Star Wars told a story which began part way through, with the action already underway, and then went back and told the earlier part of the story. In a much more complex way, LOST did something similar. It wasn’t quite Memento, but it certainly filled in successively earlier parts of the story in something not entirely unlike reverse order.
I think that a good test of LOST’s success in telling a coherent story is whether a newcomer to the show could watch “Across The Sea”, then the story of the Dharma Initiative with some strange time-travelling characters thrown in, and then the first seasons. It would be confusing, to be sure, but would that be any different than the way LOST was experienced by those who watched the episodes in the order in which they aired?
It is possible to start watching Star Wars from Episode I, and while it is a different experience than beginning with Episode IV, it can be a satisfying one. Could LOST be watched in the same way, I wonder?
If that doesn’t work, having a map of the island in advance may help. Or not.
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