take two: spring term

Time has done what she does best: fly. Tomorrow begins my second term at the University of York, and here I sit, taking a long drag of oxygen as I prepare to dive into another nine weeks of research, modules, essays, research, meetings and – yes – more research. To add to the usual stresses, I get to figure out my dissertation topic this term and begin the research process. The problem there? I have four topics already and no idea which to choose.

Pause while I break out my breathing exercises.

It is not all bad – in fact, I thrive off strenuous academic work. But I do need balance. After running myself into the ground last term (hello, bronchitis), I have committed myself to a more holistic approach for spring. More walks, more exploring, more fiction, more yoga.

More blogging.

If all goes to plan, I will blog on Sundays (either weekly or bi-weekly). And to recap the past few months, in which (edge)wise was a veritable wasteland, here are a few highlights from the end of last term:

• Survived my first major snowfall in England.
• Experienced my first ‘Christmas Faire’ in a bona fide castle in December. It looked more like an overgrown mansion, but the shopping was enjoyable regardless.
• Attended a performance of Handel’s Messiah in the York Minster. There are simply no words to describe how breathtakingly beautiful this was. It was a spiritual experience, on par with Arthur’s Seat.
• Celebrated my 25th birthday in York: museums, Indian food, beer, and books. Fabulous day.
• Visited Durham en route to Newcastle Airport. The ‘Christmas feeling’ finally set in as I relaxed with Tessa and her family, watching movies until midnight and experiencing Beamish Museum.
• Spent a delectable two weeks at home for Christmas. Powells, sister dates, home-cooked meals, my dad’s famous pumpkin pie, Christmas stockings, family, Tatum, book club, Lewisville Park, Ram’s Head, friends at New Years, and Harry Potter. Not to mention time with my sweetheart. I actually had the opportunity to relax. I already miss, well, all those things.
• Returned to York and spent the next three days finalizing my essays. For those who are interested, I focused on: 1) the narrative structure of Lost (specifically its beginning), analyzing the first four episodes in an exploration of how the writers ‘set up’ the show’s complex narrative in order to hook viewers and create ‘quality television’; 2) the current debate surrounding the methodology of ‘third-generation audience research’; and 3) feminism and negotiated space within Mad Men, highlighting the relationship between screen and industry and suggesting that as long as women hold a minimized role in the television industry, the stories and images seen on television will not depict a realistic portrait of today’s American woman.

And now it begins again. I’ll keep you informed.

Breathe in, breathe out.

xx

Tessa and I at the Minster for the performance of Handel's Messiah.

Monster icicle outside my bedroom window in York.

Christmas stockings on Christmas morning.

Reunited with Tatum. Bliss. (And yes, her eyes are fluorescent.)

 

television world abuzzin’: the end(ing) of lost

The END of Lost.

It sounds so dramatic, as though it is the television equivalent of armageddon. Or the death of something beloved. I don’t know whether to be amused or frightened by the devoted attention that Lost is receiving by fans and critics. You can practically feel their obsessive energy reverberating through cyberspace and magazines. Forget 2012. The end of Lost is upon us!

One thing is for certain: The Lost finale will be one of the bigger television events in primetime history. I just read that ABC is charging $900,000 per 30-second advert for the show’s two and a half hour finale. (May 23rd people!) Apparently, only the Oscars and the Super Bowl charge more for commercials.

With less than a week until the finale, the cyberworld is abuzz with articles, interviews and speculations about the ending of that phenomenon called Lost. Two of the more interesting articles out there are by critic Alan Sepinwall, who interviewed the show’s writers Cuse and Lindelof, and an article in Time. In fact, the Time article covered so many of the topics I had planned to touch upon—and with much more elegance—that I decided to leave it for you to read and merely highlight my own pre-finale thoughts.

Media studies and pop culture: For me, Lost is a fascinating topic of study. The serialized drama completely changed the landscape of television. And it did so on regular broadcasting. Lost was not on cable or HBO where, arguably, more risks can be taken. Everyone has had access to Lost. Thus there is a veritable army of viewers who have invested into the story over several years and deeply care about the ending. They have journeyed with the characters through battle, elation, and mystery. The show has drawn viewers in with cryptic puzzles and mind-bending plot twists. If a story can weave a sci-fi mystery while simultaneously engage questions about faith and science, good and evil—all those archetype mythological binaries—you have one dynamite show. So then the question becomes: How will it end?

Entitled fans: While I understand the emotional investment, I want to tell the hyper-anxious viewers to chill out and accept the story as it comes. Audience entitlement has magnified over recent years. Viewers have always held opinions about certain shows, but now they feel as though they have the ability to sway writers’ (and the networks) decisions. If you need confirmation on this, check out what Chuck fans are doing these days. Flash mob, anyone?

I like what Lindelof had to say: “The question that we would throw back at the audience is, Well, what did it mean to you? Your own personal relationship with Lost actually trumps any intention that we had as storytellers. And we wanted that to be the legacy of the show.”

That is a bit of a risk on the storyteller’s part. It is an act of letting go. In every interview I’ve read of Cuse and Lindelof, they have sounded so laissez-faire about the final season and finale. They cannot control the reader’s perception and opinion, so the argument goes, thus there is no reason to try and please everyone. Sepinwall asks a very good question about responsibility though: How much of a sense of responsibility do you feel you have – that the ending has – to the legacy of the show? To which Lindelof responds that his hope is for viewers—in the coming months and years—to look back on Lost and not judge the show on its finale but the series as a whole. Hmm.

Writer’s responsibility? When you are responsible for crafting the ending of an epic drama that has captivated millions of people, what do you do with that responsibility? What factor does that play when creating the ending, if any? Naturally you want the ending to be satisfying. Everyone can relate to reading an epic novel that leaves you sleep-deprived only to encounter a thoroughly dissatisfying ending. It’s enough to make one throw the book across the room. The end of an epic is a crucial piece of the story. Absolutely.

Yet I want to draw attention to the word ‘ending.’ I am no grammar guru, but the –ing can create a present continuous tense. Yes, the show of Lost will end, yet the ending will continue into the future as people debate, discuss, and dissect the show’s final moments—and indeed the show overall. The dialogue that surrounds Lost is far from over. In some way, the ending of Lost is yet another springboard into new conversations. It is where the media analyses come in. And, to me, that’s the fun part.

What do you think? Are you a fan of Lost? What are your thoughts about the series’ end?

 

get Lost

the season that started it all

Tonight is the season finale of LOST. Two full hours of the crazy, time-twisting show that has mesmerized a cult-like following over the past five years. And I am excited. As opposed to the diehard fans who have faithfully journeyed with the characters since the Pilot, I first watched Lost last spring—and it was for an assignment.

For two solid years I had friends who doggedly tried to pull me into their Lost Club. They would gather together on whatever night the show aired, watch it together, and then discuss it afterwards. I found the entire affair absurd. It’s a television show, and a ridiculous one at that. How can you sustain a plot that deals with survivors on a remote island? I swore I would never—repeat never—watch Lost. Nevermind the seemingly dead-end island plot, but Lost was (and continues to be) a fad. I choose not to partake in fads. Call it an idiosyncrasy of mine, or a personal code of pop culture ethics. Once a show, song, film, book, fashion—you fill in the blank—reaches widespread popularity within mainstream culture, I have a bizarre resistance to it. To this day I have not watched a single episode of Survivor due to the frightening zeal the show sparked within viewers. (Now I would be curious to go back to those early days of Survivor and attempt to piece together what ignited that mania. It was one of the first reality television shows to become a 21st century global explosion, and we can all see how that genre has expanded.) That same curiosity was what prompted me to examine Lost and Heroes last spring for my Communication Theory course.

The assignment was simple enough: write a theoretical criticism essay on a subject where media and culture converge. I was intrigued with the idea of investigating the theories behind a popular television show, and a quick perusal of the websites of ABC and NBC cemented this desire. As I wrote in my essay: “Producers, writers, and critics alike are mystified with the strength of obsessive fervor the shows’ fans display. Lost and Heroes have become so popular that the characters and plot have spread from the television screen into other media, such as online magazines, online fan forums, graphic novels, and books.” Two years ago, Rolling Stone noted several fan forum Internet sites that were developed for the sole purpose of discussing various shows. In the case of Lost, there is a forum called Lostpedia, which has seven international versions and 10,000 volunteers who edit thousands of entries (Kushner, 2007, p. 34).

Unbelievable. And the thing is: people participate. In droves. Why? I wanted to gather everyone together and calmly tell them Lost was just a television show; it was not real and to find some other outlet to devote their fervid energies. And yet, something about the phenomenon pulled me in. I was fascinated with this obsession and so I decided to research further. I felt like a detective, equipped with my communication theorists (Barthes, McLuhan, Griffin, Stuart) and film/theater background, and sat down one seemingly innocuous Thursday evening to watch the first three episodes of Lost (and Heroes) to unravel my own mystery of why and how these shows had captivated a global audience.

I won’t bore you with my findings and theories (save for a small comment at the close). Suffice to say: I was hooked. Hardcore. Heroes can be thrown to the canines (sorry, Heroes fans), but Lost was spectacular. The Pilot itself is a goldmine of cinematographic genius, symbolism, and intriguing juxtaposition of frames. Not to mention a gripping, mysterious plot that all but had me holding my breath while scribbling furiously on my notepad. I vividly remember the ending of the second episode—where the screen abruptly cuts to the black background with ‘LOST’ in white lettering (the screen that fans have come to dread for it means yet another week must pass before the saga continues)—and I paused the DVD and just said, “What?” As in: what the hell just happened? what does this mean? and…how am I liking this show? Yeah, I was hooked. It took me a good two weeks before I could admit that to people—after all my vows of never watching, never following, never taking part in the Lost-craze, I now could not wait to finish the season and get caught up for the beginning of season 5. Shame, shame, shame.

Okay, yes, the show has its numerous faults, and I am a large critic even as I enjoy the unfolding plot. But the nature of its appeal continues to engage my curiosity. Popular culture and media, and how they interrelate. Those who know me will know of my desire to pursue this field in graduate study. In his analysis of media, McLuhan developed the tetrad for various mediums, calling attention to the effect a given technology has upon the environment. Shows such as Lost encourage the village community from the tribal age McLuhan describes. The ‘clubs’ that view and discuss episodes highlight the unique quality of sharing the visual experience of televised drama. Viewers can feed off one another’s reactions. In essence, the group is experiencing the same show together at the same time. They are in community with one another, united around a common interest, and they are no longer separated by distance (which the telegraph and telephone made possible). Those viewers who are separated by distance are not unreachable, as the online forums prove. The popularity of serialized drama and spread of television into other media have simultaneously extended the global village and reintroduced the notion of the tribal village. It will be exceedingly interesting to observe how the two villages interact, and how the electronic and digital ages affect one another over the next few years.

But for now, I’m readying myself for tonight. Two-hour finale. It’s gonna be wild.

check it out:
Kushner, D. (2007). Fanboy Forum. Rolling Stone, 1021.