Found.
Science Fiction and Fantasy have always been a big part of my life… a shaping force, a guiding light. From the moment I picked up my mother’s beaten and tattered Narnia books at age 10, the release from our modern existence, the glimpse they can provide into a world greater than our own… let’s just say I was hooked. Hooked on a way to escape from my own boring, sad little life.
And each step of my life- each era if you will- has been accompanied by some great work of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. My childhood was shaped by Narnia, the Pevensies and Aslan. My college years were saved by the Lord of the Rings. My twenties are echoed by the years of waiting between each new Harry Potter. My slow-desent into adult cynicism was accompanied by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And in some weird, perverse way, the Twilight series (and my undying hatred for, and fascination with, it) is shoving me into womanhood… whether I like it or not.
But television Science Fiction is a different breed than that of books and movies. It is generally more pervasive- or it has been for me. The sheer consistency of it: watching each week, processing, discussing, theorizing, obsessing, dreaming, mocking, loving, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Though I am a movie buff to the core, I have always argued that the impact of television can be far more powerful than any film (and even most books). Great films are a flash in the pan, an emotional wallop that imprints you, sticks with you, changes you maybe… but great television? Great television takes up hours and years of your lives. It seeps its way into your subconscious, into your psyche. The characters become entrenched in your lives- and you in theirs, to the point where the show goes beyond just entertainment and becomes real to you in some far deeper way than Rhett or Scarlett or George Bailey ever could. Even if they do all live on a paranormal island, possessed by the good and evil of all humanity, Locke, Sawyer, Walt, Charlie and all the rest feel as real as anything from the movie screen.
When Lost debuted on television in 2004, I was just a kid waitressing in New York City and still spending most of my life dreaming. And most of my dreaming came from TV: I was catching up on Buffy, Firefly and Angel. I didn’t have cable, just an antennae and a tiny little television with a 12-inch screen. Lost blew into my world, took hold and never let go. As much as I have wondered about the mysteries of the island, for years and years now, I have feared the actual ending’s arrival last night… for that would mean it would be over. Solved. These characters- who felt like my own friends and enemies- would be gone.
And, all told, it ended the best way it could- at least my preferred way for any television show to end: the characters, in a sense, will go on living without us, without me… their “lives,” their journeys and adventures will continue on- on beyond whatever exists in that white, loving light. We just won’t have the privilege to see them again, discussing them around the water cooler, obsessing over the minutiae of their experiences.
We won’t get the pleasure of seeing people running through jungles with great intensity anymore (preferably carrying torches); no more close up shots of eyes opening; no more Terry O’Quinn or Michael Emerson. No more men who can cry on tv and still look dead sexy doing so. No more chances to the see Hobbits out of the Shire again. No more women on tv without Botox. No more veiled references to Narnia- and the brilliance of C.S. Lewis- that don’t make the referencer seem like a right-wing, evangelical, dogmatic crazyperson.
I’ll miss that one time Lost referenced a crappy little paper company in Slough. I’ll miss Vincent. I’ll miss having a show this weird, moving and humorous in my life each week. Yes, humorous. “I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape.” Truer words were never said.
So, Lost is gone…
They live on. We live on. We just don’t get to do so together anymore. That little window into their world is now closed… it opened up to a new brighter future for our beloved friends. Sadly, our world just got a little bit darker.
