For this week’s Collective Storytelling assignment I decide to write a fan fiction on the TV series Lost. I was motived mostly because I was a huge fan and the final season was one of the most disappointing endings in television – aggravated by the fact that I was in Brazil, and at first the episodes would take months to arrive, so it was hard to follow it without being spoiled on the internet. This is a theory I’ve had ever since the ending of Season 5, which I developed further now. It is only a synopsis for the final season, otherwise it would be too long. Here it is:

Lost Season 6 – The never-ending land

Season 6 begins with Jack opening his eyes, close up on his left eye. After a few seconds, the sound of an alarm starts and his head turns to the side. The scene slowly changes to a medium shot: he is in his bedroom, on his bed, waking up. He turns off the alarm, stands up and goes to the bathroom, leaving the scene. Cut.

The camera now follows him from behind, waist up, throughout the corridors of a hospital, where he nods and eventually talks to people, never stopping from walking, in a normal workday. Cut.

For the first two episodes all characters follow their lives without acknowledging each other. They have never been on the island; however, their lives are not the same – some got redemption, some don’t. For example, Jack no longer drinks, and acts as the leader he became. Hurley never won the lottery, and so on. However, Ben shows up in their lives at key moments, just like Jacob did.

For different reasons, in episode three, they all embark on a flight from San Francisco to New Zealand. The episode emphasizes on the moments prior to boarding. After a few scenes in the flight itself, it crashes. It is all very chaotic and the crash scenes are mingled with a flashback from Jacob’s death scene saying, “They are coming”. Once again, the episode ends with the close up of Jack opening his eye.

They are back on the island. Everything seems to be same as when they first crashed on the island; however, the details are not the same – the clothing, the beach, and, most importantly, the ones who die right away – they are collateral damage, not important for the island. The survivors are restarting their lives on the island, getting to know each other again, forging relationships.

The island had continued its chronological existence from the last moment of Season 5, even though they had successfully reversed the crash. Ben now occupies Jacob’s place, under the orders of fake Locke, who still never leaves the island – Ben does so due to his judgment from the Black Smoke. So the survivors have to deal again with everything the island’s history contains: the Dharma initiative, the monsters, the temples, the mysteries…

Slowly Ben starts to realize the connection between fake Locke and the Black Smoke, and becomes conscious of the manipulation he’s object of. He manages to destroy the Black Smoke/fake Locke and insinuates he might become affectionate to the survivors, eventually not creating any barriers for their attempts to escape.

And those attempts galore. They quickly regain consciousness of the island’s traps and how it functions. They eventually succeed and leave the island again, just as if it never happened, but through a different means from the last time – it is not a hydrogen bomb anymore, but another change of events in the past that allows them to go back as if it had never happened, and again, once they are out of the island, they never knew each other and don’t remember anything that happened to them there.

They keep living their lives, again, with slightly different attitudes and sequence of events – whenever they come back from the island, their personality and fate are defined by it, by what they did on the time spent on the island. Although Ben led to believe he would allow them to go, he keeps reappearing in their lives outside of the island in key moments – he never wished for the survivors to be free, he was working under the islands directions. He manipulates them into boarding a flight from Los Angeles to Bancgoc. Again, same situation with different details.

Somewhere in the middle of the flight, a turbulence leads to a crash. This time, however, the crash happens in slow motion, and all of the survivors are very peaceful. They realize they are trapped in a cycle, and that this is their fate.

The crash is not displayed; instead, a white fade takes the screen. The next scene is a close up of Jack’s left eye. After a few second, he opens it. It’s the end – fades to black and the Lost logo appears along with the characteristic music.

How many times have they done it before?

Writers note: They could only change their own fate by exploding the bomb – “Whatever happened, happened”. The island continues its existence without interruption so that it is possible for it to keep bringing them back.

The repetition of the scenes from the pilot are deliberate – to reinforce the idea of deja vu, repetition, and, most importantly, cycle, because they are trapped in one as long as they are alive – they were chosen by the island.

About the process:

Reading Lost fan fiction was very disappointing. Mostly because people write it as a book, and I’m used to seeing it as a video. Since I believe Lost was really well produced, I’d like people not to include what the characters are thinking, rather than their expressions, how they react, so that I can infer like I do from the series. Including camera shots, movements, songs, fades would also be great, since this is my mental picture of Lost. Maybe people could try doing videos instead of writing – I’d like that. However, reading Harry Potter fan fiction was great. People really grasped the writer’s writing style and follow it, so it seems very authentic. I could spend hours reading it. Written fan fiction is the perfect media for Harry Potter, as opposed to Lost.

About writing my piece, I think this was really fun. It was great to be able to have the ability to decide the future of the characters I’ve following, even if no one ever reads it. It was also great to develop ideas after a general concept – I had to pay attention to details, watch older episodes again in order to fill in the gaps and make it sound and believable. I enjoyed it, and I think feedback from other fans would be nice – so I now understand fan fiction forums. And, since all of entertainment is made for an audience, if they liked it I’d probably feel like it was produced and aired, or published.