"Lost exists for no other reason than to keep you watching. Its curiosities, its mysteries, its byzantine storytelling, its non sequiturs, its periodic dips into magic realism serve no higher philosophical or narrative purpose. All of this is there simply to keep the audience on board, but those who traverse the show's six seasons will find nothing waiting on the other side."
"This is a series that dangles tantalizing mysteries, large and small, right from the very beginning. Why is there a polar bear on a tropical island? Why does said island (clearly deserted) seem quite obviously not deserted? Why exactly has being in a plane crash somehow cured one of the main characters of his inability to walk? As the show unfolds, it gradually builds out an ever more intricate structure around mysteries like this-one."
Lost introduces numerous tantalizing mysteries early on—from a polar bear on a tropical island to inexplicable recoveries and signs of habitation—and continually layers more enigmas. Those mysteries accumulate into a byzantine, serialized structure that repeatedly promises a unifying revelation. The storytelling foregrounds puzzles, non sequiturs, and magic-realist detours without delivering a coherent philosophical or narrative resolution. The primary function of these devices is to sustain viewer engagement across multiple seasons rather than to advance a conclusive thematic statement. That model exemplifies a broader entertainment logic in which capturing and prolonging audience attention becomes the central organizing principle.
Read at The Walrus
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