Just a few LOST leftovers

I was one of those people who tuned out in the middle of season 2, but I came back to it in the last few months and got all caught up in case the finale revolutionized television as we know it.

It didn't, but it was fine. I'm not a fan of all the afterlife mumbo jumbo - it's the same nonsense organized religions have been cramming down our throats for millennia - and I still think it was a mistake killing off one of the best characters at the end of season 5 (even though they kept the actor around), but the flashback business was emotionally satisfying even if bringing Shannon back was a horrible idea.

In the big picture, I don't think the show ever quite lived up to its promise, but it managed to keep the balls in the air entertainingly for most of 6 seasons and even when it became clear it was never going to be wrapped up satisfactorily, it still kind of worked.

Anyway. It's over and it was worth watching. Not much interest in going back to it though.

I've seen maybe two or three episodes of Lost in total, probably from the first season (but I barely remember), and nothing I've ever seen, read, or heard about the show has made me regret not keeping up with it.

It really kind of baffles me, actually. I swear every time I ever see anyone sum the show up, it's something like, "Yeah, this didn't make sense, and that was kind of stupid, and they never explained that other thing, and I kind of stopped caring about any of it making any kind of sense after a while, and sure like half the seasons were terrible, but it was still a pretty good show overall! Worth watching!"

SPOILER WARNING FOR LAST EPISODE

Dear Jim,

I noticed you didn't say anything about what was unquestionably the worst part of the finale, namely the not-so-alternate timeline (which ended up being some form of purgatory) where they all ended up embracing bathed in light as they prepared to go to heaven. They honestly couldn't have made it more sappy, corny and cliched if they were trying....it was like something taken straight out of Touched By An Angel.

What was so frustrating was also how they kept cutting between the actual ending with Jack on the Island etc. and the Happy Heaven Hugging that I wasn't even able to appreciate that. Because I think the ending with Jack closing his eye like that was definitely the right way to do it.

I know Lost has always been fond of sappy moments, and some of them have worked great, but this took it to a whole other level. Disappointing.

Regards,
Kristian J. S.

I only started watching "Lost" last summer, and blew through all of the episodes leading into this season. Like you, I thought that the first two seasons were excellent...particularly the second one (the show's highpoint IMO), where we first started to see weird glimpses of a darker history of the island.

But then it was as if the producers felt the need to keep expanding and expanding, rather than beginning to resolve. The first half of season three was a waste, but at least after that it seemed as if the show was being carried forward on the momentum of a story that was leading toward an idealogical showdown between Jacob and his brother, with sub-battles between Ben and Widmore, Jack and Locke, etc.

Season 6 just squandered a lot of that though. I agree that the finale was moving in reminding us of some of the show's better moments...but ask yourself: how many of those highlights came from season 6 itself? None. There were no scenes of comparable quality to Locke's rising in "Walkabout", his fury in "Deus Ex Machina", Ben's bluff being called when his daughter is shot, or the mysterious opening to the season 5 finale in which we finally meet Jacob and his nemesis. In the end, there was a lot of weirdness without a clear sense of payoff, and while I certainly don't demand answers to every question, when a show is stringing us along and then reveals that some of the strings weren't that important, it's hard not to feel cheated.

I was surprised to find as many people as I did defending this finale. My feelings on how everything wrapped up can best be described as seething hatred. The time travel mechanic from season 5 was a very bad “jump the shark” idea, but it I let it slide because it set up a genuinely interesting scenario: an alternate reality where the plane never crashes and a glimpse of what the character’s lives would be like without Jacob’s interference. It was also the only place the characters some room to grow, since Smoke-Man-Locke completely dominated everything happening on the island. The big reveal of that reality was staggeringly lame-brained. Not only was it all a dream, but it was a dream by dead people. What once was gripping, intelligent narrative was reduced to Mommy tucking us in and saying “Don’t worry, everyone ends up happy because they all go to heaven!” It was not closure, it was childish emotional appeasement.

I have never hated any piece of media more than the last 10 minutes of LOST.

Perhaps I should say SPOILER ALERT here, but if you haven’t seen the finale of LOST, why would you even be reading this post?

Interesting that you should comment on this—I didn’t even know you ever followed LOST—because the debate over the significance of the finale has paralleled much of the discourse about Film: Socialisme that you’ve highlighted recently. Both texts have split their audiences into two hyperbolic camps: those who think it’s a masterpiece and those who think it’s an abject failure, as if there can’t be a middle ground. I appreciate your ability, Jim, to find merit in a show that you had apparently put on your critical back-burner some time ago. My response to the finale, and the series, is exactly the opposite, however—I loved almost all of the series, but pretty much loathed the finale, and its saccharine, greeting-card vision of the afterlife. For that matter has there EVER been a depiction of heaven in film or TV that hasn’t been shallow, depressing, or both? Maybe my inherently skeptical worldview limits my appreciation of the metaphysical in LOST (or other works of art), but I found the Sideways Universe storyline to be essentially the equivalent of The Godfather Part III—a wholly unnecessary narrative that takes beloved characters beyond the natural endpoints of their respective stories to the absolute finality of death (e.g. Michael Corleone collapsing in his chair; the Losties having their celestial meet-cute). Um, presumably all these characters are going to die (except for maybe Richard Alpert), so what did we learn from this? The moments of the characters “awakening” to their past lives on the Island basically just served the purpose of a series-ending clip reel of memorable moments from the show, a gimmick as old the medium.

Still, with hindsight one can’t deny that LOST had a pseudo-symbolic power throughout its run, conjuring up repeated images, motifs, and gestures (the eyes, the numbers, the whispers, the (long) cons, the repetition of black and white, the games, the parent issues, and all those pop culture references) that may have signified little beyond the context of the series but served as captivating narrative hooks, and which, like Twin Peaks before it, show that mysteries are often (maybe always) more interesting before they are resolved. Somehow LOST was able to sustain itself well beyond other series of its ilk, like 24 or Heroes. (Speaking of which, I remember, Jim, you once wrote about how you felt that Heroes was the most effective panel-to-screen translation of the comic book aesthetic. I presume you later amended that sentiment, yes?) What you mention about LOST’s later seasons having almost nothing to do with its earlier ones is exactly what I loved about it. Every subsequent season reframed LOST’s ongoing drama in a larger context, as if toggling to a wider-angle lens, giving us a new perspective on all that had happened before and reinforcing the audience’s interpretive limbo—that even what we think we know might change when seen from a different angle. So even though LOST may have ended unsatisfactorily, it certainly doesn’t ruin the entire series as some of the most disenchanted are now claiming.

If you want to see a far better rendering of a Fire Cave of Doom, though, check out the final moments of the last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, from which the producers of LOST seem to have cribbed liberally. DS9’s final episode also involves quasi-demonic possession and a battle against personified evil. And it has Louise Fletcher, making it instantly better than anything LOST gave us the other night! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5aKOTQg_ko

I wouldn't mind the unanswered questions if the show itself hadn't gone so bad. The first season was pretty good, but then everything went... wrong. They really had no respect for their audience. They made us waste hours on things that they had no intention of resolving or even referencing (Walt, Dharma, even the alternate dimension turned out to be just a complete waste of time that had no bearing in the story whatsoever) and then tried to make us forget it all with an emotional, soft and sweet finale. A thousand unfired Chekhov's rifles.

Also: the directing was pretty bad. The use of the score was incredibly cheesy and those close-ups on people crying silently every few scenes were driving me insane.

They say they'll solve things in the DVD's extras. Man, that's great, high quality storytelling right there.

Harsh, Jim. I wasn't a big fan of the time travel either (more because the "oh no, another random jump through time" portion seemed to go on forever), but it was all relative; I had a great time right up to the end. (If it took until the fifth season to lose you, I'm guessing you did too for a while...sorry it didn't last all the way through!)

"...mainly by ignoring them and by re-framing The Island as a peak experience that bonded a group of people, even if the Thing Itself had no intrinsic meaning..."

I thought this was one of the worst ideas in the finale. It's frankly self-indulgent, with the meta message that we were all so very fortunate to be spending time watching this wonderful show. Moreover, it once again denies any emotional reality in its characters--I guess Claire will get off the island, spend years raising Aaron with (or without) Kate's help, then die and all that matters to her is that one time Charlie got her peanut butter. It's fine and well to say that the Island was the most important part of Jack's life (though the fact that Jack and Juliet so easily shirk off their made-up son is disturbing), but Sawyer, Kate and Claire left the island, and Penny was pretty much never on it.

"I wouldn't mind the unanswered questions if the show itself hadn't gone so bad. The first season was pretty good, but then everything went... wrong."

People say things like this and I wonder what the hell they were watching, because it sure wasn't Lost.

For me, Lost has always been a human drama, about the ways people's lives and stories intertwine in a truly unpredictable manner. In that sense, the show has never really went wrong for me, barring a few hiccups along the way. The finale wasn't perfect, but it hit those notes in just the right way. People who were watching, keeping a tally of unanswered questions shouldn't even have been watching in the first place.

Wow Jim,

Having read your blog for some time now I never would have pegged your for a Lost fan (or at least a former Lost fan). It sounds like you tuned out/stopped watching at the beginning of season 3, which is too bad because season 4 was probably the best season the show had, maybe besides season 1. I couldn't tell from your post whether you have actually watched all of the last couple of seasons or just watched bits and pieces, but they have featured some pretty spectacular episodes such as "The Constant" and "Ab Aeterno".

I was happy with the finale, though the sixth season was a bit of a letdown. It had some pretty great stuff but also suffered from the "Flash-sideways" being a bit too confusing and random until it was all explained in the last five minutes. Still, I wasn't one of those that expected or even wanted answers to all of the questions that were raised over the years, so I was just happy to see a satisfactory end for most of the characters (except for Michael, he got screwed). I guess one could say I'm letting the writers off the hook for lazy writing and planning, but about the time that Desmond's mind started flashing between 1996 and 2004 in "The Constant", I just decided I was going to roll with whatever the show threw at me. It was always about the characters to me, with the mythology taking a back seat.

I saw someone mention on here that season 2 was one of the best seasons, and I couldn't disagree more (though it had Mr. Eko. Awesome!). It was pretty obvious in the middle of that season that they were stalling for time with episodes centered on Bernard's S.O.S. sign and Charlie's obsession with dunking a baby in holy water. Towards the end of the second season and beginning of the third the show became too much about mystery and mythology, because all of the characters had already been explored to death through flashbacks.

Totally in agreement with season four being up there with season one. Personally, I found the finale very moving, and I'm disappointed by people fuming at their keyboards and making lists of unanswered questions (many of which are answered in the show itself or are, honestly, irrelevant, like who sent Kate the letter about her mother). It might have been nice to have elucidation of a number of points, but I kind of like the idea that certain things will still remain mysterious. Plus, there are certain things that, because of the way TV shows work, unfortunately became difficult/impossible to develop (ie. the actor playing Mr. Eko wanted off the show, so the writers had to abandon all future plans for his character).

I'm looking forward to my future re-watch of the whole series.

I'm with you, K.G. Most of the questions *were* answered, but you have to have been paying attention and put the pieces together.

I've been a rabid LOSTie, always reading blogs, always checking Lostpedia, etc. That they made you work for the answers instead of handing them to you wrapped up with a pretty bow is the main reason I watched the show.

But LOST always had a religious theme from the beginning. The show was *about* Fate/Free Will, Faith/Reason, Sin/Redemption. The locale and the 'mysteries' were just the wrapper. I thought the ending was bold and emotional and terrific. Although I do understand why some people were disappointed - they had no idea what kind of show they were watching, even though the signs were always there.

As a lifetime science fiction reader I was most attracted to the scientific mysteries and ambiguous clues of the first 5 seasons. I didn't even have a big problem with the time travel elements, having read many fictional variations on this subject. The way some things would tie back to an almost-forgotten "loose end" was particularly gratifying: for example when Ben suddenly appeared in a desert wearing a Dharma parka, then many episodes later he descends into the frozen donkey-wheel room wearing a parka, that was a true Ah-Ha moment.

When the finale came around, I certainly didn't expect to have all my questions answered in 2 tv-hours. But I did hope to get some closure, in very general terms, as to what the driving characters (Ben, Widmore, Dharma people) were trying so hard to accomplish and why. Instead everything that energized the interweaving plotlines for 5 years was just dismissed, like the producers saying "we just made all that up on the fly to mess with your minds, never had any idea what it meant."

It isn't that I don't care about people and their feelings, but real people are also about their actions and ambitions, what they try to do and why, how they help and hinder others. So the tears and hugs and reunions of the characters at the and were gratifying but not sufficent.

I can think of several novelists that could take the whole series and turn it into a great book trilogy, with the same concepts but more structure. It's unlikely but I hope someone does.

the exact moment i stopped watching lost was when james said "i take it back" to *sigh* god when he *sigh* timeshifted in the outrigger. It impugns my dignity as a human being and i feel palpably humiliated even typing that sentence. Lost was like a organ transplant that my body rejected.

1. How the hell did Kate beat the rap for bank robbery? sure the murder of her father was just based on the testimony of her mother which she could leverage. But the bank robbery she was involved with to fondle a toy plane, there's NO WAY besides a blatant retcon to get away with that.

2. Why did James always like to be called sawyer? would he really like to go by the alias of the man who caused the death of his parents and whom he strangled to death? I don't think he would. I wouldn't, i'd just say please don't call me that anymore, my name is James.

3. flaming arrows killing all the no-name losties plus frogurt. the writers were tired of dragging their dead weight around and jack who felt so patriarchally responsible doesn't skip a beat over it. give me a break.

4. Why didn't James kill Ben the first chance he got? He had motive, he'd killed before, he killed Tom the first chance he got. why? because it's not convenient for the writers. To me it was just too big of a gaping hole in the character.

5. How did Rosseau go from being schizo to just being a sullen hard woman. and how come she never met anyone else before sayid? It never occurred to her to circumnavigate the island coast? which would take her to the docks. and the barracks and crap.

For me it's not about unexplained mysteries, it's about plot and drama inconsistencies. I couldn't help from rejecting it, it just didn't take.