Lost Season 6

[z3zep]

Yeah much of the Dharma/Others/Ben/Widmore stuff has gone unanswered.
Hopefully the supposed additional 20 minutes on the DVD will answer these questions....If not maybe the Lost Encyclopedia that comes out in August will shed some light? But you really shouldn't have to go out beyond the actual TV series to get the answers IMO.

The unresolved Widmore and Dharma stories are my greatest disappointments. Widmore was rich and successful and apparently very powerful in the outside world, why was he so obsessed with the island? It is not like if he got back he would be immortal. Was it just a personal vandetta against Ben?

The Dharma background and build-up with the hatches? The door map... That was all just background junk? crap!

As it played out, the explosion of Jughead had absolutely no consequence whatsoever. That, along with a ton of unanswered questions, annoys me.

The bomb also bothers me.... It just made for a great season 5 ending and was the gise for the alt reality.

[YoungOnce]

^ You and me both....brutha I love the show too much to be a total hater but I definitely feel like I was on the end of a Long Con....

Exactly.

Went and saw the NY Times talk this past Thurday with Damon and Carlton.

They kept repeating that they hoped folks would see that it was really just a character-driven show all along... about the relationships of the people. You could tell that they were preparing folks for a finale without answers to the islands mysteries.

That's fine if that's what it was, but if they had told everyone at the beginning "hey... this show is really about the relationships and don't count on us giving you answers to these numbers, Walt, and all this other crazy stuff about the island we've been pointing out like it's really important, just enjoy those relationship arcs"

I think that a lot of folks wouldn't be harping that we have indeed been long-conned.

I don't want to sound like I didn't love the show, I did. But we have to admit at this point that we were snookered not just a little, but a lot.

[JDeRouen]

Oh, me too. I'm still a fan, just a frustrated one.

[The Toyroom]

^ You and me both....brutha I love the show too much to be a total hater but I definitely feel like I was on the end of a Long Con....

[JDeRouen]

My take on Jack's son was that his son was an aspect of himself, something he needed to work out (re: his father's emotional unavailability) before "moving on." That said, I do feel cheated. The whole "purgatory" plot line was unnecessary, in my opinion, and was just a red herring, in that we, the audience, were led to believe that this alternate reality was created when the Jughead bomb exploded.

As it played out, the explosion of Jughead had absolutely no consequence whatsoever. That, along with a ton of unanswered questions, annoys me.

Just a few of them:

* What was the man in black's name?
* If, after MIB died in the cave (we saw his skeleton) he became a smoke monster, why didn't that happen to Jack? Jack appeared on the same rocks, in the same stream, but then just died. What was the difference?
* WHY did Jacob not allow MIB to leave the island? He certainly didn't seem like this great evil before first his mother and then Jacob schemed to keep him on the island. It seemed that, if anything, they made him into the Bid Bad he became.
* Who originally put the carved stopper into the volcanic hole in the cave? And if the island was going to destroy itself after Desmond removed the stopper, what prevented the island from being destroyed before the stopper was put there in the first place?
* We know the numbers represented the "candidates," but what else did they mean? How were they winning lottery numbers, coordinates, numbers to keep the island from blowing up, etc.?
* Why was Walt deemed so important and then utterly forgotten later? What about his apparent ability to manifest stuff (the bird that flew into the window in a flashback) and why did he appear to Hurley (I think it was Hurley) when he wasn't dead?

I could easily come up with a dozen more, but you get the point. It's like the writers threw all this stuff out there with absolutely no end game in mind just to see what would stick, and when they finally ended the show thought we'd be satisfied (well, some appear to be) with this convoluted purgatory side story that brought everyone back together but utterly failed to explain the reasons behind most everything.

I honestly think they started out season 6 with the intention that there really was an alternate universe that was created after Jughead exploded, then changed their minds 3/4th of the way to the end.

Can you tell I'm frustrated?

[The Toyroom]

I feel like that throughout the 6 seasons, Lost played me and expected me to be a "Man of Science" searching for answers to the multitude of questions that they posed and left open-ended....only to get a swerve at the end and expect me to suddenly be a "Man of Faith" and that all of those unanswered questions (and there's a LOT of 'em) were no longer important, if they ever were at all....

[spamn]

Really curious to see the answers on the DVD. The answers on this show have always seemed anti-climactic. When we get them, if they don't lead to more questions, they either don't seem to matter, or towards the end there, just seemed shoehorned in as fan service.

Overall I found the finale emotionally satisfying but intellectually lacking. That is, the emotional payoff for all of the characters was powerful enough that, if I squint, I can ignore all the unanswered questions and the huge logical inconsistencies of the finale.

I wrote a big essay on it which I may post later if the conversation continues, but for now, it's over and I feel like I just ate a big meal. After it digests I may have a different take on it, but for now pleasantly full and ready for a nap.

Just one question - has ANY finale in recent memory really satisfied? Think about it; Seinfeld, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica - did any of these leave everyone as happy as they were while watching? I think Buffy and Angel did okay, though there was some kvetching about Angel's Sopranos-esque cutoff end. Hell, even MASH's last ep was lukewarmly reviewed if I recall correctly.

I didn't follow The Wire, but I haven't heard anyone put a caveat of 'too bad the ending blew' on their claims it was the best show on TV ever. That seems to be the only one. Maybe Babylon 5, too,

So is it even possible to end a long-running big story arc series well? I wonder. Utlimately, I think the power and effectiveness of LOST was its ability to draw in so many people with its mystery, and how much discussion it fostered outside of its running time. I'm not sure anything could live up to the expectations it created; the magic was that it was able to create and sustain those expectations for so long.

EDIT: I will say that there are plenty of writers out there who can create, sustain, and answer complex mysteries and plot questions, so I don't think the LOST model is something that should be followed. They caught lightning in a bottle.

[The Toyroom]

Just want to put this out there....Jacob had poor management skills....I'm just saying

[The Toyroom]

They didn't even come close to answering the mysteries they made such a big deal about in earlier episodes and seasons... not anywhere close. Not to say that it wasn't a satisfying tv experience... it was a lot of fun. But on the other hand, they really wrote themselves into a corner that they couldn't get out of.

That's fine, really. But don't pretend it was never a big deal to answer the questions when you made such a big deal of it all earlier.

Yeah much of the Dharma/Others/Ben/Widmore stuff has gone unanswered.
Hopefully the supposed additional 20 minutes on the DVD will answer these questions....If not maybe the Lost Encyclopedia that comes out in August will shed some light? But you really shouldn't have to go out beyond the actual TV series to get the answers IMO.

[The Toyroom]

the mysterious Hurley bird...Kate's black horse

I'm calling "Smoke Monster" on these....just to mess with their heads I think.

[YoungOnce]

Also, since all of the island stuff happened for real before the purgatory, we were left out in the cold regarding: the mysterious Hurley bird, who made the modern day Dharma-drops, Charlie and Claire on the helicopter vision, Kate's black horse, Walt's "specialness", why are the numbers the code for pushing the button, etc...

They didn't even come close to answering the mysteries they made such a big deal about in earlier episodes and seasons... not anywhere close. Not to say that it wasn't a satisfying tv experience... it was a lot of fun. But on the other hand, they really wrote themselves into a corner that they couldn't get out of.

That's fine, really. But don't pretend it was never a big deal to answer the questions when you made such a big deal of it all earlier.

[YoungOnce]

Ok... help me get this straight... really... help me get this straight...

Everything on the island really happened, and the flash-sideways/purgatory began after Jack died in the show's closing moments.

It seems the sideways/purgatory lives were all living their purgatorys concurrently, even though they all died at different points in their lives (Christian telling Jack in their dialogue, "some died before you, some after") It wasn't Jack's own private purgatory apparently since the sideways were all shown from different characters perspectives and they all became "aware" at different times.

[Nostalgiabuff]

I loved it. not sure I understand it yet but I thought it was a great way to end things. I am going to have to watch it again to try and digest it a bit more. also watch the Kimmel bit as it was way past my bedtime by the time the show ended.
I liked that they gave the characters a chance to say goodbye to each other, even those who had died throughout the run. I think the idea with those not there - Michael, Echo, Anna Lucia, was that they are still stuck the island in purgatory, for their sins.
I had predicted Jack would die and someone else would take over because I thougyht it strange he took over the 2nd to last episode. I just thought Sawyer would be the one to take over not Hurley.

[z3zep]

They left a ton of un-answered questions, but after "across the sea", I realized they weren't going to tell us the island answers. It seems that the protectors don't really know either, they just protect the island based on faith and a sense of duty. They make up the rules as they go.

Overall, the finale provided closure for the characters that we got to know and love/hate.

[The Toyroom]

Had some time to digest this a bit more....I think if there was more of an Island pay-off I would be more content with the Sideways/Purgatory/Afterlife ending they gave us.

I think I've enjoyed the Sideways stories more this year than the island stuff (which seemed to go nowhere as far as explanations go....even after "Across the Sea", there were more questions than answers). It looked like they were going to get the team back together and everyone was finding hapiness. But now it looks like a "cheat" to me, somewhat. The whole David Shephard storyline was unneccesary now IMO, as he didn't even exist.

I think the afterlife aspect is good closure for the characters and reunites loved ones and all that but it's not necessarily good closure for the island mythology as so much of that is still left out in the open with no answers at all....