[Rob Babcock]

My review of the Lost Finale:   



 

 

 

 

 











































 



The End

[rollo]

  Curious was it the theme or something else ?

charles

[JRace]

  Curious was it the theme or something else ?

charles

Yes.
The theme was lets make it all mushy and sappy, and while we are at it lets bring back old forgotten characters that have no real context today.
That and the acting and writing seemed forced, and like this ending was just tacked on. I recommend any serious lost fan just pretend this finale didn't happen.

[Wind Chaser]

I've never watched so much as even one episode.  What did I miss?

[sts9fan]

I personally liked it.  Leaving it up to the viewer was better then a hard and fast ending.  It was fitting of the show.
Check this link the video is great
http://screenrant.com/unanswered-questions-lost-rob-61810/

[art]

Sounds like the writers may have thought "Hey, what was that TV show from the 60s, where the ending was so weird, that everyone hated it?"
"You mean The Prisoner?"
"Yeah, that was it. People still talk about how weird it was. What if we..................."

Just sayin'. Could be.

Pat

[krikor]

I agree with the original poster's review.  VERY disappointing, especially since it made the entire "alternate lives" sideline story of the last season (two seasons?) utterly pointless and a superfluous waste of time to the core story about the island. The only rationale for of all the hours wasted producing and watching the alt lives track was to create a warm and fuzzy kumbaya conclusion as they "awaken" to leave purgatory. Bleck.

[ltr317]

I don't agree, and think this is the most innovative show since Twin Peaks.  Lost was never a formula series like almost every other TV show, past and present.  For those who just want to be entertain and have answers spoon fed, there are plenty of fare to choose from currently.  For me and countless others who value the questions more than some contrived answers, the many Lost websites devoted to the show points to the show's uniqueness. 

[Rob Babcock]

I think 85% of the finale was good; they just dropped the ball at the end.  Ultimately they had so many ideas that they didn't have any way to tie it all together and we got BSG'ed.  They committed the cardinal sin of compelling fiction- they cheated.

[srb]

I think 85% of the finale was good; they just dropped the ball at the end.  Ultimately they had so many ideas that they didn't have any way to tie it all together and we got BSG'ed.  They committed the cardinal sin of compelling fiction- they cheated.

So it was 85% good, they dropped the ball at the end, and for this you hope that the writers are infected with gonnorhea?
 
Steve
 
 

[Lyndon]

ltr317 said:

I don't agree, and think this is the most innovative show since Twin Peaks.

Ah, Paul, you just liked a good cup of java and a piece of pie with that show!

[mjosef]

Great series...total crap ending...that's Hollywood for yah...always a bonehead fuzzy ending.

[pardales]

I don't agree, and think this is the most innovative show since Twin Peaks.  Lost was never a formula series like almost every other TV show, past and present.  For those who just want to be entertain and have answers spoon fed, there are plenty of fare to choose from currently.  For me and countless others who value the questions more than some contrived answers, the many Lost websites devoted to the show points to the show's uniqueness.

Almost makes me wish I watched TV. Almost......

[wushuliu]

I don't agree, and think this is the most innovative show since Twin Peaks.  Lost was never a formula series like almost every other TV show, past and present.  For those who just want to be entertain and have answers spoon fed, there are plenty of fare to choose from currently.  For me and countless others who value the questions more than some contrived answers, the many Lost websites devoted to the show points to the show's uniqueness.

That's the problem. The finale WAS a formula ending. The ending is about as not Twin Peaks as you can get. This is why many are frustrated. All the 'mystery' was completely brushed aside this season culminating in straight good v. evil and the last 15min. has abosulutely no function in terms of the narrative they set up, in fact it was the creators' way of explicitly telling you that none of the unanswered questions actually matter.

As I wrote somewhere else:

As a very big fan of the show I have to say that I wish folks would stop trying to reconcile the ending with all that happened before: It's never going to happen. It's not SUPPOSED to happen. You're looking to the writers/creators for a reason to everything and you won't find it. Not because they're oh so incredibly clever but because they, as Indy said, were just making it up as they went along. And they came clean with it.

The last 15min. was for we the viewers not the characters. It was the creators' way of saying look we had fun, laughed, cried, got to know each other really well, etc. but now the party's over and you don't have to go home but you can't stay here. It was meta. It was the makers literally telling you all the previous stuff does not matter now because it was just a show and we entertained you and you entertained us, peace and release. No need to try and tie it all together. WHATEVER HAPPENED, HAPPENED. So there really is no mystery or clues to ponder. They laid it all out for you right there. The nice thing about that ending is that it gives you a clean break. No winks or ambiguity. No need to watch the show all over again. It was their "All the world's a stage" moment. The lights come up (in this case, the light from the church door if you will), the sacred space is ended, and you get on with your life.

Within the universe of the show it does not work at all, but in terms of the show communicating with the audience, it works very well.

That is as about as conventional and hollywood as you can get. It was like an ending to a WB show.

This isn't even remotely in Lynch territory.
 

[Rob Babcock]

I don't mean to criticize the whole series.  To me Lost was one of the best programs ever aired.  It was original and always fun to try to decode.  Sad that it was fantastic for years, only to be capped with 20 minute of pure crap.

No secrets were ever explained.  We still don't really know what the island is, or it's true purpose.  What was with the polar bear?  How & why could it transport you to the middle of the Sahara?  How could Jacob watch all those people from his lighthouse?  Sadly, they just piled on a lot of mystical crap in the last season just to keep the wierdness factor up there, and obviously they were just pulling it out of their ass since they never did have an explanation.

And we were cheated out of seeing resolution for the characters, too.  After their forced and silly cliffhanger where Jin "dies" we spend a whole season with he & Sun searching for each other in different time periods.  When they're finally reunited they have a few episodes before they're arbitrarily killed off.  Of course, that's how you do drama when you're out of ideas- start killing off characters.  Not a popular route for a show that's run six years.  But if you're going to do it, at least let it make sense, give it some purpose.  Sure people die arbitrarily in real life, but we tune into fiction for something else.

Oh, well. I enjoyed the series immensely for years, so I guess I got my money's worth.  I didn't see the show for the first time til the 3rd season began to air.  At the time I had a projector but no cable.  I'd been hearing a lot about the show and became intrigued, so I bought the first season on DVD.  Soon I'd watched them all, and ended up running to Wal-Mart at midnite for the 2nd season!   By then I was hopelessly hooked.

[wushuliu]

All I gotta say is all this time we watched Sayid pine for Nadia, and in the finale his big reuniting is with... Shannon?

[Rob Babcock]

All I gotta say is all this time we watched Sayid pine for Nadia, and in the finale his big reuniting is with... Shannon?

  Bingo!  What sense does that make?  And a big WTF to them being "fast forwarded" to a point where everyone is dead.  Again, I can't type WTF?? too loudly!

[droht]

The last episode was truly horrible, and certainly confirmed what I believed for a long time, that there was not much of a plan beyond the pilot episode.  The show was not about good vs evil, it was about greed vs respect (for the audience).  Greed won.  No shocker there.

Rob, great thread title BTW.  But the clap might be too good for these guys.  Herpes lasts forever, the finale of Lost seemed to.

[chadh]

I think the only thing that Lost and Twin Peaks really have in common is that I'm unlikely ever to think of either of them as great television.  But I find them underwhelming in completely different ways.

I'm not a David Lynch fan at all, but there's no denying that he's a pretty clever guy.  Every little detail in his works is carefully contemplated, with a view to how each detail will affect the way the whole is perceived.  In fact, my biggest complaint about Lynch's work is that he always seems more intent on creating an overwhelmingly elaborate image, regardless of whether the image is worthy of anybody's attention.  In that sense, I think of his work as more artFUL than art.

Lost, on the other hand, was always artLESS.  To be fair, a great deal of this probably stems from the uncertainties of making televisions shows for the networks - but it was clear from day one that the Lost writers never had any idea where they were going.  When all of the great questions were raised, no answers existed.  Instead, it was as though the writers continually set themselves crazy challenges:  to generate a new, far-fetched, fantastical adventure each week, that was consistent with the environment presented in the sequence of far-fetched, fantastical adventures that preceded it.  I suspect they would play games with Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button - randomly choosing topics and then finding a way to fit them into the story line (e.g. heroin, torture, electromagnetism, time travel, infertility, psychological experimentation, subliminial suggestion, polar bears etc).  This is a fairly cavalier approach to story telling, abandoning the old idea that a story should naturally reach a conclusion.  But it can certainly generate some fun television.  Nevertheless, two things ultimately annoyed me about Lost (and teh final season in particular).

The thing I found mildly annoying is that the last season was presented in a completely different way.  It seemed clear from the outset that there was a "plan"; that, for once, the story tellers had a beginning and an end in mind, and were filling in the details in between.  There was a promise that answers would be provided.  Not only was this a complete departure from what had made the show successful, but (apparently) it was all a lie!

The thing I find truly and utterly annoying about the final season is that I was stupid enough to believe the lie.  And to make matters worse, it seems that the writers wanted to to get one final laugh in at our expense.  The whole "other reality" that we were treated to is finally revealed to be of no importance whatsoever and a complete waste of time.    I felt the last episode was their way of saying: "You dumbasses watched the show for seven years without any answers.  What makes you think we're going to provide any now?"

They probably realize that half the viewing audience would kill them if they knew the show was all about Google's I Feel Lucky button."

Chad

[Scott F.]

I agree with you guys, the series finale sucked pretty hard.

....but hey! At least Jack Bauer is still alive! There may be hope for the world after all