Imaginationland
Lost isn’t only one of the best looking (cinematography) shows in the history of network TV. It’s also one where imagination, science-fiction, and most of all Society is explored far better than most people realize. I mean society as the organization of human lives as a group — with or without leaders — and their interrelations. This, to me, is the most important aspect of the show. In ignorance of its core concept, people sometimes brush it off as silly absurd science-fiction. It’s as if they were reading The Catcher in the Rye and commenting on the improbability of a kid wandering off by himself in New York City. It’s missing the point entirely, and staying fixated on the superficially shocking instead of looking at the deeply relevant.
Knowing what Dharma (or Alvar Hanso) is, is indeed interesting, but what’s fascinating to me is how factions interract. Who decides that the End Justified The Means, who lets people make their own mistakes rather than trying to protect them forever. Who believes people are inherently bad, and who lies in the shadow of the statue.