Queer(ying) Lost

This essay on the television series Lost explores and interrogates the programme's lack of queer characters. The conservative and ideological strictures faced by commercial, serial television fiction in the United States - and which arguably characterise television as a medium - are outlined. Attempts to detect queer characters and moments are made, drawing on extratextual data and gossip. It is argued that the uses of sound and narrative structure in Lost provide the series with a queer potency and affective charge.