"Lost" is Making Me Lose My Mind

Published: October 15, 2007 at 08:13 AM GMT
Last Updated: May 5, 2008 at 08:13 AM GMT

By Jacki Garfinkel

I am hugely addicted to HBO's newest show Tell Me You Love Me. And one day I will write a column raving about how raw it is in its emotions. But right now I'm focused on how ABC's Lost is making me lose my mind and infiltrating Tell Me You Love Me and other shows.

First, there's the basic fact that on Tell Me You Love Me, the character dealing with fertility issues, Carolyn, is played by Sonya Walger. Walger also happens to play the role of Penny, the woman searching for Desmond on Lost. Not that big of a deal - actors play different roles all the time.

But then, Carolyn's husband Palek (Adam Scott) had a business meeting with other main character David (Tim DeKay). Yes, all the couples do use the same therapist, Dr. May Foster (Jane Alexander), but that just seemed like a plot device so these weren't three totally random couples. By having Palek and David know each other, and further intertwining these relationships, well that made me immediately think, "Ah it's just like Lost! Everyone knows everyone from the past somehow!"

Subsequently, the unthinkable happened. Except it really wasn't the unthinkable since I had read that this was coming, but yet, for some reason it still blew my mind. Boone showed up! Boone died on season one of Lost, and here he is, back to life! Okay, fine, his name is now Nick (Ian Somerhalder) and he's having a love affair with Jamie (Michelle Borth), but in my mind, he'll always be Boone, just with longer hair.

All of these coincidences - Penny, Boone, and the entangled plots - made me immediately think of Lost. And what's worse? An unnamed friend of mine actually said, "What if this is Lost in a time warp? Like this is really how Lost ends? Or somehow these two shows will be connected?" Will it happen? Don't count on it, as the Magic 8-ball would say. But the interesting part is that Lost makes us think that any storyline is conceivable. Who cares if Lost is on ABC and Tell Me You Love Me is on HBO, and that only two characters from Lost - and minor ones at that - are play large roles in Tell Me You Love Me? Lost tricks us into thinking that it can and will do anything it wants.

Lost is on hiatus and yet it's all I can think about. As you can see, it's infiltrated my TV viewing. On NBC's Chuck (yet another network's show), Chuck is viewing the government secrets and states that Oceanic Flight 815 was shot down.

Oceanic Flight 815 is the Lost flight! And now, according to Chuck, the government purposely shot it down, leaving our little Losties trying to survive on that island. Will ABC incorporate that into Lost's plot? Who knows! But it sure got me thinking.

I've been a Lost fan from the beginning (even during it's not-so-good season two), but I was never obsessed. I never watched the show for every little clue. I looked at a few sites online, but I never scoured the Internet to learn Lost's secrets. And yet here I am, between seasons three and four, tying every show I watch into Lost.

Does anyone else think about Lost like this? Or is Lost causing me to lose my mind?

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