Watching Lost or Lost Watching Me?

I realized last night that I spent almost five hours on Lost. First, I watched the one-hour repeat episode that has the pop-up subtitles. They help you understand the show and even give you details about the production such as location information. I've found I prefer watching the episodes with the pop-ups. And that leads me to my main point. About midway through the season finale, when Jack tells Kate about Jeremy Bentham's funeral, I started getting itchy for my laptop. I wanted to go to Lostpedia so that I could remember who Jeremy Bentham is. But my digital self was having an argument with my analog self. "Can't I just enjoy the film/program without having to read the sub-text of the text simultaneously?" my analog self asked. My analog self won out and I confined my surfing to the commercials (when all I could find was that Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher who invented the panopticon, a form of prisons that has often been used as a metaphor for surveillance in everything from philosophical texts to pop culture. I had to wait until later in the show to find it was just an alias. I had to tell you that.)

After the show, I spent about 90 minutes on Lostpedia, amazed at the level of detail in this fan- based web site. Has there ever been this level of fan-created material in support of a piece of art? I think the first fan sites I remember hearing about were devoted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of course, I suppose the uber-fans were those of Star Trek who did the impossible--brought back a canceled show. (Why couldn't they have done that for Batman, starring Adam West?) The only parallel I can think of is in the sports world where fans have obsessed for years over box scores and fantasy football statistics.

Finally, around 12:45 a.m., I tore myself away from Lostpedia. And now I'm writing this blog entry. I've got to stop. But first, I have to check some rumors I've heard about Lost Season 5 on Dark UFO. Thank goodness Dark UFO is on Twitter, so I can keep up with the latest updates throughout the day.