The arc of John Locke may have ironically spoke for these alienated fans.
In season 1, he was the Islands man of adventure, the embodiment of the joy of discovery.
So began the dark days.
And then, two things happened that changed Lost and my fandom forever.
The first thing is easy to explain.
The future ofLostsuddenly went from dim to bright.
The second thing is more personal and trickier to explain.
At exactly the time it started getting good again, my wife Amy was diagnosed with brain cancer.
There was a surgery, an uncertain prognosis, and the double-whammy of intense chemo and radiation.
You also find yourself with a strong desire to distract yourself from constantly thinking about mortality and loss.
Not that those things shouldnt be thought about; they should.
But every damn minute?
So I immersed myself even more deeply inLost.
If I was looking toLostfor distraction, what I ultimately got was confrontation.
It was a very weird time.
And I didnt realize how weird until the following year.
Life had stabilized; Amy was on the road to beating her prognosis.
When it came time to write about season 4… Well, I could, and I did but it was hard.
And some weeks, I found myself resenting it.
It was like some kind of post-traumatic stress had kicked in from the drama of the year before.
That momentum continued into season 5, my favorite season ofLostafter its second year.
Soon, it will be over.
And Im ready for it.
I am eager to see, finally, their vision ofLost, fully revealed.
For me, the journey ofLostfandom has been an idea first expressed by J.R.R.
Tolkien: that the best fantasy fiction doesnt help us escape from reality, but escape into reality.
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