we recognize, are not answerable. We feel that demystifying some of the things we do on Lost is like the magician showing you how the trick is done, and we don’t want to do that.”
Magicians and magic tricks has nothing to do with television drama.
It’s just Cuse’s magic trick.
To invalidate the fans’ concerns that they aren’t answering the bigger questions of the show.
It’s a fancy way of saying they don’t want to — or they can’t — answer all the questions. It’s fancy because it suggests that the viewer wouldn’t want the magic on LOST to be spoiled. When in fact, the whole reason Cuse has to defend himself is because viewers want to see how the trick is done.
3. Indirectly guilting the complainers
Now let’s take a look at what Lindelof says:
“The worst thing we could ever do is not end it, or go with some bullshitty ending like a snowglobe or a cut to black. That was genius on The Sopranos, but The Sopranos isn’t a mystery show. For us, we owe our best version of a resolution here.”
These references other shows serve as a distraction. Essentially saying, “Well, don’t complain, it could be worse! At least we’re not this other show over here…”
How good or bad other shows are has nothing to with how good or bad LOST is at answering viewers’ questions.
In between the lines, Lindelof is saying, “How dare you complain about LOST, when we’re at least giving you an ending.” It’s a subtle form of guilting.
4. Feigning modesty as an excuse
“As much confidence as we have in the story we’re telling, we are also comfortable saying, ‘But what do we know?’ This is our best version of the story of Lost, and it’s the definitive one.”
It’s not totally clear what Lindelof is saying here, but it sends a mixed message. On the one hand, he’s claiming that they have the “definitive” version of the LOST story.
(Being the creators , they should.)
But on the other hand, he’s saying that at the end of the day, maybe they don’t really understand the story. Maybe they’re not really qualified to tell it. Maybe they have no idea what they’ve been talking about all along.
Well, if they have no idea — and they kept viewers tugged along with seductive mystery and intrigue — then they let the viewers down. And it was, after all, a merry-go-round.
5. Closing off the dialogue and abandoning the fans
In the interview, Cuse and Lindelof announced that they will not be talking publicly about the show after the series finale on May 23.
What an ultimate way to alienate the fans. It’s like saying, “We don’t care about you guys after it’s all said and done. And any lingering questions you might have after? Forget it — not important to us.”
This is surefire way to prematurely ignore the legitimate viewer concern that accountability to viewers wasn’t really the aim.
Applying this to your own life
We’ve covered five ways that Cuse and Lindelof separated themselves from having to care about the legitimate viewer’s concern.
Maybe you’ve never watched an episode of Lost. It still remains that you can learn from LOST creators’ mistakes in the interview.
The next time you find yourself expressing a legitimate concern to someone you care about, watch their responses. See if they hear you out, or if they resort to the same or similar deflection tactics, by:
- Evading the real issue, saying they can’t possibly not let you down (e.g. “Well, I’m not perfect.”).
- Using metaphors as a fancy way to say they can’t be bothered by your concern.
- Making the “it could be worse” plea, so you feel guilty for even bringing it up (and “complaining”).
- Using modesty to elicit pity to avoid having to address your concern.
- Refusing to have a discussion about the matter. Or arguing to avoid discussing your concern.
If they do, use that magic formula to express your feelings. Whether they still choose to invalidate your conern is their problem, not yours.
And remember, healthy deflection works too.
Photo credit: BeZet
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds like they need to change the name to LAZY.
http://io9.com/5517045/do-you-have-an-abusive-relationship-with-pop-culture
There’s no excuse for leaving your audience hanging with unanswered questions. Oh wait. Actually there is. It’s called contempt. And making sure that viewers know that they are nothing but dollar signs.
Funny how the art of deflecting has become such an ingrained part of our culture that people will actually accept it as sound reason and a valid excuse for playing hooky on millions of viewers.
I’m not saying fiction is easy. Satisfying endings are particularly difficult especially if you’ve painted yourself into such an epic corner as LOST has. But you have to at least try to answer all the questions you asked, even if the answers are lame or at-risk of making you look silly. Not answering them is only going to cause an uprising.
But producers, unfortunately, will reward them for it $$$
Interesting link. I’m not expecting to be awed by the Lost finale, but since I’ve invested so much time into these characters, I want to see how their stories end. And depending on how it goes, I may be more skeptical when approaching any of Cuse or Lindelof’s other work.
Indeed. It is so ingrained in our culture that our presidential debates are little more than a stylized form of deflection, with professional air. As such, deflection (against groups of people and individuals) is a ripe topic that we could really rip into.
I’ve had this strange sense of trepidation this whole season. Maybe it’s because they’ve used the season itself as a vehicle for some of these deflection tactics. Like by contriving a big question for the last season that is easily answerable to shift the focus to that, rather than all the questions before it.
That’s an interesting point about the presidential debates, and sad too. Sound bite media and those who take it at face value drive some of that it seems.
Being mindful about these tactics that can seep into our interactions may help to catch them. I’m sure I’ve used them before without thinking, and it would be interesting to catch myself doing so.
* technical note – I went searching for the magical formula with the link near the end and 404’d it dude.
This is what I think. I’ve only enjoyed one or two episodes this season, everything else has just been filler.
Yes, when people refer to sound bite media for their “news,” they’re in no position to even notice the mass-scale deflection going on. It gets easier to spot them out, if you have a few examples to draw from and can resist the urge to get wrapped up in an argument. :P
Sorry about that broken link! Fixed.