Connections Lost

With the beginning of the end just weeks around the corner, I started to think about how this show has drawn us in. Yes, there are attractive people running around on a beach. Yes, there are some fan favs that we watch for. The scenery is beautiful and the idea of being abandoned on an island is, arguably, a little bit of a secret fantasty to all. However, all of these elements combined don't add up to the magnetic force Lost has over some of us. What's missing?

I believe that the most important factor is the connections. ***SPOILERS*** It's like a game of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Aaron is Claire's son, Claire is Jack's sister, Jack is Christian's son, Christian meets Sawyer in a bar in Sydney who then relays that story to Jack on the island though Sawyer was out looking for the real Sawyer to kill him, but alas that's Locke's dad - Just for one small example. An avid fan knows I could go on for days. I digress.

I believe that these degrees of separation, or connection, are what draws the audience to their TV set week after week, pining away for answers to how this piece fits in. Their is a sense of cognitive dissonance while watching; Are the characters growing closer together or farther apart? I think we watch, hoping that it's closer together. In the world of cell phones, facebook, webchats, internet dating, email, virtual exercise and kindles, the idea of "connection", real human connection, seems lost on some. I believe at this shows center, it is the most simplest of ideas. Themes thrown around about good vs bad, nature vs science, redemption, etc. are all very real themes in this show. However, I sense a strong theme of simplicity. The kind that comes with being stripped of all other concerns and worries and having the most basic need of survival. That survival mode forces them to look to eachother, "Live together die alone" and in essence, form bonds in the short time they are on the island stronger than some obtain in a lifetime.

This bond is rationalized to some degree with the common blood that some share, the links between characters we learn as the show goes along, but is it those commonalities that creates the relationships between the characters that seem so otherworldly to some of us? Would you get back on a plane after enduring such hardship to go back to rescue the others? Is it possible that we have forgotten how to have those relationships because we are too busy being plugged in, wired in, logged on to form these ties? What do you think?