Those are my favourite TV shows ever. One might think at first that they are quite different, and indeed they are, but I do find some relations between them:
- They both play around with coincidence. Of course in Lost this aspect is part of the mythology of the series, whilst in Seinfeld it is a way to show how absurd life can get.
- At the time Lost was released, there was an advert for Seinfeld reruns that related both shows, including the “almost plane crash” from the last episode of the latter. The commercial used to be on YouTube, but apparently the network asked for it to be taken out.
- Jerry Seinfeld was once a special guest at Third Rock, and at some point of the episode he mentions that he likes Lost and would like to be on it. Oh well, maybe someday we’ll find out Locke and Seinfeld are somehow related?
- Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) was once in a Seinfeld episode.
- Jorge Garcia (Hurley) was actually found out by Lost producers when they watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that featured him. For those of you who don’t know, Curb Your Enthusiasm is the show of Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld.
- Lloyd Braun was once a cookie character from Seinfeld. He was named after a friend of Larry David, who later on became the head of ABC. Braun was the one who came up with the idea of having a show about survivors of a plane crash and called up J.J. Abrams to develop it. Even though Lost turned out to be a big hit, Braun was fired for investing in such an expensive and risky project. Isn’t life ironic?
- Matthew Fox (Jack) was once a host at Saturday Night Life. At the opening speech, they joked about Michael Richards, having a SNL character dressing and behaving just like Kramer (though playing Michael Richards). It was around the time they got Richards on a tape saying racist slurs. He even suggests to Foxy that he could be a character on a Lost flashback.
The list could go on, but I think that’s enough for now. I better go watch now a rerun of whichever of them. This is my solace, since we won’t be getting any new episodes of Lost until January, and none of Seinfeld ever again. However, there is one last thing that bugs me: I know one of the many mysteries of Lost yet to be explained is the apparition of Walt at the last episode of season three. I don’t intend to come up with any theories, but there’s one thing that I want to be explained and it actually has a bit of a Seinfeld feel to it: the issue of Walt’s clothes! I mean, you can see he’s more grown up, by then he had been supposedly out of the island for a while (even if he teletransported or something, he would be coming from the future), yet he wears the same old clothes he used after the crash! Is that really just a mistake from the production team? Or there is indeed some mythological explanation for that? Or, were the writers just having a laugh and adding elements that would more likely belong to a show such as Seinfeld? I’m going with the last one.
Get some new clothes, "my boy"!
