A/N: So since it's still going to be like a month before I have time to update any of my real stuff (my life sucks), I thought I'd just throw this thing up for the heck of it. This really is a paper that I wrote, although I actually had to cut some parts out of the version I turned in because it wasn't allowed to exceed a certain length.
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Running Head: LOST:GREAT SHOW, OR THE GREATEST SHOW
Lost: Great Show, or the Greatest Show?
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Abstract
Your esteemed author of this paper had heard a lot about the TV show Lost, but she never got the chance to watch it during its original run. Mostly because she was busy at college doing labs and writing long and difficult papers like this one. However, she was aware of numerous dissenting opinions among fans of the show, particularly in regards to the ending. So starting during her gap year, during a time period of January through October of 2012, she took it upon herself to perform a study by watching the entire series of Lost on Hulu. The purpose of this study was to determine whether Lost was a great show or, in fact, the greatest show. After watching the entire thing, accounting for numerous factors, this study concluded that Lost is indeed the greatest show.
Keywords: Lost, show, greatest
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Lost: Great Show, or the Greatest Show?
Lost has long been regarded as either a great show, or the greatest show. It is extremely well-known throughout pop culture, has a spectacularly sized fan base, and it has caused more than one person to scratch their head in confusion. The author of this paper deemed it worthy to investigate into this phenomenon in order to objectively conclude whether Lost was a great show or the greatest show. The following observational study took place between January and October of 2012. Recounted below is a summary of the procedure of this study, recounting the events that took place during the show's original run.
Method
Season 1
So the show starts off with these forty-some guys crashing on this island in the middle of nowhere. There's Jack, and he's cool I guess, and there's Sawyer, who's pretty much a major d-bag, and there's Kate who's kind of just an annoying little shrew. And there's Charlie who's totally my favorite because he's a major hottie. Anyway Jack and Kate and Charlie find the plane they crashed in and get the transceiver so they can send out a distress signal, and then the pilot gets mauled to death by some weird smoke monster thing, which made me sad because he played my favorite character on Heroes (Lieber, Abrams & Lindelof, 2004). So they try and send a distress signal but it's being blocked by some French chick who's been playing the same message for sixteen years. Oh and Sawyer shoots a polar bear (Lieber, Abrams & Lindelof, 2004).
So later we find out there's other dudes chilling on this island when Charlie's pregnant girlfriend Claire gets kidnapped by this guy whose name is an anagram of "Other Man" (Litt, 2004), 'cause I guess they didn't trust the viewers to figure that out on their own, and when they get her back she has amnesia (Lindelof, 2005). And there's this other kind of crazy guy named John Locke who was in a wheelchair before the crash (Fury, 2004). So Locke and Boone find this hatch in the ground and also another plane, but then the plane falls (Cuse & Lindelof, 2005) and Boone dies just as Claire has her baby (Tamaro, 2005). Y'know, symbolism and all that. So in the meantime these guys are building a raft so they can get off the island, and Michael, Walt, Jin and Sawyer get on it and sail away, except then Walt gets his ass kidnapped by the Others who blow up the raft. And the crazy French chick kidnaps Claire's bay-bay but Charlie saves him 'cause he's boss. And Jack and Locke blow up the hatch and it's a really long way down (Lindelof & Cuse, 2005). And that's how the season ends. Bummer.
Season 2
So it turns out there's this dude named Desmond living inside the hatch. He's at this computer and he has to type in these numbers every 108 minutes or some unspecified really bad thing will happen. My guess is the writers hadn't thought of anything yet. So Des gets his ass out of there and the Losties start typing in the numbers instead. Meanwhile Michael, Jin and Sawyer get captured by the survivors from the tail end of the plane who are led by this Ana Lucia chick everybody seems to hate (Grillo-Marxuach & Wright, 2005). So they all go back to the beach camp but then Ana Lucia accidentally shoots Shannon and kills her 'cause she's stupid (Sarnoff, 2005). Oh and Sayid had the hots for Shannon which I don't really get since he also had the hots for this girl Nadia back in Iraq. So then Michael starts talking with Walt via the computer in the hatch and finds out Walt is being held captive by the Others (Cuse & Lindelof, 2006), so he goes AWOL and goes off to save him (Sarnoff & Kim, 2006). Jack, Locke and Sawyer go after him but Kate screws it up. Dumb bitch.
Ooh so here's where it starts getting really good. So then they capture this guy who says his name is Henry Gale from Minnesota (woo represent) and Sayid tortures him because he's convinced the guy is an Other (Lindelof & Cuse, 2006). And he's still wangsting about Shannon and stuff. So this Henry dude just seems like a little wiener at first but then he starts playing Jack and Locke against each other and I'm like ohhhhhhh shit something's up with this dude. Eventually they find out his name's not really Henry Gale and he's impersonating a dead guy (Cuse & Lindelof, 2006). Then Michael comes back and says he has to go back and save Walt and that Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley have to go with. Totally not suspicious at all. And then he shoots Ana Lucia and Libby so Henry can escape (Sarnoff & Kim, 2006). Ouch. Turns out he made a deal with the Others to bring those four guys I just said plus Henry in exchange for Walt (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2006). So those guys all get captured and it turns out Henry's the leader of the Others. Dun dun dun. Michael and Walt get on a boat and leave 'cause they had to write Walt out of the show because he was aging too fast (Cuse & Lindelof, 2006).
So meanwhile Locke and Mr. Eko have found out that typing in the numbers is apparently a big joke (Lindelof & Cuse, 2006), and Locke has a hissy fit and trashes the computer. Turns out that was a mistake because last time Desmond didn't type in the numbers he crashed their bloody plane. So then Des has to go be a hero and turn the failsafe key in the hatch. He says "AH LUV YOO PENNEH" and turns the key, and then the sky turns purple and the hatch goes kerblooey (Cuse & Lindelof, 2006). Oh and on the beach Charlie and Claire make out. Yush.
Season 3
So now Jack, Kate and Sawyer are all being held prisoner by the Others which kinda sucks. Henry Gale tells Jack his real name is Ben Linus and that he's lived on the island his whole life (Pinkner & Goddard, 2006). This is the first in a long string of lies from this dude. Jack keeps getting visited by this Other named Juliet and I totally hated her guts at first but then it turns out she's cool (Lindelof, 2006). Jack finds out Ben has a tumor on his spine he wants Jack to operate on but Juliet wants him to botch it because Ben is a d-bag. Kate and Sawyer end up banging like a couple of horny teenagers and Jack helps them escape by saying he'll kill Ben on the operating table if they don't go free. (Lindelof & Cuse, 2006).
Meanwhile Locke saves Mr. Eko from a polar bear (Cuse & Sarnoff, 2006) except then Mr. Eko gets killed by the smoke monster so that was sort of a waste of time (Schapker & Owusu-Breen, 2006). Anyway turns out Desmond is alive except he's naked. What a trashy show this is. Due to the weird electromagnetic stuff that went down when the hatch imploded he can see the future now or something. He tells Charlie that he sees him dying in the future (Lindelof & Goddard, 2007) and I'm like WTF no you can't kill Charlie. Kate, Locke and Sayid go off to rescue Jack from the Others but Jack's being all chummy with them. Ben agrees to let Jack's friends go once Jack has left the island on a sub that the Others have but then Locke blows up the sub because he's a crazy bastard, so there goes that plan (Goddard & Pinkner, 2007). Also turns out the Others kidnapped Locke's father who was also responsible for Sawyer's parents' deaths, so Sawyer kills the shit out of him while Locke goes off to join the Others who ditched the place and left Juliet behind (Lindelof & Cuse, 2007).
So then Jack finally goes back to camp with the other guys but everybody's pissed that they brought Juliet with them. She's being a mole for Ben (Cuse & Goddard, 2007) but she hates him 'cause he's a creepy stalker and ditches him to join the Losties for realsies. You go girl. She tells the Losties that the Others are coming to kidnap all their womenfolk but Jack comes up with the bright idea of just blowing them all up (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2007). Meanwhile this parachutist Naomi has landed on the island and says she's working for Desmond's girlfriend Penny, but they can't contact her boat because Ben is blocking transmissions from the island. Charlie knows he's gonna die so he volunteers to swim down to the underwater station and un-jam the transmissions (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2007). Desmond follows him down and when Charlie un-jams the stuff he starts talking with Penny on a TV who tells him Naomi isn't working for her. Then Patchy the Pirate blows up the station, Charlie writes NOT PENNY'S BOAT and drowns and I pretty much cry like a bitch. DAMN YOU WRITERS. So the Losties blow up the Others, go to the radio tower and send out a distress call to Naomi's freighter, Locke knifes Naomi in the back 'cause he's a crazy bastard (Cuse & Lindelof, 2007) and it seems like a happy ending... OR IS IT?
Season 4
So the freighter sends these four people to the island, Daniel Faraday (who is another major hottie) and three other people I don't really care about (Goddard & Vaughan, 2008). Except it turns out they're not really there to save the Losties but to kill Ben, but Ben's totally wise to that shit because he has a man on their boat. Turns out that man is Michael and he pretty much wants to redeem himself and then die (Sarnoff & Vaughan, 2008). Sort of a downer.
Anyway the Freighties have a chopper with them that they can take back to the freighter. Sayid and Desmond get to da choppa but then Desmond starts mentally flashing back and forth between the present and 1996 and he needs a constant or else he'll get totally unglued and die. So he calls Penny and says "AH LUV YOO PENNEH" and that seems to do the trick (Cuse & Lindelof, 2008). Meanwhile Locke is holding Ben captive and it turns out the owner of the freighter is Penny's dad Charles Widmore, and he and Ben are locked in an eternal struggle of Evil vs. Also Evil. So then these crazy mercenary guys from the freighter come to the island and start wrecking shit, and their leader Keamy kills Ben's daughter right in front of him, thus prompting Benry to unleash the wrath of Old Smokey on the bastards. But in the meantime Sawyer, Claire and Miles get outta there since Claire's house kinda got exploded, and then Claire goes off into the jungle when she sees Jack's father (who is incidentally also her father) and ditches her baby (Vaughan & Goddard, 2008). Good parenting there sweetheart.
So while this stuff goes down Locke, Ben and Hurley go and see this Jacob dude who's apparently in charge of the whole island. Locke goes in his swanky cabin and he finds out that they have to move the island (Sarnoff & Pennington, 2008). So they go to the Orchid station which is apparently where the island moving happens, but Keamy's already there. So Ben goes "Does Ben Linus have to shank a bitch" and Keamy dies. 'Cept that's bad because there's a bomb on the freighter that goes off when he dies. Meanwhile some other survivors get to da choppa and are flying to the freighter, but they run out of gas and have to drop some weight, so Sawyer has to be the big hero and jumps off. When the chopper gets to the freighter Desmond comes out and is like "YOU MORONS THERE'S A BOMB" and everyone's like "oh crap" so Des and Sun and Aaron get to da choppa but Jin doesn't make it. They take off and the freighter blows up and kills everyone and Sun flips out 'cause Jin was still on it. Sucks to be her.
So then Ben finally goes to move the island like Jacob wanted. He goes and turns this donkey wheel and disappears, and so does THE ENTIRE ISLAND. So the dudes on the chopper are like WTF now we have nowhere to land. So they crash in the ocean and float around for a while until they finally get picked up by Not Not Penny's boat. As in it is Penny's boat. And Des is reunited with her and they make out and stuff and I'm like get a room (Lindelof & Cuse, 2008).
Season 5
So the guys that ultimately made it off the island on the chopper were Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun and Aaron. Back on the island it turns out that when Ben turned the thingy the whole island became unstuck in time so now they keep flashing back and forth through different time periods (Lindelof & Cuse, 2009). Pretty much all the unimportant survivors get arrow'd by the past-Others (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2009) and then the ginger that Faraday has the hots for dies from a nosebleed (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2009). But on the bright side Jin's not dead. Well eventually Locke has enough of this bullshit and goes to turn the donkey wheel a second time to stop the time flashes, because apparently doing the same thing that caused the problem will also stop it. He disappears too, and all the other survivors end up stranded in 1974 (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2009).
Meanwhile back in the real world, it's 2007 and the Oceanic Six are all living pretty messed up lives. Ben and Locke are there too because when they turned the wheel they warped to somewhere in Tunisia. Locke finds the Oceanic Six because he's convinced they have to come back to the island because yeah, but none of them will listen to him. So he's about to kill himself, Ben comes in and stops him, then kills him himself three seconds later (Cuse & Lindelof, 2009). Yup. Then Jack finds out Locke's dead and he's all depressed, and he and Ben finally convince the other guys to go back to the island on an Ajira 316 plane. Well except Sayid, he comes with 'cause he got captured by some Ilana chick. They bring Locke's body with them too which is creepy. Anyway they take off, then half of them flash into the past and the other half land on the island in the present (Lindelof & Cuse, 2009). Uh huh. Makes sense to me.
So anyway Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Faraday and Miles have been living in the 1970s with the DHARMA Initiative, who were the dudes who lived on the island and built the hatch and suchlike before the Others killed their collective asses (Sarnoff & Goddard, 2007). Also turns out Sawyer and Juliet are an item, and I'm like well all right that came outta left field (Sarnoff & Pennington, 2009). So Jack, Kate and Hurley went back to the past and end up joining them DHARMA dudes too, because why not (Zbyszewski & Vaughan, 2009). Eventually Sayid shows up too but he just gets locked up, then he meets Little Ben Linus and then shoots the kid so he won't grow up to be Big Scary Ben. Long story short, it doesn't work and getting shot was what made Little Ben grow up to be Big Scary Ben in the first place (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2009). Nice goin there Sayid. Anyway Big Scary Ben, Sun, and some other random dudes land the plane in 2007 and it turns out Locke's not dead. Locke kinda starts making Ben his bitch and also has Ben kill Jacob. Except then we see Locke's coffin and Locke's still inside it and pretty much still dead, so that other guy's not really Locke (Cuse & Lindelof, 2009). Uh oh.
So back in the past Faraday comes up with the idea of setting off this nuke that the Others have that will prevent the Losties' plane from ever crashing in the future. Unfortunately before he can follow through on this he gets shot dead by his own mom (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2009) and I'm like WTF Lost stop killing all the hot guys. Jack decides to set it off instead. Anyway Ben's dad shoots Sayid for shooting his kid, the Losties book it outta there 'cause their cover's blown, there's a massive shootout at the hatch construction site, and Jack drops the nuke down the shaft but nothing happens. Well actually all the metal stuff starts getting pulled into the hole, but that's not really what they wanted to happen. And Juliet gets dragged in too even though Sawyer tries to save her and I cry like a bitch again. Except turns out she's not quite dead and she starts hitting the nuke with a rock until it goes off (Cuse & Lindelof, 2009). BOOM.
Season 6
So now there's two timelines, one where the plane crashed and one where it didn't. In the one where it did everyone ends up back in 2007, Sawyer tries to get Juliet out of the hatch but she dies (Lindelof & Cuse, 2010). Son of a bitch. Plus Sayid's still dying from being shot. We also find out Fake Locke is really the Smoke Monster who is really Jacob's archnemesis/brother who got dumped into a magic spring (Cuse & Lindelof, 2010). He's trapped on the island due to some spiritual mumbo-jumbo and he wants to escape and kill the Losties. But anyhoo they go to this Temple place where some of the Others live and the Others try to save Sayid but really they just stick him in a spring until he drowns. Except then he gets back up again but apparently he's evil now (Lindelof & Cuse, 2010). Oh and Claire's back but apparently she's evil too. And then Smokey attacks the Temple and kills all the bitches (Zbyszewski & Roland, 2010).
So more random stuff happens, like Ilana wants to kill Ben for killing Jacob but then Ben starts crying over his dead daughter like a little wiener and that makes Ilana forgive him for some reason (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2010). And then after that she gets blown up in probably the least subtle writing-out of a character ever (Kitsis & Horowitz, 2010). Then some more random stuff happens, Sun and Jin are finally reunited, yippee (Zbyszewksi & Roland, 2010). Smokey pretends to want to help the Losties get off and has them all get on a sub, 'cept turns out he put a bomb in that thing. So Sayid grabs it and runs and it blows up and he dies, then the sub starts to sink and Sun's trapped and Jin stays with her and they drown and I cry like a bitch again (Sarnoff & Galasso, 2010).
So then the Losties find out from Jacob's ghost that one of them has to take over his job and protect the island, and Jack says he will 'cause that's kind of the thing that he does. Smokey's still bein an ass and says he's gonna destroy the island (Kitsis, Horowitz & Sarnoff, 2010). He has Desmond go in the magic cave and remove some magic plug (there's some innuendo to be had here) and the island starts to sink. But lo and behold that turns Smokey mortal for some reason. So he and Jack get into an epic fistfight atop the Cliffs of Insanity, Smokey lethally stabs Jack, Kate shoots Smokey, Jack killsteals and pushes Smokey off the cliff, Smokey's dead. Hallelujah. So now that Jack's conveniently minutes away from death Kate decides she loves him and not Sawyer and all the Sawyer fangirls throw hissy fits and trash their sets. Whatever, Juliet's better anyway. Kate and Sawyer and Claire (who is not evil anymore I guess?) all make it to the Ajira airplane, then they all get on and fly away from the island forever. Jack makes Hurley the new protector of the island, puts the plug back in and saves the island, then wanders into the forest and dies. And I cry like several dozen bitches.
And incidentally the whole flash-sideways timeline was really the afterlife the whole time. Des has all the dead Losties remember their lives one by one, then at the end they're all back together and they move on together. The end (Lindelof & Cuse, 2010).
Results
The overall awesometude of this show was measured in part by tracking the major deaths per season (considered here to be an operationalization of ballsiness of the writers) as well as number of times I cried like a bitch per season (considered an operationalization of assholery of the writers). The results are displayed in Figure 1.
While total number of times I cried like a bitch was an unprecedented four, the total number of major deaths was an even more unprecedented nineteen. Therefore the overall assholery-to-ballsiness ratio was calculated to be significantly small (F = 23.42, p 0.04). After accounting for several additional factors, such as the fact that time travel is awesome and that Charlie is freaking sexy, the overall awesometude score of Lost was calculated to be 108, significantly higher than the mean (F = 15.16, p 0.04). Therefore we can safely conclude that Lost is, indeed, the greatest show.
Discussion
These results may have urgent implications in the field. For starters, it is strongly recommended that all those who read this article take the time to watch the greatest show in the future if they have not already done so. Neglecting to do this may lead to the tragic ignorance of several important pop culture icons originating from this show, such as the ubiquitous Numbers (4, 8, 5, 16, 23, 42), a number of famous and sometimes shocking scenes and quotes (the most standout example perhaps being, "We have to go back Kate! We have to go back!" shouted by drunken Jack with a beard), and the fact that Charlie is freaking sexy.
It is currently unknown whether familiarizing oneself with this show would provide one with a practical advantage in real life, for instance, if one were ever stranded on a real island. Probably not. For starters, the island on the show has polar bears. Not a lot of those. It's also home to a malevolent force that manifests as a monster made of smoke and has a bad habit of whacking people to death. Again, perhaps not so practical in the real world. On the other hand, fantastical setting aside, it still imparts some very important life lessons, such as that you should not handle dynamite while telling people they should not handle dynamite, or that Kate is stupid and love triangles are also stupid.
In conclusion, this paper will hopefully serve useful to those in the future who are looking for a good show to watch. Naturally, the conclusions of this paper hold several implications as to what shows should also be given similar scrutiny. Further inquiry in the future may lead to the study of Once Upon a Time, since it's by the same guys and it sounds baller.