LOST - The TV Show

[Alpinemaps]

In the interest of this post, and me being a huge fan of the TV show LOST, I thought I'd start a topic.

 

I loved the show.  I loved the mysteries.  I loved the answered (and unanswered) questions.  I loved the endings.  For me, LOST was one of the best televisions shows ever, and the ending was perfect. 

 

I also get that many people either didn't like it, didn't like the mysteries, or didn't like how the show ended.

 

So, let's chat.  I doubt I'll change any minds, but I'm always willing to talk about the show.

[exciter1]

I've probably forgot many of the details about it and I've only watched it all the way through once, when it was airing week-to-week.  Most series that I loved, I've watched more than once.  I really had a love/hate relationship with "Lost".  It was one of the best water cooler shows out there and some of the online campaigns, the DHarma videos and mystery stretched the boundaries of the budding social media craze.  We loved talking about it when it was on and yes, I was disappointed by the ending, but I also remember I almost stopped watching it during Season 2 when it wasn't going the direction I thought it should go.  That's when all the flashbacks and flash forwards started that made it all the more ridiculous.

 

I appreciate it for what it was, but I think it got lost, no pun intended.  I'm not really sure they had a good outline of where exactly the show was going when it all started, but I think they had the ending already in mind.  I just wish they would have tied things up a little tighter to make the end of the series more acceptable.

[Sauromosis]

At one point I was convinced it was going to be the greatest show ever.  Then the last season came.

 

Now, I was a mega fanatic, listened to the podcasts, visited all the sites, investigated all the mysteries (wish I had poured that energy into Lego back then).

 

But the show creators stopped caring about answering the mysteries.  And in their podcast years earlier they said that it was not all a religious purgatory but it was...those other people had died and were waiting for Jack to die so they could complete their ascension into whatever heaven or such that they were going to.  Bogus, stupid, religious ending.  Like everything Lindelof touches, it ends up being about religion, see Prometheus (Jesus was an engineer, google it).  I refuse to watch the Leftovers because I know it will be all about god.

 

And the thing about pulling the cork in the cave...really dumb.

 

It peaked with all the Faraday time travel stuff but then just unravelled completely.

[Pseudoty]

Sorry this is the only thing I ever saw that was related to Lost.

[donliu]

I just finally finish watching Lost on netflix. I really liked the show a lot. I got hooked from the very first episode. Now I'm on to x files since I haven't finish that series

[naf]

 

 

I appreciate it for what it was, but I think it got lost, no pun intended.  I'm not really sure they had a good outline of where exactly the show was going when it all started, but I think they had the ending already in mind.  I just wish they would have tied things up a little tighter to make the end of the series more acceptable.

 

I mostly agree with this, except I don't think they knew how the show was going to end, and by the end of season 2 I think they were making it up as they went along.  Entire mysteries and storylines were swept under the rug while the show focused more on how the characters lives coincidentally intermingled before and after the island.  I think this is why I dislike the show so much.  There was so much great mythology and mystery associated with the island, it should have been the primary focus of the show.  Instead, it seems like it's just a backdrop in order to tell a convoluted story about these people's pasts.

 

And I'll come clean and say I was a huge LOST fanboy during most of the show.  I defended it even though I knew the show was going downhill, I posted my theories on forums and had fun reading about other people's theories.  Some of the characters on the show I still think are great.  Ben Linus is one of the greatest characters to ever grace my TV.  The visuals are great.  To me, it feels like 2-3 different shows that got mashed into one without any real focus.

[shady225]

LOST is the best show ever. Period!

[naf]

As a side note, my wife and I are in the middle of watching Once Upon a Time.  The showrunners are 2 writers that were on LOST, and the show feels like a carbon copy of it but with fairy tale characters.  They even made a point to use LOST actors (Emilie de Ravin and Jorge Garcia is in it), and lots of lost references (the numbers are everywhere, whenever someone is eating candy it's a damn Apollo bar, etc).  The show is ok so far, but the LOST stuff is distracting.

[Sauromosis]

For anyone bitter about Lost like me, embrace Game of Thrones.  It truly IS the greatest show of all time.

[exciter1]

I honestly believe those who watch "Lost" on Netflix, blu-ray, DVD or whatever media will never get the full effect of what it was like to watch the show from week-to-week.  That can be good, or that can be bad.  There are a few shows out there that are serial and designed in that manner and this was one of them.

 

When "Lost" ended, I didn't feel the same way about it as I did with "Breaking Bad" or "Battlestar Galactica". I finished those and immediately started watching them again the following week to see what I missed and go through the whole experience again.

 

I also tried to make sense of "The Matrix: Reloaded" and theorized about it.  You see where that got me.

[naf]

I consider Breaking Bad to be one of the greatest shows ever.  Great pacing, excellent writing, superb acting, that show has it all.

 

Battlestar Galactica is great, but suffers from some plot holes and pacing issues in later seasons.  Also suffers from bad ending syndrome, although the ending has sort of grown on me with repeat viewings.

 

Game of Thrones is great, but of course I'm probably extremely biased because I love the book series so much.

 

LOST still blows

[Alpinemaps]

I, too, was a big fan of the show.  I was invested from the first episode.  Immediately hooked.

 

I watched it week-to-week, as it aired, from beginning to end.  My wife didn't get into it until season 3.  The summer before, she asked to put on the season 1 discs, and she tore through that in a week.  Same with season 2.  It was difficult for her to go to a weekly format, after the DVD way of doing it.  It was definitely a different experience for her than it was for me.

 

I listened to the podcasts.  I listened to the fan podcasts.  I really enjoyed all of the "extras."  I even went to the panels at Comic Con (and even ended up asking the creators a question at one of them).

 

Show creators are going to lie.  They want you to watch.  They don't want you guessing what they've got planned.  So, yeah, even if they say it wasn't anything religious or afterlife, and it ends up being that way - I completely believe their in their right to do that.

 

The last season was 'odd' but then again, so was the entire show.  I spent that entire last season trying to figure out WTF was happening.

 

I know a lot of people feel like the show cheated, and that they swept mysteries under the rug, left unanswered questions, etc.  But, here's the deal for me - that's life.  Life is really like that.  In life, you don't get the answers to all of your questions.  You don't know what happened to that cutie you had a crush on in the 4th grade.  You don't know what happened to the guy you pissed off in line the other day.  Things don't get resolved.  They don't get put together with an nice little bow on it.  I had never seen a TV show do that before.  And I really enjoyed that.

 

As for the ending - I was cool with the ending.  That was their destiny.  That was where they were going to end up.

 

Ben was incredible.  Fantastic character.  I loved him.  Desmond was my other favorite.  The Constant was one of my favorite episodes of the show (where Des contacts Penny at the end).

 

The music was an incredible part of the show.  Michael Giacchino wrote some incredible, moving pieces of music.

 

And yes, I loved all the LOST bits in This is 40.  That was awesome.

[naf]

 

You don't know what happened to that cutie you had a crush on in the 4th grade. 

 

 

www.facebook.com 

[exciter1]

You don't know what happened to that cutie you had a crush on in the 4th grade. 

 

 

www.facebook.com 

 

...and sometimes you were better off not knowing.

[naf]

Yes, it's true that most mysteries in your life will go unsolved, and that you don't always get to know everything.  But in the context of a show, or a piece of literature, leaving major mysteries hanging makes a viewer or reader question why they invested so much time in it for so little reward.  I think the most jarring thing for me is how the show went from being sci-fi/horror (hatch, dharma, smoke monster) to totally spiritual (jacob is god/jesus, smoke monster is the devil, have to cork pool of evil water).

[TheOrcKing]

I refuse to watch the Leftovers because I know it will be all about god.

Leftovers is just depressing and filled with 'the usual'.

You don't know what happened to that cutie you had a crush on in the 4th grade.

www.facebook.com 

...and sometimes you were better off not knowing.

Like she had a sex change and now answers to "Peter". Oh, and she still has a better thowing arm than you.

[fuzzy_bricks]

I know a lot of people feel like the show cheated, and that they swept mysteries under the rug, left unanswered questions, etc.  But, here's the deal for me - that's life.  Life is really like that.  In life, you don't get the answers to all of your questions.  You don't know what happened to that cutie you had a crush on in the 4th grade.  You don't know what happened to the guy you pissed off in line the other day.  Things don't get resolved.  They don't get put together with an nice little bow on it.  I had never seen a TV show do that before.  And I really enjoyed that.

 

As for the ending - I was cool with the ending.  That was their destiny.  That was where they were going to end up.

I haven't watched one episode of Lost, but I'm going to go against the grain on this.  I want closure.  I want answers.  For my entertainment purposes, I want things to wrapped up neatly.

The Shield was mentioned in the complaint thread, while the finale, and the episode leading up to it, was depressing there was closure and the characters atoned for their actions.

Breaking Bad was wrapped up nicely, I don't care where Jesse was going, just that he got away.

The Dark Knight Rises, I realize this movie had some issues and people had issues with the ending, but I liked the ending.  Why shouldn't Batman get to run off with Catwoman, he deserves a break.

24, just wrapped up another season, probably the last one.  While I would like to see Jack catch a break, we have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen to him.

 

While I realize I'm probably in the minority, if I invest time to watch a show/movie I want closure.

[rastascoob]

Has anyone ever been happy with how one of their favorite shows ended? I recently finished Dexter on Netflix (it took me almost 2 years to finish the last season because I was no longer into it but wanted to finish it out) and was not at all impressed with it's ending. I was not that impressed by the Lost ending either but can see why they chose that way. 

[TheDarkness]

When it first came out I had to watch it the day I could acquire it. I loved the pilot ep and thought the first season was pretty strong as was the second. The third started to get the wobbles and whilst I watched it still and read up a lot the show continued to throw up more questions, leaving more unanswered. I am sure sometimes they were just making it up as they went along, forcing coincidental meet ups in back stories. I enjoyed the Faraday side of the story as it felt like they'd worked things out better. The flash forwards I didn't find interesting really at all and the last season I lost a lot of interest in the religious connotations. I thought the fans deserved more answers than they got and the final scene was just a cop out.

Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

[Alpinemaps]

While I realize I'm probably in the minority, if I invest time to watch a show/movie I want closure.

Depends on your definition of closure? I thought the show had plenty of closure. Others not so much.

[fuzzy_bricks]

Depends on your definition of closure? I thought the show had plenty of closure. Others not so much.

Sure, everything is subjective, but with everything I've heard there wasn't enough for most people regarding Lost.  Maybe they are just a vocal minority though.

[feed]

Started really well with the first couple of seasons being excellent, went downhill a bit (writers