Watching Lost

By announcing a clear time table for when the show must end, Lost writers have been able to develop their storylines better. In doing so, viewers like us are left very pleased and satisfied about the way the show’s story is coming alone. Doing away with dragging plots that ruined its past seasons (like the second one), we’re finally getting somewhere, we’re finally seeing a clearer picture and we’re really, really enjoying one of the best shows on television today.

The SFGate’s Tim Goodman points out that there are a number of shows that could very well follow Lost example, in an effort to revitalize it. I couldn’t agree more with the inputs and suggestions…

In the spirit of the “Lost” experiment, here are some more shows that would be worth the risk of transformation (because they have become predictable):

– “24.” Jack Bauer in the gen pop! (That’s general population, for those outside the military-spy-entertainment complex.) Jack is forced to relax. His story is now all about forced rest. He goes to Hawaii and, bored with sitting on the beach, becomes a bartender. He can’t sleep at night, plagued by dreams of the world collapsing into itself without him there to save it. He takes up golf and sudoku. Nothing helps. (Look, the series is already a comedy. At least this way it could take on the patina of existentialism.)

– “House.” Dr. House feels better. No pills. No bitterness. He’s helpful and nice. This causes confusion - emotional chaos, even - in the ranks. What, you’d prefer some kind of character-elimination story?

– “Heroes.” It’s revealed that actually, nobody is special. All of these people are being controlled by the government in a plot that, once revealed, is devastating for their families and the country. They are quarantined while batches of new characters are introduced, and the roles of their families - now indignant at the government and taking action - are expanded.

– “America’s Next Top Model.” This series now becomes a documentary shot from the point of view of those people who have known each contestant since elementary school. None of the models will be seen except in the first episodes, when they are introduced, photographed and briefly interviewed. Then each will have a documentary arc: Why they didn’t study in school. How it hurt siblings when the models thought they were so special. Teachers guessing at what they could have become in a life without cameras. Parents relieved that their daughters weren’t in both a shallow world and a shallow reality series at once. Ultimately, it’s a search for identity, meaning and place.

– “American Idol.” Tired of the same boring premise, the series switches, for one year only, into a two-pronged look at two very different people in the music business: drummers and lyricists who don’t actually sing or play an instrument. These are the forgotten people. You’ve got the least-appreciated member of the band (granted, it’s a toss-up with the bassist) and those who couldn’t be poets but also couldn’t sing in the right key. A hard-luck, thankless road to “stardom.”

– “Grey’s Anatomy.” Everyone in the series gets either brutally sick, injured in freak accidents or felled by mysteriously dull ailments that require lengthy hospitalization and rehab. Do you see what’s happening here: doctors to patients. Get it? No more talk about relationships. Just lots of co-payments, sharing rooms with people who smell and groaning.

Lost, Lost Season 4, Lost ending, Grey’s Anatomy, American Idol, 24, House, Heroes