219 – Found: a Map of the Island in ‘Lost’

Lost is not only the title of a popular American tv series, it also describes the exasperated feeling of those viewers looking for a semblance of a plot in the series. The broad outline goes something like this: The survivors of a crashed jumbo jet on a transpacific flight find themselves stranded on a tropical island, cut off from the civilised world and left to fend for themselves.

But that is where the similarities with Robinson Crusoë’s adventures end. They would be too tedious for today’s viewing audiences, used to shows that are fast-paced and action-packed. For example: Crusoë spent two whole years in hiding when he saw another person’s footsteps on his island. Imagine turning that into prime time tv fare.

Thus, we are provided with a dizzying array of mysteries wrapped in riddles, well hidden inside several family-sized enigmas, including but not limited to: the hatch, the Dharma Initiative and the ‘Others’. These are all somehow connected to each other, although it’s never quite clear how everything fits together. As if that is not disorienting enough, there are visions, dreams, flash backs and the occasional flash forward to ostensibly illuminate but actually obfuscate the progress of what for lack of a better definition we shall call the progression of the story.

So what do you do when you are lost in Lost? You draw a map, of course. This one places several elements of the series in an arrangement that looks like it’s designed to be a memory aide for the bewildered viewer.

The map does not resolve the one thing that has always bugged me most about the series: if you would spend all that time on an island, wouldn’t you give it a name? Every other island on the planet has one. Why not this one?

This map was sent in by Loirogato Gostoso, who refers to a Cleonir Maram as its publisher.