COMMENTARY
Premise of new show seems a bit 'Lost'

By Lisa de Moraes
Washington Post

OK, so maybe nobody really looks this hot after a plane crash, but that's irrelevant to the producers of ABC's O'ahu-filmed new series. ABC

Its founder, J.J. Abrams, has a new series on ABC this fall called "Lost." It's about a bunch of people who survive a plane crash and find themselves on an island inhabited by a big, scary monster who, grievously, is not a vegetarian. Filming for the series is taking place in Hawai'i, where O'ahu locations will stand in for this mysterious island.

The Reporters Who Cover Television worship at the feet of J.J. for reasons we do not entirely understand.

The Church of J.J. sprang up right about the time Abrams created WB's hot-chick-in-college series "Felicity," which was supposed to be Very Big but turned out to be only a moderate success with popularity contingent upon the star's hairstyle. And everyone knows the mark of a true hit is its ability to survive a change in the star's hairstyle — like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends."

More of TRWCT joined the Church of J.J. when he created ABC's hot-chick-spy-drama "Alias." "Alias" was definitely going to be Very Big, only it turned out that even when it aired after the Super Bowl the show still got only a middling rating, even though its star did not change her hair — though she did dump her husband.

But church membership never stopped growing. So naturally ABC suits asked Abrams to step in and save a new show it wanted to order that included a plane crash, an island (not really O'ahu, even if filming takes place there) and a big, scary monster.

Miracles happen every day in the Church of J.J. For instance, although middle-aged women will not survive a plane crash on a remote island, miraculously, all of the hot young ones will, as will all of the hot young men. Also surviving will be one young, though fat, male; one middle-age man and one precocious child.

Equally miraculous, the hot young women's bikinis will survive the crash and will be found in time for the promo shots, no matter how far they were flung upon impact, though their sensible shoes will be lost in the wreckage and they will have to pull sensible shoes off the feet of dead middle-aged women whose bodies are strewn around the crash site.

Really, is it any wonder there are so many followers of the Church of J.J. among TRWCT?

On Tuesday morning, at Summer TV Press Tour 2004, surrounded by 11 hot young plane crash survivor-actors, plus the one young, fat guy, the one middle-age guy, the one precocious kid and a partridge in a pear tree, J.J. talked to his fans.

One critic noted that the premise might cause a viewer to comment, "What a stupid show."

But "Lost," the critic continued, "went way beyond 'that could never happen,' " — and, he forecast, viewers will not say, "What a stupid show."

"What," the critic wondered, "is the difference between those two kinds of shows, and how do you do it?"

"I have no idea why anything doesn't work or does," J.J. responded calmly.

Speaking of B premises, that big, scary monster seemed difficult for the critics to swallow. But, J.J. assured them, the monster is not the star. Though he said he understood their skepticism, he asked them to believe.

"If you have a monster and it's, you know, you call it a monster, then it's sort of disposable and silly and feels kind of irrelevant or gimmicky. If you have something that represents terror and represents fear and represents sort of the darkness of this place, to me, that's incredibly valuable."

"Lost" is not "Gilligan's Island," critics were assured, because guest stars will not be washed up on shore each week, though they will be featured in flashbacks to the survivors' pre-crash lives, J.J. explained.

And "Lost" won't be like "Survivor" in that the big, scary monster won't devour one of the survivors each week, as it did in the pilot.

What, then, is it? critics wondered aloud.

"I've just got to say that the fact I don't know how to answer that question in a way that would satisfy anyone who's not seen the first few, six episodes of the show, is why I'm so excited," J.J. replied.

After nearly an hour of this, critics finally asked him to reveal whether this island is on Earth and whether Big Scary Monster had a master, to which J.J. replied: "I have to say, the fact that you would ask that question is one of the things that gets me excited. It's like, you don't want to do a show that is so weird, you go, 'Oh, it's like this creepy science-fiction show only.'

"But to me, if this show were on, I would watch it," he said.