Yeah, I know, I’m behind the game on this one. All I can say is that I’m a dedicated Hype Contrarian. The more hype about how awesome something is I hear, the more likely I am to avoid that show, movie, or book like the plague. Jim finally convinced me to watch Lost, and since I’m stuck sitting around on my unemployed ass until someone hires me, I have the time to do so. And Lost, much like Heroes, is simultaneously awesome and aggravating as all hell, and for much the same reason. The characters, folks, they has the stupid.

I’ve seen up through, like, episode seven of the third season, so OMGNOSPOILERS, okay? Whereas, if you’re one of the other four people who haven’t seen Lost, yet, tread warily here, for I’m gonna spoil all over the place.

The single most aggravating thing about Lost is that the characters keep doing stupid, stupid things, because they insist on hauling around stupid, stupid baggage, and basing all their retarded decisions on their stupid, stupid baggage. By way of example: Jack, hero extraordinaire, brilliant spinal surgeon, with gigantic Daddy Issues. For some idiotic reason, the island survivors have appointed Jack Lead Monkey in their little circus, and I can’t imagine why. He’s stubborn, impulsive, irrational, and irresponsible, and frankly, not too bright. Of course, the only other real option for leadership appears to be Locke, the Great White Hunter/Shaman, who also has gigantic Daddy Issues, and is a raving zealot, to boot. There are other characters I’d feel more comfortable taking orders from, like Sayid, who at least appears to have a legitimate reason to have some damage, as he’s an Iraqi former Republican Guard who had to do some seriously wrong shit to people during the Gulf War. Hell, I think I’d rather take orders from Sawyer, at this point, despite that he’s got a wide streak of self-serving to deal with. At least you know what you’re getting from Sawyer.

I’ve told Jim repeatedly that what these people need is at least one good manager, retail or restaurant by preference, and a couple of good gamers. And I don’t mean video gamers, no disrespect. I’m talking the old fashioned, hard core, pen-and-paper gamers, who have had to exercise their tactician and conspiracy muscles on a regular basis for several years vs grossly powerful and conniving NPCs, preferably with backgrounds in Shadowrun, D&D, and Vampire. Toss some Deadlands in there, too, just for color. It won’t hurt. And as far as restaurant managers go, I’m talking about one of the rare few good ones who actually give a bit of a shit, and I’m nominating them, because they know how to work with limited resources, and with damaged people (occasionally seriously damaged), to achieve results.

I’ll forgive the survivors the first season, because it wasn’t immediately justifiably apparent that Weirdness was afoot, and everyone deserves a learning curve. But really, after the Lostzilla (hat tip, Cleolinda) made its first screamy, tree-uprooting appearance in the jungle and mauled the pilot, and they shot a fuckin’ polar bear on a tropical island, these folks should have had some clue that they’d slipped into the Twilight Zone.

The single biggest problem the survivors face is a lack of effective leadership. Not a one of them knows how to lead people. Giving them a grace period to realize that they are, indeed, royally fucked — right up until, say, they discover the pilot was a thousand miles off course and the black box wasn’t working, and to find Rousseau’s 16-year-old transmission — they really should have started organizing for a long-term stay about a week and a half after crashing. They should have polled the survivors for names and pertinent skill sets nearly immediately. (Srsly, I almost blew my top when I found out they’d been ignoring a science teacher for a whole season. I mean, damn, that’s a useful resource right there, wasted.)

Lots of things should have happened, that didn’t. The secret-keeping? That’s bullshit. They’d have gotten a lot farther along if the survivors had just shared information. With effective leadership in place, they wouldn’t have had to worry about people freaking out over some of the odder bits of information. Like, oh, Lostzilla, or the polar bears, or the Others. An effective leader knows how to keep moral up despite increasing amounts of Weirdness.

And talk about wasted resources — Hurley comes to mind. That guy is smart, and he has a working understanding of people. That alone is invaluable. Sawyer is another good example. Jack went out of his way to piss Sawyer off and cocktest with him at every available opportunity, when, with a bit of finesse, Sawyer could have been turned into another important resource, instead of alienated. The guy’s a con man, for one. That means he, too, has valuable knowledge of how people think. He’s shown signs of having some tactical skill, too. No, instead, we’ll piss him off and completely marginalize Hurley. Stupid.

So, I’m part way into season three, at this point, and we’ve just stumbled into the thorny mess that is the Others. Frankly, at this point in the series, none of these survivors have any vested interested in “listening to the island” or whatever hokey, vaguely supernatural, horseshit may be going on. At this point, they’ve pretty much been fucked on for two months, and they’ve been left with no other viable option except to employ that long-venerated tactic, the Monkey Wrench.

Full disclosure, I learned the value of this tactic by watching Jim at work in the Gaming Group. Basically, once the conspiracy/mystery level has exceeded your ability to penetrate, and the NPCs (in this case, the Others, and to a certain extent, PCs like John Locke and/or Eko), you are left with no other workable solution than to start fucking shit up at random until people either A) kill or incapacitate your ass, in which case, you will no longer care, or B) someone freaks out and starts coughing up answers in order to get you stop screwing up their plans. And folks, when you bring the Monkey Wrench, you have to bring it large. By way of example — purposefully allowing the Swan to blow up is a good Monkey Wrenching tactic. Killing Ben, Lead Monkey of the Others’ circus, is also a viable Monkey Wrench tactic. By preference, actually, you’d want to get Ben, his stone-cold blond partner, the fertility doctor, who’s name I can’t remember, and Tom, the guy with the fake beard. These are the three others with leadership skills, and by removing them, you throw Project Dharma into disarray, which gives you some breathing room. While they’re down and out, you can seize the second island, or somehow otherwise carpe the fuck out of that deim to leverage an advantage for the next crew the Dharma folks bring in.

Does the Monkey Wrench actually solve problems? No, not in and of itself. But what it does do is give you reactions to watch, and from there, you can begin to hypothesize further answers. Watching the NPCs scramble to recover will often lend you some clues to work with when it comes to solving the conspiracies and mysteries. Much like Sawyer picking the fight in the field to gain some insight into his opponents — sometimes in order to figure out what’s going on, you have to upset a few apple carts. I cannot say this strongly enough: the status quo is never your friend in these kinds of situations.

Oh, and that bit with the “pace-maker” planted in Sawyer’s chest? Really? Really, Sawyer? You fell for that? I am so disappointed in you. I told Jim right after they dumped Sawyer back in his cage, “First thing to do, jumping jacks. Find out if they’re for real, because wow, did that all trip my bullshitometer.” I mean — that was like the sloppiest piece of work I’ve seen so far, and Sawyer fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Pffft. (Okay, granted, if you’re wrong, you’re dead, but then, if you’re dead, you don’t care anymore, and plus, you can’t be used against Kate at that point.)

Oh, and for the record, that island? Man-made is my theory. Possibly “alien-made”, but if they take it that route, I’m going to call “cop-out” and be really disappointed. Same thing if they go strictly supernatural with it.