“Lost”
Okay, so I’ve seen this show maybe a handful of times. I saw the first episode when they reran it, and have gotten interested in it. Yet, I’m the type of viewer that thinks snarky, snide MST3K comments alongside the show. Yeah, I know it’s “just a television show” but I can’t help thinking (for example) that if these people have been marooned on an island for (as one character last night remarked) “a couple of weeks now”, all the scantily clad women have remarkably hairless legs and underarms. (This occured to me last night while the bank robber chick was disrobing to go swimming.) And while the guys are all sprouting facial hair, I keep thinking they ought to have a lot thicker beards after two weeks without shaving. And that southern creep (the guy who kept trying to bust open the briefcase), has remarkable washboard abs for someone who hasn’t gotten to a gym for half of a month.
Anyway, I think I’ve seen enough of this show to hypothesize a theory about the big mystery about the island. Alas, it’s going to turn out to be that hoariest of all “surprise twists” – they’re all dead.
Yep, they all died in the plane crash. The island is purgatory. As we are learning through all the flashbacks, all of these folks have morally questionable pasts. None of them would get to go straight to Heaven. OTOH, none of them are so thoroughly evil that they would be automatically tossed into the great BBQ pit to roast for all eternity. My guess is that the island is a sort of “halfway house” in which they are being one last chance to redeem themselves before their fates are decided.
Some indicators I think suggest this:
The setting & title of the show is a pun. They’re on a tropical island “paradise”, but they’re “lost.” “paradise”…“lost” eh? eh???
The lady who keeps insisting her husband is alive. “He’s not dead!” she says over and over. “Sooner or later, we’ll be reunited.” I think she knows more than she’s letting on - she knows that if her husband died in the crash he would be on the island. She’s a guardian angel, someone there to deliberately urge the castaways to be selfless, heroic, and get into heaven.
The French radio message is IMO an homage to Jean Cocteau’s movie “Orphee”. In this (french) movie, the angel of death (a woman) communicating with the afterlife via a short-wave radio. Death’s messages sound like goobledegook to the living. Kind of like the message the castaways keep receiving.
The unseen monster is similar to the “id” monster from “Forbidden Planet.” It is the living personification of their collective bad karma. It’s a demon they have to conquer in order to move onto the next world.
The polar bear - ehh, I don’t know about this one. But it’s incongruity on a tropical island suggests a supernatural element.
So, as I said, I’ve missed several episodes, so there could be holes in my theory that I don’t even know about. But I think it’s a workable theory so far. What do you think?
