Generación / generation

By: Ben Rosenstock

I don’t remember a conversation about whether I had “permission” to watch Lost with my parents. But at some point during the first season, I started tuning in, lingering downstairs when they switched the TV to ABC every Wednesday night at 8:00 P.M. The first season finale, during which a minor character memorably blows himself up while waving around a stick of dynamite, aired in May 2005, over 20 years ago. I was nine years old.

“We shouldn’t have let you watch that,” Mom said when I mentioned this to her somewhat recently. And sure, maybe not. Lost is my all-time favorite TV show, even now, but I’m not in the habit of recommending it to fourth graders. Gruesome dynamite scenes aside, there’s a lot of complexity to the world-building, from the lore around the mysterious Island to the increasingly baffling (yet thrilling) time-travel mechanics. The thematic material could get heavy, too, especially when it came to the tug-of-war between science and faith throughout the series’ run. I typically operate under the belief that you should wait to watch something until you’re ready for it, and I’m not sure I was.

What does it mean to be “ready” for a work, though? Don’t we all have core memories of discovering things that changed our way of thinking about the world, that expanded our view of what art could do? After all, I was nine years old watching the camera descend into the mysterious hatch at the end of that same Lost finale; I was also nine years old watching the iconic opening montage to the following season, set to Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music.” I was eleven watching Charlie scrawl “NOT PENNY’S BOAT” on his hand, an experience etched in my memory because I joined Mom and Dad to watch “Through the Looking Glass” (often considered the best episode of the series) at a family friend’s house. And I was fourteen watching the series finale, the end of an era, the conclusion of a journey I’d begun when I first joined my parents to watch five years prior.

These experiences live with me indelibly, meaningful in some indefinable way. For one, it’s easy to trace my career as a working (if struggling) TV critic back to that first experience in May 2005, the moment I fell in love with the medium in a real way. The characters I met were flawed and lovable, captured in detail via weekly backstory flashbacks. Those glimpses at their pre-Island lives blew my mind, both for their structural boldness and the simple elegance of the storytelling. By seeing the characters as they were then, we could understand the baggage they were bringing to the Island. That flashback device has become common now, but it wasn’t so familiar at the time, especially to a kid used to Disney Channel fluff like me.

Sure, I still watched a fair bit of kids’ stuff throughout middle and early high school, but this was different. And it didn’t stop there. I vaguely remember the decision to start watching Desperate Housewives with my parents around season three, which surely exposed me to lots of sexual content I never would’ve experienced before. Again, though, I don’t have any real memory of Mom or Dad ever refusing to let me watch something. And whether or not that was a conscious choice on their part, granting that permission allowed me to explore an early passion that eventually led me to where I am now.

In 2015, one of my favorite critics, Matt Zoller Seitz, wrote a wholesome piece about showing Aliens to his eleven-year-old son and his friends. Even now, I remember the unexpected discourse that arose, including a swell of criticism for exposing some tweens to a violent movie. Of course, I sided with those who argued there is no universal “right age” to watch any movie. Kids learn by experiencing, and shielding them from potentially complex or emotionally intense storytelling means underestimating their ability to parse nuance or at least respond thoughtfully. That’s especially naïve in 2026, when it’s harder than ever to even know what your twelve-year-old is looking at online. (Then again, we heard that during MySpace.)

When I re-watch Lost now, I understand the layers much more than during my first watch, and I’m better able to discern how I feel about which narrative choices work and which don’t. On a basic level, though, the experience is surprisingly similar. The emotional gut punches hit the same, and they bring me back to when I first felt them. In a weird way, that consistency gives me a greater appreciation for my younger self’s taste: Oh, even then, you knew in your bones this was special. You knew there was something about these characters, something about this setting. I suppose that’s partly testament to the show’s ability to transcend the countless Lost copycats that followed in its wake, supernatural or sci-fi series that missed the point by introducing countless mysteries while forgoing the deep characterization that made Lost work in its wackiest moments. (You could argue Severance is facing this issue of misplaced priorities right now.)

People often ask me if I get bored of watching TV, since I write about it so much. My answer is always the same: no. On a week where I don’t have much TV to watch for work, I’m usually still consuming just as much. More than that, television remains a key part of so many of my friendships, a way of relating and connecting. I watch Survivor and discuss Summer House with Abbey, my reality TV shepherd, every Wednesday, I’m working my way through The Real Housewives of Orange County with my girlfriend, and I have a running list of shows I watch almost nightly with my roommate (lately The Comeback, The Boys, and Jury Duty, among others). I get emails and texts from my dad with his capsule reviews (he famously loves Fleabag.) I text Catie about her entry into Love Island fandom, I text Sam about Euphoria’s atrocities and our unpopular Hacks opinions, I pore over The Pitt with Carly and Sydney, and I update my sister about whatever superhero shows I’m watching.

At parties, I regularly get to know new people by asking what they’re watching; if they don’t watch TV, as is the case for a surprisingly high number of people, that can lead to an interesting conversation, too. If they ask for recommendations, I try to pick as carefully as possible, asking about their likes and dislikes first, not wanting to steer them in the wrong direction. I’m not recommending Industry to someone who craves light escapism after getting home from work, nor would I suggest The Traitors to someone who thinks of any form of reality TV as empty calories.Sometimes I’m aware that even if they do take my suggestion, they might not watch the show the exact same way I’d watch it, the way it “deserves to be watched.” Maybe they dipped a toe into Survivor by watching the two most recent seasons available on Netflix, both of which are full of returning contestants and thus would benefit from a more comprehensive journey through the earlier seasons. That’s the kind of TV faux pas that can get under my skin if I let it. Or maybe they just looked at their phone a lot while watching. Then I remember that usually, if you’re meant to love something, it’ll find its way to you. Maybe watching Survivor season 20 will spoil some stuff, but if it successfully makes you fall for the show, mission accomplished. And yes, sure, you can start watching Summer House from the new season, even if I’d prefer you to go back and get nine summers of context first. Go ahead, you have my permission. It’s fine.