Week 9 - Cult TV

WEEK 9 – CULT TV

Wilcox and Lavery (2002) identify 9 defining characteristics of ‘quality TV’ – can you apply any of these to other television series that you have viewed recently? Are there any other characteristics that you could add to their list?

Because I am not much of a Buffy fan or any other vampire flick, I have chosen the TV series Lost as the main focus of my discussion. Most of the characteristics identified by Wilcox and Lavery (2002) can be applied to Lost, but perhaps not all of them. Below there is a list of the nine characteristics and my analysis on how they are relevant for the TV show I have chosen.

1. Quality TV usually has a quality pedigree.

Lost has been created and co-produced by J.J. Abrams, who had been involved in creating, producing and/or directing a number of successful films – such as Armageddon, Mission Impossible 3, Cloverfield, Star Trek, Super 8 – and TV shows (Alias, Fringe, Undercover). Moreover, media production runs in Abrams’ family – his father was a television producer and his mother an executive producer.

2. Desirable demographics notwithstanding, quality shows must often undergo a noble struggle against profit-mongering networks and non-appreciative audiences.

This has not been the case for Lost, which has had a massive budget and was created and screened for the purpose of attracting record audiences. The reception has also been very good from the beginning, with viewer numbers only starting to decrease towards the sixth and final season.

3. Quality TV tends to have a large ensemble cast.

Lost has a variety of characters, with each survivor of the plane crash playing a central part; furthermore, each survivor has a story which shows how much they have in common with each other. This makes it quite hard to point the protagonist, as the focus is mainly put on the team as a whole. I believe Jack (Matthew Fox) is the closest to being considered the protagonist, followed by Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and John Locke (Terry O’Quinn). Other supporting characters are Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Harold Perrineau (Michael), Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Sun (Yunjin Kim), Ian Somerhalder played Boone, Maggie Grace played Shannon while Malcolm David Kelley played Walt and Emilie de Ravin played Claire. Some characters were written out while others were added on, such as the survivors from the tail part of the plane, the ‘Others’, characters from individual flashbacks or characters who arrive on the island but are not part of either group.

4. Quality TV has a memory.

Most if not all the episodes of the show are linked in one way or another and it can be very difficult for one to watch the show and understand what is going on if one or more episodes had been missed. Each episode and each season picks up where the previous one has left off and answers questions raised in the previous episode/season while raising more questions for the following one. Also, characters develop and new characters are being introduced while others disappear.

5. Quality TV creates a new genre by mixing old ones.

The show started off as a blend of the novel Lord of the Flies, the film Cast Away and TV shows Gilligan’s Island and Survivor. It also has some influences from the game Myst and it often refers to biblical passages, renowned philosophers and scientists, conflicts between science and religion and it also added a supernatural note and mythological ideas.

6. Quality TV tends to be literary and writer-based.

Abrams assembled a group of writers consisted of Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz and Elisabeth Sarnoff to write the series; also, numerous works of literature are mentioned and discussed throughout the series.

7. Quality TV is ‘self-conscious’.

There are numerous publications and forums related to the show and its fans (i.e. Lostpedia.com) in order to preserve continuity, explain the mythology and allow fans to theorize or speculate on the subject matter, as well as producing fan fiction, compiling episodes and so on. There are also ABC-produced websites, related novels, magazines, podcasts released by the producers and a game called The Lost Experience.

8. The subject matter of quality TV tends towards controversial.

The genre of Lost has probably already been used far too many times in television, film and literature – people stranded on a desert island surviving with the bare minimum, secret experiments, running away from the past, the paranormal, redemption and revenge are all themes that have been already used by filmmakers. However, crossing these themes and showing the reasons behind the characters’ actions is original and at the same time controversial – even though one of the characters has just committed murder, viewers might understand the underlying reasons and thus they ‘get away with it’. What could probably add to the controversy of the show is the duality within almost every character, the constant ‘fight’ between fate and coincidence as well as the secondary storyline (the flashbacks) in every episode as well as the execution of cliffhangers.  

9. Quality TV aspires toward ‘realism’.

A relatively high number of the emotions and actions depicted in the show can be relatable to the viewer because, even though the main story is focused on a surreal environment, the subplots add detail and explanations as to why the characters are acting in such a way. Furthermore, the show raises questions that arouse interest and encourage the viewer to think what they would do in a similar situation.

Lost explores questions of fate and redemption, people regretting things they have done in the past and how they deal with it or why they are running away and hiding from it.

References

Abrams, J.J. (Producer). (2004). Lost [Television series]. USA: Bad Robot Productions, ABC Studios.

Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.