"Lost"

photo from http://www.lost-tv.com

The show's premise is really simple: a plane breaks in half in mid-air, crashes on a Pacific Island, a thousand miles off course and we get to watch the stories of various survivors of the crash, the circumstances of them being there, how they came to be who they are and what they (used to) do.

Lesson #1: Never fly Oceanic Airlines. You won't anyway, it doesn't exist. But they do have a website. Why do they have a website for it if it doesn't exist? I think it's called hyperrealism. A kind of Blair Witch Project gimmick. I describe it as a piece of fiction that exists in the real world.

I thought it was hard to pull off such a thing as elaborating on the background of each and every major character (13 people) in the show. Well, I think it is hard, but they managed to do it anyway. Each episode features about one to two characters (names literally pulled out of a hat, says the writers) and ties them in with the big plane crash story.

To add some flavor to the show, it appears they landed on some sort of mystery tropical island with lots of secrets to uncover. In the first hour, the pilot was snatched by some mysterious force. Then they were attacked by a polar bear. Then when they managed to operate the radio picked up a transmission of a French woman saying that she has been transmitting that signal for 16 years.

I started watching this show mainly to see how the writers will write themselves out of this plot. It reminds me of the other JJ Abrams produced show, Alias. In one of the season ender cliffhangers, Sydney finds that she can't remember anything that happened in the last two years after she wakes up in the streets of Hong Kong. Eventually, I stopped caring.

The X-Files is a good example of how the writers (and the director Chris Carter) can't write themselves out of the story they've created. To find out what happened "in the end", read MSN's Best and Worst TV finales.

As for "Lost", I like the show so far, and I watch every episode just to see how things turn out.

They will show its 12th episode this Thursday, June 2. This was originally aired last January 5 in the US.

AXN-Asia broadcasts "Lost" every Thursday, 9:00 PM Manila Time.