'Missing
Pieces' Adds to the Groundbreaking Legacy of Lost
Lost
has always been at the forefront of groundbreaking storytelling. From
its exceptional writing to breathtaking cinematography to minutely-layered
plot, the ABC drama consistently displays a grandeur not typically seen
on television. Not content with traditional structure, the series meshes
flashbacks in with its main storyline. Not afraid to challenge the viewer’s
intellect, it diverges into philosophical and spiritual discourses on
a regular basis. And in an age when production companies and networks
milk a successful television series for as much and as long as they
can, Lost has already negotiated it’s own ending: only
forty-eight episodes remain, broken down into three sixteen-episode
seasons.
Over the
past few weeks, however, Lost has ventured into even more groundbreaking
territory with the launch of Lost:
Missing Pieces,
a series of thirteen short videos, approximately three minutes in length
each, available weekly on mobile phones and the ABC website. Although
shows like 24 and The Office have offered mini-episodes
via such alternative mediums in the past, this is only the second time
that a serialized drama has done so in order further its story while
also utilizing main characters from the actual television series (Battlestar
Galactica being the first).
These are
not outtakes or deleted scenes, although they do “fill in”
gaps from previously aired episodes, but freshly produced nuggets instead.
Some of them have mysterious elements, some are ominous and others are
merely for enjoyment. The first webisode, “The Watch,” is
a flashback and takes place the morning of Jack Shephard’s marriage.
His father, Christian, joins him on the beach and gives him a watch,
saying that Jack’s grandfather gave it to Christian the day of
his own wedding. But look closely: is it the same type of watch that
Sun’s father was having Jin deliver as gifts to business associates
of the Korean mobster?
The second
one, entitled “The Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt,” finally
gives a face to castaway Neil, i.e., Frogurt, first mentioned in the
season two episode “S.O.S.” but whom had never been seen
onscreen before. “King of the Castle,” featuring Jack and
a wheelchair-bound Ben playing chess, is filled with foreshadowing dialogue
like “What, the island is going to sink the sub?” (spoken
by Jack) and “If you do leave this place, the day may come when
you’ll want to return” (Ben). The fourth and latest, “The
Deal,” spotlights the previously unseen pairing of Michael and
Juliet and takes place shortly before Michael is released from captivity
in order to free “Henry Gale.” It turns out that not only
did Juliet have contact with Michael, but his son as well; “He’s
not an ordinary boy, which is why I’m worried about him,”
Juliet says of Walt. “So I’m very glad that you’re
going to get him away from here.”
This is
not the first time Lost has journeyed into the realms of other
mediums and storytelling devices—from the very beginning the ABC
series has sprinkled the Internet with “fake” websites containing
hidden Easter eggs for fans to explore. In May 2006, the show even ventured
into publishing with the release of Bad Twin, a novel by writer
“Gary Troup.” Troup turned out to be a passenger on Oceanic
flight 815 and a copy of the book’s manuscript was even found
by Hurley during season two. Interviews with Troup popped up on the
Internet at the time and contained references to the fictitious author’s
out-of-print “non-fiction” exploration of the Valenzetti
Equation.
Although
never mentioned on the actual television series, the Valenzetti Equation
is an important part of the Lost mythology. While writing the
show, co-executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse discovered
that there was an equally compelling backstory that, although not having
a direct impact on events on the island, did compliment the show nonetheless.
Thus The
Lost Experience was launched during the summer
of 2006 to fill in that backstory, and was arguably the most ambitious
non-traditional undertaking ever conceived and executed by traditional
media.
“We
sort of felt like the Internet Experience was a way for us to get out
mythologies that we would never get to on the show,” Cuse explained
to Buddy
TV
this past March. “This is mythology that doesn’t have an
effect on the character’s lives or existence on the island. We
created it for purposes of understanding the world of the show but it
was something that was always going to be sort of below the water, sort
of the iceberg metaphor, and the Internet Experience sort of gave us
a chance to reveal it.”
The
Lost Experience centered on the Hanso Foundation—the mysterious
organization that conducted research under the guise of the DHARMA Initiative—and
the efforts of Rachel Blake (actress Jamie Silberhartz) to discover
and expose the truth behind the Foundation. As The Lost Experience
progressed, fans pieced together a series of video snippets that were
scattered across the Internet. The finished video revealed, among other
things, the meaning of the Valenzetti Equation and the purpose of the
research once conducted on Lost Island: basically, the equation is a
series of numbers (4-8-15-16-23-42) that “predicts the exact number
of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself,” i.e.,
when the end of the world will occur, and the DHARMA Initiative’s
purpose was to find a way to alter the equation and thus prevent that
end. Although the DHARMA Initiative was ultimately a failure, The
Lost Experience was a huge success and worthy compliment to the
actual series.
Books,
websites, Internet experiences and now webisodes: Lost seems
intent on becoming the blueprint for how to combine a television series
with other mediums to create an alternative-yet-unified viewing experience
in this hi-tech Twenty-First Century we live in. More importantly, the
show may have already discovered a blueprint that could bring resolution
to the ongoing strike by members of the Writers Guild of America, whose
central issue revolves around compensation for video made available
on the Internet. According to a recent article in the New
York Times
(November 19, 2007), the writers and actors of Missing Pieces
are being paid both participation fees and residuals for their work,
and the agreement reached between ABC and Lost in regard to
these webisodes could very well serve as the model to end the labor
dispute.
“I
think it is a pretty good model,” Cuse told the Times.
“What it shows is that there is basically room for a partnership
between writers and the studios in a new medium.” He then later
added, “It’s ironic that these (webisodes) are coming out
and flourishing when this is the crux of the issue in our strike.”
Then again,
maybe it’s not so ironic given how Lost has been leading
the way in this era of unlimited media potential from the moment of
its initial inception.
December
3, 2007
