Love it or hate it, Lost has been a remarkable TV show. The show changed what someone can expect from a TV.It raised the bar in production, writing, and music. Movies and shows now would still have big fan bases, but Lost got things viral. The show created this great online community with people constantly posting thoughts and theories to the point where Lost creators themselves starting doing online side stories during the summer to keep it all going. Sadly, after six seasons Lost is ending. I knew that the show being the type of show that it was the finale was going to divide people more than please, however some of the comments and reactions from this “Lost” community have left me and many others disappointed.
PEOPLE’S REACTIONS
Before I go further into my feelings and the impact of what the finale did, I want to address these comments. Of course everyone is entitled for their opinion and especially for this show, but there are some that have very little ground to stand on. First, to the ones that say ” The finale was so bad that I wasted six years of my life,” get over it. I think its very sad that your whole life was revolving around a TV show anyway. A TV show is a form of entertainment that passes the time, makes you happy or excited, and sometimes makes you think. Even if the finale sucks as bad as you say you still were fond of some odd 100 episodes. Even if now you will never watch another episode if you were a fan then the show made you think and read about things you never would have otherwise. I can guarantee that even if the show is “ruined” it enriched your life more than Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order, Survivor, or the Bachelor ever could combined. To say your time was just flat out wasted is a way overreaction that has to mostly said by casual fans at best.
Like I said before the show was going to get a 50 50 reaction one way or another. No matter what the big answers were going to be for the mythology people were always going to criticize it. What one person thinks is brilliant another would think its contrived. Then there would be the people that wanted a little more. For me, the island being a cork in a bottle keeping evil/darkness away was good enough, but their people demanded more and we got Across the Sea. It protects the world from evil. Well then what evil? Is it the devil or some God? If a God what God? Who made the island to stop the evil? It can go on and on become an endless loop. On top of that I don’t think people pay enough attention to the show anyways to pick up on the answers unless its thrown in their face. I was watching the Jimmy Kimmel special and the audience was asking the dumbest questions you always here. Where the Dharma drops come from? What’s the deal with the Polar bear? Polar bear? Honestly? OMG they answered that question the first episode of season 3 when they showed the hydra station where the Dharma initiative at one point was doing experiments on Polar bears and they simply escaped. Its not just those people, its even some critics that review the show miss these answers.
Then there is major question of Science vs Faith motif. If Science wins , then if your answer isn’t what they were expecting then they hear it and the Faith people feel let down. If Faith wins, then science people will call BS and they just made crap up since they can’t think up of a good answers and say this proves they didn’t know from the beginning. If they try to cater to both then people will just say, thats a cop out they were just trying to carter to both. The writers had an insane amount of expectations to fulfill. What they thought was that everyone loved the characters so if they can concentrate on a ending more character driven.( I tend to think it was a little both, but more on that later) There were a lot of people only really watching the show, beside it being masterfully produced, because of this really weird stuff was happening and in my opinion people of science thought to themselves man with all this going on there is got to be a bad ass answer to all of this. The ending we got was not what they were expecting or understand. We know people hate what they don’t understand.
WHAT CAN BE FOUND IN LOST
As you cab probably tell by now I was pleased with how the show ended. However at first I had mixed feelings. Damon and Carlton were right that LOST was such a huge success because of its characters, not the mysteries, but in some ways they forgot about the most unique character on the show, the island. We never got a origin story or flashback about the island like most hoped. That’s one reason so many people felt so let down by the episode “Across the Sea.” People were expecting most answers going to be revealed, but instead they got the origin stories and background Jacob and the man in black. Looking back after the finale with some important dialogue that episode has more purpose and gave a lot of the moments more meaning. Still even after the finale we got the purpose of the island, but not really what it was protecting or just really how important it was to the world.
After some time you come to realize that it wasn’t about how important it was to the world, but to Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, and most important to us personally. The smoke monster was never given a name, but thats because we were suppose to fill in the gaps. Was he simply a man who wanted to go home trapped by crazy zealots? Was he a man gone insane by being faithless, loveless, and disobeying the nature of the world? Or was he even darkness of humanity itself? The show gave us great clues for all of these, but there isn’t a 100% sure fire way to answer it. Isn’t it better to “fit” the story on how you see the world, instead of him being some man from a long time ago formed by some weird scientific properties of the island that no one would be satisfied with? The showed not only leaned on the faith side of the answers based on the ending, but there a lot of things in life you just don’t know why they happen or what’s going to happen to you. Even if you are not a religious person you have to have faith that something will work out.
I won’t go totally into what I think the whole meaning of the show is. I have too much to say on that. Maybe one day later or if enough people are interested in it I will give my opinion on it, but I am sure it at comes down to several key factors. No matter how bad your life is or bad you have been, everyone has a little good in them, a part worth saving. You can turn your life around by putting faith in something, something greater than ourselves. It was a smart move, yet sadly a PC move for such a bold show, that in the room where Jack talks to his dad Christian you can clearly see significant figures for most religions and beliefs to help point that across to all of the international viewers who watch LOST. You were never meant to go through this world alone. You have friends and loved ones along the way. The problems and sins you have commented don’t really matter in the whole scheme of things. You need to learn to let it go and see that being there with these people is very important. The problems with the island take a back seat to the people they fought with.
I feel the finale has lost some viewers forever, but did what it always did best, taking a chance and left us talking. Even if you still hate that you never really found at what the light was or who Jacob’s Mom was you still got final closure on the characters that mattered. You can’t get anymore final than the afterlife. LOST has edged itself in the history and changed Television forever. People will expect the unexpected. People will expect high production and deep storytelling. I know for me it has raised the bar for how I view a TV show. TV can be more than reality, comedy, or escapism. Now matter how you felt about the finale these things will never change. The show gave us a perfect emotional music score that will never be surpassed. (Thank you Michael Giacchino) The final images of Jack dying in the same place where the show began with the last shot of his eye closing will be forever remembered and moving. LOST will not be forgotten.
Farewell LOST
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