Stephen Johnson, loud mouth American pop-psych dude du jour, is in the Times again, raving about how Lost is ‘smart, complex and many-layered‘ and therefore great. Is he watching the same program that I haven’t been since the third episode? Did the series sudenly turn into Gravity’s Rainbow after the first 4 hours or something?
I haven’t read his book ‘cos I don’t want to encourage him, but from the articles I’ve seen Johnson allways seems to simply ignore facts and ideas which may conflict with his thesis that pop culture is wholesome and mentally nourishing just like the high stuff. I’m not suggesting that this isn’t the case, my appetite for videogames, cartoons, disposable pop music and trashy sitcoms is up their with the best of them, and I think that some great things are overlooked because they have bubblegum wrapping, but it seems to me that Lost is the exact opposite of this; stylishly high production values covering up and making respectable a flapping and bloated ‘plot’ and a dearth of interesting ideas*. People watch it and think ‘gosh aren’t I clever, there are so many characters and so many apparently unrelated plots** I’m not wasting my time here at all, it’s like I’m reading a book or something***’ and the reason for Stephen Johnson’s popularity is that with all his pseudo-scientific complexity measures and assured tone, he reinforces the idea.
Also, in that Times article Johnson goes on about the structure of the show being the important thing and he pretty much acknowledges that the content of the show is secondary to the complexity, he doesn’t seem to care much whether the plot makes any sense or has any hope of being tied up or even whether we care about the character, all this is secondary to the complexity. Which is a stupid way to evaluate the quality of a TV show unless you’re a robot or something.
*Having talked to several Lost viewers it seems to me that the series pretends to have interesting ideas but doesn’t let the viewer know about them.
**none of which are tied up by the end of the series I’m reliably informed by our office bittorrent gang.
***Not suggesting books are inherently better for you than TV, but I think that that’s a fairly commonly perception.
And then nick talbot said:
I liked Tom Strong. But not as much as Promethea, which is probably his best since From Hell, which is his best ever.
On the subject of unrelated plot lines and too many characters, I watched ‘Magnolia’, the Short Cuts rip-off film starring Tom ‘Force the Truth’ Cruise. The next day I simply could not remember anything about it, suggesting that it so expertly satisfied the criteria for its chosen target market that it practically evaporated on impact.
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