Tune in Next Week

I can't explain why I stopped watching Lost. At first I was really excited about the show, happy that Daniel Dae Kim had graduated from lame parts on Angel and Voyager to a series regular, and glad to see Harold Perrineau out of the wheelchair. Then, as I recall, a baby appeared in my house and seemed to require a lot of attention, as did the toddler who was already there. And Lost somehow never made it back into my consciousness.

Which is why I was shocked to open the New York Times and discover that Our Mutual Friend was a plot point in last night's season finale. I was even more shocked to find out what kind of plot point: apparently one character is saving the book as the last one to read before he dies. To which I say, huh? That's the Dickens novel you're treasuring? But I guess that's another post.

The article goes on to quote Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse declaring their affinity for Dickens as someone else who knew the pressure of a deadline and the challenges of keeping up interest in a serialized narrative. (And poor Dickens ended up choosing to die rather than figure out who actually did kill Edwin Drood, or, you know, something like that.) Which gave another stir to the soup of ideas sloshing about in my brain-pot having to do with serial fiction, narrative, Victorian Futures, time, the universe and everything.

Tara Ariano, (along with others) the brains behind Television without Pity and Fametracker, wrote this article for the CBC about shows that "become too popular" and so go on too long, observing:

In some cases, producers prolong the natural run of a series by adding new plots or characters, without considering that a narrative structure can only support so much story before collapsing in on itself.

To which I say, tell that to Dickens. Or, for those of us not in a Doctor Who episode, I ask: is the problem the nature of narrative itself? Or is the problem the contemporary conversion of the art-form into a commodity? Put another way, is it that it's not possible to create a truly great piece of fiction that is both conceived of and distributed periodically? (Here I mean to exclude works that the author finishes beforehand and then just publishes in sections. I'm thinking about times when production, distribution, and reception are all mixed up together.) Or is that it's just not possible for such great serial fiction to be created in a period in which the creative product is for sale in so many forms? That is, given that we know that the installments of the story will be repeated on various channels, sold over the internet and in DVD sets, and otherwise kept in constant circulation, how can we maintain faith in the integrity of linear story progression? Even before one episode has even aired, don't we already know how it's going to fall apart, with hybridized bees, and immortal Italians, and men with blue hands, and demonic law agencies, and sons in the basement, and assasinated Presidents, and eye-gouging Preachers, and the list goes on?

A lot depends here, of course, on what I mean by "great piece of fiction," and I'm not sure I have the room or the audience inclination to get into that. If you poked me, I might say I'm interested in how serial fictions, in their production and reception, reflect a contemporary understanding of the passing of time, and, by the extension, the structure of personal and national history. And you might say "Shfngngrghs[drool on keyboard]djkl;sp." Then I might say, "Okay, let me rephrase. If circumstances--the internet, global empire, the iTunes music store--conspire to undermine the functions of linear narrative, does this mean that the question 'What happened next' no longer has meaning? And if it does, what meaning does it have?"

And then I'd also say, hey, look at the National Review's list of the top 50 conservative songs. Those guys sure are crazy!