…the end of my desire to re-watch the run of the show on dvd. Here I thought the finale would be so ground-breaking, so explanatory, and so intriguing that it would make me want to re-watch the entire show again, just to see how it looked after it was pulled all together. But I was wrong. I don’t want to watch it again, and they didn’t pull it together. In fact, my feelings couldn’t be further from what I had hoped – I want to forget that I was ever hooked on a show called Lost, and I want to forget that a show called Lost ever existed.
The tv show Lost premiered in 2004. The premise always seemed intriguing – a group of people survive a plane crash only to be faced with unforeseen mysterious challenges that await them on a mystical island. I meant to watch it during its inaugural season, but I had a new baby in 2004, and tv was not one of my top priorities. After Lost’s first season ended, however, the water cooler buzz just became too intriguing for me to resist, so my husband and I began to catch ourselves up on the first season, thinking we could always drop the show if we didn’t like it. But like millions of others, we were hooked – Lost was great. WAS. Somewhere along the line, the show lost (haha) quality and many viewers at the same time – I’m thinking this was around the time of the infamous Hollywood Writers’ Guild strike of 2007-8. Many tv shows went on an indefinite hiatus at that time, some did not return, and some, like Lost, were never the same. Lost became famous for throwing out a ton of loose ends, new characters and questions each new episode – without ever offering answers or resolutions. Many viewers lost (ahem) the ability or desire to follow the show, and Lost lost (cough cough) much of its fan following. And that’s when Darlton (the collective name of the show’s production / writing team Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof) announced an end date to Lost – all of our many questions and loose ends would be concluded at the end of the 2010 season. And my husband and I, like many other almost-lost Lost fans decided to stick around. After all, we reasoned, we had invested all this time already, why not a few more seasons, especially if we were going to get our answers? We were anxiously awaiting the finale tonight, but unlike the anticipation of true Lost fans, we were just excited that we could have our Tuesday nights back. Much of the buzz compared Lost to reading a good book – when you get near the end, you think, what am I going to do when this book is over? It’s so good! I can certainly identify with the good book analogy, but I would not apply it to Lost – we were just happy it was ending. So I guess disappointing isn’t really the word I would use to describe the finale. I was half-expecting no real answers, considering the original bait and switch, but I couldn’t really believe that they could get away with such a thing. And I am disappointed that I wasted a whopping four and a half hours (count ’em) on this tonight!
The first 2 hours were a re-cap special, which was less helpful than I thought. The first half of it was the actors reflecting on the show and giving inside info about filming techniques, etc. I’m thinking, why would they show this before the final episode airs? It didn’t make sense to me. Now I’m thinking it was just another way to grease the wheels of Lost fans to overwhelm their tiny minds and brainwash them into being happy with the craptastic finale. There were also these “Lost Transmissions” – letters from audience members incorporated into scenes of Lost. They used footage from old episodes of Lost to make it look like Lost characters are actually reading fans’ letters – for example, a scene with computers had a fan’s letter written on a computer screen and the characters reacting to the “letter”. It was really stupid, and no, I’m not just upset that my letter wasn’t chosen. I didn’t care enough to write a letter, just as I don’t care enough to stay up really late, pointing out every one of the clues I found that the cast and crew of Lost KNEW their finale would be incredibly awful and disappointing.
So anyway, then the finale episode itself was TWO and a half hours, and NONE of the questions were answered. NONE. All of the “true lovers” were paired up, and that provided enough fluff to keep Lost fans preoccupied and happy with the end, or so the producers hoped. Not the case in this household. In fact, if you ask me, in many of the interviews with the actors, you can catch hidden statements that they were not happy with the ending and didn’t think the fans would be satisfied. In fact, Darleton themselves made a series of disclaimers during the re-cap special. I’m not going to waste more time on Lost by pointing everything out though. I stayed up until 11:30 to watch this garbage and another 30 minutes writing this, and that’s long enough. Goodbye Lost – and GOOD RIDDANCE!
Oh yeah, a quick list of the few of many Lost loose ends they failed to tie up, just off the top of my head there are plenty more:
The temple and the guy who was in charge of it.
Sayid and Claire changing, having something dark inside them.
Drug smuggling with the Mary statues on the small plane that crashed – a man named Echo and his brother appearing to Lost survivors – for example, Hurley in the mental hospital.
The Numbers
Walt
Walt’s Comic Books
Whidmore’s connection to the island
Polar Bears
Miles’ father – Dharma guy on Dharma Initiative training videos
The whole show in general – the ending didn’t make sense to me at all
And I have one last thing to say – the 10 seconds of the water-skiing squirrel on the news after Lost was more entertaining than the Lost finale. At least my night was redeemed – thank you, water-skiing squirrel!
*An addendum – it was too late last night for me to write about the extremely entertaining Jimmy Kimmel Lost special, so I’ll just share the alternate Lost endings he had on his show – they are very funny and although meant as jokes, any one of them would have been better than the REAL series finale. Sigh.
Ha! Reminds me of the 7 years I wasted watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The most miserably depressing Trek ever. Fortunately for me, I gave up on Lost early on. Just couldn’t take the constant flashbacks.
I was extremely disappointed with this episode as well. I didn’t mind most of the episode, but when it turned out that the ENTIRE show was just a bunch of religious brainwashing, I immediately felt the same way you do. Goodbye LOST and GOOD RIDDANCE. I want my six years back!
HAHA! THAT’S TOO FUNNY! The last time I remember an entire evening being devoted to a series ending was M*A*S*H. At least, that was a two and a half hour episode. So, you didn’t stick around for the Jimmy Kimmel special? So glad I LOst interest back in season 1. So glad that J.J. Abrams selling out on Alias did not succeed totally. I blamed Lost on Alias’ rapid demise.
Actually, I did catch Jimmy Kimmel, but it was on too late for me to write about it. It was hilarious, especially the alternate endings – one was a Bob Newhart style endiing! The Jimmy Kimmel show was SO MUCH more entertaining than the Lost show!
Ok, I updated the post with a youtube clip with the hilarious Jimmy Kimmel alternate endings. SOMETHING should be fun about this post 🙂
Thanks to everyone for their comments! Don’t be afraid to speak up, especially if you liked the final episode! I would like to hear every opinion about it…
Hallelujah – I have been saved! Thank YOU for your redemption!
Like you I had my first child in 2004 – As a first time ‘older’ mom I was busy with my new joyous bundle and methodically researching my new job position as she slept. To second your response — TV was not one of my top priorities. By the time I resurfaced to rejoin the regular world I found my non new parent friends had found this new religion called – Lost In hindsight aptly named. As too much time past to get with the program (pun intended) my friends deemed me a heathen not to jump on the Lost bandwagon – To make maters worse many would shake their heads in disbelief that I had never seen even one episode – Guess who is shaking their head now– 🙂
@Ben, I agree with you on DS9. The least favorite spin off of mine. Glad I abandoned the Lost ship back in Season 1.
that was hilarious! “One of the most famous endings in television history and he THINKS he’s seen it?!” Priceless!
I have never seen an episode of Lost. I think I saw 15 minutes of one once, and it didn’t come close to be interesting to me. It’s good to know I didn’t miss anything!!!! 🙂
I liked lost before the writers strike. I never got back into it after that. For that reason I am grateful that the writers went on strike. I wasn’t even aware that the last show was going to be on until I read what people were writing on the web.
I am one of the rare ones who has not bothered to see a single episode of Lost and your writeup makes me think I shouldn’t bother checking out seasons from the library. For the record, I don’t watch Idol either, even though our local boy just won it.
I agree that DS9 was my least favorite, though Enterprise was fairly close. And as a Stargate SG1 fan, I am not enjoying their newest rendition SG Universe.
Yes… not worth watching, I would say. Our pastor has been catching up on dvd, and I don’t know how to tell him he might be disappointed. It did take a somewhat religious turn, but I haven’t read about Christians or non-Christians liking it. I think perhaps only the romantics liked the finale, and even they seem to be starting to get angry and feel gypped now that the buzz has worn off from seeing all the romantic couples getting together.
@derek – glad to hear you didn’t get caught up in the DeWyze hoopla that seems to be sweeping the area. Can’t say the same for Hubby’s mom – she went to the Arlington party for some reason! And I’m hearing that Tony Packo’s (famous Toledo food) is getting some press over there -the competing cities bet their local food for the Idol competition – not sure though what Mt. Prospect brought to the table…
Cool website you have, I just love this show. Thank you for sharing!
I actually enjoyed lost and often will miss it
I’m sure so feeling sad that lost has was completed, I really liked this tv show such a lot.
Stargate is probably the best science fiction series after Firefly. Nice visual effects too.*;;
Stargate SG1 is much better than Stargate the movie. the series has lots of action and adventure.;“
stargate SG1 was my favorite sci-fi tv series on our cable TV,”*