by Elysse Applebaum
I can’t browse through a television blog today without tripping over speculations about the next LOST. People are searching for the next LOST with the same urgency the LOST characters were always trekking around that damn island.
I hate to break it to you, folks, but the new LOST isn’t V or FlashForward or Happy Town. It’s not coming next season. It’s not on ABC. It’s right under your nose.
It’s Glee.
Hear me out.
LOST was a show about a group of ordinary-but-maybe-special people marooned on an island. It was action-adventure with elements of… whatever the existence of a smoke monster qualifies as. Fantasy? Science fiction? Asthma-inducing? Maybe all of the above.
People hosted weekly LOST viewing parties and Tuesday night was no longer the lamest day of the week. Betwixt Monday Night Football and Hump Day was now an island, a retreat from the week, a break from reality and reality TV (LOST was ABC’s answer to Survivor), populated with your best friends- both real and fictional.
“Live together, die alone!” quoth Jack, and the fanboys (and girls) nodded, toasting each other with Dharma beers. They argued over whether each episode was mind-blowing, mediocre, or made no sense at all. They tried desperately to create context for the nonsensical plot twists and contemplated whether the LOST writers were mad geniuses or escaped mental patients on acid. The debate would continue until the next episode, in blogs, forums, on Facebook and Twitter and in the wikis. The show was the reason, of course. But somewhere along the line, the social experience became just as important. In the context of LOST, real connections were being made.
But wait…another show was stealing hearts (and ratings, when they were sharing a time-slot). Don’t make me say it. You know it was Glee. But perhaps what you didn’t know was that people were having Glee viewing parties as well. Fans were downloading the songs and blogging about the characters, the costumes, the lip-syncing. They were arguing on Facebook whether each episode was heart wrenching, inspiring or made no sense at all. (To be honest, I often found Glee to be more of a head-scratcher than LOST. Sure, crazy sideways-chronology shit was going down on the island, but HOW are the glee club’s regionals coming up “next week,” EVERY WEEK?)
Lets talk similarities. In Glee, the island is William McKinley High School, and the kids are looking to be rescued from a life of obscurity in Ohio. (If you’ve been to Ohio, this is entirely reasonable.) They’re as good as marooned, unless they—UH HUH—work together! To win regionals! (Next week!) If not—they’ll die alone, covered in blue slushie. There’s a pregnant blonde. Mr. Schu is a total Jack. You don’t think he can lead those singing outcasts to victory? Well- you’re (probably) wrong. He has what it takes! And lets not forget Rachel. She’s kind of hard to like. At any given moment, there are at least two guys trying to have sex with her and her hair is always really shiny, even when it doesn’t make sense. Sound familiar? She’s Kate! Even the glee club’s name, ‘New Directions’, sounds like it’s suspiciously alluding to what the LOST characters needed.
Glee and LOST even aired during the same Tuesday night slot. People had to choose which show to watch live, and which show to DVR. And that might be the most surprising fact of all. On the surface, one might not expect these shows to have any demographic overlap—glitz and glamour and musical theater dorks vs. a bunch of grown men fighting their way across an island. But Glee isn’t just for the girls and the gays. And LOST wasn’t just for the dudes. Each show has a special alchemy, beyond anything I can hash out in this space.
Glee is the next LOST because in the end, neither of them need to make sense. Regionals will eternally be next week. We’ll never know who got shot on the outrigger canoe. It sorta matters, but it mostly doesn’t. We tuned in for the characters. We care about them and how they interact. We want to see them working together and aching alone. Deep down, all of these characters want to succeed. They crave human connection. They have a higher purpose. And in watching them, we feel as though we’re a part of that purpose.
Glee is the new LOST. LOST was the new Survivor. Something else will come next, because we want to have viewing parties. We want to drink warm beer and squeeze as many friends as we can onto a ratty couch and two stained loveseats. These shows are the reason, but they’re also the ruse.
Really, we’re just glad to have something to talk about.
by Amaya Perea