07 Apr 2011, Posted by arghcentral in 6. POP/News "ARGH!", 0 Comments Tagged argh central blog, commentary, Damon Lindelof, Entertainment Weekly, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, Lost, paul sundstrom, Thursday POP/News "ARGH!", Weekday "ARGH!"
Thursday POP/News “ARGH!” – “Lost Weekly Magazine”
Just when I thought the dead husk of TV’s Lost got tossed upon the heap of over-promised and under-delivered television shows, I know I can count on Entertainment Weekly’s chest-beating attempts to recirculate it like stale airplane air.
(Disclaimer: I have subscribed to EW since its beginning.)
On March 10, EW prominently featured Lost on its cover with an interior expose entitled “Life After Lost“ accompanied with the soap opera-y text: “Nearly a year after leaving the Island, the stars & creators talk about their lives now and how the show changed them forever.” (Blaaarf!)
An informal count reveals Lost has (so far) received EW’s front cover status at least 11 times since 2004, which is in direct competition with its other WTF?! obsessions: TV’s equally disappointing Heroes and the Twilight movies. This doesn’t account for every time EW’s cover also teased other Lost minutiae.
For comparison’s sake, how many times did EW’s cover highlight FX’s most consistently compelling drama The Shield? Zero.
There are many other well-deserving shows and movies that, too, could have benefited from an EW cover and feature article. However, unless a show inspires geek boners or showcases pale Harlequin Romance vampires or has made a pact with the devil, it’s not going to get any ink from EW.
Was this cover flap the final straw for “ARGH!” Central? Nope. I’ve bitten my lip on this subject for quite some time, choosing to instead embrace a Zen-like, slow boil of contempt. And then this week arrived.
Predictably this week — not missing an opportunity to glop some rouge upon Lost’s rosy-dead cheeks – EW gladly jumped at the opportunity to MC a little Twitter tiff between Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin and executive producer/showrunner/writer Damon Lindelof. The fact that Martin doesn’t participate in Twitter is irrelevant to both EW and Lindelof, apparently. Read the whole thing HERE.
What exactly ruffled Lindelof’s (metaphorically speaking) Vincent* fur?
Here’s what Martin said:
“We watched [Lost] every week trying to figure it out, and as it got deeper and deeper I kept saying, ‘They better have something good in mind for the end. This better pay off here.‘ And then I felt so cheated when we got to the conclusion. What if I fuck it up at the end? What if I do a Lost (on his own show, HBO’s Game of Thrones, which premiered this week)?”
Let’s define “(to) do a Lost.” This phrase describes the occasion when a TV show horribly screws up its own forever-and-ever, and possibly overhyped, concluding episode.
I think Lindelof is concerned Martin’s “(to) do a Lost” will enter the pop culture lexicon.
But…Lost did do a Lost.
As for EW and its infatuation with Lost? Holy Smokey!*
Look you two, your co-dependency is tearing us apart. It’s time you either formally part ways or get a room, get it on and give it a rest already!
*sorry
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