No Love ‘Lost’
by Andrew LeighBefore Season 6, my wife was a die-hard “Lost” fan. For five years, during the appointed hour, I wasn’t allowed to so much as breathe. And heaven help me if I had to walk past the TV screen. Suddenly, my normally mild-mannered wife could hurl the remote with notable precision and ferocity.
Five years of secret hatches. Ancient four-toed statues. Teleporting cabins. A string of lottery numbers popping up everywhere. Weird pseudo-science. Steampunk technology. The Dharma Initiative. (Remember that?) And what the heck was a polar bear doing on a tropical island?
“Lost” was a major brain tease, too. Naming so many of the characters after philosophers (Locke, Rousseau, Hume, etc.) was a stroke of genius – paper-thin genius, I later learned, as few of the characters had much to do with their namesakes. (My favorite character name was Charlotte Staples Lewis, i.e., C. S. Lewis – incidentally, his middle name really was Staples.)
As the show’s intellectual promise faded, my interest flagged, but it really took a tumble during Season 5, when time travel, the last refuge of a desperate sci-fi writer, reared its inevitable head.
Time travel is like plutonium: it must be handled with great care, and a little goes a very long way. But in Season 5, “Lost” got hooked big-time on time-travel, sometimes hitting that pipe a dozen times in a single episode.
The show also lost its way when it violated the first rule of castaway stories, aka the Gilligan’s Island principle: never leave the island. Once you leave the island, you’ve lowered the stakes and betrayed the premise.
In the case of “Lost,” first they’re trapped on the island, then they leave the island, then they come back, then they try to leave…. Sorry, I fell asleep while writing that. See what I mean?
Despite its frequent forays into pseudo-science, “Lost” is essentially a fantasy story. It may seem counterintuitive, but the more outlandish or surreal the events in a fantasy story, the more tightly you must stick to a set of rules. Even if they are rules you’ve made up, they’ve got to make sense.
Without a set of easily graspable rules and limitations on your characters’ abilities, your audience will think, anything is possible. And if anything is possible, nothing is at stake, in which case, nobody will care.
And that’s what happened. As things in “Lost” got wackier, you realized at some point, it just wasn’t worth the effort to keep up. Especially as it became clear there was no way they were going to find a logical explanation for all the crazy stuff.
The sheer volume of coincidences alone were improbable beyond belief. And so the promise of a non-metaphysical Unified Theory vanished (as the ending only confirmed).
My wife knew it too, deep down, but tried desperately to keep her disbelief suspended, like a kid who doesn’t want to stop believing in Santa Claus even as he watches Dad put the presents under the tree.
Echoing the faith versus reason theme that underpinned the series, she still had faith there was a reason behind it all. Plus, she thought Sawyer was cute.
And so I kept faith with her, keeping her company as she tuned in to the show, like going to church with your family even after you’ve become an atheist. But her faith in the show was fading, too.
The last straw was the Temple. We were promised that Season 6 would wrap up all the loose ends. But instead of answers, we were getting a whole new ball of frayed yarn to puzzle over.
Questions are fine; you don’t watch “Lost” if you’re allergic to ambiguity. But to introduce a brand-new setting and group of characters, just when we were expecting things to wind down?
It raises the wrong kinds of questions. Such as: After years of exploring a small island, how did the Losties miss an entire temple complex?
At least the tension level in our household diminished during “Lost” viewings. We actually spoke to each other sometimes. And not just during the commercials.
But I knew a Rubicon had been crossed when, during the last 15 minutes of the penultimate episode last week, I asked my wife what she thought of some development and got no response. Turning, I could see that she was fast asleep.
Oh, sure, we still watched the final episode all the way through, for old time’s sake if nothing else. The wife insured her old enthusiasm with a pot of coffee.
As a friend said, he could have had a relationship over the past six years instead of all the time he’d devoted to “Lost.” He’d be damned if he was going to miss the finale.
And so, after six long seasons of crazy plot twists, maddening coincidences, and more red herrings than in the Soviet-era Baltic Sea, “Lost” finally lived up to one thing: its name.
“Lost’s” secret weapon is its soundtrack — the most manipulative one in television history. When that piano starts slowly plinking, it has a Pavlovian effect on your tear ducts.
Throw in slow-motion, a church, a funeral, a lot of hugging, a father-son reunion, long-lost loves embracing, even a baby, and the main character dying, and I started wondering, who’s chopping raw onions in our kitchen at this hour?
Many fans mistook that warm fuzzy feeling they got at the end of the series for answers. Not all, mind you. The clearer-eyed (or harder-hearted) of us saw through the ruse.
Funny how after so many allusions to science, pseudo- or otherwise, the series ultimately had no option left but to come down on the side of faith. There was no possible rational explanation for all that had transpired.
The creators had written themselves into a corner and they knew it. Reason failed them in the end. (As it may all, I’m afraid.) Faith is all they had left to give us.
I’m not unhappy with that result.
But what about that damn polar bear?
“Lost” fans (and critics), what did you think of the ending? Of the series?
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197 Comments
What???? No Santa Claus! ( lol! You are a good hubby!)
My family has a tradition…we eschew the weekly broadcasts, and every year for the last 5 years we rent the entire season for that year, and have a marathon Lost-fest between Christmas and New Years.
This methodology helps keep the season more coherent as we slam through one episode after another, with the downside that at the first DVD of a given season, we've forgotten the storyline to some degree after a year's hiatus. But it really doesn't matter, because there is little coherence anyway. And the first few flashbacks help.
Lots of sarcastic comments, complaints, and cynical observations are aired, accompanied by plenty of snacks…our own little version of MST3K. One favorite comment was the the series was aptly named, as it describes the plot, the producers, and the viewers.
Yes, kind of weird…but weird family traditions are the ones most fondly remembered!
I guess I "lost" it when Jorge Garcia's character just never lost any weight. A fantasy island may be one thing, but a fantasy diet to keep the pounds on was never explained.
are you kidding? the polar bears get explained in the first video lock watches with jack in the hatch after meeting desmond. and since when does faith have to be the "cop-out" answer?
JJ Abrams loves his "mystery box" metaphor: if you know what's in the box (ie., answers) then the mystery is no good. He's right, to a point: but a mystery without answers is not a mystery. It's just a set of random occurrences. What would Sherlock Holmes stories be if we never learned the truth at the end? It'd be a lot like Lost. The truth about Abrams (it was as true about Alias as it was about Lost) is that there never was a story. There never was an ending in mind. The writers never wrote themselves into a corner: there was nothing *but* corners.
It was purely lazy storytelling. Rather than doing the hard work of planning out a story that worked and then working toward a conclusion, the writing wandered everywhere. That this was true was evident from *the very first season.* I stuck with the show until the beginning of season three until the writing was so clearly insane that I couldn't stand it anymore. Like similar shows like Battlestar Galactica and X-Files, making a compelling mystery drama is easy. Ending it, giving answers, is very hard. So hard, in fact, that Abrams has devised a clever "reason" for why he does it (the aforementioned "mystery box"). But it's not a reason. It's an excuse. He's neither talented enough nor driven enough to actually create a story with a real, compelling ending. It's sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Lost was a good show. It coulda been great, but the writers got a little too fancy with their footwork and got ahead of themselves. I think they wanted to write a show that was able to create a balanced argument between the Faith and Reason camps. It's a noble desire, and many have tried. What it comes down to is there is a continuum between the two ends and the truth about life is somewhere in between.
Like C.S. Lewis trying to disprove the exsistence of God through his analytical writings brought him to his personal belief, I see the creators of Lost having to come down on the side of Faith. And since Faith is "hope in things unseen" you have to end up writing about things that we have not seen before, and that leads to portraying some pretty fantastical things that are difficult, if not impossible, to explain.
Maybe ….he found a secret magical hatch that housed an equally magical , self-renewing food/beverage cart containing an unlimited supply of pop,beer, cheese doodles and Ho-Ho's. I know, I know….I thought it was amazing that Hurley never lost weight being on an island, and all.
Ha! We do the same thing during the Christmas Holidays while enjoying lots of good food!
I agree. My wife and I watched Alias regularly, and ended up just as frustrated. I was intrigued enough to watch a couple episodes of Lost, and realize that Abrams went back to his formula. That was enough for me to decide not to watch.
I wish the time travel and numbers and Faraday's notebook had meant something more. Something scientific. I agree with 'ern'; it was lazy storytelling. One of the easiest traps to fall in for a storyteller. Outlining and planning ahead is necessary – especially when scrutinized by rabid fans.
I followed the LOST forums and so many fans spent hours concocting wild theories about what really was happening. Some even created 3D maps of the island. People who suggested a purgatory ending were laughed at; it was supposed to be a quantum physics ending. The purgatory ending was not my kind of ending.
One thing LOST had were great actors. It truly made up for the crazy gone wrong storyline.
It's the reason I don't much like mystery stories, neither books nor movies. The payoff is rarely worth the trouble. Either they give you all the clues and it's too easy to figure out, or they don't give you enough clues and it makes no sense. It's only occasionally fun, as in "The Usual Suspects," but I got tired of it during the 3rd season of Lost. I think you're quite right about the laziness, as the twists and turns have little or nothing to do with each other. Each season you get a whole new set of mysteries and precious little explanation of the leftovers from the last season. Same thing happened with Heroes.
And as Mr. Leigh writes, time travel is just like plutonium. Not careful enough, you get poisoned to death–really irresponsible, you blow up the world. One little paradox is all it takes.
Weird family traditions are the absolute best! That's what makes our families uniquely our own. If Hollywood could just figure out some of those simplistic notions, just think what wonderful movies they could make.
Irwin Allen, call your agent.
The whole show was based on promises they had no intention nor idea how to keep. The big secret is a cave with a giant cork in it? Where's Dr. Smith when you need him.
Seriously, the whole time we're told what a genius Jacob is and when it comes to him telling everyone the secret he's like "Uh…I don't know where to start". Turns out, the actor was the guy in the beginning of the Big Lebowski who shoved Jeff Bridges head in a toilet and didn't know what a bowling ball was. I liked him as Jacob until they showed us Jacob was the dumb one.
The alter-heaven thing I saw coming. I can deal with that. It's the questions they never intended to answer, like how can Jacob alter destinies, build a lighthouse that sees through time and space and give people powers when he doesn't know jack diddly? I could go on, but why bother.
Clue #1 was when the creators came out this year that they were still big Obama supporters. Yes, smoke and mirrors lovers run in packs.
I can't say anything about the show itself, I've never seen it. I kissed network prime time goodbye when the cable started giving me a gazillion of movie channels.
As an avid sci-fi fan, I can't agree enough with your assessment of time travel fiction. I've never pretended to understand the theory of relativity. But the way I understand the mathematics of time travel it basically means that in that certain calculus equations you can make the variable T (for Time) a negative value. Theoretically making it go the other way.
I've done my time in physics, labs and calculus classes back during college. But if you ask me, time travel is completely impossible. And I believe that's because time is an entirely human concept. Trees, rocks, rivers, volcanoes don't worry about time. Animals do to some extent, but mostly for biological cycles. The way I see it, to travel back in time would require traveling back through an individual's memory.
For example, this is hysterical.
http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.ht...
Just passing thoughts, and now I'll leave you Lost fans to your debate.
Enjoy.
I was hoping that someone would bring up Abrams tendency to write in circles. I liked "Lost" for about one season. A few episodes into the second was all it took for me to realize it was just going to be another "Alias." I'm impressed by the people who made it all the way to the end; I just couldn't do it.
I was a Lost devotee from day 1. After watching the final episode, my disappointment has not dimished. I'm actually a little bitter. All we wanted were some decent answers. What we got was crap about everyone being dead and going into the light. As far as I'm concerned, Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse have "Lost" their street-cred with me. And no, I won't be buying the dvd's to find out the answers.
A college reunion where everyone wears nicer clothes and hugs each other wasn't my idea of a conclusion. I never thought they'd tie up all the strings, and when all the new sub plots started coming that didn't seem to explain anything, I knew the end would fizzle bad and in that I wasn't disappointed.
I had hoped for a Back to the Future Part 1 vibe with the series finale of Lost
I had hoped that the season 6 timelines – Island and Sideways – would merge to allow the Oceanic 815 survivors to transit into a happier, more personally fulfilling universe.
Instead the Sideways timeline is a purgatory with no more thematic and emotional significance than Pam Ewing finding a dead and buried Bobby Ewing taking a shower and negating the entire 8th season of Dallas in the process.
This leaves the Island timeline which is nothing more than a snuff film starring Jack Shepherd, with only Vincent the dog to comfort him.
Gee, JJ, thanks a lot. And this leaves me with the feeling that Star Trek will never return to its classic roots.
Wow, what a bunch of grouches! I was devoted from the beginning and in the end I was very satisfied. It was a beautiful emotional ending.
I would only say this much – I believe they had a general plan, an outline from the get go. But the series was open as to how long it was going to run. So starting in about Season 3, the filler episodes started, including the infamous Nikki and Paolo. The answers were slow in coming. So finally ABC agreed with the producers to cut it short. It allowed them to have more focus and get to an end point. But they only had 3 seasons to do it and they decided to cut them short so that there would be no hiatus (which was a disaster for Season 3 I believe).
Cont'd
Cont'd
So obviously they had to make a professional decision to focus on as little as possible so that they could bring it to an end without having too many more questions left unanswered.
Also, you all may not know this, but Cuse and Lindelhof specifically stated that they wanted to avoid the Star Wars prequel "midichlorian" disaster – taking an idea like the Force and ruining the mystery and spirituality of it.
Perhaps they erred too much on the no-explanation side. But I still think the whole show was wonderfully written, acted and produced and the ending, well, the last few episodes, I did a lot of crying.
Cont'd
The show's backdrop was sci fi fantasy but the heart of it was the characters and I think that's what they wound up concentrating on. Of course, many would be disappointed with no explanations for many things. I still have questions, but I still feel satisfied. If you were an Island mythology person, you were probably more disappointed. If you were in it for the characters, you were likely way more satisfied.
No fans will ever be 100% satisfied.
But it was waaaayyyy better than the Life on Mars series finale (after one season) – one of Obama's daughters is President in the future! Really! That's as imaginative as they could get about a show that was otherwise kind of intriguing.
In the history of series finales, this is in the top tier for sure.
Sorry guys.
Okay, go back to being grouchy!
I am so glad to have a venue for posting my thoughts about this awesome series. First, not that any of you really care, but my husband and I got hooked last summer. We bought all the DVD sets that were available and sat mesmerized by what we saw. So, we continued to watch the series 5 when it came out in December to get ready for the end in January. I must say, I am totally satisfied and at peace with the ending. I was struck by the biblical, religious and spiritual bits that were thrown into the writing. I tried to discount those thinking "Oh that Hollywood crowd would never do that. They are a bunch of agnostics or atheists." So, I was so glad to see the ending. They were in Purgatory. They were all flawed individuals. The "crash" gave them to have a fresh start and the "sideways" stuff gave them a chance for redemption–atonement. Linus's comment as he sat on the bench outside the church was so touching. They were at peace and so was I. I cried like a baby.
And one more thought…re:faith. Faith is believing what is not knowable by fact or rational explanation. It is an element of many life processes. It was vital to this outstanding series.
It was the age of the movie serial. Joe was a great writer of cliffhangers, always leaving the hero John Strong in a bad situation, then rescuing him at the beginning of the next episode. The series was an immense success, and Joe felt he was underpaid for his imagination.
At the end of the current episode, John Strong was knocked out, tied up, and thrown off of a high cliff, falling toward the rocks below. How would Strong survive? The audience was mesmerized with anticipation.
Joe delivered a note to his movie studio employer. "Gentlemen. No doubt you will be unhappy with me because of my demand, and this will be my last script for you. If you want this script, please deliver to me $200,000 in secure funds, in time for you to film the next episode. Sincerely, Joe."
The studio gathered its other writers in panic. Twenty-four hours of brainstorming yielded no ideas about how John Strong saves himself. Angrily and reluctantly, they met Joe's terms.
The messenger delivered Joe's script. The executives tore open the envelope. They read:
"Miraculously, John Strong escaped."
I watched Lost for a few seasons, for lack of anything else worth watching. When it began to go mystical, inexplicable, and just downright silly, I "lost" interest and read a few more books. I, too, had a suspicion that it would wind up with tearful scenes of reunion and dollops of faith, which it did, in an overly Catholic church. As an atheist, I found that laughable and pitiful at the same time. Lots of talent wasted in this series, particularly the actress who played Juliette, the actor who played Sawyer, and Naveen Andrews. I don't think any of the cast will have to work ever again, because of the indefinite amount of residuals they'll collect for the next few decades.
The last sentence sums it up nicely. A neat gig for the actors, for sure.
Funny that you mention MST3K, Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy did a Rifftrax of the two part pilot.
I got tired of being jerked around the time they first left the island.
One of the giveaways that the writers are lazy and ignorant was in the church where the stained glass window had symbols from most of the major religions…I suppose to say, "Hey, it's all good man.."
Well, first I'll say that was a mighty entertaining review and I agree with most of it except for two things:
(1) We knew the polar bear was used by the Dharma Initiative in their weird studies, and
(2) My disappointment in the show's failure to answer many questions and wrap up the mysteries of the island (which was quite an extensive failure) does not change the fact that I loved the show. It just would have been the most amazing show ever, had it delivered.
It may be that my view is different from others (no, not those others) because I watched the entire 6 seasons starting this past January, but I think that helped me remember the details better.
Finally, except for and up until his transformation into an honorable person, I seriously disliked Sawyer and was not taken in by his alleged "cuteness." Jack was much more interesting, but unfortunately acted idiotically on a regular basis.
Why don't you post more!!! You always crystallize my thoughts while making me laugh.
This is why I stopped watching after the 2nd season –
"And that’s what happened. As things in “Lost” got wackier, you realized at some point, it just wasn’t worth the effort to keep up. Especially as it became clear there was no way they were going to find a logical explanation for all the crazy stuff."
I will miss the superior smug feeling I got whilst listening to Lost devotees debate the endless contrivances knowing all the while it would mean nothing. Hmmm….kinda like the Matrix films, fun to watch only if you ignore the nonsensical philosophy.
Listen, I am a die-hard fan. I thought you were describing me in that opening paragraph. I love sci-fi and I held on through their (admittedly poorly-handled) time travel, and even did my best with the flash-sideways. But the way they handled the flash-sideways was just…well, someone said "safe." They could have gone full-on fantasy rather than mystical with it, but chose the safe Nirvana ending. That's my big problem.
Otherwise, I enjoyed how they handled the actual on-island story. Did all my questions get answered? No, of course not. But enough did for me to get closure and be satisfied. I thought there were a lot of great emotional high points and well-written individual scenes. And, of course, the ending scene was pitch-perfect. And I can live with that.
This is the best damn review I have ever read on the subject!
Don't cross me on this because "the Black Knight always triumphs…"
BK
I watched every episode.
There were some letdowns along the way. But there are so many great episodes (Walkabout, The Constant, Through the Looking Glass, to name a few), that overall I forgive the lapses.
The finale was pretty damn good in my opinion. I totally get the complaint that there were unanswered questions, but throughout this episode I was reminded why I loved the show anyway: the characters.
The purgatory reveal didn't bother me so much as the New Age-y church. Most overtly Catholic churches I've been in don't have Buddhist, Islamic, and Taoist panes next to the cross in the stain glass windows.
I really like that they left some things open. Hurley and Ben's adventures on the island, and Ben's quest for ultimate redemption in Sideways world will undoubtedly be told in comics and novels that I'll never read, much like the Star Wars extended universe stuff.
In the end, this is a show that while I love it, I totally get almost every single complaint about it.
JJ Abrams is smiling…all the way to the bank. He created a phenomenon followed around the world. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, does it? They used flash backs to get to know characters, flash forwards to make you speculate about what was to come and finally, flash sideways to show what could have been if they all hadn't died in the initial crash, which I believe they all did. Now with 119 episodes in syndication, Lost is a perpetual money machine. It doesn't matter what episode is on because they don't make anymore sense in sequence than in random. People are still scratching their heads and will rewatch episodes and buy the DVD sets to try and make sense out of an enigma for years to come.
He talked about that in season 1, I think. Someone (probably Sawyer) made a snarky comment about Hurley being so big when they're all starving, looking for food. Hurley said he'd lost a couple notches on his belt already, but it was hard to tell because he was so big to start with. Just after that they found the hatch and the supply drop with all the food, so apparently he regained any weight he'd lost.
I so love your user name! Must be a true Lostie.
I too watched every episode and have the same reaction to its ending as I did with BSG (Battlestar Galactica): "WHAT! Come on! " So much promise, such a letdown. I was left with the feeling that the writers of Lost were making up as they went along; smoking too much of the Hawaiian green which gave them short term memory loss which made them forget the plot lines they had introduced a couple of weeks ago. And then they "woke up" and realized that they had to ended it in such as way as to avoid the pitchfork and torches crowd. I got my torch and sharpening the pitchfork.
The ending stunk. The sideways flash was Purgatory? What? Then Christian Shepherd tells Jack that they made the place they're in, i.e. the "church," so they could be together. Is he saying that all religions are man-made so that we can be reunited in the afterlife? That's a weird concept–either a religion helps you in the afterlife because it's true and given by God, or it's made up and can't help you at all when you're dead.
I completely agree about the Temple. Where was that the whole time? How big is this island? Maybe it's got a WalMart on it somewhere and an airport. Gah. I'm mad I wasted my time with this show. Loved the characters. Hate the writers. Boo.
I have so many conflicted feelings about the ending of the show. At first, I liked it very much, but realized shortly after that with so many questions left out there – the ones about the Temple, where did Jacob and Smokey's Mother come from, etc. – I felt cheated. And like another poster, I now feel that the writers took the easy way out, just as the Dallas writers did with the Bobby Ewing fiasco and the Seinfeld writers with the whole winding-up-in- jail thing.
I loved this show most of the time, enough to ignore the weirder episodes. It was emotionally powerful to see all the characters reunited, but I think it was a cheap thrill in the end. The characters were exceptionally well-drawn and many had great individual episodes. I was totally invested in them. If enough care was given to crafting the ending as was given to crafting the characters, I would have been totally satisfied.
From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Chapter 23:
I haven't seen enough of Abrams' work to comment on his overall quality, but he had little to do with the show after Season 1, which was the most popular (and I suppose clearest) of the six. From Season 2 on, it's been mainly the work of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, so you'd have to take it up with them. I'm not saying Abrams is or isn't a good writer/producer, I just don't think "Lost" is a good example for making a judgment.
Nice name, first of all. But remember that it wasn't purgatory–everything that happened on the island was real; it was the storyline in which they never crashed that was a fake, purgatory-like condition. It is, you have to admit, a unique twist on what a lot of people were thinking.
Your wife's right, Mr. Leigh. Sawyer was cute and, frankly, he was the only reason why I watched "Lost" until the bitter end. Still ticked off that they never explained that blasted four toed statue. I haven't been this angry with a tv show's finale since "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
I liked Lost. Kind of stopped watching in season four or five, but came back when they had the "explanation subtitled" extra shows this year. However, I find that I enjoyed Jimmy Kimmel's alternate endings much more than the actual ending. (And that says something deep and cryptic. I'm just not sure what.)
I'm with you. I didn't start watching "Lost" until Season 5, mainly because there was nothing else on TV one night, and got hooked pretty fast. I didn't care too much about the show itself; what I mainly wanted to know was, "Okay, what in the world is going on here? What is this place, and why is it so important, and why are these people so desperate to go back to the island, and how did that dead guy come back to life, and how can there be two of him, and whaaaaaa????" So, I wanted answers. But after watching every episode since, going back and finding some from earlier seasons, and then watching the finale Sunday, I decided I didn't care. For one thing, there were some answers, though they raised questions of their own, and I still don't understand a lot of what was going on.
But also, I came to believe that "Lost" wasn't about discovering all the riddles of the island. If this season made nothing else clear, I think it demonstrated that all these characters were part of a plan for personal redemption, something you can see in the very first episodes of the series. In the end, the show's title didn't refer just to a geographical dislocation, it referred to men and women who were spiritually adrift and needed to become part of something greater, and the island, mysterious as it was, was perhaps most important as a means of bringing that about. Having now, as I do, a general idea of the story from beginning to end, I personally thought it was wonderful that all the castaways found some kind of redemption in the end, and that this community they had formed was able to re-establish itself in the Sideways afterlife, and they were able to move on to eternity together. I think it was one of the few times (especially nowadays) that a TV show has been able to rise to the level of philosophy/literature, and I for one am grateful that I got to experience it, even if as a latecomer.
Also, I don't care what your opinion of the finale was–and I'm not saying you have to have the same reaction to it as I did–if you didn't tear up at least a little bit at the final scene when the dog lay down next to Jack as he died, you sir have no heart. That is all.
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"As things in “Lost” got wackier, you realized at some point, it just wasn’t worth the effort to keep up. Especially as it became clear there was no way they were going to find a logical explanation for all the crazy stuff"
This pretty much sums it much for me. It got to be just not worth it to keep up.
Yeah, the church was one of the few things that bugged me a little bit. Seeing as how the characters had a lot of different faiths (Sayid=Muslim, Jin and Sun=presumably Buddhist or something), I suppose they couldn't have worked it differently, but still…oh well, I'm willing to overlook it.
I lost interest after season 3.
I was also a little ticked off when I read that Abrams (or one of the creators of the show) said more questions would be answered when they put the dvd sets together. Really?? Now we have to buy the dvd's to get some answers? No thanks. Don't really care anymore.
Never watched an episode. Who cares…
I think that the finale is less about the characters, their arcs, and unanswered questions as it is about the viewing audience — it's time to let go as the series flies over us lying in frustration amid the reeds while the Lost staff gather together to congratulate themselves and collect their residuals.
how about walt being important? Or why the food drops mysteriously continued, or the repeated numbers? Theres a ton of things they still left unresolved – no matter how intelligent it was at times the show did have that really bad writing habbit of just putting stuff in with no real purpose – trying to earn "cool points" as it were.
For once I completely agree with you. I read in an article years ago that they started doing the repeated numbers without any real motive behind it. Too many writing devices just for the sake of devices.
Thanks the laugh… a terrific piece of writing.
You're a good husband and I'm sure your wife appreciates the sacrifices you've made these past 6 years.
I didn't get past S2… I could tell that the writers were pretty much dragging things out by the middle of S2. Overuse of flashbacks gets annoying after a while.
The best argument i have heard about why time travel is impossible is because if it ever were we would have noticed "time tourists" by now.
Lost may have lost its way but Fringe is stil pretty decent after 2 season. So I don't think it's a JJ Abrams thing. When I watch Fringe, I get a sense that the writers know what they're doing but with Lost in S2, I got tired of teh same o'l same o'l.
My biggest problem with the ending wasn't the unexplained island mysteries, it was the character drama and the problems started last season and then really went off of the rails when Sun and Jin died and in the finale.
Throughout the series, children were incredibly important. Aaron (his birth, kidnapping, being raised by Kate, driving Kate and Jack apart), Walt (his powers, being kidnapped, his father willing to do anything to get him off of the Island), the other kidnapped kids (what happened to them), the kids roaming around the island, Ji Yeon (Jin's impotence and their desire for a child, Jin sacrificing to get Sun off of the island), Alex (Rousseau going insane over her loss, Ben's reaction to her death), and Charlie (Desmond fighting to protect him, Widmore talking about saving his son near the end) as well as the childhood experiences of various characters and their relationships with their parents (James and the death of his parents, Ben's mother dying during his birth and his father, Jack and his dad, Locke and his parents, Kate and her parents, Hurley and his parents, Claire and her mother and father, Miles and his father, Whidmore and Eloise and Faraday and Penny). Suddenly, at the end, they weren't important at all so the main characters could all have this common "happiest time of their lives" moment at the end that couldn't accommodate any family life they might have had. So the children were simply hand-waved away.
The problem started when Kate left Aaron with his grandmother and Sun abandoned Ji Yeon despite spending three years raising them. Then when Sun is trapped, Jin decides to die with her without either of them suggesting he should live to be with Ji Yeon. And to make matters even worse, Jack gets a son in the alternate universe who he bonds with and is proud of, only to find out that the son wasn't real. And Aaron gets born all over again and, apparently, gets to go to Heaven as a baby for his mother rather than having his own happiest time of his life. Ugh.
If my dead mother showed up, I suddenly remembered a different life, I was told I was really dead, and, oh, by the way, my daughters weren't real, only the last point would matter to me. What do you mean the children I love and who have their own lives to live out are fake? It made all of the characters seem painfully self-absorbed and shallow to me, so even if I accept that the finale was all about the characters, I find it unsatisfying.
At least we got good season finales out of Chuck, V, and Legend of the Seeker.
T Rav – beautiful posts. And I absolutely agree with your assessment. Character trumped all and the characters were all well-written. And not only did a TV show rise to the level of philosophy/literature, it rose to the level of a certain amount of religiousness and spirituality. Yes, there was obvious ecumenism going on in the end, but still. It was an international hit and therefore would make all people be able to identify with it.
As for the final scene – you bet your sweet bippy I was crying! I cried through like the last 4 episodes. And of course, they add Vincent at the end, and well, I just lost it!
Yes, sometimes Hollywood can give us something with that much biblical, religious and spiritual bits. Yes, the ending was obviously all inclusive, but really, even when I was a practicing Catholic I never believed Heaven would only be for us. And being an agnostic, of course, I'm pretty sure all good people will find their way up there, if there is a there.
Redemption and Atonement are very powerful things and I think it's because we know that we are all flawed and we hope that we will be forgiven by our loved ones and by a higher being if there is one.
Linus – well, he made me cry which I never thought he would do. I had a feeling he would be redeemed one way or the other when we saw him so upset about Alex and even when we learned that he saved her from the clutches of Widmore. He was flawed, but he loved her like a father. That says a lot.
Beautifully said!
Have to disagree with you. Even as an atheist you should be able to appreciate that ending. Hardly pitiful. What sounds pitiful, sorry to say, is you. To think how empty it must be to believe in, well, nothing. And I'm an agnostic!
As for talent wasted – hardly. Every one of the main characters and even the minor characters, gave their all and gave stupendous performances until the very end.
Well, I find nothing wrong with that. I was raised Catholic and I'm now agnostic, but I hardly think that Heaven is only there for Christians. I mean, if we all think the other guy is wrong about it, who is right. It's nice to be confident in your choice, but it's no reason to think that a person who is Hindu and lived an otherwise good life and has a good heart is going to be cast into hell because he didn't say the magic words of "I believe Jesus Christ is my Savior."
It is all good, man.
I don't see the problem with it. Yes, it was a church . . .it was actually the Lampost Dharma station. Given that is the station that helps people find the Island and is sort of a starting point, it made sense.
And as T Rav said, characters had different faiths – Catholic, Muslim and Buddhist for sure, and probably other Christian offshoots, and even just plain old agnostic. Also, it's an international show so there would be nothing wrong in making sure all major religions were represented in the end.
Plus, while the show dipped into spirituality and even had some Christian/Catholic moments with the passing of the torch from Mother to Jacob to Jack to Hurley, it was really just a discussion of faith in general, redemption in general, and not a Christian allegory.
I'm agnostic, so I had no problem with it at all.
" flash sideways to show what could have been if they all hadn't died in the initial crash, which I believe they all did. "
Actually Christian Shepard's talk with Jack debunks that one – he said that the Island was real and everything that happened there was real. They were in a holding pattern where there was no time. They all died, but at various times, including AFTER Jack (Like Sawyer, Kate, Hurley and Ben). They created that holding place to find each other in the after life before moving on. They would not have done that if they had all died in the crash. Plus they were remembering their lives on the Island in that holding place.
No, they didn't make the church, they made the Sideways world so that as each one died, they would find each other and then move on to the next level. Every religion was represented because the castaways themselves likely represented several kinds as well – Muslim, Catholic, Christian, Buddhist, most likely.
Why does everyone have such a problem with it? Whether you like it or not, there are other religions out there.
And the church is actually the location of the Lampost Dharma Station, so it makes sense given the story.
It's a good thing they showed the Dharma food drop to explain it.
Oh, wait: WHY was there a food drop to a Dharma initiative that had been wiped out for years?
More to the point: How is food being air-dropped if the only way to get to the island is a submarine?
I almost feel sorry for you guys.
Investing all that time when I knew it wasn't going anywhere. And I'd never seen a single episode.
So….what do you guys have planned now to fill that void?
" overly catholic"?? umm you may need to re-watch that scene in the church. The room where Jacks father coffin in has a stained glass window with the symbols of all major religions in plus all through out the room are items used in all major religions, Crosses, Buddist statues, Hindu statues, etc. It is a non denominational church.
lol, i hear you, after 5 seasons i felt like screaming at the TV during the BSG season finale. It was way worse a let down than the LOST finale. At least they let the charcters lives and choices in the show mean something. In BSG it turned out to mean nothing at all.
First, I love your screen name. However, as a novelist, I found the ending pitiful. Plot is essential, even in fantasies. But then the ending had to be pitiful. The writers, directors and producers of the series created such an incredible mare's nest of improbabilities that there was no possible way they could distill the innumerable plots and subplots in a single episode except to say, "Then they all got together for hugs and kisses and forgiveness, etc." Which isn't a very honest way of concluding a story. It's cheating in terms of story-telling and it's cheating the auditors (the viewers and fans or readers). But, then the producers and writers weren't that interested in telling a coherent story; they were pandering to the audience. I could see that by the third year.
This atheist, by the way, believes in limited government, individual rights, and living on earth without being told what to believe in or what to do by tyrants and wannabe tyrants (the current administration). I suggest you go to the Rule of Reason or Capitalism Magazine site to see what other "nothings" I believe in.
As for all that wasted talent — what they could accomplish if they had honest, reality-oriented scripts to work with.
I have to disagree and say the finale was solid. I like having some of it left open. The remaining mysteries are fun to ponder and talk about.
If you want spoon fed procedurals there's always CSI Miami where David Caruso has to keep telling his people to take evidence back to the lab. If they havent figured that out after 8 seasons I'm afraid they never will.
As for the overhyped series/worst ending ever, that honor is forever reserved for The Soprano's. False fore shadowing in every single episode got extremely tedious. Talk about lazy writing…
the polar bear was being studied by the dharma initiative, like the sharks. I find a lot of the people who complain didn't really watch the show, but just "watched" it.
I agree with you on every point here. I feel most of the people who are saying the finale did not explain enough forgot many things that were explained during the course of the show.
Thanks!
Par: As a former Catholic, the first thing I noticed was the crucifix. All the other symbols faded into the periphery. Won't re-watch that scene, but, was there an image of Mohammed in that stained glass? Or a crescent? The last thing Muslims want are non-denominational churches, and would probably be violently offended if their iconography (what there is of it) was included in such a place. Naveen Andrews played the most ratonal Muslim I've ever seen; I'm surprised a fatwa hasn't been decreed on him. .
Thanks!
Oh, I have to admit I didn't really understand that. Now that you explained it this way… I still am not blown away. What was the island then? Remember how cool it was when they still had to push that button?
Perhaps I am trying to say I'd rather learn more about the mystery of the island than seeing a hastily thrown together reunion of mostly all important characters.
LOST is and will be my favorite TV show ever (yes, even better than X-Files, which also faded with the years). It will be interesting to see what the actors will do next.
Long north of college so will likely misspell, but it seemed a typical Hollywood run on a classic; Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Paradise Lost, Inferno, and Purgatory. So it was comic, it was tragic, and it was full of a lot of fill. If I were an english prof, it would be considered to use Lost episodes to encourage enthusiasm in reading Dante (presuming the percentage of students familiar with Dante was near nil, on which I would wager) which would likely lead to heightened interest and discussion. "Beyond the Sea".
Good explanation. I think I wanted it to be so much more about science that I "forgot" to think of the redemption part to that extent.
Yeah, they should just go ahead and give a joint Emmy to Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn right now. That last scene with the two of them outside the church just killed me–competing with the final shots of Jack for my favorite scene of the night.
I have to say, though: I watched the Jimmy Kimmel special after the show, and the segment he did with Emerson and O'Quinn, with suggestions for "The Amazing Race" and magician detectives: Epic Fail.
I don't know if it's my favorite, but it really grew on me during the last two seasons, which was when I actually watched it regularly (which I consider an effective rebuttal to Leigh; if it was really that bad at the end, how could I get hooked during Season 5, of all things?). I guess that mystery vs. character preference really determines how one liked the finale. As I mentioned in my post below, I felt that both were inextricably linked, and that they did a good job of resolving each one. Of course, a lot of people will feel differently; all I can say is that I was moved and satisfied. Looking back on it now, I don't think there will ever be another TV show quite like this one, at least not for a long time.
I think you're bringing up a good point. Many of us surely watched the show noticing different things, interpreting them different ways.
In theory, I share everyone's outrage with an ending that sounds seems like, as we used to say, a gyp.
In practice, though, I do not care much b/c I stopped regular viewing around season three and didn't come back for a couple of years. At that time, I simply accepted whatever they threw at me and since I knew most of the characters, I merely followed along casually with no emotional investment. The past week or so, I even read ahead for spoilers and an associate filled me in on some other plot points.
I still have not seen the episode. Are they re-running it or will I have to go online?
My only question is the mysterious series of numbers that had plagued Hurley. Did that get explained? And where *was* "Moonlight Serenade" coming from…..or when?
yes there was, top left corner i think was the crescent moon symbol of islam. And i agree with you on Naveen Andrews, He plays the most rational muslim i have seen also
Thanks for the compliment. I don't know if it's the Lost-viewing or more than a year of posting here, but in any case, that's one of the few times I've been able to clearly and perfectly express my thoughts. Felt like there was something important to be said about it, and I'm glad I could say it.
What's really ironic is that I once tried to watch Lost a few years ago–I guess it would have been the start of Season 2–to see what it was all about and got fed up. I don't remember much of what was going on, something about a raft I think, but I thought it was stupid, went "This sucks!" and didn't watch again for a long time. Glad I gave it a second try, I guess.
The disappointment in the show should not have come from the finale, which, considering where the past few seasons had spun off to, was very good. The years of theorizing, investigating, rewatching the show trying to solve the many mysteries was replaced by the realization none of it mattered and what did matter…the characters and their relationships, still made a worthy show.
Thanks.
But I will have to respectfully disagree. If you read my stand alone posts, I kind of track how things happened with the evolution of Lost. I do believe there was always at least an outline, a general notion of where the story was going to go. But it was open ended and by Season 3 it was obvious it needed an end date because answers weren't coming fast enough and there were too many filler episodes and the fans were upset. ABC was convinced to have an end date.
The only problem I think was that they condensed it sooo much that they had to kind of admit, which they ultimately did, that all questions would not be answered. I think probably about 90% to 95% of the mysteries have actual answers we didn't get to hear.
And it wasn't a "Then they all got together for hugs and kisses and forgiveness, etc." . The end was they saved the Island, which is why they were brought there and for good measure they reached redemption as well, as shown in the Sideways world. They condensed the purpose of the whole thing to Jacob, MiB and Mother and went from there. It has been theorized that those people that Mother killed, the Dharma Purge, the way the Others treated castaways was all part of the way to protect the Island. Yes, Dharma has an interesting backstory and it would be nice to get some answers that way. It would be nice to see more of the logistics of the Others interaction with Smokey and Jacob. But the story was always going to be about the Castaways. And they stuck with that and I'm glad of it.
You can get all of the mysticism, contradiction, and fantasy (especially economic fantasy) by following current politics. It's all real, it is happening now, and you get to be in the analogue of the plane crash at the end. How can a mere fiction keep your attention?
Oh, I don't duobt you believe in those things. I know many atheist conservatives and libertarians. But I don't think that because the show gave us spirituality (without promoting one particular religion) it's "pitiful". More people on this planet believe in some form of Higher Being and some form of afterlife, than don't. I don't find that to be pitiful. It's only pitiful when it's used to do evil like the Islamonazis do, or what Christianity did to itself in the past. There is nothing wrong with spirituality or religion per se. I feel it's usually wasted on us because we are in imperfect. But I still don't think it's pitiful.
What do you mean by "honest, reality-oriented scripts"?
A truly great ending is that makes the audience say "wow" would be Planet of the Apes. This Lost finale was a cheap and easy ending by lazy writers who didn't want to take the trouble to explain the plot maze they had constructed.
Suppose Planet of the Apes had ended with Charlton Heston waking up in an insane asylum? That would have been a cheap ending and would be something the writers of Lost would have come up with. Instead, we got a brilliant ending with the half buried Statue of Liberty, which explained everything in the story and blew people's minds.
The preservation of the food is justifiable: some specially-prepared food can, when stored properly, outlast a generation. It is unsurprisingly of high value to military forces and we crazy survivalists, and Dharma's needs fit well enough that it is believable that they dragged such food in when they came on, left it when they were driven off, and that it was still good so far after.
Franklyl he played it almost exactly as many Muslims are – Jack Muslims – they follow this or that, but don't follow the real strict stuff. That is a small percentage. Unfortunately that percentage is the most violent and bullyish.
The Crucifix was probably first noticed by kenrick66 because you are a former Catholic. If you were a Muslim or Buddhist, or whatever, that is what you would have seen first. Or maybe we were meant to see the crucifix first because this show is probably mostly seen in Western countries and that would draw our eye to the stained glass, then we would see the other symbols and we would realize that something was amiss. At least that's how I felt.
Yeah, it's a good thing you did. I think the series is iconic, notwithstanding the other views expressed herein.
I was hooked from Day 1 and never gave up. I also read a lot about the behind the scenes so I knew what the producers/writers were saying so I think I had a better perspective than if I just watched the show. I read recaps and interviews, etc. I was totally into it!
I saw almost every episode. The finale was beautiful, and very moving. If you watched just to have answers to all your questions, like the polar bear for instance (it came from the Dharma zoo) you missed the point. The questions I thought important were answered and then some. Fretting over tangential minutiae is a distraction. Don't follow the letter, follow the spirit.
Ultimately, as a zealous Lostie, I am inclined to go easy on Abrams (particularly since he left fairly early) and the others for the simple fact that they ran smack into the Rowling Paradox, the point at which a series becomes so wildly successful , unbelievably popular, and frantically anticipated that the ending cannot possibly meet the expecations no matter what anybody does with it, and thus i t cannot help but infuriate pretty much everybody regardless of WHATEVER that ending actually is. The easiest comparison is to Harry Potter (hence the name): Rowling succeeded in creating a fascinating, immersive world that sucked in millions who could not help but run rampant in it, falling in love with it and the characters, and frolicking in the great big fandom (hell, just take of a look at the umpteentrillion fics out there- many of which were good enough to be published but for the copywrite issue-, to say nothing of the countless other fan activities). And that is nice and wonderful save for the fact that little things like Canon start shoving their noses in and suddenly the great big fandom starts shrinking.
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