Before Lost's finale last night, a two-hour retrospective aired in which the whole show was recapped, with interviews of the cast and creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. The word groundbreaking was used frequently to describe Lost's first year on air. I think it's sad that a show is bold when have of its episode is subtitled and that's considered challenging for American audiences.
But I will say Lost had the balls to go wherever they pleased and not look back with any hesitation. Does the show make sense? Not in the least bit. We've learned what the island is, we've learned what Jacob was supposed to do, we learned what the Smoke Monster's deal was...yet we never learned what those damn numbers were, we never learned why Walt and Aaron were so important...indeed, we didn't learn much, and the answers they did give us were a mite disappointing.
I am disappointed Lost never answered all these questions? No, I can't say I am. The writers clearly had plans for some things and improvised with most of it, and the answers to what the whispers were and who the Adam & Eve skeletons were were not only letdowns, but killed the mythology of everything. I think Lost gets replay value out of going back and studying what happened and deducing your own theories. Honestly, what you assumed happened will be the only answer that satisfies you. Cuse and Lindelof proved that if they answered everything it ruin the show more then it even has.
This hasn't been much of a review of the series at all, but I am making the safe assumption that if you decided to read this, you know what Lost is all about. Was the finale ultimately satisfying? I guess so. It was nice to see all the characters come together and have one last moment, and the bookend of the show was also a very well-executed moment. I did find the ultimate resolution of the flash-sideways universe a little hokey, though, even by Lost's standards. The show has been deeply rooted in spirituality versus science, and it seems spirituality wins out, though thankfully Cuse and Lindelof never explicitly state if the characters are going to heaven or not. Some of them I would assume have earned their ticket to hell, but they are in the melting pot church of religious ideals, and that is a nice message to send out. Religion only works if they can all agree to live together, but since that is against most of the basic tenants of religions, it'll never work.
Lots of fans and the creators themselves say the show has never been about the mysteries, it's been about the characters. Well, I agree, in the first three seasons that is. Season Four onwards focuses largely on the island, the mythology, and while the characters are wrapped up in flash-forwards, time travel, and flash-sideways (I mean purgatory) the show lost its character-driven focus, especially in the action packed Season Five. Six was an attempt to return to that, and while it was nice to see the Lost survivors living out a life somewhat happier then their former ones, and wasn't really the same until they realized that this reality was false.
To Lost's credit, the ending is going to be examined and debated for a while, until the dust settles and a new show rears its head. I remember the creators stating at the beginning of the season that they had to make the ending memorable. What do you remember about Six Feet Under's last season? The Sopranos? The ending of course. You barely remember what went down in those final seasons, you just remember how satisfied or unsatisfied you were when the story ended (abruptly, in one case). Well, everyone is going to remember this finale.
Me? I'm in the middle. I've read comments from the people who love it, I've read comments from the people who hate it. There was no way they were going to create a finale that was going to satisfy everyone anyways, so why not be as polarizing as you can be? I will say this about Lost: it is the ultimate example of people having creative freedom to do what they want. People call the show stupid, and yeah, I agree that some ridiculously crazy and asinine things happen on the show. But these were people who took the show wherever they wanted, and I admire them for that. It's good to have something like this every once in awhile; a show that doesn't take itself too seriously and instead is willing to embrace and go places television hasn't gone and probably will never go again.
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