Lost Promo

Last month, I discussed the concept of “genre-adjacent” and proposed a few parameters for considering a TV show appealing to science fiction fans even if the show isn’t science fiction or fantasy. I listed a bunch of genre-adjacent shows that my wife Nomi and I have enjoyed, and among them I listed Lost but with the parenthetical note that I only meant the first season. I made that note because although weird things did happen on Lost in the first season, almost all of the oddities could have been explained without resorting to genre elements. But once the second season got underway, the show more explicitly moved into science fiction territory.

And yet there are many fans of the show who stayed with it but who wouldn’t consider themselves genre fans, nor would they consider the show part of the genre. After all, the show also incorporated elements of the Mystery genre and the Romance genre, but it defied being categorized into either of those.

With Lost having come to an end this past Sunday night, I thought I’d devote my monthly blog post to an analysis of where Lost might fall in the genre spectrum. It should be obvious that there are spoilers ahead, so proceed at your own risk.

And for those of you who don’t know anything about Lost, in one sentence, here’s what the show was about: After a plane crashes on a Pacific island, the survivors must figure out what the heck is going on, and why they have flashbacks that show that they all interacted with each other in the past, and why the island seems to have powers and mysteries, and oh forget it; one sentence can’t explain this show.

So, with respect to genre, what was Lost?

Lost was completely disconnected from the genre.

I think we can pretty much eliminate this right off the bat. Even in the first episode, a mysterious monster (which later turns out to be the smoke monster) kills a character in a way that implies a genre element. Then, as the first season progressed, we found out that the island had the power to heal paralysis, and that a child could maybe summon creatures from his imagination, and that a set of numbers could bring both good luck and bad luck…

Yeah, claiming that Lost has no connection to the genre is like claiming that the film The Prestige is merely a movie about magicians in the 19th century.

Lost was absolutely part of Science Fiction.

This is the strongest statement one can make about the show, and it certainly has a lot going for it. In the second season, we learned that the island sits upon a significant source of electromagnetic energy, and we found out about the Dharma Initiative group that wanted to tap into it. This plot element led to the time travel of the fifth season, and if time travel’s not considered science fiction, then what is? Finally, the sixth season showed us an alternate universe coexisting in parallel with the main universe, and the show implied that the alternate universe was caused by a hydrogen bomb explosion. And even if the bomb didn’t create the new universe, at the very least it did throw a bunch of people thirty years into the future (after most of them spent three years in the past). That’s all science fiction, isn’t it? Unless…

Lost was Fantasy

I don’t want to open up the whole can of worms that differentiates fantasy from science fiction here, but let’s just say that science fiction looks to science to explain the impossible, whereas fantasy looks to magic. Lost certainly seemed to walk a fine line between those two possibilities until the series reached the end. The ante-penultimate episode revealed that there was a mystical glowing source in a cave that might be connected to the souls of humanity. The final episode (SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!) presented the alternate universe as a sort of Gateway to Heaven created by all the characters after they had died, a waiting area before they literally headed toward the light. Or maybe it was Purgatory. The blogosphere is still debating. Whatever it was, it definitely drew upon mythical and fantastic traditions, and not science. Which leads me to a final designation…

Lost was Spiritual Fiction

What is Spiritual Fiction? I don’t know; I got the term from a writer friend of mine, Zareh Artinian. However, when I did a search on it, it appears that the term does exist elsewhere, and is considered different from Religious Fiction. In the case of Lost, I think this ends up being the most logical genre because the final point of the show was not to solve the scientific or fantastic mysteries of the island, but to illustrate how the characters’ experiences on the island and throughout their lives led to their final redemption.

Kind of heady for an American TeeVee show, if you think about it.

I suspect that in the end, Lost, like many other books, TV shows, and movies, will defy our attempts to pigenhole it into a genre. And that’s just fine with me.

Michael A. Burstein won the 1997 Campbell Award. His short fiction, mostly in Analog, has been nominated for ten Hugos and four Nebulas. He and wife Nomi live in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is a Library Trustee and Town Meeting Member. He has two physics degrees, and attended Clarion. See www.mabfan.com.

Michael is the author of the collection I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein from Apex Publications. The title story earned a 2009 Nebula Award-nomination for Best Short Story.

Burn Notice

A few months ago, I discussed in this very space the question of genre, and why we pigeonhole works into genres. The main reason, of course, is that those works have elements in common. As consumers of entertainment, we know that if we liked a novel or movie that featured (for example) spaceships, we may very well like another novel or movie that also features spaceships.

But sometimes science fiction fans (such as I) may find themselves interested in reading stories or watching television shows that don’t fall into the science fiction genre but feel like they should.

A few years ago, my wife Nomi and I were on a panel at Arisia with my fellow Apex author Jennifer Pelland. The panel was about television shows that we were watching, and we noted how there were a lot of shows that science fiction fans liked to watch but that weren’t really science fiction. Still, these shows seemed to share elements with science fiction shows that led us to enjoy them. Jennifer used the term “genre-adjacent” to describe these shows, and since I hadn’t heard it before, I tend to credit her with coining it.

But what does “genre-adjacent” mean?

Here’s a list of TV shows that Nomi and I enjoy watching and that I consider genre-adjacent, but which you’re unlikely to see show up in a book on science fiction television:

The West Wing
24
Castle
Chuck
In Plain Sight
Leverage
Burn Notice
Bones
Human Target
White Collar
NUMB3RS
Psych
Lost (first season)

I’ve noticed that a lot of other science fiction fans also like these shows – in fact, there was a panel devoted to The West Wing at a Worldcon a few years back. Thinking about these shows, I’ve come up with a few independent conditions for a show to be considered genre-adjacent.

1. The show has an actual science fiction element to it.

Chuck falls into that category, as the main character is a nebbish who has had a computer program, the Intersect, inserted into his brain. The first Intersect allowed him to access a top secret database, triggering associations whenever he saw a villain whose name and picture was in the database. A newer version of the computer program allows Chuck to access all sorts of skills, mostly hand-to-hand combat, that turns him into a superspy.

And yet, most people wouldn’t call the show part of the genre. It has an SF element, sure, but it’s set in our own world and – this is key – the Intersect is the only SF element in the show. Like many thrillers that rely on technology that is just minutes into the future, Chuck defies being labeled as science fiction. But it is clearly genre-adjacent.

2. The show has “genre sensibilities.”

This is going to get me in trouble, because my main definition for a “genre sensibility” is that I know it when I see it. (Or, as Damon Knight once said, “Science fiction is what we point to when we say science fiction.”) But I think I mean that such a show either makes science an integral part of its story lines or follows a plotting structure designed to appeal to science fiction fans.

A show like Bones, for example, features forensic anthropologists helping to solve crimes. Forensics is the science of solving crimes, and the science is a necessary part of the show. Remove the science, and the show would fall apart.

This also might explain why science fiction fans are interested in shows like Mission: Impossible, Burn Notice, or Leverage. In these shows, characters have to put together a scheme to help out others, and the plotting is similar in style to the kind of thinking a lot of SF readers enjoy. In short, these are puzzle shows, and many SF fans tend to enjoy the intellectual exercise of solving problems.

3. The show has an actor or writer who has worked in the genre before.

This one is a bit of a stretch, but think about it. Why does a show like Castle have such a strong following among science fiction fans? Because of Nathan Fillion, who played Captain Mal Reynolds in Firefly. Bones, which I mentioned before, probably brought along a lot of fans of the TV show Angel, due to the casting of David Boreanaz.

4. We just like it, okay?

Yeah, that last one is a cop-out. But then again, I’ve only touched the surface of what might make a show (or story, or novel, or movie) genre-adjacent. Anyone else want to take a stab at it?

Michael A. Burstein won the 1997 Campbell Award. His short fiction, mostly in Analog, has been nominated for ten Hugos and four Nebulas. He and wife Nomi live in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is a Library Trustee and Town Meeting Member. He has two physics degrees, and attended Clarion. See www.mabfan.com.

Stephen King once wrote, “Memo to Abrams and staff writers: Your responsibilities include knowing when to write The End.”

It seems the creators of LOST have taken heed of this advice—have turned their heads from however many duffel bags full of money were placed on the table. They have given us one beautiful guarantee: LOST isn’t going to cling to life well after relevancy to have the life-sustaining plug only pulled once the cash has all but dried up and the long departed fans are left to wistfully think ‘what if they had ended it when it should have ended. I bet that would have been something.’

Famous Lost title card

It’s a familiar feeling, watching a series become sick and emaciated only to be revived each Fall despite the DNR note taped to its chest. Just mention the X-Files to a fan and watch their hand start shaking around their coffee cup.

(An aside: this is the ‘last season’ of LOST. To paraphrase Irvine Welsh, ‘They are last seasons and there are last seasons: which is this going to be?’ As in, Friday The 13th—The Final Chapter. The Final Final Season of Scrubs. The Brady Bunch—remember the four week ‘reunion show’ run entitled The Brady Girls Get Married? The glazed look in your eye tells me that vague memory might be haunting your subconscious somewhere.

But let’s take it at face value. Let’s tell ourselves that this time it’s going to be different. Brett Favre is going to retire. ‘I just want to be friends’ really means, ‘I just need some more time and then we can get naked together.’ The duffle bags of cash weren’t turned down only to be accepted in the guise of a LOST movie contract.)

Now that we have been giving this beautiful guarantee that ‘this is it, buckle your seat belts,’ comes the next hurdle in closing out: climaxing can be damn difficult. Unlike Woody Allen’s observation of never having a climax that wasn’t just ‘right on,’ there have been some pretty messy finishes.

As the cast of Seinfeld bemoaned to Larry David in the ‘final’ season of Curb Your Enthusiasm: ‘A Seinfeld reunion show would be great! We’ll get the chance to get the ending right this time!’

To which Larry David would scream, “There was nothing wrong with the finale!”

Now imagine the herculean task of finishing LOST. Imagine the pressure from the fans and the ‘suits’ to “tie it all up.”

Here’s another memo to the LOST creators: we don’t need all the loose ends tied into a bow. We don’t need to know what happened to Mulder’s sister. Bayliss doesn’t need to suddenly solve the Adena Watson case. We don’t need to see Winchester and Houlihan reconcile.

True, part of the beauty of the last two or three seasons of LOST have been the clearing up of some of the mysteries: polar bear, solved. Rousseau, solved. The stone feet, uh… solved?

But for Jacob’s sake, don’t solve them all. Mystery is part of the series’ charm; don’t take it all away. Give us a little something to ponder after the closing credits.

The creators of LOST have, no doubt, been working hard at this heroic task and have developed a conclusion they believe will excite and satisfy their fans. As, no doubt, did the creators of Seinfeld, Cheers, The X-Files, and The Sopranos.

And there’s going to be a lot of theories floating out there about how it’s going to end—and that’s part of the fun. Enjoy it. But avoid the people trying to get the ‘real scoop.’ Those who will read the upcoming Entertainment Weekly, ‘What We’ve Learned Will Happen Spoiler Alert’ article. Avoid anyone who has that ‘Dumbledore dies’ gleam in their eyes. (My advice, if you see someone with their eyes shining with that gleam and you hear the following sentence, “You like Lost, don’t you?” immediately, before another breath is drawn, punch that person right in the face, and then just stare at them. Message received.)

There’s no gleam in my eye, here, just a theory (and maybe a hope) on how I see the ‘last’ episode of LOST going down:

It’s the last fifteen minutes of the show. ‘It worked,’ as Juliette said in the first episode of this last season. They are all back on the plane. We think they are going to fly into LAX no problems and all the ‘flash sideways’ we’ve seen throughout this sixth season have really been ‘flash forwards’ showing us the future after they get off the island—and there you go, we’ve been watching an eighteen episode ‘final episode’ this entire time! Hell, that’s like a final season AND the reunion show all wrapped up into one!

Jack looks out the window and smiles, happy.

He’s won.

He’s saved them.

And then…

…something…

…goes wrong…

…and it’s the plane wreck, all over again. The plane splits apart. People get sucked out. Chaos.

Then a close-up of an eye.

Jack’s eye.

He’s lying on the carpet of the jungle.

It’s the opening again, from the very first episode.

He runs out of the forest and looks around at the carnage. His face twists with the sick realization that he’s back at the beginning AND THEN HE TURNS COMPLETELY WHITE…

…and Sam Becket ‘quantum leaps’ into Jack’s body. Sam looks at the wreckage and says, “Oh Boy.”

The End.

B.J. Burrow is the author of The Changed, a zom-com from Apex Publications.

Alternate Reality Games (or ARGs) are interactive narratives in which players are able to interact with characters and elements of the game in real-time by phone and online. These games are generally free to play, with the costs of the game often being soaked up as a marketing expense for whatever the game is, at core, promoting.

For example, ARGs have already been used to promote a range of different media, including:

• Albums (the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero)
• Video games (Halo 2)
• Movies (The Host)
• TV shows (Lost)
• Operating systems (Windows Vista)

These games are often started up ahead of the release of the particular video game/album/show/movie/etc. in order to build up interest and create an involved following who will purchase and promote the product themselves.

42 Entertainment is one of the best-known companies behind these promotional ARGs, masterminding the campaigns behind Halo 2 (known as ilovebees), Vanishing Point (which introduced Windows Vista), and Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero, among others. They also put out a young adult novel called Cathy’s Book which included all the necessary elements for readers to play the related ARG, including phone numbers to call to leave messages for the main characters. There is also a web site for readers to discuss theories about what happened to the main characters after the end of the book.

Just from looking at the amount of fan fiction and other fan-created content out there, it’s clear that many readers might be interested in an opportunity to place themselves into the world of a story they find particularly compelling. The opportunity to take part as a reader, interacting in real-time in an expanded world surrounding the story, could potentially build up a a more dedicated and involved fan base. This type of expanded experience is still in its infancy, and how the next books that follow this philosophy are received can determine whether this is the model for the future of publishing.

Cathy’s Book has been followed by two sequels, Cathy’s Key (published in May of 2008) and Cathy’s Ring (to be published in May of 2009). What other upcoming novels are following this model? Personal Effects: Dark Art is a collaboration between popular podcast novelist J.C. Hutchins and Jordan Wiseman, one of the original founders of 42 Entertainment and co-author of Cathy’s Book. The book includes invites you to review the included evidence, call the numbers, and visit the included web sites to take part in solving a mystery. Though Personal Effects: Dark Art isn’t officially released until June 9th, 2009, the opportunities to learn about the world and interact with some of the characters have already been cropping up.

For example, J.C. launched a campaign to invite people to “commit themselves” to Brinkvale Psychiatric Hospital, a major location in the novel, by filling out patient profiles and creating artwork. He has also gotten a number of other horror writers to take part in a series of book trailers, starting with this one. J.C. promises that there’s more to come in the next few months.

Alternate Reality Games can be difficult to get into if you’re new and don’t quite have a handle on how they work. Luckily, there are sites for both those new to ARGs as well as seasoned veterans. ARG Net reports on newly discovered and upcoming ARGs, interviewing the creators (including J.C. Hutchins) behind the games as well as those who play them. They also have a podcast called the ARG Netcast. For those who are looking for a community to help guide them in the right direction, there are the Unfiction Forums, a space for discussing different Alternate Reality Games, puzzle trails (something similar, but on a smaller scale, and often unrelated to a product), and any other odd sites or clues people happen to stumble across.

Looking at these sites, it’s clear that there’s a community out there interested in ARGs in addition to those interested in getting more out of their favorite books. How much the two groups overlap may help determine whether this type of interactive fiction takes off.