Has or can anyone “flesh-out” the connection between “Lost” and the writing and creative work of Rod Serling?
For example, the work “An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is one of the books that Locke organizes in the hatch in the episode “The Long Con”. As most “Twilight Zone” fans know the 1962 French film that won the Canne Film festival award was used as the 22nd episode of the fifth season of Serling’s series. It is the only episode of the “Twilight Zone” that was not originally produced for the series.
In addition, there was a very short-lived television series in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that Rod Serling created concerning a group of young people whose plane crashed on a deserted South Pacific island named Bomao. It ran from September 22, 1969 to January 12, 1970. Unusual for network television, the show was 45 minutes in length. The adults in the group, the pilot and chaperones, die shortly after the crash. (Sound familiar?) The island, interestingly, had previously been set up to be used as an atomic bomb test site and so it was complete with buildings, cars, provisions, and even test dummies. The premise of the show was that the youth, lost on this island, were attempting to begin to build a better civilization than the one that they had left. The plot summary on the IMDb site puts it this way: “A group of young people crash land on a deserted island that was a never used atomic bomb test site. With the world thinking that they were all killed, ‘The New People’ set out to form a civilization free from the problems and mistakes that their parents made, a task that soon becomes much more challenging than they had anticipated.” - (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063935/plotsummary) Sounds somewhat similar, perhaps, to the Dharma Initiative? Episode # 9 of this short-lived series is particularly interesting. The episode summary is: “9. Dark Side of the Island. The discovery of a skeleton and several strange disappearances forces the students to mount an expedition to the other side of the island to find out who else is living on Bomano.” - (http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/TNP/index.html). Other episodes of the show focus on finding guns and building rafts to escape the island. Again, items that, naturally, “Lost” has used.
The imagery of the film version of “Planet of the Apes” - (1968 starring Charleton Heston) - has also been pointed to as having tie-ins with “Lost”. The four-toed statue on the island’s coast has been likened to Taylor finding the Statue of Liberty at the end of “Planet of the Apes”. Again, the astronauts in the movie have crashed on what they believe is a deserted “island / planet” only to discover that things are definitely not the way that they should be. Many “Lost” theories have speculated that perhaps just like in “Planet of the Apes” the world that the travelers have left has been destroyed - (this would appear to have been debunked as Penelope Widmore and her Arctic watchers would appear to be living in the real-time of the “Lost” survivors). But, regardless, there would appear, to many, to be some connection between “Lost” and the “Planet of the Apes” film. Rod Serling adapted and co-wrote the script for the “Planet of the Apes” film from the book by Pierre Boulle - (who also wrote “Bridge Over the River Kwai”).
Individual episodes of the “Twilight Zone” can also be seen as having some parallels to “Lost”. For example, “It’s a Good Life,” written by Rod Serling, starring a very young Billy Mumy, and considered by many to be the “Twilight Zone’s” creepiest episode, has a child with amazing powers of the mind to create and control reality. Sound like Walt? Unfortunately, the episode shows the youth as beyond the control of the adults around him and the boy creating reality as he sees fit. Could this be why “the others” released Walt as he was truly more than they bargained for?
Another episode, “The Old Man in the Cave”, again written by Serling, concerns survivors of nuclear war who are able to survive by listening to the guidance of “the old man in the cave”. When an outside group of armed soldiers break into the cave, they discover that the “old man” is in reality a computer. Enraged, they destroy the computer and, against the earlier advice that it had given them, they eat contaminated food that eventually kills them, with the sole exception of the man who acted as the intermediary between them and the “old man”. He was the one who “kept the faith”. Does this sound like the “Lost” reality that the truth in the hatch was a computer and that an enraged Locke, feeling as if he had been tricked all along, destroyed the computer as Eko, the keeper of the faith, attempted to stop him.
I am sure that many other parallels and connections can be found between “Lost” and the work of Rod Serling. These are just a very few off of the top of my head. My question: Are these mere coincidences or is there a deeper relationship? What do you think?
Theory by Anonymous
For example, the work “An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is one of the books that Locke organizes in the hatch in the episode “The Long Con”. As most “Twilight Zone” fans know the 1962 French film that won the Canne Film festival award was used as the 22nd episode of the fifth season of Serling’s series. It is the only episode of the “Twilight Zone” that was not originally produced for the series.
In addition, there was a very short-lived television series in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that Rod Serling created concerning a group of young people whose plane crashed on a deserted South Pacific island named Bomao. It ran from September 22, 1969 to January 12, 1970. Unusual for network television, the show was 45 minutes in length. The adults in the group, the pilot and chaperones, die shortly after the crash. (Sound familiar?) The island, interestingly, had previously been set up to be used as an atomic bomb test site and so it was complete with buildings, cars, provisions, and even test dummies. The premise of the show was that the youth, lost on this island, were attempting to begin to build a better civilization than the one that they had left. The plot summary on the IMDb site puts it this way: “A group of young people crash land on a deserted island that was a never used atomic bomb test site. With the world thinking that they were all killed, ‘The New People’ set out to form a civilization free from the problems and mistakes that their parents made, a task that soon becomes much more challenging than they had anticipated.” - (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063935/plotsummary) Sounds somewhat similar, perhaps, to the Dharma Initiative? Episode # 9 of this short-lived series is particularly interesting. The episode summary is: “9. Dark Side of the Island. The discovery of a skeleton and several strange disappearances forces the students to mount an expedition to the other side of the island to find out who else is living on Bomano.” - (http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/TNP/index.html). Other episodes of the show focus on finding guns and building rafts to escape the island. Again, items that, naturally, “Lost” has used.
The imagery of the film version of “Planet of the Apes” - (1968 starring Charleton Heston) - has also been pointed to as having tie-ins with “Lost”. The four-toed statue on the island’s coast has been likened to Taylor finding the Statue of Liberty at the end of “Planet of the Apes”. Again, the astronauts in the movie have crashed on what they believe is a deserted “island / planet” only to discover that things are definitely not the way that they should be. Many “Lost” theories have speculated that perhaps just like in “Planet of the Apes” the world that the travelers have left has been destroyed - (this would appear to have been debunked as Penelope Widmore and her Arctic watchers would appear to be living in the real-time of the “Lost” survivors). But, regardless, there would appear, to many, to be some connection between “Lost” and the “Planet of the Apes” film. Rod Serling adapted and co-wrote the script for the “Planet of the Apes” film from the book by Pierre Boulle - (who also wrote “Bridge Over the River Kwai”).
Individual episodes of the “Twilight Zone” can also be seen as having some parallels to “Lost”. For example, “It’s a Good Life,” written by Rod Serling, starring a very young Billy Mumy, and considered by many to be the “Twilight Zone’s” creepiest episode, has a child with amazing powers of the mind to create and control reality. Sound like Walt? Unfortunately, the episode shows the youth as beyond the control of the adults around him and the boy creating reality as he sees fit. Could this be why “the others” released Walt as he was truly more than they bargained for?
Another episode, “The Old Man in the Cave”, again written by Serling, concerns survivors of nuclear war who are able to survive by listening to the guidance of “the old man in the cave”. When an outside group of armed soldiers break into the cave, they discover that the “old man” is in reality a computer. Enraged, they destroy the computer and, against the earlier advice that it had given them, they eat contaminated food that eventually kills them, with the sole exception of the man who acted as the intermediary between them and the “old man”. He was the one who “kept the faith”. Does this sound like the “Lost” reality that the truth in the hatch was a computer and that an enraged Locke, feeling as if he had been tricked all along, destroyed the computer as Eko, the keeper of the faith, attempted to stop him.
I am sure that many other parallels and connections can be found between “Lost” and the work of Rod Serling. These are just a very few off of the top of my head. My question: Are these mere coincidences or is there a deeper relationship? What do you think?
Theory by Anonymous
