By the way, in Zlick's Lost, Daniel Farday is of course quite aware of the illusion of the sideways universe while he's in it (as is his mom). But he also knows that there are an infinite number of alternate realities, the Island and "real" reality being just two of them. In the sideways world, he's just met Charlotte and is still buzzing off playing with Driveshaft - so he's gonna stick around there awhile.

As long as steak tastes like steak, he's fine with that - - and in no hurry to move on to his fated journeys through dozens of other quantum dimensions.




(I'm likely not going to devise a fate for every Lostie - but Daniel was a standout in staying behind in Sideways Land. I might come up with something good for Desmond and a few others. And wow, now I get to come up with some cool plots for Hugo and Ben: The Animated Series. Can't wait!)

Yes, I want to see a Hugo and Ben half hour situation comedy.....Cindy is still on the Island, as are the two tail section kids....that's a start, isn't it?

Lost Finale seen by 20.5 million
That's more like what I was expecting.

But, wow, MASH seen by 105 million. Holy Guacamole, Batman!

Hmm, 1/5 as many viewers with 175X as many viewing options, I'd say that's not bad.

I remember Ellen's sitcom getting huge numbers when she came out on her show. 40 mil or so... That's huge, too. But even back then, there were less channels than there are now...like GD said.

Do they have an accurate way to add in people who DVR it or watch it online?

Hmmm, I guess there were a larger quantity of unanswered questions than I thought.

Hoot of a video. The unanswerds fly fast and furious. If you're a Lostie, you'll enjoy.

Great stuff, and that's just scratching the surface.

BTW, since I didn't shed a tear for Jin and Sun when they drowned, instead feeling cheated that they died within a few hours of finding each after after 2 or 3 seasons' worth of searching and pining - I've come up with a real tear jerker for Zlick's Lost.


When they each get flashed in the sideways world and realize it's a sham, they at first don't want to leave - even though it's hard to make steak taste like steak once you know it's made of toasty oats. But by talking to each other in their new-found English about their respective flashes, Sun realizes that Jin is actually ALIVE on the Island and did not die on the freighter. And despite that sideways world is beyond the constraints of time, I'm gonna use better storytelling logic and have it be that those memory flashes only include memories of things that happened before the nuclear bomb explosion/energy release combo that thrust everyone into the sideways universe in the first place.

So Jin and Sun don't know they've died on the Island, and think they can be reunited there in real life and perhaps even escape to find their infant daughter who cries nightly, pining for her missing mom. Oh the suspense and tears as they head for the reverse donkey wheel or whatever bizarre devise gets the Awakened Ones from sideways world back to the Island - because they're not getting there at all. They are dead, but they just don't know it. They'd find themselves rotting on the bottom of the ocean when they wake-up there, except they don't wake up. Sad, sad, sad when they risk their sideways fake togetherness for real Island reunification - - but FAIL. Oh, how tragic.

Only later in the show, when its revealed that the Island is limbo - with death and perhaps other dimensions of afterlife realities lying ahead for everyone - do we realize Sun and Jin may be together, ahead of the game or, in any event, no worse off than anyone else. Because everyone's dead. Some just don't know it yet.




Or hey, perhaps Sun and Jin can come "back to life" that way, while the existence of two Jacks, two Kates, two Hurleys, two Desmonds and a couple of Sawyerses leads to all sorts of matter/anti-matter shenanigans that can figure greatly into the destruction, uncorking, light going outing of the island.


So many possibilities. All better than the crap we were served.

I guess what I am wondering is why the series HAD to end. It was still popular. Why not expand it another season and deal with a lot of this stuff? I suppose upon thinking of that question perhaps they really had no way to tie them in.

I suppose the more I think about the ending the more....frustrated I am. Yeah, just a TV show, but so many of the unanswereds sucked me in, and to have so many left unanswered, well, sucks.

Great video, ISM.

They said from the beginning they had a 5 year plan (so it didn't run endlessly like the X-Files or some show that kept going and going). The writers strike turned it into 6 seasons by making a few seasons shorter ones but the intent has always been to tell their story and end it.

I think that the reason that the show ended was because the first season had an average of 15.6 million viewers, while the 2nd through the 5th saw the viewership decline to 15.5, 15.05, 13.4 and 11.05.

The X-Files ran 9 full seasons, with only a portion of the show dedicated to the "mythology". Interestingly, the X-Files viewership peaked in its 5th season, with 17.1 million viewers.

I hadn't realized that the show had dropped off that much in viewership.

I know about the original plan, BTD, but I liken it to an author who decides he is going to write a 100 page novella, and at the end of 100 pages stops when he needs 20 more to finish it.

Lost lost me after season 1. I watched periodic episodes and the damn show moved at such a friggin glacial pace. Like, I missed all of season 3 except the season finale, and I wasn't confused as to what was going on, after a 1 minute recap from my mom (who doesn't follow these things all that closely). Judging from everyone's reactions here, it's a bummer that the end was such a letdown... really, it was a bizarre way to end things.

I personally loved the finale...but I wasn't expecting most of the questioned to be answered, I didn't need most of the questions answered...except as they pertained to the characters. (although I really, really wanted to know what became of Vincent, and I was very satisfied to find [or believe] that he lived a happy doggie life with Rose and Bernard, after he, of course, comforted Jack [and who knows how many others] and helped ease him into death and what was to come.)

I maintain that LOST has always been about the humanity and the redemption of the core characters. In fact, I believe I posted at one point that I thought that we would discover that ultimately the show would be about love. How it binds us to people, how it leads us to extraordinary actions and how ultimately, it determines the path(s) we chose to pursue. And I think that was confirmed. Because of the love these characters had for each other, because they had become integral to each other's very existence, they were compelled to form (separately, yet in unison) an other worldly plane where they would each wait for each other until they were once again whole. Sure, they were reunited with their true loves...but that was only a minor consequence of needing to remember their bond. "Live together, die alone"..."live together, move on together" because none of them were whole as long as any one of them was missing. The sideways world transcended time and space; as Christian said (something to the effect of), "some of them have been here a long time, some of them a short time."

More to come, but I need to fix dinner....:)

I don't think most people's beef is that they didn't answer all the questions. I think think the issue (at least for me) is that so many of the questions were simply negated.

Hey, don't forget it's Tuesday, time for.....aaaawww.

:(

I'm going to miss my Tuesdays With Smokey

Exactly!

For me, it's not so much which questions were answered or not, it's the sheer magnitude of them. That's not even my biggest problem with the finale or the final season. But watch that video I linked to. The overwhelming quantity of unexplained stuff that begged explanation is staggering.


The utter disrespect for the audience in throwing so much absolutely pulled out of their asses stuff, all the while insisting there was some grand plan where most of that stuff would come to make sense, is hubris of the worst quality. It was all outright lies and bullsh!t.

The fact that I knew it all along, and have been saying so since Season One, makes it all the more infuriating. I had to deal with Lost apologists for six years, and it gives me no pleasure to be right in the end, and to have endured six years of undeserved mockery for my convictions that the writers had none.

Totally on the mark......it was just that "disrespect". And now, to have them come out and pretty much say none of that stuff mattered because what is really important is their interpersonal relationships is just pure baloney.

THEY posed the questions, again and again. They hinted at answers, again and again......if it wasn't important, then why ask to begin with?

And I'd like to add something, bc over and over I keep hearing what was really important was this imterpersonal relationship stuff and not the mythology.

Ok, if that is truly the case, then you'd think they would at least get the personal stuff right .....right?

Well, late in season 3 we have Charlie writing that one of his top 10 moments in his life was meeting Claire on the night of the crash.

To which I say,,,,,,,Oh really?!

Claire spent that first night in the company of Hurley, not Charlie.......and to add further proof against the writers knowing what they were doing from the get go I pose this question:

Why did Charlie want Hurley to help him catch a fish in the second episode of the first season?

See, I don't think it needed explaining. Are there unanswered questions I would have liked an answer for...sure. Did I need an answer...no. The other stuff, no matter how spectacular, was clearly just (extraordinary) fluff of a life lived. The island was (is) an extraordinary place that afforded extraordinary experiences, but in the end, they were experiences of the castaways presented, at times by Jacob as a way to parse and, at other times, merely as circumstance, which facilitated their redemption and their ultimate salvation.


IMO, you are placing far too much emphasis on our own (personal) feelings and not enough on what was presented as a means to facilitate a story or life. Stories are rarely strictly linear. There is fluff. There is nonsense. There are unanswered questions. I will never be able to answer why my father hates me; why life chose to give me a perfect daughter when I had planned for none. Some questions are never answered. Some beg for an answer that never comes. They didn't have to manipulate flashbacks. They didn't have to manipulate a closing scene to fit with an opening scene. Did they always know 100% where they were going? No. They had a general idea of a beginning and an end. They had a story to tell. sometimes it went off track just as reality sometimes goes off track. Most of life's questions go unanswered and yet we still find a beginning and an understanding of the end.

And you know, no disrespect intended, I have to question why you stuck it out. You have been a pessimist and someone who clearly has been infuriated by the lack of a neatly tied package from the beginning. Why did you keep watching when you clearly hated it so?

I'm no apologist. LOST needs no apology. It's a frickin' TV show. Either you bought into it, or at the very least agreed to go along for the ride, or you never bought in to the premise and thought the whole thing was a bunch of crap. I don't think any of us who loved the ride would for a second apologize for agreeing to suspend reality (and perhaps the natural order) for an hour a week.

I don't think you're right (and quite frankly, I suspect you derive a great deal of pleasure from thinking you now have definitive prove to give you an "I told you so."). I think a story was told. It was well told. It made me laugh, it made me cry...it made me look forward to Tuesday night. Was it always exactly what the writers originally had in mind? I don't know, circumstances (such as Mr. Eko's 3 season arc unexpectedly becoming a 15 episode +/- arc) change, people (Walt) change. Do I care? Not really. Would I think differently if I had an exact outline of their original plans? Maybe. But I didn't. I was along for the ride. It was wild. I was unpredictable. It was amazing. And yes, at times it was stupid, pointless and pedantic but you know what? It was a great ride. I'll miss my Tuesday nights. I'll miss my Wednesday obsessive armchair quarterbacking. I'm satisfied to think the characters I've grown to love have found their redemption, have found their peace....

Frankly, Bewitched, I "stuck it out" because LOST was damned good entertainment. Since I knew all along the questions and mysteries were fluff that would never be explained, none of that stuff EVER bothered me. It doesn't now.

It SHOULD bother everyone who went along with it, and poured over every hint for meaning and substance, and took in the lies that were said by the writers and staff outside of the show that it would all make sense in the end.

And a story is NOT life. Fluff is not there to 'just happen.' Not that much fluff. In a novel or a movie, such sloppy writing and loose ends would be unforgiveable. In most tv shows, they get a pass for that sort of stuff. I'd say Lost is an exception that is rightly held to a higher standard than most tv shows. Those CONSTANT questions and mysteries deserved a bit of denouement. LOST is NOT life. It is a written, constructed piece of meticulously planned and expensively budgeted entertainment.


Again, the unanswered mysteries are NOT the reason I'm ultimately disappointed with the finale and the last season in general. But it's a sloppy, cheesy rip-off nonetheless.

I agree with iSm.

Additionally, the more I think about the LOST finale (and the other recent pieces of mass entertainment that have pissed me off), I've been wondering why it is that I have such a negative reaction. For me, it's not just that the writing was sloppy or that questions were left unanswered.

I've come to a fuzzy conclusion that the reason that I have such a viscerally negative reaction to the way the show wrapped up was because of the philosophy that was finally revealed at the end. The people who enjoyed the ending have tended to argue that it was "all about the characters" and "love is the constant". That's all nice, and is probably why my initial reaction was that I felt somewhat emotionally satisfied, if intellectually troubled. I admit it, I'm a softie. Show me the dog at the end lie down next to the dying hero, and my heart strings are tugged.

However, like iSm said, the story isn't real life - it's a construct. What bothers me is that the show was set up as a mystery - with the undercurrent of Science vs. Fate. The producers promised (as late as season 5) that there was a scientific explanation for the mysteries of the Island. Even if the explanation was sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, that would have been OK with me. Instead, all of science and logic were tossed out in favor of a conservative Christian message on a feel good "all people go to heaven" Sunday School level. If the "real" Locke was a "man of faith", and Jack was initially a "man of science", then the message of the show is that "faith wins", because in the final season when Jack becomes the man of faith, the "Locke" that argues for reason is the show's embodiment of evil. If, by the show's logic, the opposite of faith is science, then science is evil. Scary subtext.

Throughout the entire sixth season, the producers have said that the "flash-sideways" is "real", not an "alternate reality". So the finale basically said that "science can't solve life's mysteries" and "the religious concept of an afterlife is real". That's the kind of message that chills me to the bone.

I know it's only my opinion, and I know it's not going to be a popular one... but I think that's why I'm bummed out. Fans of the ending say it's about the people and relationships. I think it was about god and religion.

:snap:

That was perfect.

So, what happened to the one armed man?

That.

Spot on!

Well, I'm not upset because purgatory was a Christian/religious concept foisted on a sci-fi show in the last 15 minutes. That guy was not watching the first season, when it was obviously all about purgatory. (The writers simply lied through their teeth about that, too, in their constant denials).

No, it's simply that it was returned to purgatory so clumsily and poorly, and did really negate too much of what came after the first season - ya know, like the five other seasons.


But, I'll get over it. Most series good enough to end on their own terms end really, REALLY badly. I don't see why Lost should be an exception. But it's sad. For a mystery show, the end was important. If Roseanne, or Dallas, or The Sopranos ends on a sour note, I can just ignore that and re-watch any or all of it with pleasure. I can't do that with Lost. Knowing that the mysteries not only go unsolved, but cut short in a lazy, GAY cop-out way makes my enjoyment of re-watching those mysteries unfold nearly impossible.


That's ok, really, I don't re-watch much tv. It's not gonna have any effect on my life. But it still sucks.


And in a 5-year-running message board thread about a television program, I think it's ok to express our opinions about it here. But I'm not skipping meals or sleeping poorly.

The one thing that they did right was leave very little room to make a movie to "wrap it up". It's done, it's over with and it's unlikely it will be remade in 30 years into movie form or completely redone like V.

I didn't like it. And I'm confused. So Dharma, the Others all that was just filler?

:snap:


Heh, I guess the show is like most people - many men of science end up praying on their deathbeds. ;)

Instead of a movie, they'll probably just do a Holiday special. :)

Perhaps a crossover with Ewoks! That would be something special.

for anyone who doesn't understand why so many people are profoundly unsatisfied, imagine the inverse finale in which they spend 110 minutes reviewing and wrapping up most of the intricate details of how the island works, what the dharma project was about, how the others came to inhabit dharmaville, and how the island moves through space and time, only to then spend the last 10 minutes revealing that none of the plane crash victims actually exist, they were just simulations created by Dharma experiments, and therefore none of the relationships or emotional growth meant one lick, don't bother tying to think about what all of their relationships meant, just forget about it and enjoy the geeky tech stuff.

How satisfied would you feel?

Here is a bit of an explanation from one of the writers of LOST. It gives good food for thought.

And make sure to read the comments below - several point out how it's more retcon than not.

And that's the one reason I'm, on the other side of the equation, pretty cool with the ending. It was clear it was intended that the show end that way (not necessarily the sideways world being limbo, but the characters discovering themselves in limbo, and linked emotionally through their ordeals and growth, and then moving on). So on the broad scale, I'm ok with that being what happened.

But yeah ...
So there's that. And I think the ending was a great ending to Season 1, a crappy ending to Season 6, and a pretty lame ending to all six seasons.

reasonable explanation.

How Lost should have ended:

LOL...ha ha ha ha ha.

That would have been SO RAD!!!

Bwahahahahahahahah!

That's awesome!

BTW, it wasn't a Bad Robot writer who wrote that explanation. It was a former Bad Robot employee who didn't realize his board post would go viral. (I know his girlfriend.)

This.

If this guy was actually a writer on the show, why doesn't he know how to spell Widmore? Truly a BS explanation to a BS finale.

The things I walked away with from the finale were: 1) "Stop worrying about the details, it all works out eventually." To which I say, "Then why did I waste all my time watching your damn show?" and 2) "Your life will be miserable, and you'll always be ripped away from people you love. Over and over. Constantly. But hey, once you're dead, it'll all be okay." To which I say, "Thanks, but no. I'd rather make my life on Earth worth living." Which was kind of where I thought this show was going. Silly me.

Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindeloff, and JJ Abrams gave us a selfish, lecturing, and lazy ending to a wildly engaging TV show. There's probably nothing, nothing, I hate more than condescension, and this finale was full of it.

Screw them.

I disagree. I think it was clear that they'd discover themselves in a limbo-like place, that would turn out to be something more. That in the end it would be saying, "The concept of Limbo is a convenient and simplistic summary of what goes on here, but misses the REAL point and detail." That's what I felt the show was promising, and I truly believe they thought they could pull that level of intellectual interest off. So yeah, I consider it a lazy cop out to just fall back on, "Nope, literal Christian Limbo is all we've got for ya'." It's just like MP's link said, 6 seasons to end up at, "When you die you see all your loved ones and walk into the light." I've read that book. Yaaaaawwwwwwwwn.

Well, when I said "clear," i didn't mean satisfying.

It was clear to me that's where they were going in the beginning, and I never believed it when they said that limbo/purgatory was not what the island was. So that's "clear to me" since I always presumed the worst.

I suppose i slyly hoped that, once they nixed that idea and the series grew into something else, they'd be clever enough to write themselves a new finish. But if all they could manage was a "sideways universe" to be the new limbo - all I can say is I'm not very much surprised, though awfully disappointed.


And that's not to say I think even that idea couldn't have been pulled off well. I just don't think it was. Though, to be fair, during the finale and right after, I felt very emotionally satisfied.

As did I. Which is what I was going for with my "inverse finale". They did half of their job. They addressed, reasonably well (with aforementioned weaknesses like Sayid), the emotional elements of the series. But fell completely flat on addressing the other half other of the picture.

I would have been equally annoyed had the finale been ALL about how the island worked, leaving us with, "Oh, all that relationship stuff just kinda happened, the details don't really matter, it was all just kinda there to string you along until we made our point about what the island is." Even if that island explanation was really good, I'd have felt seriously cheated for having invested in those characters. Just as I currently feel seriously cheated for having invested in the island.

:snap:

Now that's funny!

This may have been posted here already but I am too tired to read through recent posts on my phone.

Unanswered questions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xYp0...=youtube_gdata

Yeah, I linked to that up above. So even though I'm not one who cared about the unanswered questions, the sheer quantity of them is something I found incredibly insulting.

Prior to seeing that video, I was waffling on the themes of the finale and the denoument of the Island and the Sideways world - - but adding this bit of insult to the mix, and I became firmly on the side of HATING the LOST Finale.

I wonder how this ending will affect the bluray boxset sales?

I saw something yesterday (too lazy to go find it) that the 6th season will have a lot of extras that have more answers. Specifically the actor who plays Ben said there is a 13-14 minute section of he and Hurly running the island.

Is it animated??

Unfortunately no. But the article is here

I'm pretty insulted by the answers carrot offered to get us to buy the DVDs. Eff that. (I'd probably Netflix them...and grumble a lot.)

Last week, Heather and I were at the UCB Theater - sitting opposite Damon L. If I'd already seen the finale, I would have surely approached him...

There is NO WAY I will buy the DVDs, primarily for that reason. And what can they do with 20 minutes of "bonus footage" anyway?

Both of those guys probably have a security squad with them at all times now.

A rat-a-tat list of "answers", blech. Might as well watch Lucas explain the Ep 1 force field rat trap again...

I'd pay big money to see a Ben Kenobi and Velma Dinkley Power Point presentation on the remaining mysteries of LOST:D

:snap: :snap: :snap: VISIBLE MOJO.

This is my friend's truck. Apparently, the 'Lost' crew paid him a lot of money to use it over and over. Does it look familiar?
:)

Nope, but then again - I could hardly remember the details of the plot, much less what truck I saw.


I'm glad I forgot the details of the plot, since 99% of the mysteries went unexplained in a big Fvck-You by the producers of LOST. And I'm glad I forgot that truck, because it it's ugly.

I think that's the truck we saw Jack driving.

So, not only did your friend get paid for the rental, but now s/he owns a piece of Lost. Sheesh!

Yes, it was what Jack drove to the funeral parlor(Lockes funeral).

I believe that was Jack's truck throughout his stint back on the mainland, including his beardy trips to the airport, to see Kate, etc. Awesome!

Yes, but They want you to buy the WHOLE series to get it, evidently (and I own 1-5 already). I wanted to do the LOST University, but I would have replaced my Blu-ray/ surround sound system to do it. I guess I miss out each time because I don't have unlimited funds to dump into this. I hope the extra 20 minutes ends up on You Tube, that'll teach them! Though, I'm sure it will get pulled in an hour.

Don't worry. About 20 seconds after it hits the shelves it will be up on YouTube.

What RStar said. YouTube cooperates fully with companies to pull down whatever copyrighted videos the company wants.

While driving into work this morning, I saw a car with the license plate "108LOST"

Michael Emerson spills beans about Lost epilogue to be released as bonus footage for Lost: The Complete Collection on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Catch Up On 'Lost' (Via a 1920's Radio Show

I want Michael Swaim to marry me.

Say, is this 'Lost' show over or what?

Hey Brad! I still haven't gotten your LOST autographed 8x10 Glossy yet...

Many, if not all, of the answers you crave:

Full 12 minute Lost epilogue

Extreme coolness!!!

That was fun. Kinda wish I'd waited until GD got home to watch it movie-style with the lights out, the way we used to watch the show.

Hey! I was waiting!

:( I couldn't help it! I thought it was a joke, then when I realized it was real I couldn't stop!

Lame excuse, I know. I really am sorry.

You'll just have to watch it again and pretend. :)

Now that I have seen it...meh, not worth waiting for.

And wtf? Automated teletype giving instructions I'll buy, but were those guys bowing to the will of an automated teletype on a volunteer basis for 20 years? Or did they not notice their lack of paycheck?

...oh feeling of frustration over LOST! how I've not missed thee.

That was fun though.

Lost stuff being auctioned August 21-22 in Santa Monica.

+1

OMG !!! LOVE the new LOST spin-off series !!

OMG check out this clip Will the insanity ever end?