LOST has been appointment TV for me and many many others for the past six years. From that first episode on September 22, 2004 (also my birthday), LOST has been an amazing gift to me, small packages of joy that I opened and enjoyed frequently.
Well, if LOST’s finale was another gift, then it was a nice pair of argyle socks. With holes in them.
I really appreciate what the producers were trying to do – I get some of the obvious subtexts (live together, die alone indeed). But that last 20 minutes… Yes, I was moved throughout, and the ending made the room a little dusty.
But… It didn’t ring true.
It’s hard for me to explain, but I’ll try. Yes, everybody dies. I get it. But we don’t need to see what happens next. If everyone lives happily ever after in the afterlife then it diffused the drama that took place in… Well, life. Adding insult to injury, when you spend half of your final season showing viewers events that just really didn’t matter cause they were “dead already”… Well, it’s not cheating your viewers, but it comes close.
Remember the shower season of Dallas? The one where the producers basically said “Oops, we screwed up, we are just gonna make last year a dream and pretend it didn’t happen!” Well I did, and I remember how that angered the core fans of the show, and viewers abandoned the show. I remember, but apparently the producers of LOST didn’t.
My biggest frustration with the ending is that “everyone lives happily ever after”. We don’t need a happy ending. In fact, LOST having a happy ending is the equivilent of Citizen Kane becoming a romantic comedy in the final act. It was a tonal shift that was not consistent with what came before it. It felt out of place, like another show.
It was contrived and, as I noted above, somewhat meaningless.
And just now I read that additional answers will be revealed on the DVD release of the final season. I’m sorry, but that is a cash-grab, pure and simple. The answers shouldn’t be a supplemental feature on the damn DVD it should be in the SHOW. And if they introduced to many coy questions to be revealed in that context then… Well, maybe they shouldn’t have introduced so many coy questions and mysteries.
Did I appreciate “the journey?” Of course I did. My frustrations may be based on my expectations being too high. But when you have a show that has had so many peaks you come to expect exceptional craftsmanship… And when that expected plateau becomes a valley… Well, disappointment happens.
They didn’t stick the landing, and I so wanted them too.
So, LOST, it’s been fun but we have to part ways less than amicably. I wish it was otherwise.
Be seeing you.