Lost

[Park Life 71]

The finale was poor mainly cause they turned off the quantum field generator before the fight.

[Ayatollah Hermione 13869]

The finale was poor mainly cause they turned off the quantum field generator before the fight.

 

By the time the fight rolled around, Locke/MiB couldn't become the smoke anyway. Pulling the cork out made him mortal.

[Park Life 71]

The finale was poor mainly cause they turned off the quantum field generator before the fight.

 

By the time the fight rolled around, Locke/MiB couldn't become the smoke anyway. Pulling the cork out made him mortal.

 

It's what I said, "turned off the quantum field generator..." .

[Cid_MCDP 0]

The smartest thing the producers of ABC's Lost did, other than generating such an interesting show and series pilot in the first place, was to decide, a few years ago, to end the series in May 2010. That simple yet bold decision allowed the writers to pace, to focus on what was important, to make the most meaningful use of the time they had left.

 

On the one hand, all that did was turn Lost from an ambitious weekly TV series into an even more ambitious mega-TV miniseries. On the other hand, it also turned the TV series into a metaphor for its central message, and for the journey of its Lost protagonist. For the show's writers, for us viewers, and for Jack Shephard, the lesson was the same: It's a temporary journey, so enjoy the ride — and embrace each other.

 

Instead of giving us one ending — if you haven't watched the finale yet, you should stop reading here — writer-producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse gave us two, one for each alternate storyline. This is where, if you weren't following the show, or even if you were, you could easily get lost with Lost. But basically, this past season had us watching two stories at once.

 

In one, our heroes were on the island, fighting to return home and also fighting the island's evil force, who had taken the shape of one of their own. In the other storyline, seemingly triggered by a nuclear event on the island, the ill-fated Oceanic passenger jet had never crashed on the island, and we saw what the passengers' lives would have been like without the crash, or the island. Except that their lives were different somehow, and so were the details.

 

Enough of that. You either buy into it or you don't. In the expanded 2 1/2-hour finale, all the people in that alternate existence eventually found one another, giving viewers the satisfaction of one mini-reunion after another. Off the island, without the island, these people touched each other — often literally — and their memories of the island came flooding back to them. So did a feeling of peace.

 

The last person it happened to was Jack, who got that rush of memory when he touched his father's coffin — the coffin he had transported back from Australia. Jack, played by Matthew Fox, opened the lid, and the coffin was empty. But suddenly, next to him, stood his father, played by John Terry, and the biggest question posed by Lost was answered.

 

And then we got those two endings, played out simultaneously.

 

One ending — the one back on the island, where Jack had restored the life force to the island but was losing his own — was purely visual. It echoed, in reverse, the powerful opening of the series, returning Jack to the bamboo field where he had first regained consciousness after the plane crash. Lost the series had begun with a close-up shot of Jack's eyeball opening. Its final image, last night, was of that same eye closing as Jack died, having accomplished his mission and found his purpose.

 

But the other ending of Lost was purely verbal, returning to one of the show's most resonant and recurrent themes — father-son issues. When Jack's dead dad emerged from that coffin, he explained that it wasn't an alternate timeline at all, but a timeless line, a limbo, a gathering place. And Jack's death in the "real" world, on the island, enabled the eventual happy reunion of everyone off the island.

 

Yes, it was a little Twilight Zone-y. And as series finales go, the ending of Lost was not as outrageous as that of St. Elsewhere, as defiantly open-ended as the one for The Sopranos, as aggressively complete as Six Feet Under's or as utterly perfect as Newhart's.

 

But its two endings, together, were very satisfying — and the final advice from Jack's dad to Jack should be remembered in the context of watching television, too:

 

"The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people," father tells son. "You needed all of them, and they needed you."

 

"For what?" Jack asked.

 

"To remember, and to let go," his father replied.

 

Exactly. Remember Lost, because its type is not returning to TV anytime soon, if at all. But also, as the father figure says, let go. Don't nitpick over the missing details, the forgotten Walts, the unexplained polar bears. Just say so long, and thanks for all the fish. Or maybe just thanks.

 

Its not a case of anyone being superior to anyone else, its just the way we are wired with different mindsets.

 

Some people need to know how a magic trick works, others just enjoy the trick.

 

Its a bit harsh that most of the criticism on here over the last day has come from people who didnt even stay til the end.

 

 

The problem with "not nitpicking over forgotten Walts, etc." is that a lot of those aforementioned "missing details" are why we got interested in the show to begin with.

 

That being said, I'm over it. If you enjoyed the last two seasons and the finale, then kudos to you (and by you, I mean anyone in the thread who dug the ending- not necessarily you, CT). I'm not one of those vindictive turds that tries to ruin it for everyone else. It's not like after being a total fanatic for seasons 1-4 I suddenly decided to start hating the show- I was just disappointed in the drop off in writing quality and the direction they decided to take the show. I kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, they'd reel it back in and somehow it'd all make a lot of sense and I'd end up with a lot of egg on my face for dissing the past two seasons, and trust me when I say nothing would have made me happier than to watch a cool finale and go, "Oh shit- I've got to go back and watch seasons 5 and 6 again! I totally whiffed it!"

 

And as far as American dramas- Damages, True Blood, Rescue Me, and Dexter have all kept my interest for more than one season. Take it for what it's worth.

[Guest alex]

I said it was shit all along.

[Guest alex]

Having read the Guardian site it seems that Lost really is a bit shit, with a cop out ending. Glad I trusted my instincts and gave up when I did - they should have left it as remake of Forbidden Planet, which it was in the first series.

And that was a remake of The Tempest

[Ayatollah Hermione 13869]

The smartest thing the producers of ABC's Lost did, other than generating such an interesting show and series pilot in the first place, was to decide, a few years ago, to end the series in May 2010. That simple yet bold decision allowed the writers to pace, to focus on what was important, to make the most meaningful use of the time they had left.

 

On the one hand, all that did was turn Lost from an ambitious weekly TV series into an even more ambitious mega-TV miniseries. On the other hand, it also turned the TV series into a metaphor for its central message, and for the journey of its Lost protagonist. For the show's writers, for us viewers, and for Jack Shephard, the lesson was the same: It's a temporary journey, so enjoy the ride — and embrace each other.

 

Instead of giving us one ending — if you haven't watched the finale yet, you should stop reading here — writer-producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse gave us two, one for each alternate storyline. This is where, if you weren't following the show, or even if you were, you could easily get lost with Lost. But basically, this past season had us watching two stories at once.

 

In one, our heroes were on the island, fighting to return home and also fighting the island's evil force, who had taken the shape of one of their own. In the other storyline, seemingly triggered by a nuclear event on the island, the ill-fated Oceanic passenger jet had never crashed on the island, and we saw what the passengers' lives would have been like without the crash, or the island. Except that their lives were different somehow, and so were the details.

 

Enough of that. You either buy into it or you don't. In the expanded 2 1/2-hour finale, all the people in that alternate existence eventually found one another, giving viewers the satisfaction of one mini-reunion after another. Off the island, without the island, these people touched each other — often literally — and their memories of the island came flooding back to them. So did a feeling of peace.

 

The last person it happened to was Jack, who got that rush of memory when he touched his father's coffin — the coffin he had transported back from Australia. Jack, played by Matthew Fox, opened the lid, and the coffin was empty. But suddenly, next to him, stood his father, played by John Terry, and the biggest question posed by Lost was answered.

 

And then we got those two endings, played out simultaneously.

 

One ending — the one back on the island, where Jack had restored the life force to the island but was losing his own — was purely visual. It echoed, in reverse, the powerful opening of the series, returning Jack to the bamboo field where he had first regained consciousness after the plane crash. Lost the series had begun with a close-up shot of Jack's eyeball opening. Its final image, last night, was of that same eye closing as Jack died, having accomplished his mission and found his purpose.

 

But the other ending of Lost was purely verbal, returning to one of the show's most resonant and recurrent themes — father-son issues. When Jack's dead dad emerged from that coffin, he explained that it wasn't an alternate timeline at all, but a timeless line, a limbo, a gathering place. And Jack's death in the "real" world, on the island, enabled the eventual happy reunion of everyone off the island.

 

Yes, it was a little Twilight Zone-y. And as series finales go, the ending of Lost was not as outrageous as that of St. Elsewhere, as defiantly open-ended as the one for The Sopranos, as aggressively complete as Six Feet Under's or as utterly perfect as Newhart's.

 

But its two endings, together, were very satisfying — and the final advice from Jack's dad to Jack should be remembered in the context of watching television, too:

 

"The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people," father tells son. "You needed all of them, and they needed you."

 

"For what?" Jack asked.

 

"To remember, and to let go," his father replied.

 

Exactly. Remember Lost, because its type is not returning to TV anytime soon, if at all. But also, as the father figure says, let go. Don't nitpick over the missing details, the forgotten Walts, the unexplained polar bears. Just say so long, and thanks for all the fish. Or maybe just thanks.

 

Its not a case of anyone being superior to anyone else, its just the way we are wired with different mindsets.

 

Some people need to know how a magic trick works, others just enjoy the trick.

 

Its a bit harsh that most of the criticism on here over the last day has come from people who didnt even stay til the end.

 

 

The problem with "not nitpicking over forgotten Walts, etc." is that a lot of those aforementioned "missing details" are why we got interested in the show to begin with.

 

That being said, I'm over it. If you enjoyed the last two seasons and the finale, then kudos to you (and by you, I mean anyone in the thread who dug the ending- not necessarily you, CT). I'm not one of those vindictive turds that tries to ruin it for everyone else. It's not like after being a total fanatic for seasons 1-4 I suddenly decided to start hating the show- I was just disappointed in the drop off in writing quality and the direction they decided to take the show. I kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, they'd reel it back in and somehow it'd all make a lot of sense and I'd end up with a lot of egg on my face for dissing the past two seasons, and trust me when I say nothing would have made me happier than to watch a cool finale and go, "Oh shit- I've got to go back and watch seasons 5 and 6 again! I totally whiffed it!"

 

And as far as American dramas- Damages, True Blood, Rescue Me, and Dexter have all kept my interest for more than one season. Take it for what it's worth.

 

As an aside, have you been watching V at all? I know it's been on for a bit over here but with it finished in your neck of the woods, how was it? I don't want to start watching it if it's going to have a dodgy ending.

[Christmas Tree 4725]

V is a repeat from the 80's so it's already on record how it ends if you want to google it.

[Ayatollah Hermione 13869]

V is a repeat from the 80's so it's already on record how it ends if you want to google it.

 

I'm well aware of that but as far as I know, its a fairly big cash cow so I wouldn't be surprised to see a different ending to keep it going a bit longer than the original's 2 series.

[Guest alex]

V is a repeat from the 80's so it's already on record how it ends if you want to google it.

He was asking if the ending was good, not how it ends.

[Cid_MCDP 0]

The smartest thing the producers of ABC's Lost did, other than generating such an interesting show and series pilot in the first place, was to decide, a few years ago, to end the series in May 2010. That simple yet bold decision allowed the writers to pace, to focus on what was important, to make the most meaningful use of the time they had left.

 

On the one hand, all that did was turn Lost from an ambitious weekly TV series into an even more ambitious mega-TV miniseries. On the other hand, it also turned the TV series into a metaphor for its central message, and for the journey of its Lost protagonist. For the show's writers, for us viewers, and for Jack Shephard, the lesson was the same: It's a temporary journey, so enjoy the ride — and embrace each other.

 

Instead of giving us one ending — if you haven't watched the finale yet, you should stop reading here — writer-producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse gave us two, one for each alternate storyline. This is where, if you weren't following the show, or even if you were, you could easily get lost with Lost. But basically, this past season had us watching two stories at once.

 

In one, our heroes were on the island, fighting to return home and also fighting the island's evil force, who had taken the shape of one of their own. In the other storyline, seemingly triggered by a nuclear event on the island, the ill-fated Oceanic passenger jet had never crashed on the island, and we saw what the passengers' lives would have been like without the crash, or the island. Except that their lives were different somehow, and so were the details.

 

Enough of that. You either buy into it or you don't. In the expanded 2 1/2-hour finale, all the people in that alternate existence eventually found one another, giving viewers the satisfaction of one mini-reunion after another. Off the island, without the island, these people touched each other — often literally — and their memories of the island came flooding back to them. So did a feeling of peace.

 

The last person it happened to was Jack, who got that rush of memory when he touched his father's coffin — the coffin he had transported back from Australia. Jack, played by Matthew Fox, opened the lid, and the coffin was empty. But suddenly, next to him, stood his father, played by John Terry, and the biggest question posed by Lost was answered.

 

And then we got those two endings, played out simultaneously.

 

One ending — the one back on the island, where Jack had restored the life force to the island but was losing his own — was purely visual. It echoed, in reverse, the powerful opening of the series, returning Jack to the bamboo field where he had first regained consciousness after the plane crash. Lost the series had begun with a close-up shot of Jack's eyeball opening. Its final image, last night, was of that same eye closing as Jack died, having accomplished his mission and found his purpose.

 

But the other ending of Lost was purely verbal, returning to one of the show's most resonant and recurrent themes — father-son issues. When Jack's dead dad emerged from that coffin, he explained that it wasn't an alternate timeline at all, but a timeless line, a limbo, a gathering place. And Jack's death in the "real" world, on the island, enabled the eventual happy reunion of everyone off the island.

 

Yes, it was a little Twilight Zone-y. And as series finales go, the ending of Lost was not as outrageous as that of St. Elsewhere, as defiantly open-ended as the one for The Sopranos, as aggressively complete as Six Feet Under's or as utterly perfect as Newhart's.

 

But its two endings, together, were very satisfying — and the final advice from Jack's dad to Jack should be remembered in the context of watching television, too:

 

"The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people," father tells son. "You needed all of them, and they needed you."

 

"For what?" Jack asked.

 

"To remember, and to let go," his father replied.

 

Exactly. Remember Lost, because its type is not returning to TV anytime soon, if at all. But also, as the father figure says, let go. Don't nitpick over the missing details, the forgotten Walts, the unexplained polar bears. Just say so long, and thanks for all the fish. Or maybe just thanks.

 

Its not a case of anyone being superior to anyone else, its just the way we are wired with different mindsets.

 

Some people need to know how a magic trick works, others just enjoy the trick.

 

Its a bit harsh that most of the criticism on here over the last day has come from people who didnt even stay til the end.

 

 

The problem with "not nitpicking over forgotten Walts, etc." is that a lot of those aforementioned "missing details" are why we got interested in the show to begin with.

 

That being said, I'm over it. If you enjoyed the last two seasons and the finale, then kudos to you (and by you, I mean anyone in the thread who dug the ending- not necessarily you, CT). I'm not one of those vindictive turds that tries to ruin it for everyone else. It's not like after being a total fanatic for seasons 1-4 I suddenly decided to start hating the show- I was just disappointed in the drop off in writing quality and the direction they decided to take the show. I kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, they'd reel it back in and somehow it'd all make a lot of sense and I'd end up with a lot of egg on my face for dissing the past two seasons, and trust me when I say nothing would have made me happier than to watch a cool finale and go, "Oh shit- I've got to go back and watch seasons 5 and 6 again! I totally whiffed it!"

 

And as far as American dramas- Damages, True Blood, Rescue Me, and Dexter have all kept my interest for more than one season. Take it for what it's worth.

 

As an aside, have you been watching V at all? I know it's been on for a bit over here but with it finished in your neck of the woods, how was it? I don't want to start watching it if it's going to have a dodgy ending.

 

I really haven't man, I tried getting into it when they had that little 4 episode mini-series or whatever awhile back, but the fucking green screens of the space ship interiors are sooooo bad, it just totally takes me out of the moment every time I try and watch. My wife was DVRing it for awhile, but I don't think she's watched it for the past month or so. I've seen episodes here and there watching them with her, and I just couldn't really get into it. Seemed like a whole lot of going back and forth from the planet to the ships kinda like how on LOST they were always walking to the beach from the jungle or vice versa.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Cid_MCDP

[Gemmill 44886]

Lad at work who's been daft about it all the way through was thoroughly disappointed by the finale. Reckons it was a complete shambles and that it didn't hang together at all. Sounds about right. The writers should never work again imo.

[ewerk 30612]

As a LOST fan, I'd assume you'd know that the purgatory theory has been debunked by JJ and the show's producers on multiple occasions.

 

But the island wasn't purgatory.

[Renton 21627]

This thread is purgatory.

[Holden McGroin 6587]

I said it was shit all along.

 

The first few seasons were excellent.

 

I think the problem with Lost is that everything came down to the "final answer" - which sadly, no matter what they did wouldn't satisfy all of the questions. This was mainly due to the latter seasons getting out of hand.

[Guest alex]

I said it was shit all along.

 

The first few seasons were excellent.

 

I watched about 3 or 4 episodes and I thought it was obvious what they were doing. I.e. allude to something mystic in lieu of a decent storyline. Which would have been fine if I thought it was entertaining, but I wasn't particularly impressed and you just knew it would be dragged out to fuck.

Edited May 25, 2010 by alex

[Holden McGroin 6587]

As a LOST fan, I'd assume you'd know that the purgatory theory has been debunked by JJ and the show's producers on multiple occasions.

 

But the island wasn't purgatory.

 

What was the island then?

[Ayatollah Hermione 13869]

As a LOST fan, I'd assume you'd know that the purgatory theory has been debunked by JJ and the show's producers on multiple occasions.

 

But the island wasn't purgatory.

 

What was the island then?

 

A mystical island. Everything on the island was real.

[ewerk 30612]

As a LOST fan, I'd assume you'd know that the purgatory theory has been debunked by JJ and the show's producers on multiple occasions.

 

But the island wasn't purgatory.

 

What was the island then?

 

The island was real, it existed in the real world. It was only the alternative timeline that was purgatory.

[Guest alex]

The writers might say that but as Roland Barthes said "To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text."

[Andrew 4754]

The smartest thing the producers of ABC's Lost did, other than generating such an interesting show and series pilot in the first place, was to decide, a few years ago, to end the series in May 2010. That simple yet bold decision allowed the writers to pace, to focus on what was important, to make the most meaningful use of the time they had left.

 

what a load of crap, wasnt the series planned from creation to be 3-4 seasons long but following the viewing figures from years 1-2 the network decided to extend it resulting in the whole load of random crap getting pulled out of the writers arses

[Happy Face 29]

[Jusoda Kid 1]

Some of the posts in the NO thread are tremendous

 

Can see the Samaritans being busy over the next few weeks.

[Holden McGroin 6587]

As a LOST fan, I'd assume you'd know that the purgatory theory has been debunked by JJ and the show's producers on multiple occasions.

 

But the island wasn't purgatory.

 

What was the island then?

 

The island was real, it existed in the real world. It was only the alternative timeline that was purgatory.

 

So they all died when the bomb went off (when Juliette died on the Island) ?

[Holden McGroin 6587]

As a LOST fan, I'd assume you'd know that the purgatory theory has been debunked by JJ and the show's producers on multiple occasions.

 

But the island wasn't purgatory.

 

What was the island then?

 

The island was real, it existed in the real world. It was only the alternative timeline that was purgatory.

 

So they all died when the bomb went off (when Juliette died on the Island) ?