Lost in Lost – The genius of the flashback

Since Lost has come on the air and become a success, many shows have tried to emulate it. This year, it seems like FlashForward is really trying to pick up the Lost mantle, but hasn’t reached the quality level of Lost yet.

I spent a little time recently thinking about what it is that has made Lost such an amazing show. Yes, there is the endless intrigue and the countless mysteries that spark lots of the theorizing and debate, but that’s only a part of the show. I think, ultimately, the show has been a success because of the format that they have employed to tell the stories.

For the first few seasons, Lost used the flashback to tell the backstories of all the characters on the island. This technique worked for a number of reasons. Pretty much no one on the island knew each other before boarding flight 815, so all the characters were new to the audience as well as each other. Because of this, there were opportunities for the survivors of the crash to make a new start. They may not have been telling each other all the details of their pasts, but the audience got to see them unfold through flashbacks. The flashbacks always worked really well in revealing interesting details about the characters or filling in blanks in the stories of their lives.

The stories told in the flashbacks almost always informed the action that occurred on the island. Whether it was thematic or something tangible, the writers did a great job in weaving the stories together to create cohesive and entertaining episodes.

There was so much to learn about many of these characters that simple exposition would not have been enough. In fact, the flashbacks have gone a long way in making the characters on Lost some of the deepest and well rounded characters on television. In so many shows the action that occurs on screen from the pilot forward seems to be the only interesting things that have ever happened to the characters. In Lost, the entire lives of most of the characters have been visited through flashbacks. Truly, I feel like I know every detail about some of these people, and that has really helped elevate the show.

Now, I’m not saying that if FlashForward starting using flashbacks on the show that it would improve, because I don’t think that’s the case. What I am saying is that the writers of Lost found a method of storytelling that worked perfectly for their plot and characters. Also, they were smart enough to know (or learn) that the flashbacks wouldn’t hold up forever and they changed and adapted, something that I don’t think a lot of shows would or can do.

Clacked by Bob Degon
on Dec 21, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT