If you’re a big fan of Lost, chances are you’re already steaming with hatred for whatever my opinion may be after seeing that title. After all, I’ll be attacking your beloved six-plus-year-old child with criticism here. And, like a loving parent, you accept your offspring just as they are, for in your eyes they are without fault and could do no wrong. Your guard is up when they are attacked.
I’m here to tell you that this six-year-old kid of yours named Lost is a lazy, disappointing bully!
See Penny and Desmond up there with the rest of the Losties? Disappointed! Seriously, they look PISSED!
NBC should air a special episode of SNL just so they can do a “Really?!” segment for the Lost finale.
Lindelof and Cuse, the latest showrunners of Lost, made several mentions that they wouldn’t be able to answer all the questions left before the end of the series. Apparently they meant “all” nearly literally, because we barely got any of the ones most viewers were hoping for. I was going over a mental list of things I still want to know the answer to, but I stopped when I got to the point of being kinda pissed off.
There are several different kinds of people who were fans of Lost, but overwhelmingly there were those who watched it for the mysteries involved — the science fiction aspects — like me. I didn’t watch it primarily for the relationships involved. I didn’t watch it for any great acting chops or overly meaningful symbolism and stellar writing styles. I wanted to know what this island was and who were the people involved with it. There wasn’t enough meat on the show to make me care about anything else. And the bully writers decided to screw us.
The showrunners went on the record as saying the island wasn’t going to turn out to be Heaven or Hell, and it appears they were being honest there. However, instead, they made the ending about the afterlife … and I didn’t freaking care. I wanted more island answers, dammit! Explain smokey more. Explain that out-of-nowhere golden light. The what-the-hell stone cork/island tampon? How does the island move? Why did we see the island underwater in the season premiere and it apparently didn’t happen? OK, I’ll stop now, because there’s that rage coming on again.
I’ll soften the blow of this post by saying that I really did like the way we saw the characters reuniting with the people they loved. I also liked the very final scene with Jack dying in the same spot he woke up from in the series premiere, and especially with the loyal Vincent by his side. I also liked that these 2.5 hours were filled with a lot of action and slowed down only for the onslaught of commercials.
In some respects, the ending didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Were the writers trying to tell us that everything we just saw for 6+ years meant nothing in the scheme of things? It was just a story to explain why these people meant something to each other, and that’s it. It didn’t seem to do anything to put them where they were. In the end, the writers decided to say screw it, we’ll end it with Heaven anyway … it’s not as though they’re saying the island was Heaven or Purgatory, so it fits with their promise. And that is where I say it’s lazy — irresponsible, even — that they left things so open with the mysteries of the island, only to cap it off with a character reunion (missing some key people, I might add), leaving the mystery of the island pretty much wholly unexplained. The ending seemed entirely disconnected with the island story!
I see people searching and tweeting today, looking for the ending of Lost to be explained. There’s little to explain. We still don’t know a lot about the island, everyone died at some point and, since time means nothing on the metaphysical plane, they all wound up in Heaven together at the same time. The end. No fade to black to ponder — an ending that, by the way, I now have more appreciation for after this finale.
Sorry, but that’s lazy and disappointing. For a show as iconic as Lost had become, its finale will go down as one of the most anticipated yet forgettable ever. If anyone remembers to make note of that, that is. The writers owed dedicated fans something more, and they didn’t deliver.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on May 24, 2010 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
I thought everyone would get a kick out of this video of every unanswered question from Lost. Even if we can’t agree on how things were handled, we can definitely laugh out loud:
College Humour Unanswered Lost Questions
Jenn
“You guys wanna get into ‘V’?”
Muhahahahaha! :-)
“And what’s the deal with Jack’s tattoos… actually, you know what? I don’t care about that.”
Priceless.
*POST AUTHOR*
Damn, I need to get comment voting enabled so I could vote you up to infinity. That video was a pretty good summation of why I’m frustrated with ‘Lost’.
I couldn’t have blogged that better myself. I don’t understand why the writers didn’t choose to dazzle us with some kind of Sci-Fi extravaganza. I thought some of the regular episodes were more complex than the finale. (i.e. The Constant)
I too was disappointed!
That video from College Humor was great! This is coming from a true fan…this article hit the nail on the head!! LOST was like a guy who strings this girl along for 5 years even giving her a ring and then decides, “Eh, I am not interested in marrying you anymore!” For my people and I, it wasn’t just about the finale because how weak would it have been to jam pack a ton of answers in 2.5 hours. Sensory overload. In retrospect LOST really took a turn for the worse starting in season 5. Though a great season at the time (so we thought), looking back now it just created more issues that did not really connect or satisfy and the past issues up to that point. Supposedly that is when J.J. Abrams left the show’s writing so the other peeps started just making up crazy nonsense like let’s introduce the Dharma because it’s “cool” or lets time travel all over the place to confuse our fanbase and distract them from the real questions like: What is Widmore’s story? Why was he banished? Why isn’t Hawking on the island? Was she banned too? What is the island? How did this all start? What’s all these fertility issues? Why do the Other’s women only die at childbirth? Why is Christian Shepherd’s casket empty? Who was shooting at Sawyer, Juliet, etc on the boat? Why is Walt special? Why lead us to believe that Aaron is special and then say in a LOST movie special that he never was? Why am I wasting my time writing this post? lol I guess it’s a necessary venting process!! We knew that season 6 would be terrible when we saw the island underwater..we thought, “These guys are just going to play with us now all season!” The bottom line is that the LOST creators were great question creators…they had us intrigued for years…But they were terrible question answerers. We gave them too much credit and they just were unable to deliver.
Keith, I’m glad I read your review before watching the finale. Thanks to you, I had low expectations and, as a result, was not disappointed. I just enjoyed it for what it was. ;-)
Same here. All hope was lost for me after the penultimate episode :-)
I know I’m still bitching (a lot) but I really liked he finale for what it was. I like lovey dovey ^^;
Reading many of the negative comments here and elsewhere makes me wonder what people were really ever expecting from Lost.
Lost is a masterpiece precisely because of the nature of the questions it created and the way it went about it. The viewers searched for answers, just like the characters (specifically Jack, the man of science) where the only answers to be found were ultimately one of the following: faith, fate, love, God, or “just because”.
Man will always seek answers and to rationalise the irrational. From day one every viewer, especially the most dedicated, was helping to create the whole experience and shape the ultimate moral of the story. The mysteries of the universe and just that: mysteries.
The numbers are the most obvious example. From very early on they were frequently inserted in to the show to grab viewers attention and to encourage people to discuss the mysteries surrounding Lost. Eventually the numbers were given an answer: they’re the last 6 candidates on Jabob’s list. But, as with life, all answers lead to questions. Why those numbers? Why did they seem to have such a special power or significance?
The show is about life and death. It’s about our quest for answers, our search for love, our battle with faith, and our mortality.
I was okay with the ending. When they said not everything will be answered, I lowered my expectations.
They also reminded us that the show was always primarily about the characters, not the mythology.
I tried to make sense of everything as much as anyone. But there comes a point in every story where you just have to take somethings for granted. I didn’t watch “Lord of the Rings” and complain that I didn’t understand why Sauron was a giant eyeball of fire, or how destroying a ring would destroy him, too; it was just part of the story.
Admit it, when George Lucas tried to give a scientific explanation for “the Force” being present in someone, it lost a little bit of its magic.
Same goes for Lost, which was science fiction mixed with fantasy mixed with spirituality with a hint of fairy tale thrown in. In stories like those, you just have to take some things on faith. You don’t ask why an animal is talking to you. You take it’s advice, because it will help you with your quest.
I’m not being defensive because Lost is my six-year-old. I’m just saying–that’s kind of the nature of Story, isn’t it? I think Darlton & co did a good job of honoring their craft with an excellent story of redemption.
Dude you have it in a nutshell, that was the worst crappy copout ending ever. I mean yes I knew there was a semi purgatory aspect to it, that was obvious, but essentially the jacob vs MIB all the smoke monster stuff, everything it was unexplained. Or maybe I am just not smart enough to understand it…
Pretty dissapointed and didnt answer 99 percent of my questions only created new ones.
I think they just wanted an end before actors started dropping out of contracts or demanding too much pay.
I now hate Lost … and I hate you too if you loved the finale.
Right On! Let’s pack them all off to heaven – what a crock!!
I was a massive Lost fan but after that crap it is definately my most hated show ever!!! Well done wankers u FKD it!!
I totally agree with you. All of you. What a piece of something…
To me, it went down the hill after season 1.
I hate how die-hard lost fans keep saying that the show is a masterpiece and that you need to be “intelligent” to understand it. The plot is nonsensical garbage. You have to be an idiot to think it’s a masterpiece – Hello, a cave with flashy gold light… Where water falls into a pool with a giant rock bathtub plug… Do you honestly think this is good writing? A 5-year old can write better than that. What did the “heaven-meeting” reunion ending have to do with the main plot / island story?
What is the stupid light and why does it need to be protected by one person? How does the water they drink make them live so long? How does Jacob know how to pick the candidates? Why did the other brother turn into a machine-sounding smoke monster? These are just some of the questions left unanswered… What does the island / events on the island have to do with the heaven reunion ending?
It’s the same kind of crap rationale terminal hipsters bring to unfunny crap like ’30 Rock’. You have must belong to some ‘special’ highly intelligent group in order to appreciate the ‘deep’ meanings, or the ‘subtle’ humour. Of course this is all arrant nonsense. There’s no depth or subtly to be found in either of these otherwise inexplicable media phenomenons, only a blatant pandering on the writers’ and creators’ part to their viewership demographics’ need to preen themselves that they exist on an ever-so-much-higher plane of intellect and esoteric knowledge than do the rest of we poor, brain-dead lumpenproles.
What happened to the rest of the survivors from the original plane?
The writing is sporadic. In the beginning the Others were the bad guys and the “Losties” killed a bunch of them. Then the Others became the good guys and teamed up with the Losties. During the final season we are told that the smoke monster is “Ultimate Evil” and cannot be allowed to leave the island. Then we find out he was a man who wanted to get off the island and was turned into the smoke monster by Jacob. Why is he the ultimate evil? Why can’t he leave the island? WHY WHY WHY? Because the story is convoluted garbage.
True dat!!!
I think you are right on the money Keith. I almost switched sides and wanted to see Lock get off the island and shake a few cages.
All of the intrigue and mystery on the show was “cleverly” written to keep you watching. J.J Abrams is very skilled at this. This was in my opinion the objective from the start. There was never any intention to provide answers to the myriad of questions that the show generated. It was, like most things in this day and age, an exercise in making money. Someday one of the writers or producers may stand up and admit it. It was however achieved with some very good and clever writing. It’s just a pity that they didn’t put in a little more effort to leave fans satisfied. I have like so many others watched the show from the start and like them I feel that I have been taken for a mug. I will not be buying the box set or watching the repeats. Booo lost writers and producers, when you have stopped counting your money I hope you feel at least a little shame.
I thought it started falling apart at season 5 it felt like they were just making it up as they go with no real direction, but it was still interesting. When we came to the last two episodes though it’s like they just crapped them out to give us a half ass ending.If you look at the actors in the final seasons it seems like even they were becoming disillusioned with the thing.
Agreed…the ending was lame, lazy and inconsiderate to the people that followed the show for 6 years.
It’s been months since it finished, and I still get angry thinking about how crap the end was.
It’s right up there with the Dallas/Pam Ewing “it was all just a dream” U turn that wiped away several years of Dallas (for those old enough to remember).