Television Review: Stranger in a Strange Land (Lost, S3X09, 2007)

Stranger in a Strange Land (S03E09)

Airdate: 21 February 2007

Written by: Elizabeth Sarnoff & Christina M. Kim
Directed by: Paris Barclay

Running Time: 43 minutes

Television historians sometimes struggle to pinpoint the exact moment when a successful show "jumped the shark"—that defining instant when quality declines irreversibly and the series loses its way. With Lost, however, there is no such ambiguity. Thanks to remarkably candid statements from the producers themselves, that point can be identified with unusual precision: Season 3, Episode 9, titled Stranger in a Strange Land" The instalment is considered one of the least loved in the entire run of the series, yet it turned out paradoxically to be the most consequential episode of them all.

The general plot deals with the original trio of captives taken at the end of Season 2. Jack now finds himself the only one remaining within the Others' custody, following Sawyer and Kate's escape in the earlier episode. However, it becomes increasingly apparent that someone else—Juliet—might share some of his predicament, or perhaps fare even worse. Whilst Jack claims that he invented his accusation of Juliet conspiring to kill Ben merely to sow chaos and distrust among his captors, few believe him. For Juliet, the situation is far more grave: she faces a charge for killing Danny Pickett, because the Others apparently take extremely seriously any act of violence within their own ranks. Matters look increasingly dire for Juliet when a mysterious, sinister-looking woman calling herself Isabel (played by Diana Scarwid) arrives on Hydra Island, announces herself as "sheriff," and begins to investigate the matter. Jack is later informed that Juliet, if found guilty, will face execution.

Thankfully for Juliet, she is not the only one in trouble. Jack had previously saved Ben's life by removing a tumour from his spine, but post-surgical complications with infection mean that Ben still requires expert medical care. When asked to help, Jack initially refuses, only to later strike another bargain with Ben: he will serve as his physician in exchange for Juliet's life being spared. He remains among the Others, whilst she is punished by being branded on her lower back. In the end, the Others—together with Ben and Jack—depart Hydra Island for the main island.

The main island is also the destination for Kate, Sawyer, and Karl. Despite Kate's desperate pleas to return and attempt to rescue Jack, Sawyer insists that they continue paddling towards the main island and make camp for the night. Karl recovers sufficiently to begin speaking about his love for Alex, and afterwards leaves the camp apparently to begin searching for her. Sawyer, meanwhile, tells Kate that he believes she had sex with him only out of sympathy and owing to his likely imminent demise. This subplot, whilst offering some character development for Sawyer's insecurities, ultimately feels disconnected from the episode's primary concerns.

The flashback sequence deals with Jack and describes how he acquired his tattoos. We are introduced to Jack attempting to enjoy some vacation time in Phuket, Thailand. He meets an attractive Thai woman named Achara (Bai Ling) who helps him fly kites on the beach. Later they have sex, but Jack is, for reasons never adequately explained, profoundly intrigued by her and follows her home. The residence serves as a tattoo studio, and Achara explains that her "gift" is "seeing people as they truly are." She describes Jack as a leader, but one whose fate is to be lonely. She tattoos him. Afterwards, a group of Thai youths, including Achara's brother Chet (James Huang), beat Jack on the beach and tell him to leave the country. The logic of this violent denouement remains opaque.

Stranger in a Strange Land was widely considered the worst episode of Lost by that point in the series' run—not only by critics, but also by fans, many of whom were infuriated by ABC's aggressive promotional campaign promising major answers to plot mysteries, only for the episode to fail to deliver any such revelations whatsoever. The network's marketing had hyped the instalment as a watershed moment, yet viewers found themselves watching an episode largely devoted to explaining the origin of Jack's tattoos—an explanation that felt trivial at best.

The episode serves in many ways as a textbook example of the problems that had begun to afflict the show, principally the snail-like pace of its plot. This is best exemplified in Jack's misadventures on Hydra Island, which constitute more or less a repetition of his misadventures in the earlier episode. Once again, he must make a Faustian bargain with Ben; once again, he must attempt to save Juliet's life. The narrative feels stuck in a loop, and the plot must be padded with baffling scenes of Jack being confronted by apparently brainwashed Tailies as part of a psychological operation against him.

Another scene, in which Jack uses aloe to treat Juliet's branding on her lower back, seems to exist primarily as an excuse for some fan service or quasi-erotic hinting at a possible romance between the two characters. The moment is clumsily executed and adds little to our understanding of either character, instead feeling like the writers were grasping for ways to fill screen time with minimal effort.

The only segment of the episode that genuinely works is the guest starring performance of Diana Scarwid as Isabel. Scarwid delivers a cold, intelligent, and chillingly effective portrayal of what amounts to the police force among the Others. Her interrogation scenes possess a tension and authority largely absent elsewhere in the episode, and her character—sadly never seen again in the series—represented an intriguing expansion of the Others' social structure. That such a promising character was introduced in this particular episode, and then abandoned, only adds to the sense of wasted potential.

The segment with Kate, Sawyer, and Karl appears to be uninspired filler. It advances little of consequence and feels like material that could have been condensed or excised entirely. The dialogue between Sawyer and Kate regarding their relationship is competently performed but ultimately repetitive of dynamics already well established in previous episodes.

However, the flashback sequence in Thailand proves to be the episode's greatest failing, and the primary reason why Stranger in a Strange Land sank to such depths. The original idea for the script by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Christina M. Kim emerged from actor Matthew Fox being permitted to keep his personal tattoos during production, with the writers subsequently incorporating those tattoos into his character's background. The mystery of the tattoos, when finally revealed, proves weak, uninspired, and inconsequential. The Chinese characters quote Mao Zedong's 1925 poem, and are later mistranslated by the character of Isabel—a detail that suggests either sloppiness or a level of complexity the episode simply cannot support.

The vacation fling with Achara is similarly inconsequential, rendered apparently significant only through vague hints of mysticism and Achara's unexplained "hidden powers." The beating Jack receives at the end makes little sense, leading some observers to speculate that the production team was attempting to placate Hawaiian authorities by blackening Thailand's reputation as a safe tourist destination—Hawaii being a competitor for tourist dollars. Whether or not this interpretation holds water, the scene remains narratively unjustified and dramatically flat.

Even worse is the casting of Bai Ling, who is made to appear perpetually unsettling and possesses little to no chemistry with Matthew Fox. The relationship between Jack and Achara fails to convince on any level, and their supposed emotional connection feels entirely unearned. The episode asks viewers to invest in a romance that develops with remarkable speed yet without genuine spark or credible motivation.

The reactions to the episode were so overwhelmingly negative that Damon Lindelof later came to realise that his team had apparently exhausted their creative reserves, and that the series could not continue with its existing approach of making things up as it went along. The aftermath of Stranger in a Strange Land proved transformative: a decision was made to actually end the series, and subsequent episodes and seasons would be, for better or worse, focused on achieving that aim. In this sense, the episode's failure became its greatest legacy—it forced the showrunners to acknowledge that open-ended storytelling had limits, and that audiences required genuine momentum and resolution.

Lindelof himself later acknowledged that the episode represented a convergence of poor decisions: a "bad casting decision," a "bad premise decision," and a "bad flashback story." The network, confronted with the episode's reception and the creative team's admission of exhaustion, finally agreed to set an end date for the series. This agreement enabled the structured storytelling that would characterise the remaining seasons.

Stranger in a Strange Land is a fascinating artefact in television history—a failure so complete that it saved the show from itself. Without this episode's catastrophic reception, Lost might have continued its aimless meandering until cancellation. Instead, it received a reprieve and the opportunity to craft a genuine conclusion. Perhaps the episode deserves a modicum of gratitude for that, if for nothing else.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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