'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 managed to negotiate its own ending by leaving the
airwaves after six seasons.
In December
2007 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, made 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 Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt,”
for instance, finally gives a face to castaway Neil, i.e., Frogurt,
first mentioned in the season two episode “S.O.S.” but who
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
Deal,” meanwhile, 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.”
Dr. Leslie
Artz, the high school science teacher who “exploded” from
dynamite in the season one finale, makes an appearance in two webisodes
and plays comic relief in both. More significantly, “Tropical
Depressions” serves as a two-minute flashback episode of Lost
(without the flashback) as Artz describes to Michael why he was in Australia—turns
out he met a woman online and flew down to meet her only to be rejected
by her in the end. The most intriguing Missing Pieces, however,
is the final one, “So It Begins.” Vincent the dog is running
through the jungle when he comes across Jack’s father, Christian
Shephard. Christian says to him, “I need you to find my son. He’s
over there in that bamboo forest, unconscious. I need you to go wake
him up.” As Vincent runs off, the dead elder Shephard echoes what
“tall Walt” later told John Locke at the end of season three:
“He has work to do.”
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
in March 2007. “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 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. Then
again, maybe that’s to be expected given how Lost has
been leading the way in this era of unlimited media potential from the
moment of its initial inception.
Anthony
Letizia (December 3, 2007)
