Paradise just ended Season 2, and the finale has fans in a minor uproar. But don’t count Stephen King among those who have a problem with where Paradise is headed, because he seems to be fully on board for the ride, comparing it to another one of sci-fi TV’s greats: Lost.
Over on Twitter, a Paradise fan was reacting to the Season 2 finale, posting, “Great season finale for Paradise. This show is the closest thing on TV right now to Lost.”
Stephen King, apparently feeling rather spicy (cringe?), reposted the reaction with the comment “Yup true boo”.
Paradise has evoked many Lost comparisons, with good reason. The series started as a present-day mystery, punctuated by flashbacks to the past, before the characters came to the secret, confined setting we find them in (an underground city/fallout shelter). Season 2 of Paradise has taken just as much heat as Lost‘s infamous fourth and fifth seasons: both shows took the bold swing of splitting the seasonal arc, and the primary characters, between the familiar primary location (Lost‘s island or Paradise‘s bunker) and the world outside the primary setting. And, to the surprise of many Hulu viewers, both shows took a big swerve into time-travel sci-fi.
And it seems to be going over the same for both shows: i.e., very divisively. Lost Season 4 had to be produced during the Hollywood Writers Strike of 2007, which completely disrupted the story and character arcs; trying to also introduce time travel had slim to zero chance of landing right, and created troublesome ripples that continued through Season 5.
Paradise on the other hand, hit viewers over the head in the Season 2 Finale. The show quickly introduced an AI super computer (“ALEX”); layered on half-explained theoretical science about 4D perception (i.e. beyond time), and how it can create a loop between past and future. With Many viewers already had to jump from initially getting an espionage/mystery show, only for the pilot to reveal the setting was actually a fallout bunker in a dystopian future. Now Paradise has pivoted again to time travel/multiverse theory, and to say it’s been a rough adjustment for many, would be an understatement.
Ultimately, whether or not Paradise deserves Lost comparisons comes down to how the series will land the plane (pun!) in Season 3, which will end the show. And let’s be clear: Paradise needs to end its run way better than Lost did, if it hopes to be looked at with any respect, at all.
Paradise and Lost (see what I did there?) are both streaming on Hulu. Discuss both series on the ComicBook Forum!
