Oh so many questions . . .

I was going to compile a list of unanswered LOST questions but the topic is already old.  Anyway, somebody saved me the trouble.  If you're a fan--especially a disappointed fan--you must watch this:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

There, no more LOST from me.  Promise.

First Thoughts on the last LOST

The following is pretty much right off the top of my head.  These are my first reactions to the end of LOST and the totality of the series so there may be some clumsy wording (and analysis) ahead.

The LOST finale clearly worked on an emotional level.  It hit all the right buttons as characters were dramatically reunited.  But, hey, that's what LOST has been doing since season one: separating its characters and then reuniting them.  The formula always provided an emotional punch: a tear in the eye and a lump in the throat.  And so, in the end, we got that all over again.  Only this time, dead characters were allowed in on the reunion. (Yes, I know, technically all the characters who reunited did so after death; but for awhile there during the finale the show played as if the dead characters were "coming back to life" in this "alternate" universe).  Bottom line?  The LOST finale was one big emotional reunion. 

And it worked.  Yes, indeed. 

But did it work on an intellectual level?  Well, I think here the show was clearly lacking.  From the beginning, LOST has played like a mystery ("Guys, where are we?")  Outside agents--external forces--were threatening our lead characters.  We (and the characters) didn't know who was doing what or why.  But we were promised answers.  Oh, yes, we were promised.  The producers promised answers.  The network, with its constant barrage of promos, promised answers. Heck, even the characters regularly professed to have answers.  And yet, I hardly think the answers we got were satisfying.  Why?  Well, they weren't answers to the mysteries that fueled the story.  Sure, some might argue that those kinds of answers weren't important--that it doesn't matter if we know what the underground wheel was, or why turning it moved the island in time or provided transport off the island (to Tunisia, of all places).  It doesn't matter why Walt was important, or how the giant statue came to be built on the island, or why the timer in the hatch flipped to Egyptian hieroglyphics. These questions don't matter because the story was never really about these mysteries; it was, instead, about the characters and their need to "find" themselves in one another. 

Fine.  I can buy that.  But I would also argue that the narrative never became sophisticated enough to place those internal character struggles firmly and satisfyingly in the foreground.  Time and again, LOST relied on a surface narrative--an urgent, concrete conflict--to provide momentum.  Any story about character insight or revelation usually felt tagged-on.

In the end I don't think LOST lived up to its promise.  There was something hollow about it, something missing. 

Still, I'll miss the show.  It was compelling and exciting and extremely well-made.  And I have to say, I was engaged with it to the very end.  But while it kept me guessing for six years, I don't believe it will keep me thinking for nearly as long. 

One Thing's For Sure . . .

 . . . when you get out of the habit of writing on your blog, it is easy to stay out of the habit.

The TV season is winding down and the excitement about some shows is building.  Honestly, I'm as psyched as you can get about Lost, right now.  There are but a few hours left in what has turned out to be one of the most experimental and demanding network shows ever aired.  I've got a number of thoughts and questions (among fans, who doesn't?) and figured I'd scribble three (of the many) down here:

Will the two timelines merge in any specific way?  Is one more "legitimate" than the other?  The "flash-sideways" or "alternate" timeline concept is the trickiest thing the show has done to date.  Some think that the sideways timeline may be a "fake" world, or a "dream" experienced by the various characters.  Either scenario might turn out to be the case, but I hope not.  The alternate, "what if" reality is a familiar and popular SF trope.  (According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, it dates back to 1934 and Murray Leinster's short story, "Sideways in Time." Since then it has been used in countless stories and novels, spawning a new subgenre, "Alternate History," now so prevalent in SF that it has its own annual award, the "Sideways Award.") Now that Lost has established an alternate reality, I think this alternate reality has to stay intact.  It cannot dissolve at some future point.  That doesn't mean the characters from one world can't become aware of the other (as, it seems, Desmond, has), it just means that both worlds are now legitimate branches in time and therefore have permanence.  And so, as the events of the "island" timeline draw to a close, how cool would it be if Lost were to re-boot itself into a seventh season, one where we see the lives of the LA characters unspool themselves into new and unpredictable directions?  Lost could become its own spin-off!  (I know it will never happen, but still.)

Will we ever see any of the "kids" again?  I'm holding out hope that the various children of the Lost universe will make a dramatic re-appearance by season's end.  I can picture Penny sailing up to the island with Walt, Aaron, Charlie and Ji Yeon all on board.  Clearly, these kids had something special about them, right?  I still demand to know what the deal was with Walt.  And there was mystery about Aaron, too. C'mon Lost writers, don't leave us hanging!

Will the Jacob/Man-In-Black backstory (airing tonight, 5/11/10) fill in enough blanks?  I want to know about the bodies in the cave!  About Alvar Hanso!  About the big statue and the other ruins on the island!  I want to know why Ben could summon the smoke monster!  I want to know why the monster appeared in so many other forms (Kate's horse, anybody?)  Time is running out, and it sure seems like there is a lot left to explain! Will the show come through?  We'll see . . .

Twenty Years Ago

“I remember I went home and my dear, dear friend, Brandon Lee was over, and I said, ‘Watch this Lynch thing with me. They want me to do this TV show. Let’s sit back and watch this.’ So we opened up a couple of beers and watched the pilot of Twin Peaks. And it was unbelievable! We didn’t say a word to each other the whole two hours! It was just incredible. It was the kind of TV I had never seen. I’ll never forget that endless shot of the telephone cord. Oh, man! It affected me as much as any movie I had ever seen. The two of us just sat there and said, ‘Let’s watch it again!’ And we did! I couldn’t wait for Monday to roll around so I could call Mark Frost and just say, ‘God bless you. It’s phenomenal.’” --Miguel Ferrer, Wrapped in Plastic #35, p. 4

“So, we had shot the pilot, and then it aired. And I remember that night as if it were yesterday. We had a big party at our house and lot of the cast members and crew were there. It was airing on television and the phone started ringing. People on the East Coast had just finished watching it. There was this wave of people across the United States calling as soon as it finished airing in their time zone. It never occurred to me that it was going to air on other people's televisions! I thought it was only on mine! Very surreal!” – Sheryl Lee, Wrapped in Plastic #16, p. 5

“When we shot [Sheryl Lee] it was cold—I mean, it was so cold. And she lay out there, and then we’d have to take her away, where they had these blankets and heaters set up behind this giant log. So she’d run fifteen and go into this warm little tent and get her body temperature back up, and then go back and shoot. She was a great sport” – David Lynch, Lynch on Lynch (ed. by Chris Rodley), p. 172.

“When they screened the pilot at the Director’s Guild everybody laughed after I did the phone thing. Then, when I came on again, everybody cheered. Nobody else in the pilot got the same boisterous response as I did. I was completely shocked. I couldn’t shut my mouth. I have witnesses; they were there with me. Afterwards, David and Mark came up and said, ‘We’ve got plans for you.’” -- Kimmy Robertson, Wrapped in Plastic #43, p. 3

“I would say that generally a lot of the scenes from the pilot were shot from the hip. There was a lot of improvisation. So we might go into one scene with expectations we had from the script, and David would change the format and change the intent of the scene. . . . And, of course, he was influenced by the powerful setting up there. [ . . .] It was a wonderful experience, shooting that.” – Everett McGill, Wrapped in Plastic #44, p. 14

“All of a sudden this hastily typed-out three or four page scene is presented to me. And David says, ‘OK, that's your scene.’ I looked at it, and it's not just a three or four page simple scene—it's mostly written in poetry. In normal film dialog, if you can get the gist of it, you can kind of paraphrase it and make it work. But if you're dealing with poetry, you have to be letter perfect. Ten minutes later, they were saying, ‘OK, we're ready!’ It was probably the thirty years of training I had before, and the kind of empathetic sense I have with David, that allowed me to be able to do all that cold.” -- Al Strobel, Wrapped in Plastic #11, p. 3

“There’s this monologue that Bob has to do. And David's going, ‘See this? We do this scene. And see these four lines here? Well, that's a song, Frank. Those are lyrics. Make up a tune. Just make something up.’ I didn't know what I was doing. I thought, ‘Here I am, I'm a crew member. If I'm horrible, everybody's going to laugh at me. I'm going to be this big joke doing this scene.’ So every ounce of energy, every ounce of everything, was drawn up. I don't know how I did it.” – Frank Silva, Wrapped in Plastic #7, p. 9

***

“I asked [David Lynch] if the Twin Peaks pilot would be get picked up [as a network series] today. ‘I kind of doubt it,’ he replied.” – Tad Friend, “Creative Differences,” The New Yorker, 9/6/99, p. 67.

(Note: Most of the above quotes were first compiled in Wrapped In Plastic #46. See that issue for more observations abou the Twin Peaks pilot from the cast and crew.)

Notes and Notions: April '10

Well, I've been out of touch for some time and I apologize.

The twentieth anniversary of Twin Peaks is Thursday (4/8) and I had hoped to put together something to commemorate the occasion but it just isn't going to happen.  But, you know, 2010 marks the twentieth anniversary year of TP so there is still time to write a few things about the show.  (I've been asked by a few people to reprint my "Dreams of Deer Meadow" piece from Wrapped in Plastic, but the essay is too long and really won't work in this medium.  Still, I have thought about rewriting the piece in condensed form to make it more appropriate as a blog post.  That's my plan right now.  Let me know what you think.)

OK, I've been watching and reading lots of stuff.  So, a few brief comments.  (Please post or email if you would like to discuss any of these things in greater detail.)

TV: 

LOST is amazing.  No show in history has been brave enough to depict two ongoing alternate realities.  I marvel at the two parallel plots every week.  Of course, there has to be some connection between the two.  Now that Desmond is back maybe we will find out what that connection is.  Desmond has always been a unique character (remember: "the rules do not apply" to him).  Could Desmond be experiencing both realities at once?  I think this might be a cool idea and one that fits nicely with his season three story, "Flashes Before Your Eyes."  (Not to mention season four's "The Constant.")  (Let's hope the re-appearance of Desmond also means the return of Daniel Faraday (who surely knows what's going on, right?).)

I've started watching Justified on FX.  The series features smart writing, atypical storylines, and a fine lead actor, Timothy Olyphant, who is superb in the role of Raylan Givens.  Justified has been a pleasant surprise.

The Pacific on HBO is also another riveting series.  Clearly, a great amount of time, effort, and money has been put into the series.  It shows--the production values are present in every scene.  But, at the core, the fine writing and acting are what give the show its emotional resonance.

I don't watch Caprica.  I stopped watching FlashForward.  I was disappointed with Big Love (the last season was rushed and hectic, and far less engrossing than seasons past).

But I tell you, I can't wait for Treme from David Simon.  It starts Sunday on HBO.  If it is half as good as The Wire it will be the best show on TV.

Comics:

I never thought a comic with the title, Scalped, would appeal to me, but the Vertigo series from writer Jason Aaron (and illustrated, for the most part, by R.M. Guera) is one of the most complex, compelling and captivating comics I've ever read.  The story is essentially a crime drama set on the modern-day Prairie Rose Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  The FBI has placed an undercover agent, Dashiel Bad Horse, into the crime operation of Chief Red Crow.  There are murders, drug deals and double-crosses.  No one is completely innocent; no one is completely bad.  I've finished the five graphic novels of Scalped (collecting issues 1-29) and I may have to buy all the subsequent issues before the next collection comes out.  I'm hooked -- immersed in the wonderfully-plotted story and thoroughly-developed world Aaron has created.  He is masterfully using the strengths of the comic medium:  devoting time to flashbacks, overlapping simultaneous storylines from issue-to-issue, and developing his background characters into significant players.  Aaron is not beholden to any formulaic story structure.  He pauses his story sometimes, suspending the major narrative for five or six issues to explore a side area of his milieu.   But nothing in the series is extraneous or out-of-place.  The pieces all come together. Trust me, Scalped is a rewarding series.

Books:

I've been reading quite a bit.  The most exciting book has been Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky.  This is essentially a book-length interview Lipsky did with David Foster Wallace in February of 1996, just as Infinite Jest was published.  Lipsky was assigned by Rolling Stone to profile Wallace but his piece never made it to print.  Lipsky, however, had taped virtually every waking moment of his five-day visit with Wallace, and those tapes are transcribed here.  What an amazing book!  I found myself highlighting sections and taking notes.  Wallace discusses films, authors, TV and movies.  Though the book is rather dated (they talk about some stuff that has virtually been forgotten by now) there are some sections that are invaluable to the Wallace scholar, particularly those sections about the writing, editing and publishing of Infinite Jest.  Wallace emphasizes over and over again how hard he worked on the book and compares the end of the experience (before he knew it was to be published or well-received) to a really good physical work-out: "There's this kind of tiredness that's real pleasant, and it's real sort of placid."  Wallace knew that IJ was good and clearly the book was a transformative experience for him.  Lipsky's book is revelatory and no fan of David Foster Wallace should miss it.

David Foster Wallace's Papers and Notes Now at UT Austin

Sorry for the extended time away from the blog.  The real world has a way of intruding on my free time!

Ah, well, onto exciting news!

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has acquired the papers of the late David Foster Wallace.  Included in the archive are manuscripts (handwritten pages from Infinite Jest!), annotated books that Wallace read over the years (including books by Don Delillo and Cormac McCarthy!), copies of Wallace's heavily used reference books including his dictionary (containing numerous circled words), personal and professional letters, and loads of other fascinating material.

Check out the Harry Ransom Center website to see samples of the materials mentioned above.  If you are Wallace fan, this is a must!

And coming soon: draft material from Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King. These pages will not be available to the public until after the book is published in April 2011.  It is going to be a long year.

In fact, most of the archive won't be available to the public until the fall of 2010.  Meanwhile, a selection of Wallace's material is on display on the Ransom Center lobby through April 9.

You know what?  I think I'll try heading down to Austin next week.  I can't pass up this opportunity!

A Couple of David Lynch Books . . .

I've been meaning to comment on a number of things but I've been busier than usual.  Soon, however, I hope to talk about some recent comics, books and TV. 

In the mean time . . .

I was in Half-Price Books and came across a couple of David Lynch books that I didn't have.  The first was a 2007 British book, David Lynch, by Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc.  The book appears to contain the standard Lynch overview: chapters about each significant Lynch project, from the short films all the way up through INLAND EMPIRE.  The book also has a couple of potentially intriguing chapters with titles such as "There's Always Music in the Air - David Lynch and Sound in Cinema"; "Pretty as a Picture - David Lynch's Visual Style"; and "Unlock the Dream, Solve the Crime - Mysteries and Secrets."  A quick check of the endnotes and bibliography reveals that the authors used Wrapped In Plastic as one of their sources.  Oddly, they apparently had access to only one year of WIP, listing issues 12-18 (and no others) as source materials. 

The second book is a recent release, David Lynch Interviews, edited by Richard A. Barney.  It was published just a few months ago (November 2009).  From a quick perusal, Interviews looks to be a valuable addition to my Lynch library.  Barney has managed to collect a number of unusual and hard-to-find Lynch interviews and articles from the past 30 years.  From a 1977 interview in Soho Weekly News to a 2008 unpublished interview (conducted by Barney), Interviews also features a couple of rare French interviews translated into English for the first time, the transcript of the Cannes Fire Walk With Me press conference, a transcript of Lynch's 1997 KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic interview and many others from various magazines and websites. Interviews appears to a worthwhile and important Lynch book.

That's all for now.  But check Craig Miller's blog entries over at http://www.wrappedinplastic.com/ for some interesting reading.  Craig has just put up a great essay about David Foster Wallace and he informs me that he will be posting new material as often as time permits!