I’ve been looking for an non-gratuitous excuse to link to postbourgie. Because, y’know, some of my best friends are black. And I support Barack Obama. Ergo: not a racist bone in my body. Virtue!
Also, Lost is a very bad show, marred by dim-witted and deeply convoluted storytelling, overacting, and way too much hype.** But wait, there’s more: Lost creator J.J. Abrams hates black people.***
* There’s no evidence that this is actually true. Please don’t sue me. Please.
** Also true of Alias, which lasted five season longer than it should have. Get it? Alias only ran for five seasons. I’ll be here all week. CDs are available in the lobby.
*** Not really. And also not the point of the original post. But still: totally true.
The Edge of the American West 
41 comments
February 3, 2008 at 6:30 am
Adam Arenson
Taking on your second asterisks:
On behalf of the J.J. Abrams fans in the professoriate, I challenge you to name a television show on network television that is more creative and/or less predictable in its story lines than Alias or Lost.
Television is still television, but at least when I watch these shows I can’t predict everything about them from the first few minutes, they way most shows go…
February 3, 2008 at 7:49 am
Cala
Less predictable does not necessarily mean good television. I enjoyed the first half of the first season of Lost, but it had nothing to do with the Mystery(tm), but because the flashback stories were very compelling. Lately, from the episodes I’ve caught, it seems originality means ‘do something weird, and put in a number sequence so fans on the Internet can find the Deep Truth. Also, a polar bear.’
This could be the Polar Bear theory of television. If its primary claim to originality is equivalent to a polar bear on a tropical island, it is not as original as people think.
February 3, 2008 at 10:18 am
silbey
I think Abrams would do much better on British television, where each season’s series is a self-contained arc. Much more like extended mini-series than anything else. His stuff tends to get bloated as the seasons go by and eventually collapse under its own weight. The first season of Lost I thought was excellent, as was the first season of Alias. After that, the shows became Escher puzzles, from which all rationality had fled.
February 3, 2008 at 10:22 am
bitchphd
Ooh, that post-bourgie blog is teh awesome.
February 3, 2008 at 10:29 am
ari
B, isn’t that a great blog? Among my faves. And, in fairness, I totally agree with Silbey. I actually liked Season One of both shows very much. But from there, each devolved into obsurantist drivel — with polar bears/Rimbaldi documents. Speaking of which, I still use the Rimbaldi document as my personal code for a job talk or book or even conversation filled with blind alleys, seemingly cut from new and ever-larger pieces of whole cloth as the talker or writer goes along.
February 3, 2008 at 10:35 am
ari
Also: Adam, have you seen Flowerhead (or whatever it’s called)? Phil Nugent had a funny review. Worth a look. And I meant no offense. My wife loves Lost, which is why I wrote the post in the first place. Well, that and I wanted to link to postbourgie. Anyway, she made me watch the whole two-hour retrospective episdode last Wednesday, thinking that was the season premiere. She kept insisting that the new stuff was coming any moment. As the two polar-beary and smoke-monsterish hours dragged on, I became more and more petulant, until…oops, the actual premiere turned out to be Thursday night. She and I may not be speaking now. I hope you and I still are.
February 3, 2008 at 10:46 am
Walt
What, you’ve run out of actual history to talk about, so you’re already reduced to trolling your own blog?
February 3, 2008 at 10:52 am
ari
No, it’s the weekend. So: no history. At least not usually. If “usually” can be operative for a blog that’s just a few months old. Anyway, on the weekends I write about what I think about on the weekends: politics, pop culture, whatever. Actually, what I really think about on the weekends is writing and my kids. But my kids are away, and I’m in the worst writing slump I’ve experienced since my older boy was a baby (hmm, a post?). So talking about that is just depressing. Instead I troll my own blog. Got a problem with it?
February 3, 2008 at 11:31 am
bitchphd
No. What’s up with the writing slump? Blah blah 15 minutes blah.
February 3, 2008 at 11:44 am
ari
I can’t write anymore. Stop. Everything I write is horrible. Stop. Has been for about a month. Stop. Words fail. Stop. Misery. End
February 3, 2008 at 1:16 pm
silbey
Rimbaldi document as my personal code for a job talk or book or even conversation
Ding! This Code Phrase Has Been Officially Adopted By The Silbey Family; Royalties To Follow.
February 3, 2008 at 1:38 pm
urbino
Between these royalties and the sale of silbey’s reprints, you two may pull the economy out of recession.
February 3, 2008 at 1:50 pm
bitchphd
Pretend you’re one of your own grad students, Ari. How do you tell *them* to get out of a writing slump?
February 3, 2008 at 1:58 pm
eric
Between these royalties and the sale of silbey’s reprint
Unless someone starts shoplifting, ahem.
February 3, 2008 at 2:08 pm
bitchphd
Look at you, Eric, supporting the publishing industrial complex like that.
February 3, 2008 at 2:24 pm
ari
Pills and booze. A time-tested formula. And something of a literary tradition.
February 3, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Adam Arenson
I’m with Cala that the flashbacks and the interconnected back stories are probably as interesting/more so than the Dharma Initiative stuff. But television has some power, too, when it breaks out of the ordinary — it’s fiction, after all.
And I agree that the first year of good U.S. television shows are the strongest. But to find new ones, there’s the effort of checking out the shows to see what, if any, will be good enough… it begins to feel like keeping up with book reviews!
February 3, 2008 at 2:32 pm
ari
Honestly, B, I just keep writing. I spend as many hours in my chair as I can, just staring at the screen if need be. By day’s end I usually have a page or two. It’s not fun. And I don’t often love what I’ve written. But I’ll eventually get some sleep, and then the prose thing will happen again. Assuming the past is prelude.
February 3, 2008 at 2:38 pm
bitchphd
You know what’s helpful when writing isn’t going well? HAVING A CIGARETTE. Just saying.
February 3, 2008 at 2:40 pm
bitchphd
(Actually I’m impressed. I’ve been known to do the ass-in-chair thing, and I end up not writing shit when I do that. I just sit there hating and pitying myself in equal measure.)
February 3, 2008 at 2:40 pm
eric
Look at you, Eric, supporting
the publishing industrial complexyour children like thatThough you’re right, feeding them probably only encourages them.
You know what’s helpful when writing isn’t going well? HAVING A CIGARETTE.
Look at you, B, supporting MERCHANTS OF DEATH like that.
February 3, 2008 at 2:43 pm
bitchphd
Hey, I’d happily steal cigarettes right about now.
February 3, 2008 at 2:43 pm
ari
Yeah, I don’t do that. But I do GO FOR A BIKE RIDE. Just saying.
Also: I read. That’s actually the closest I have to a miracle cure. Usually I read fiction. Often Richard Ford, sometimes Wallace Stegner, and occasionally something else (secret). Or I read essayists: John McPhee, Joan Didion, or Pauline Kael.
February 3, 2008 at 2:43 pm
bitchphd
Also, if your kid’s dinner depends on book sales, you need a better job.
February 3, 2008 at 2:44 pm
bitchphd
I totally want to go for a bike ride, but my child is refusing to leave the house, the little shit.
February 3, 2008 at 2:45 pm
ari
I just sit there hating
and pityingmyselfin equal measure.In the chair, out of the chair, writing, not, for me the above is a given. Writing actually mitigates my self-loathing. Except when it’s going poorly.
February 3, 2008 at 2:46 pm
bitchphd
(Also the bike shop people did fix my problem for me, but they totally made me feel like shit about it. And then they fucked up the height of the seat and didn’t readjust it for me. I’m kind of annoyed.)
February 3, 2008 at 2:47 pm
bitchphd
Right, good writing mitigates my self-loathing too. I was talking about the “fuck I don’t want to be writing right now because I have nothing to say and I hate this subject” problem.
February 3, 2008 at 2:49 pm
ari
You should be able to fix your seat height. And get PK to leave the house. Use guilt: “Mommy needs to go for a bike ride. Or she’s going to start smoking again.” That should do it. But remember to set aside some money for future therapy bils.
February 3, 2008 at 2:51 pm
urbino
Do like Eric and stop feeding him/her.
February 3, 2008 at 2:53 pm
bitchphd
Ooh, that’s a great idea! The smoking threat, I mean. Not the withholding of food.
February 3, 2008 at 2:55 pm
urbino
Oh, sure. Take sides.
February 3, 2008 at 2:57 pm
SEK
Lost wandered through the end of the second and the beginning of the third season, but once Brian K. Vaughn started writing/consulting, the quality dramatically improved. (Vaughn has a knack for ending things well. Consider what he just did with Y – The Last Man.) Trying to think of a metaphor here …
… alright, back when I was still doing computer stuff, I’d be called to someone’s office to fix something. When I’d try to remove the tower from under the desk, I’d be confronted by Knots of Sublime Tangledness. I’d start to unravel one bit, get stuck, then another, get stuck, and so on for twenty, thirty minutes. I’d be annoyed because it’s not my fault these knots were here, but they were preventing me from doing what I needed to do.
After about half-an-hour, I’d reach this point when I could feel the tendrils start to slack, and as I neared the end of my task, I actually began to enjoy the slight tugs of desperation from this printer cable, that phone line, &c. Then, magically, the knot would gloriously unravel and I could get to work.
Well, J.J. Abrams fucked up his own show with polar bears, sentient smoke, the Dharma Initiative, &c. Vaughn came along, saw these bears and bureaucrats and smoke snakes all tangled up and went to work — thing is, once he started making headway, the viewer got to share his enjoyment. We remembered how nice it was to have order behind our desktop.
Now, here’s hoping he has the narrative equivalent of these things on hand …
February 3, 2008 at 2:58 pm
ari
Instead of a threat, it could be a collaborative thing: “Mommy really needs your help.” I try that all the time. Sometimes it even works. In fact, I’ve never smoked cigarettes at all. Well, there was that one time in fourth grade. But then I gave it up.
February 3, 2008 at 3:00 pm
ari
SEK to the rescue. Meaning: I’ll keep watching for a few more episdoes. But no more fake premieres that turn out to be retrospectives! That was just unfair.
February 3, 2008 at 3:11 pm
SEK
Actually, I can’t take too much credit: it’s all about collaborating with Joss Whedon. Tim Minear and Drew Goddard were heavily involved in the first season, then Vaughn became involved in the second half of the third. Needless to say, these were all the best part.
As for the writing, I’ve taken the novel approach of changing mediums. Sometimes when I can’t write in Word, I’ll switch to Note Pad. That doesn’t work, I’ll try an Outlook window. That doesn’t work, on to the blog. Eventually I end up writing by hand. It may all be in my head, but I read an article about how we use completely different parts of our brains when typing vs. handwriting — there’s no fine motor control intervention when typing, since we bang bang bang on the keyboard, whereas we have to be sensitive to pressure, pitch and yaw when we handwrite. But the article said we also use different parts of the brain when we use different software interfaces (though largely for cultural reasons). So an email window might not intimidate the way an empty document will, because we’re used to seeing empty email windows, and because our internal censor is less vigilant about what we type in them, &c.
February 3, 2008 at 3:15 pm
urbino
True. Nothing intimidates like a blank Word document. Normal.dot is the white whale of writing.
February 3, 2008 at 3:33 pm
ari
Well, I just wrote a paragraph totally bereft of anything interesting: no movement of the story, no analysis, no characters developed or changing in any way. Success! I’ve wrung all of the good stuff from yet another fascinating topic. And now I’ll take the dog for a walk. Sometimes that helps. Her. Not really me so much. But she needs a walk.
February 4, 2008 at 11:28 am
Jonathan Rees
So you didn’t like Alias. But compare it to the kind of stuff you find on TV most nights and you still think it never should have aired? I mean, come on, have you ever seen what they put on Fox most nights?
February 4, 2008 at 11:36 am
ari
But compare it to the kind of stuff you find on TV most nights and you still think it never should have aired? I mean, come on, have you ever seen what they put on Fox most nights?
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
But yes, you’re right. And I’ve admitted upthread that it was fine in its first year, before J.J. Abrams’s flights of fancy got the best of him. I think Silbey made the key point here, that the structure of American commercial television often means that shows will only air for a single season. The creators, then, plan accordingly. And so the first year might be good. Beyond that, though, things fall apart.
Friday Night Lights, which I loved in its first year, has fallen into this trap. It’s still much better than most things on tv, just not as good as it was last year. The declension narrative is so useful in so many realms.
May 31, 2008 at 12:42 am
I watched the season finale of Lost tonight… « The Edge of the American West
[…] SEK and Adam, I tried to like it. I really did. But the convoluted plot, the embarrassing special […]