By Zack Hubbard, key Crabicurious contributor and host of The Best of Earth Podcast, now available on iTunes
It's a rare gift when a show comes along and demands the world's collective attention; each week, providing a new entry to the story and taking hold of every conversation, to the point where you begin to wonder what you ever talked about before this. I'm talking Mad Men. Game of Thrones. The Sopranos. Breaking Bad. The Walking Dead (for some folks). True Detective (season one). Battlestar Galactica (right, everyone!?).
But there was only one that started the fire for many of us. And that was LOST.
That often brilliant, always head-scratching show will always hold a special hatch-sized place in my heart. I'll never forget when my dude, Steve, let me borrow his season one box set on DVD with the simple instructions to just watch. And watch I did. Religiously.
Eyes glued to the screen, I had to find out what the hell was up with the polar bears, the smoke monster, and the guy who was paralyzed before the crash and now could walk and put orange slices in his mouth in futile attempts at cheering up a would-have-been convicted woman. Oh, and he had a case full of knives. Charlie said it best, "Where are we!?!"
As a newly converted disciple to the church of Oceanic Flight 815, it is now my mission to inform everyone I knew about the island and its mysteries. Of course anyone that came to my house was getting a sermon. I definitely played the DVDs for all my classmates to see when we had some downtime. Reaching the masses: that was my mission. To leave no one behind. Fill everyone in on the best thing on television so we could all experience it together. As a community. And besides, I needed other converts to nerd out with.
LOST aired from September 2004 to May 2010 mostly on Wednesday nights on ABC. Now in 2016, air dates matter about as much as Jack's tattoo did. But way back in Dharma land, DVR was just starting to scratch the surface and streaming was just a gleam in the eye of a Netflix executive. God bless those poor souls who missed an episode and were banished to the gates of iTunes and forced to spend $3 to buy the episode...a week later.
I recall one fateful night when a few friends and I decided to see an OAR concert. On a Wednesday night! Yea, it wasn't worth it. Nevertheless, the parents generously recorded the episode of Lost that I would be missing on a VCR. That's right, kids. A tape. The dedication was real.
Now, I've said all that to say this: it was simply amazing to share the cultural experience that was LOST with my friends for close to 5 years. In college, we would have our weekly church service with pizza, wings and four toed statues. I would have phone calls with friends in Frankfort breaking down each episode minutes after it aired. Praising what had transpired and theorizing about the potential insanity to come.
Notice a through-line here with all of the shows I've mentioned thus far. They all aired or continue to air on a weekly basis when they're in season. That's a very important distinction to make when talking about communal watching. We all knew when the next chapter was going to unfold on screen and it must be absorbed ASAP so we could stay in the conversation. Everyone was together.
Nothing against the 'binge first, ask questions later' data dump model adopted by Netflix. Because I'd vote for Frank Underwood all day. And that Daredevil season one hallway fight is hanging-off-the-Eiffel level bananas. Also, who in their conscious mind did not binge the shit out Making a Murderer a few months back? I crushed all ten episodes in a three day span. Personal record, I'd say. So, no shade.
However, the experience is completely dampened by tip-toeing around with your friends, trying to figure out what episode of what season you're on so as not to accidentally spoil that insane thing that happens in episode 4. As fun as that sounds, it's not even in the same ballpark as the collective freak out from seeing a map of an island in black light with a giant question mark right in the middle, engraving a distinct "what in the actual fudge is that!?!" look across the faces of converted 815ers everywhere. Rushing to message boards - remember 2006? - to find screen capped images of the infamous black light map was heavenly.
We all love doing things together. Building a raft to leave the island together, only to end up screaming "WALT!!!" at the horizon. Blowing up the hatch together. Fixing up the old van together. Finding cocaine planes and burying Nikki and Paulo alive together. Seriously, they were the worst.
So let's all just slow things down a bit, dust the Arzt off our shoulders, and worship a show together.
By the old Gods and the New, Game of Thrones returns in less than a month.
Amen.