Lost in the Writers’ Room

The television show Lost has -- through the course of several seasons -- gone from promising, to mangled and confusing, to just plain ridiculous. Sometime around the end of the first season I started calling the show “Lost in the Writers’ Room.” If the show’s writers ever drew a map of the story at the outset -- based on the evidence I doubt there was any such advanced planning -- I picture that map up on the wall in the writers’ room, and the writers are blindfolded and given pins, as if in playing out a demented game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Each week, whatever plot points the writers stick pins into is what they have to write about for the next episode in this misshapen donkey of a tale.

The Gashlycrumb Losties

Many will know Edward Gorey, especially his not-at-all-for-kids send-up of a children’s alphabet book, Gashlycrumb Tinies: "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh." Every line accompanied by a macabre, Victorian-era illustration of each child’s mishap. (Gashlycrumb Tinies at Amazon.)

Jason Henninger at Tor.com brings us a wonderful crossover, The Gashlycrumb Losties: “A is for Arzt who was blown up sky high, B is for Boone who bled out through his thigh, C is for Charlie, courageously drowned, D is for Danielle, left dead on the ground …” It finds humor in the outrageous body-count of the show, and its stunning disregard for story continuity (“Q is for Questions left dead in the plot”). Read the whole poem at Tor.com.

Oh, by the way, I can’t wait to watch the upcoming final episode. My expectation is that it will be embarrassingly, hilariously bad.


Related post: Lost: A Look Back