August 22, 2007

Lost

I really can't believe I haven't blogged about how much of an enormous fan of ABC's hit series Lost I am. I am a total Lost geek. So much so that I shall continue to italicize said Lost each time I write Lost.

If you don't know, Lost tells the story of a large group of survivors living on an island (a weirdo/haunted/pimped-out-by-conspirators island) after a plane crashes on it's way from Australia to America. The show is drama/mystery/action/suspense/etc and there are many reasons to watch: Why did they crash there? How did they get there? Why them? Why do they all have "daddy issues"? Who is in charge here? What/Who is the Dharma Initiative? The list goes on and on.

Daphne and I missed the first season because we were always at church and never remembered to tape it. (No, we do not have DVR or TiVo. We live in a home with a VCR. For those of you who have forgotten that stands for Video Cassette Recorder. ) All of the guys in my band LOVED Lost and told me I needed to see it. So we rented the DVDs from Netflix (Netflix is awesome) and became immediately transfixed and quickly addicted. We once watched 3 discs in one day. I think that's around 12 hours of quality television...in one day.

Why ABC always releases the last season of their shows just a few weeks before the next season begins is a mystery to me. It seems they'd want newbies to get caught up so they could get higher ratings when the new season debuts. Anyway, since it came out so late and we were so wrapped up in season 1 on DVD, we missed several episodes as they aired and decided to wait for DVD for season 2 as well. (This was before I owned an iPod.)

We vowed to see each episode before season 3 debuted and were successful. And then it happened. Wednesday nights meant two religious opportunities for us...church and Lost. We faithfully watched each episode of last year's season and are now anxiously awaiting season 4.

I've been subscribed to the official podcast for a while now. That's been very helpful in understanding what the heck is going on with the show. Another thing that helps is the crazy extra-curricular opportunities the producers of Lost offer...

In a day of YouTube, DVDs, and downloads ABC was very smart to use the power of the internet to attract fans. There are sites for the airline, the organization that (maybe) funded research on the island (spoiler alert: don't go to that link if you want to do the Rachel Blake thing below...and you should), the crazy organization that did research on the island, and the list goes on and on.

I got totally wrapped up in "The Lost Experience" (go search Rachel Blake on YouTube and have fun). It not only provided insight into the show, but like most of these sites it had a complete subplot.

And now, I am relieved to find that I won't have to buy a video game console. I can play Lost: The Video Game on my PC when it debuts later this year. (My birthday and Christmas are on the way, people). Check the trailer below.

You have plenty of time to get caught up if you've never seen the show. Season 4 debuts in February on 2008 so that they can show all of the episodes in a row with no repeats (like 24).

I recently purchased a book called Lost: A Search for Meaning by Christian Piatt, a look at the show from a Christian perspective. Depending on my touring schedule next year I may teach a short-term Sunday school class on Lost when season 4 debuts. I could go into that but this blog is already too freaking long.