Warning: The following article contains major spoilers for Lost seasons 1-6, and also spoilers for the ending of The Sopranos.
I started watching Lost almost a year after it first aired in the U.S. This was mainly down to the UK getting an air date way later than our friends across the pond, but also because watching it in bulk on DVD always seems the best way to get into a show. While the show was over halfway through its first season on British TV, I managed to get a hold of an American box set of the entire season. I watched the whole thing in two days. I was hooked. I had found a show like no other I had attempted before and for the next five years I couldn’t get enough.
I was so hooked, in fact, that I couldn’t hold out for the complete season box sets and turned to watching them one-by-one as they aired each week, enthralled by everything from the iconic mystery to the compelling characters. With each shocking episode cliff-hanger (the kind which, in the best way possible, makes you want to bang your head against the wall in anticipation of the next episode) I grew more and more invested in all that the show had to offer.
On May 23rd 2010 Lost ended its six-year run with the most divisive TV ending since The Sopranos. Although not quite as surprising an ending as the famous [Sopranos SPOILER ALERT!] cut-to-black of David Chase’s epic crime saga, the conclusion of ABC’s surprisingly successful show about a group of people who crash land on a mysterious island split audiences. Some found a great sense of closure and emotional payoff for these characters who they have invested six seasons and six years of their lives in, not just by actually watching the show but discussing, pondering and debating it with friends, family, workmates (“the water cooler effect”) and, perhaps most crucially, with fellow Lost fans on the internet. Others found the lack of concrete answers to the million-and-one questions and mysteries Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and Co. had conjured disappointing, and in some cases downright infuriating.
While I can understand where those latter people are coming from in some ways, I say to them what exactly did they expect? A finale which in checkpoint-ticking fashion answered every question ever raised by the show? Take away the impracticalities of pulling off such an ending, that type of a finale would have been boring, and certainly wouldn’t have allowed it to live on in the hearts and discussions of fans for years to come.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
Glad the ending worked for you. I found it unsatisfying because the way the afterlife works was rather unbelievable, though convenient in making everyone feel warm and fuzzy that our characters would live together forever. Also rather unfair for the producers to set up so many unanswered plot points and then complain that fans were concerned about the plot points.
I watched the first four seasons on DVD/Blu and then watched the rest as they aired. I really enjoyed the first season when it was more of anthology show as the characters were revealed to us. Once they started with the Hatch, it was a good thing I wasn't watching week to week because I wouldn't have lasted with how ridiculous things would get at times, though there were some very good moments along the way.
2 - steven
For those first couple of seasons, I think mystery was a much bigger part of the story than character. Even going into the final season the producers where selling mystery and promising answers (as they had done from around season 3)
3 - Ross Miller
@El Bicho,
As I said in the article I admit the ending was sentimental and, yes, perhaps a little convenient as far as allowing the characters to "sail off into the sunset" but I felt that it was truly earned. It ties into the faith side of things as opposed to the sceience which, as I also said, I may not agree with in my personal life but I could totally buy into within the context of the show. I don't really see how the "afterlife" they showed could not make sense as no one can really say what it's really like, or if there is such a thing. Even if the issue comes down to how the show presented that sort of an "in-between" world and the mechanics of it, it exists completely in a world of its own from my point of view. As Jack's father says - "There is no NOW... here." It can't be thought of in our real terms, hence all the coincidences during the Sideways world.
But I respect your opinion, if it didn't work for you that's fair enough. Thanks for commenting on the article without attacking me for liking it, by the way :P