Issue date: 4/1/10 Section: Arts and Culture

For any would-be viewers of Lost, the television phenomenon that has engrossed millions with its mythology and drama, I have a warning for you: This is an overwrought character study in a fantastical setting, featuring a mystery that is never solved, and it portrays the quest for knowledge as something unattainable and destructive. Lost's premise is that an airplane crashes on an island not on any maps and invisible to satellites. The survivors learn it is home to an indigenous tribe, a shape shifting monster, polar bears and giant birds, ancient Romans and hippie scientists. There's a wheel that makes the island travel through time and space and a button which must be pushed every 108 minutes or the world implodes. Throughout all of this there is the expectation that we might learn why this all matters...if we tune in for the next episode. The community of scientists who had arrived on the island to research the limitless energy beneath it were brutally murdered by the Island's native tribe. We learn that thousands of years before this, a man who was bound to the island by his homicidal mother dug tunnels to nowhere in an attempt to get to this energy, seeking a way to escape to the outside world - in retaliation, his mother destroys his village and he is transformed into a hate-filled monster. These doers of evil deeds justify their actions by saying that the Island needs protecting, that the energy must remain untouched. In the sixth and final season, it is finally explained that the island's energy is actually the source of all life, and that extinguishing it would bring about the end of the world. To protect it, the immortal son to that crazy mother has subtly manipulated the survivors' lives to bring them to the island, with the most faithful of them destined to replace him and receive his god-like powers. In the final episode, Lost's main character inherits this ancient role. He learns to let go of his search for answers and take a leap of faith, and finally protects the Island's Source from ultimate destruction. In the final scene set long after these characters' eventual deaths, the spirits of the crash survivors enter the afterlife as a brilliant white light engulfs them as their reward for a job well done. Lost ended a 120 hour mystery by revealing that the questions the characters and the audience asked do not matter because everyone dies and goes to heaven, and that the island's peculiar nature and plethora of mysteries do not matter because what's important is the experiences these survivors had with each other. It is possible to have dramatic television with closure for its characters as well as answers to long-standing questions. Lost isn't one of them. I loved most of this show. The ending was insulting. The search for answers and the pursuit of happiness are not mutually exclusive, but you wouldn't know it from Lost. Like Battlestar Galactica, another successful science fiction show driven by compelling characters and intriguing mystery, the answer to most questions is either "God / A wizard did it" or "It's beyond your comprehension". Lost's message is clear: faith, though difficult, is the true path to enlightenment, whereas science misses the big picture and, like the monster's tunnels, will only lead nowhere. It's unfortunate that Lost couldn't find room for both.