As the final season of the television series LOST approaches, I am extremely hopeful the producers of the show will culminate successfully what I view as their potential to create an effective modern Work of Art Working.

Western entertainment has remained highly consistent with its adherence to the duality of good and evil or right versus wrong in its storytelling. This simplistic framework subsumes almost all aspects of life and public dialog. It is only in the truly great works of art do we see original attempts to realize the human condition from another perspective. In popular entertainment there are very few examples indeed. Star Wars had modern myth-making as its goal, but the mythology presented remained quite shallow and for the most part accepted the dominant ethical framework simply spicing it with ideas from earlier culture's Work of Arts and fables. Tolkien's epic myth is the most successful modern myth to target these goals as seen most vividly in lesser known works such as the Silmarillion, where Tolkien's efforts to integrate Christianity and Norse mythology with a British flavor are most apparent and masterfully achieved.

LOST does a phenomenal job of providing deep background to several distinct groups of people each of whom passionate believe either in each other in the case of the survivors, or in what they are doing and working towards in the case of The Others, the Dharma Initiative, the Hanso Foundation, Charles Widmore, Jacob and his group from the Ajira flight, and "Loophole Man". Each group views some if not all of the other groups as a problem and playing for the wrong side. The final episode of season 5 pushed this concept to another level by showing us the ethics that Locke and Ben trusted in as the Monster was in fact not a unbiased source of pure judgment, but an individual with a personal agenda he felt was important and righteous enough for him to do whatever it takes to achieve its goals — even it if means the lifelong manipulation and ultimately death of Locke. Destiny is felt passionately by characters in LOST and they go to extreme efforts to fulfill what they see as their ultimate purpose. The result is never what they expect, but always reveals a richer landscape and further depth of mystery.

I would love to believe LOST could become a modern day Oresteia.