I've come across a realisation about myself in the last couple of nights. While watching the Lost series re-cap 2 nights ago, and then the actual last ever episode of Lost last night, amidst my smiles and tears of sadness and happiness, I realised that I was really enjoying the flashback scenes.
It wasn't just the fact that it was the final episode and I was getting all sentimental, what with the sudden visions of what the characters had gone through in the last 6 seasons, however that did really add to the nostalgia of the episode. It was realising that I REALLY enjoyed the flashbacks, and I had enjoyed the glimpses we got as viewers, of the lives of the Lost characters throughout the entire series. In fact, it was what drew me into the show over the years..
It was never the storyline of a plane full of people shipwrecked on an island that captured me. It was having the TV on late at night, in the background, and watching temporarily while a character's past was explored. Then the story would move back into the present world, to explain how the past had affected that particular character's personality, morals or decisions.
The more I thought of it the more I realised, that quite simply point blank, I LOVE flashbacks. I started thinking of other shows and forms of media that I enjoyed. Angel, one of my all time favourite shows, had recurring flashbacks where we would see where Angel/Angelus, or one of the other vampires/demons first got their beginnings.
I would love those scenes, as they provided a view into a world that we weren't readily exposed to. We were only privy to the present world of Angel and his crew, and so being given a small window into his past world felt like a privilege. Understanding why certain present choices and actions were made, and how it related to the past, made everything gel together, and made the entire Angel-verse that much greater, unique and intricately involved.
Then I remembered my current obsession (and possibly long with-standing), the Twilight series, and how in Eclipse we are given Jasper's and Rosalie's back-stories; it gives us an understanding of why they are the way they are. I LOVED these parts, how whole chapters were devoted to these characters and their past lives, and the one thing I've kept saying to bestie Red (also a fellow Twilight obsess-ee), is how I really hope the movie version shows us these characters prior selves, and not just merely glosses over it, like some scenarios and story plots that we witnessed in the New Moon movie.
Even The Bold and the Beautiful (yes as daggy as it sounds but I hold no regrets for loving this show!) has flashbacks, often when a character is going through a particularly emotional moment, such as the experience of strong love or loss, and they start to "remember" the past, the good old times.... I love those moments! Yes, the moments they visualise are always things that actually happened in the shows history which played out on TV once upon a time, but still, looking at the past or being reminded of it is something I love in that ultimate daytime soap of soaps.
And all in all, this love of flashbacks I own lies testament to my love of psychology. It all makes sense really.
The flashbacks in mediums such as TV, film or books gives us a window into a world that we are not aware of, due to the nature of these mediums usually and in most cases exploring a story in the PRESENT. Seeing the past allows us as consumers of these mediums to understand why the characters we have grown to know and love are the way they are, and provides depth to the story so that we can better relate to the characters and scenarios we discover. The depth is needed; it helps us bond, attaches us to these stories and characters. We feel the characters and their lives and it becomes more real.
We see the transition: them= then ; them=now. We begin to analyse the process, however subconsciously, of how they came to be like THAT, and what was going through their minds when they did THAT. Because we start to understand their mind. And that makes them more real, then the medium itself.
I say we, when I really mean I :) However I think I'm not the only over-analytical mind out there.
In a nutshell? I love flashbacks in media. Because I love psychology.
As for Lost? I was never a Lost devotee. But having seen episodes here and there over the last 6 seasons, and then watching the final episode, however enlightened I may be it's still left me asking questions. So I'm going back to the very beginning!
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