Why Lost was made for TiVo

I think Lost is a show that will forever define our generation, at least in terms of the way we watch TV. It tells the types of stories that demand our attention and extreme focus. And while it works on the level of sheer entertainment for most, it also proposes a sort of mental challenge to viewers who are willing to accept it. In short, it's interactive in a way that television never used to be.

It's the type of show that seems tailor-made for TiVo.

I say this because a single viewing of the one-hour drama races by so quickly that we can't possibly absorb all that the writers leave for us to absorb. On the surface, you have the amazing visuals. I mean, they're in the jungle and on beaches for the majority of the show (except, of course, for the flashback sequences). And then you have the general storylines that play out like mini-movies, revealing just a little bit more about the island and its inhabitants week after week. On a deeper level, you have the big mystery: Why are these plane crash survivors on this island? Who's really in control of this entire thing?

And then there are the clues.

The creative minds behind Lost are masters at making the viewers feel like they're in the hands of people who know what they're doing. The viewers believe the writers have the mystery figured out (even if they really don't and are just making it up as they go along) and that creates an aura of intrigue. We want to figure the damn thing out.

Take last week's episode, for example. Two clues as to the island's purpose and the whole show's premise were hidden in plain sight. Granted, these might have been placed to mislead us but they were there and they're worth noting. By the way, I've looked around and I'm not the only one who noticed these things. Here they are:

1. Hurley is seen on the beach reading a manuscript he found in someone's (who did not survive the plane crash) luggage. It is called "The Bad Twin" by Gary Troup. Rearrange the letters in that (made-up) author's name and you get P-U-R-G-A-T-O-R-Y. People have long been speculating that the island the Losties landed on is, in fact, purgatory (that creepy middle-ground between heaven and hell, according to the Bible). The creators of the show have actually denied that theory but with a clue like this, it's hard to know what to think.

2. Another scene shows Locke rearranging books in the underground hatch discovered in Lost's first season. The camera lingers on him while he's holding a copy of The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Ever heard of it? Well, it's the story of a man who is sentenced to a hanging at Owl Creek Bridge. When the hanging happens, the rope breaks and the man escapes. The bulk of the novel deals with the man being on the run and with his journey home. Toward the end of the novel, the man feels a sharp pain in his neck. You learn that the man never actually escaped, but rather imagined escaping and running home in the very few seconds before the actual hanging. The sharp pain he feels is, of course, the noose breaking his neck.

What's Lost telling us by planting these tidbits? Is life on the island as the Losties know it all a figment of their imaginations, or one character's imagination? Is there really no island? The only certainty is that Lost is not as simple as it may seem on the surface. We're not on Gilligan's Island; there are far weirder, possibly supernatural things going on here.

But like I said, these are the types of things that make Lost a new breed of TV show -- a type that not only demands our focus and intelligence but also asks that we actively participate in its mystery to get the full experience. So, as you can imagine, it's reassuring to know I can pause, rewind and rewatch. Get yourselves a TiVo DVR and watch yourselves some Lost.