April 20, 2010: Lost - Season 6 vs. Magic

It’s Tuesday, which means that I usually spend the day all geeked out getting excited for tonight’s new episode of Lost. In past seasons, I’ve devoured every bit of reading and online information I could find with regards to Lost, with the exception of any spoilers. With this final season, I decided to try not to get any information prior to each episode, in an effort to truly enjoy the shows. Yes, I watch the previews for the next week’s episode, and I know what the title of the episode is, generally…but that’s about it. For those of you that read my Lost recaps, or talk with me personally on the topic of the show, you’ll likely recognize that I don’t do a lot of theorizing. I don’t try to figure out what’s going on. And that’s for a very specific selfish reason.

I don’t want to know.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I love reading theories from Erika and Jeff Jensen and Vozzek and others…but if I ever actually figured it all out prior to the ending of the show, I would be seriously pissed off. So that’s why my approach to the show has been to talk about it, inject some humour into the analysis of what I saw, throw a few small ideas out there, and give credit where it’s due for some pretty amazing television.

Think of it like going to see a magic show. Some people will watch a magician and their brain never stops working trying to figure out how the tricks and illusions are done, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. David Copperfield does a trick where makes a bunch of random audience members disappear from the stage and re-appear at the back of the theatre. Let’s assume that you KNOW how he does it…that you know that the audience is escorted off-stage, instructed to run through a kitchen and outside to get to the back of the stage. If you know all of that, well…it’s a pretty crappy trick then, isn’t it? But if you don’t know, then who the hell cares how it’s done? You just enjoyed watching people disappear and re-appear and you don’t know how. What do you get more enjoyment out of?

That’s my approach to Lost, so I’m trying my best to avoid reading or hearing things that are intended to spoil or tease the episodes leading up to the Series Finale. I still voraciously read recaps, and info after each episode, but I try not to read or watch anything in advance.

Yesterday there was a press release item of a cast photo for Lost that Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse said contained a hint for the finale. (Google it if you want it, or check DarkUFO. I’m not going to put a link) Well, I don’t want a hint, so as much as I would have liked to check it out, I didn’t…and I won’t.

So, for tonight’s episode, I know it’s called The Last Recruit. Other than that, and what I saw from one 15-second trailer last week, I have no idea what to expect. I’ll assume it’s not a character-centric episode, since we’ve seen episodes on all of the major characters this year. Unless it’s Frank, I can only assume that it’s an episode that involves everyone. But having no idea is what I’m enjoying the most.

The unknown can be pretty fun. Try it sometime.