Monday, March 24, 2008

once was LOST but now i'm found...

let me preface this blog by saying i'm behind. years behind. but i'm catching up fast. what am i referring to, you may ask? LOST: the television zeitgeist of the now.


when LOST first premiered, i was still in college. i was in the first semester of a hellish senior year (thanks to taking a year off my junior year to try pre-med!) and didn't have time (nor TiVo) to watch what some were calling "the BEST show on television in a long time." who exactly quoted that? i don't know. but i'm sure someone said it at some point. being the huge sci-fi fan that i am, i knew that i'd probably love the show, but as time passed, i had less and less desire to see what i had missed. the hype was SO big that i almost expected it NOT to live up to any of it. (plus, i had the safety of all 9 seasons of THE X-FILES on dvd to keep me company so i wasn't really jones-ing for a new mysterious drama to fill my time in between study sessions).

once i moved out to LA (it now being august of 2005), i was thrust into the hectic world of television development. not only was it my first "real" job, but it was VERY busy. i was working very long hours and, in my spare time, making sure that i was prepared for the next day. my first months out in LA were much like school...and then i got hit upside the head with a little something called "pilot season." pilot season is like a worm hole that you enter if you work in the television industry and don't come out of until may. you seriously disappear from life for about 4 months. worm holes don't have cable or TiVo either.

my buddies reid and dairek and i started writing a pilot of our own some time in 2006 that furthered my curiosity of the show. reid and dairek were HUGE fans and our show was shaping up similarly to LOST in some of the storytelling devices we wanted to employ. i started watching episodes here and there (more for social reasons than that of a true fan) and was very entertained by what i saw. still, i was stubborn. i didn't want to get into the show without starting from square one. back story is everything, especially in a show that's entirely serialized like LOST. there are no real "stand alone" episodes in this series. everything means something.

cut to the here and the now, 2008. a time when i'm finally READY to tackle the beast that is LOST. i was able to borrow the first 2 seasons from a friend and this weekend i attacked season one with voracity. and it was AWESOME. i can truly say that i am now hooked. i was never a snob about the show, deep down not wanting to like it or something just because everyone else did. but i'm glad i'm able to start from the beginning and form my own opinions. that's the way it should be.

what impressed me more about season one than the actual episodes was the genesis of the show. a show that was PICKED UP to series based on nothing but an OUTLINE. a show that was casting without a script, characters being created FOR actors simply because the creators wanted them to be a part of the project. a show that was originally pitched in a one-liner as "Castaway: The Series." a show that started shooting without even knowing if some of the cast had visas. a show with so many crazy variables that it could NOT have been anything but divine intervention.

watching the genesis of the show and the "fairy dust" that was sprinkled on this show in order to make EVERYTHING come together just so made me really emotional. it made me jealous. not jealous of LOST, per se, but hopeful that i, too, may be a part of something so big, so magical, so special, so well-liked, so influential, and so entertaining. it really fueled me to get working on my own projects again. as i look to turning another year older, i realize that i just have to prepare myself for the Lord to swoop in a sprinkle fairy dust on me. the Lord can make ANYTHING happen when the timing's right for HIM. i just have to be ready and willing to fly.

1 comment:

kyle said...

ecstatic that you're loving this show. I read your other post on emossnation... just so happens I finished that film tonight. I'm echoing sentiments as I read yours.