Damon Lindelof
Still catching up on the LOST news … a couple of weeks ago, Damon Lindelof wrote in The Daily Beast:
The most awesome part about being one of the primary storytellers of a popular television show is hearing how much its most loyal fans hate it.
Oh. Wait. It’s actually not awesome. It hurts like hell.
I know—boo hoo for me. That’s the price of doing business, isn’t it? If I’m asking you to invest your time and attention in a story I’m telling, it’s your right to tell me that you hate that story.
You just don’t get to call yourself a “fan.”
At least that is what I had always believed.
He changed his mind after watching the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, which he hated, despite being a Harry Potter fan. When he left the theater, his brain was churning:
As I staggered out into the parking lot, my brain was deftly trying to resolve a deep and complicated paradox: If I loved the book, and the movie was an incredibly loyal adaptation of that book…
How could I possibly hate the movie? And even more distressing…
Based on the careful emotional logic I’d been using to insulate myself from the slings and arrows of “Why didn’t you people answer any goddamn questions?” and “A golden light in the middle of the island? SERIOUSLY?!?”, if I hated the movie…
Did that mean I was no longer a fan?
He turned it over in his mind, in the parking lot, and came to a conclusion:
I still love Harry Potter. Deeply and profoundly… I’m still a fan. A huge fan. Huge.
And so I sincerely and genuinely apologize to all those whom I have stripped of their Lost fandom just for complaining about the stuff you didn’t like. It doesn’t make you any less a fan. In fact…
It just makes you honest.
I respect that. And I’m genuinely sorry for ever feeling otherwise.
Source: The Daily Beast
While it stinks that a lot of people believe that LOST fell apart in the end, it undoubtedly raised the bar for future shows. Hopefully the next good show will match the quality of LOST but hold it together to the very end.
That said, I read articles like that and I can’t help think that William Shatner nailed it on Saturday Night Live 24 years ago, when he told a room full of Trekkies to “Get a life”.
I’m a huge LOST (and Star Trek) fan, but cripes people, get over it. I understand that LOST left many of us at the altar. I’m sorry that the finale sucked for some people. The only advice I can give is to move on and begin the healing process…
Actually, if you are still reading LOST blogs, you would probably be included in William Shatner’s admonition. 😉
Anyway, this isn’t about healing, and it’s not (for me, anyway) about whether or not I am a “real fan.” It’s about story-telling and how it works — something that I cared about long before LOST came along and that I will care about long after, so despite your advice, there is no moving on for me.
P.S. I hope you are right that LOST did set the bar higher for future TV shows, but I’m afraid it may have been a one-off, brought about by a fortunate combination of circumstances that may not repeat.