Lost Series Finale

Yeah I know I’m a bit late for a ‘what I thought of the Lost finale’ post but I got other stuff to do too.

Anyways, I’ve been an avid viewer of Lost since it started and I’ve enjoyed probably about 80% of the episodes and recruited a lot of people to watch it. In the end I was disappointed with the last season. But not by the finale. I think it worked and wrapped up the series, as changed by the events in the past couple seasons, reasonably.

Minor Spoilers — stop if you haven’t watched and plan to

What didn’t I like about the last season then? I enjoyed the sideways-arc… it kept me guessing. I enjoyed the wrapping up of many of the character arcs. That was all good. What I did not like was the whole ‘fantasy element’ and more than that it was just fantasy that it was so vague and bland. I had hoped up until the last couple seasons that there might be a cool sci-fi kind of explanation behind everything. The ‘light’ was, as others have noted, a weak way to wrap up loose ends. There was one episode in particular that made me feel like I’d wasted years on the series. That’s disappointing.

Anways, I got over it. And in the end I don’t feel I wasted my time watching Lost. It was a good show throughout and had dozens of memorable moments. And there’s not a lot of series that you can get such a cross-section of the population watching it and talking about it. I’ve had numerous discussions with my parents over specific episodes and that hasn’t happened a lot.

What I think it did well was to create such interesting characters that viewers who might normally be turned off by a sci-fi/fantasy storyline watched it, and eagerly. I think if people knew ahead of time how it would end many probably would not have watched it. And they would have missed out on a great experience. The backstories of most characters was worth the cost of admission and this is what I think most people watched for. Sure all the mysteries were good hooks and there was a constant ‘how weird will this get’ vibe with the show but I was turning on the television to find out what happened to Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest.

Some other interesting blog-thoughts on the Lost Finale:

• This is from Peter Watts. After reading it I was less happy with the ending — he brings up several well deserved criticisms and a few things I had forgotten lost in past seasons
• Theresa Deluci blogging at Tor.com