For the final episode of “The Transmission,” we want to take a special, wistful look back on the last six years of “LOST.” So much has happened since the moment Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on that mysterious island on September 22, 2004… both on the show, and in the “LOST” fan community. As far as “LOST” is concerned, we’d love to to get your pick for your favorite episode of all time. You could also tell us about your favorite character, or your favorite story twist. There are probably too many great moments to count. But we’re also curious to learn what “LOST” has meant to you. Simply top-notch television? A much needed escape? An excuse to connect with friends, or make new ones?
Tell us your “LOST” story. You can comment below, e-mail us at lost@hawaiiup.com, or call the LOSTLine at (815) 310-0808. We hope to release our podcast on June 27. But we may take longer than expected to collect ourselves!
@ Embie just check Ryan out on Twitter. he’s making movies like crazy on his new Iphone. pretty cool. his Twitter handle is ‘hawaii.’ and Jen, appropriately enough, is ‘mrshawaii.’
@ aaron R – Ah, twitter. I’ve been trying to avoid more tech obsessions. Will think on that.
@ aaron r & embie – the island as a source of power, or seat of power seems very consistent since the first episode.
that we saw a personification of the dark side of the ‘force’ with MIB and i suppose JACK/HURLEY?JACOB as the light side of the force seems consistent in narrative story telling.
its a bit like Lord of the Rings in which evil is without shape, slowly seeking a way back to form itself.
and i wonder what the impact would have been if Titus Weliver had played MIB for all of season 6? i love terry o’quinn, but wonder what that would have been like to see someone else in that role.
i agree that the Producers gave us enough rope to hang ourselves with in terms of theorizing & expectations. and its interesting how they structured everything to hold the cards so close to the vest until literally the very end.
so MIB is the black smoke & everything ODD that happened on the island. well, what the **** was the Hurley-Bird?
i kinda forgot about those scenes until my spotting refresh/rewatch.
it fit with the idea of ANIMISM that was referenced on the show. the idea of totem animals & conscousness in all things, animals, rocks, plants…black smoke. its interesting as an idea, and maybe never needed to be defined/tied together.
again, i think its one of those things where our own ideas & conclusions would likely be stronger & more interesting then the reveal.
also, i’ve read about the Producers loved of THE PRISONER (the short run british tv series). it seems the smoke was an homage to the Rovers in that series. maybe the smoke was their interpretation of that idea.
i have become interested in Twin Peaks as a result of this series & am thinking about delving into that. my understanding is that the first season raised so many interesting ideas that it never was able to support on the tail end. anyone a fan of that show? any advice/opinions?
@ chris in seattle it sounds like we’re on the same track. The Island is really the source of power, and that power is used to take over the bodies/spirits of people who have died when The Island needs to communicate in some way. there’s still some inconsistent story lines around all that, but it makes a kind of sense. i think MIB wasn’t really a bad guy. he became a tool, possibly for evil, after he had died.
but is The Island also the light side of the force? what gave Jacob his power? i don’t remember being offered any ideas about another force that needed to be dealt with. well, except for The Island holding something back, like a plug.
it’ll never end, will it?
I would also hope that there is a more layered explanation to the myriad mysteries and evil-doings, rather than simply tacking it all onto one corrupted individual who was wronged as a child ~ when did MIB supposedly surrender his free-will to choose good (when he died?), or did that ever happen? And as we’ve all noted, Jacob never seemed fully ‘good’ even if his end plan was to ‘save the island’ ~ for instance, Jack and Hurley both seemed a heck of a lot kinder
Thanx for the discussion ~ I like following along with your analysis ~
Sometimes I feel like Tevia in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ when he came into the public square where men were discussing their theories and said “you’re right” to the Rabbi, as well as to another scholar, and when challenged by a third man that they could not BOTH be right, he answered “You’re ALSO right!”
@ greenberry – hahaha, now your’re sounding like me greenberry. WAY too many mysteries left unanswered with WAY too few explanations. But I LOVE the discussion. Also, always the diplomat. 🙂
folks, it really feels like we have all that we’re going to get. now it’s up to us to try to make something of it. i would not be at all surprised if, in some meeting somewhere, someone pointed out that there are people out there who spend a lot of time talking about plot points of Lost, and it was decided, to some degree, to construct things so as to excite the aforementioned people. like you and me. and if they did, i guess it worked.
i think both Jacob and MIB, as well as probably their ‘mother’, started out as fairly regular people – one can expect that they had their flaws – who were brought to The Island by forces unknown, in order to serve The Island when the time came. this kind of goes back to the idea about Sayid being ‘prepared’ for future use.
or maybe not…
I know it has been a long time but I must say I still don’t know what to think about Lost…
I started getting interested by this show during season 2, the hatch, the pearl, Eko, the food drop, the “lost experience” and the Valenzetti Equation (and the first book by Gary Troop… BEFORE Bad Twin, with all of its copy bought by Hanzo). Hanzo (the great man who said “From the dawn of our species, Man has been blessed with curiosity” quoted by Tom during the first “formal” meeting with the Others…
And yet… all of this. All the first three seasons (I will participate to the rewatch done by those who wish to do it (apparently Jay and Jack will)) will seem to us very very strange in the grand scheme of the show.
I just watched the free Itunes video that sum up season1, season2 and season3… Though it is stated that they were brought for a purpose and that their life where Lost before coming to the Island. I can understand that the grand scheme has been planned since the beginning yet there are so many things that happened on the Island and now seem so disconnected! Walt being the most prominent part of it… His powers, his captivity, his apparitions… none of that makes any sense now!
Even the “we have to go back” doesn’t make sense… First time Jack said it he said “Every Friday night I, I fly from LA to Tokyo or, Singapore, Sydney” yet two seasons later we learn that John convinced him the day he died to go back and Jack’s go to the funeral the next week… So he only had 2 weekends top! How did he manage to change the shape of his apartment (with the maps and everything) that much in one week!
Well… I don’t want to sound too “fanboy” picking at every “detail” but I say again that something that happened during the first 3seasons just don’t make sense anymore (Desmond… I am looking at you and Claire and Aaron in a helicopter or speaking of helicopter: Naomi and your picture of Des and Penny!).
Ok I stop now… I loved this blog! I thank all of you and Ryan and Jen especially of course.
ps: I might move to Kentucky next year… is it any good?
And I will be in Washington, DC in two weeks for those of you that would like to has a chat about Lost.
@Yann – I am still confused about the Desmond/Charlie issue as well. Some people think he was lying about the helicopter, not sure what I think. I do know that Desmond did try to take Charlie’s place and he did try to save him. But Charlie wouldn’t let himself be saved due to that vision. I do wonder that when Desmond flashed when the hatch blew if he didn’t flash into the sideways at that point, just as he did in season six.
I don’t believe the writers had it all thought out at the end of season 4 what would happen with season 5. Damon and Carlton usually hold a “writer’s camp” after the season is over to set up the next season. You make some pretty good points about Jack taking plane rides yet also telling Locke that Locke was full of crap and he didn’t want to go back.
Walt is going to be addressed in the season 6 extras, so maybe your questions will be answered. I think you have to cut them some slack with Walt since they basically had to throw that whole storyline out the window when Walt aged so quickly.
I happen to think the whole Jacob part was an afterthought that was added in when they got their end date and started really thinking about what the island was. For me the first 5 seasons didn’t really set up the season 5 finale with Jacob and MIB. Yes we had heard of Jacob but I always felt he was a cult-type leader that perhaps was even an invention of Ben’s. Had they started with Jacob and MIB in Season 1, I might not have kept watching. I was not a fan of that. I can live with the sideways world a lot better than living with all of it being manipulations by Jacob to prove a point and find a replacement.
I myself, have tried to let go of the inconsistencies because I really don’t think the writers planned it all out in extreme detail, so there will be errors. I enjoyed the show, enjoyed the part it played in my life, and enjoyed the friends I have made through the show. I think if I am going to look for problems during the rewatch, I will find many, but if instead, I choose to look for the good, I’ll enjoy it a lot more. I have not put the time into it that you have Yann, I haven’t watched a lot of the extras yet (still keeping them for when I need a new Lost fix) and I never did the ARG’s. I can certainly understand your disappointment, you put a lot into this show.
re: Kentucky I haven’t visited it, I am from the East Coast which is a different culture from the deep South. I would love to go there though, it looks beautiful. Now that my kids are older I really want to travel more throughout the states.
@ Yann From France – If you have read any of my previous posts, you probably already know that I am with you on what you said here 100%. Or maybe even 200% if that is possible. While I am REALLY TRYING to see the positive side of the ending, I also am having a very hard time justifying what the writers did to those of us who were so involved throughout the series. And I have already found it real hard to do re-watches of the first seasons, knowing the intricate plot lines they were laying are all going to be for naught.
@ Carol from Boston – Thanks once again for staying on the positive side of the ending discussion. It may not convince those of us who “want to believe” but just can’t, but it does help.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was one like Yann, watched all the extra bonus material. Participated in all the ARG stuff. And read & investigated every last plot line and twist Darlton threw at us. As my Lostaholic confession many posts back indicated, I was totally caught up in what I considered to be the greatest show that had ever been on Television. But I guess maybe we really weren’t supposed to do that. We were just supposed to watch the episode, say “gee that was cool”, and turn our minds off until the next one. We weren’t supposed to think about the plot lines. We weren’t supposed to focus on all the mysteries of the island, the dharma initiative, or the super-natural forces at work. And I guess we also weren’t really supposed to have purchased all of the DVDs with all the behind the scenes footage and extras that were focused not on the characters, but on the island and the mysteries. We evidently were only supposed to focus on the characters and fall in love with their broken past lives which wouldn’t have meant a thing or carried a network show even 1/2 of a season if it weren’t for everything else. Ewwwwww! I just really get mad all over again each time I think about the duping Darlton layed upon us.
As always, sorry for the rant again. I think I better go and mow my grass in the 90 degree heat now and cool my brain off again. lol
@ LReene – 99 here and it’s not even noon (in Brooklyn, now if there is a now here) – so good luck with the cooling off – I recommend running around under a sprinkler. Alternately, travel to a magical island with beautiful waterfalls, cool your feet there, and ponder the mysteries.
And @ Yann also – I like that the mysteries have not been “solved” and the questions “answered” – I completely appreciate that investing lots of time in plot lines and getting no answers to questions such as what was Walt about, how do the electromagnetic fields allow time travel, why or how does the island havehealing powers, how could Des predict something that did not come to pass, etc. is frustrating. But I’d like to continue thinking about the mysteries. Now maybe some of you are way ahead of me on this, but let’s think about:
(1) the Tawaret statue and the Egyptians – the island being found and recognized as special by them.
(2) the job of Protector of the Island – how far does that go back? Who was there before “mother?”
(3) the connection to tapestries, weaving, spiders, mother’s weird web-like hair ornament.
(4) who built the pool in the cave of light?
And then I have lots of questions about Widmore, whose side he was on besides his own, and the missing history there.
@ Embie 63 and drizzling in south pasadena, ca. june gloom! come out here to chill.
these are all great questions, probably at the root of most of our discontent. and i won’t even start on the Widmore/Eloise track. i just have a feeling that Eloise was a lot more than she ever appeared, with the exception of her first appearance as a girl.
and @ LReene not sure if it’s all worth the hating. i really feel that so much of this was planned. the holes in the story, our responses, the fact that so many of us feel like we’ve been left hanging. one could feel manipulated, but it feels as if the Producers were trying to take all of us on a new kind of ride. not in a bad way…
and honestly, what really bugs me is that we’ll have to get the entire DVD season set to (hopefully) get some answers to the questions that we were left with. i know it’s really all about $, but it makes the whole thing feel cheaper. we’re all thinking deep thoughts – how many of us really thought about alternate universes and other lives before Lost? and somewhere, people are greedily rubbing their hands together over our sheckels.
but hey, still truly enjoyed the ride, and we’re still here aren’t we?
i’m halfway thru the second season rewatch and i keep being struck by the tie-ins to things that come much later. hard to imagine the writers totally dropping the ball in the 4th and 5th seasons. i agree that someone got too rushed and felt that they had to just skip over some things in order to finish up on time.
@ Aaron r – thanks for the invite – you may not think your weather is so good but from here it looks real good.
I have never purchased a single DVD, let alone an entire series package, but I’m planning to get the whole thing when it is available. I remember some discussion about Blu-ray vs DVD and i’d like to know what is all the fuss about blu-Ray. My husband wanted to add a Blu-Ray player but it’s a lot of rewiring and since I have to do that I’m interested in whether you all think it’s worth it.
@ Embie – My 2 cents worth, but if you are considering buying a Blu-Ray player, by all means DO IT. And purchase the LOST series in Blu-Ray format. It is DEFINTITELY worth it! There are things in LOST that if you do not have Blu-Ray, you just plain don’t see.
When people start discussing Blu-Ray vs DVD, the example/analogy I usually use is pretty simple and goes like this.
When my oldest son was around 10 yrs old, our family took a little mini-vacation up to the locks at Sault St. Marie, MI. For better than 2 hours we stood in the viewing area of the locks watching the ships move through them, discussing the names of the various boats, the size of them, where they were probably heading for on the Great Lakes, etc. Finally my oldest son very indignantly said “Ok, so just how do you know the names of these boats”. We told him that the name was right on the bow of the ship, just a little ways down from the railing. He looked at my wife and I and said “You mean where that black line is at?” What we were seeing as letters which spelled out the name of the boat, he was seeing only as a solid black line. We found out he needed glasses.
That’s really like the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD. With DVD, it might look good, but the resolution just is not there to support seeing everything that is available. While I could go into a lot of technical details to explain the difference, the example above really explains it in a non-technical way much better than all the specifications in the world.
@ LReene – thanks for that! – now just have to figure out a way to do the inputs, cable box dvr, Bose system, and VHS player which we really don’t use.
@ Embie – I guess first, as long as you’re not using the VHS player, I would dump it. One less thing to deal with. But……. in order for the Blu-Ray player to really do any good, it needs to be not only hooked up to an HD television, but also hooked up via either an HDMI cable, or with Component input cables. Something probably nothing else you listed (other than maybe the cable box DVR) would have. Do you know what inputs your television has? Does it have HDMI and/or Component inputs? That is probably the first thing you will want to look at. I guess also it should be asked, is it an HD television you are working with? If I can be of help, let me know. I’ve worked with this stuff for years.
oy! ~~ one day I’ll catch up with all this ‘latest’ technology ~~ on our recent mini-vaca it was weird just to see a high-def screen, which felt like we could walk right into the picture
I came to this blog in the first place to try and make sense of the sci-fi or mythological aspects of LOST ~ I do thank YAE for your keen observations and analysis ~ for me, it was only always about the characters and how they coped with their pasts, their NOW and their future, but the rest was/is fascinating and I like following along the various discussions
@ Yann ~ it is great to hear your intelligent voice again! Have you joined the Facebook Transmission Page? There is a topic in the Discussions section (which Bonita spearheaded) about ‘nagging questions’ ~ one being why Juliet was branded by the Others ~~
Kentucky sounds very rural, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett ~ haven’t been there since visiting as a kid ~ lots of WOODS ~~ is there a good job waiting for you there?
I am just north of Seattle (Vancouver, Canada) for anyone who comes my way… our summer weather is always moderate, very few days of heat wave
@Carol: Desmond saved Charlie even tho he knew he would get to Penny if he let him died two episodes before killing him on purpose? That doesn’t make sense.
I loved the Lost mysteries and I will always remember the first time “Jacob’s lists” has been brought into the show… I think Jacob was planned for a long time since Tom and Ben said that someone very powerful and of higher hierarchy was among them. But on a “religious” point of view it is fun to see Jacob as a god like figure… Watching over us while we do all sort of bad things and dying in His name.
@LReene:Think about season2 dvd bonus with all the “connection” and the “mystery shadow figure waving”! How useless this easter egg was! lol
Or don’t even get me started on the “Map”! So many info never used on it!
@Embie: 1) This is a big problem… under the temple you have hieroglyphs with the Smoke Monster yet it seems that mib IS the smoke monster… But that happened during Latin time! The “Summoning room” in Ben’s cabin filled with hieroglyphs and the Wheel and its hieroglyphs… How is that possible? We will never know. 2) Who knows? 3) If they are “trapped” due to destiny… It reminds me of “Tapestry” a Star Trek NG episode (the best one in my opinion). 4) Who knows?
@greenberry: I can make sense of the “branded” Juliet… she was the only Other who “moved through time” so maybe her being expeled from the Others is the reason she did…
Post-doctoral studies/work in Kentucky maybe. I will join the facebook group soon.
@Yann- I meant that Desmond tried to save him from drowing in the hydra station and tried at the last minute to take his place. I love your Juliet branding theory.
@Yann and Lyle- with the amount of time and thinking you guys put into this show I can totally understand why you would be upset. Probably a lot of the inconsistencies go over my head because I didn’t get into as much detail as you.
Don’t get me wrong, if I start thinking it through I get irritated but I try not to do that to myself. I try to see the positive when I really love something. As much I enjoyed the show, like Embie, I like a little mystery.
@yann – who is to say that MIB was the first smoke monster. It seemed as if “mother” knew that danger and consequences lurked there if you went into the light. There could have been smokeys all through time and there was always a protector there to defeat it.
@ LReene – gee thanx! – yes it’s an HD TV – I’ll look @ cable and inputs and get back with you via facebook if that’s okay.
@ Embie – Kewl! Sounds like you have the basics. By all means, drop me a message on Facebook or even an email (email address is listed on Facebook account). Will be glad to assist any way I can.
@ Carol from Boston – This of course still goes for you too! Have you ever dove in to your Blu-Ray project?
@ Yann – Yeah, a TON of useless stuff. I guess thats what bugs me the most. Oh well, I’ll get over it (in 100 years or so hehehe).
wow-i every time i go away for awhile i am always impressed by what i find on YAE when i return.
@yann (lrene, embie, aaron r, greenberyy)-i have to say i agree with you on the disappointment. i have been very busy trying to find my own way to answers i am satisfied with, and ways to see the ending. i definitely filled a few posts with my disappointments.
as to WALT, do you think the idea that the timeline continued, and walt could still be relevant to the Island is in any way interesting? or do you feel you were duped?
i for one would have loved if the rumor were true that a scene of Walt & Jack had been shot from when walt was still young. to me that would have showed the foresight the writers touted about themselves.
and while we’re on that subject, adam & eve were both appropriate in terms of the story they decided to tell in season 6, and completely useless in terms of what they were laying out in season 1 when we found them.
that right there was a flag to me going into the series finale that things might not be so smooth or satisfying.
@ greenberry- i agree MIB & Jacob as bad & good respectively were not so clear. at the end of season 5 i felt jacob was much more dangerous. it seemed he killed nadia in front of sayid(though you could argue he saved sayid, but that holds he LET nadia die) he gave james the pen after his parents death to help him fill his life with rage. to me he wasn’t GOOD.
and i certainly found the final conflict coming down to GOOD Jack VS. BAD MIB a little too easy & simple.
@yann-i wouldnt say Kentucky is the deep south(no offense carol). it has a rich heritage, diverse climate, lovely smokey mountains, and is the home state of Hunter S. Thompson & Johnny Depp. it has really beautiful cities & natural scenery, and if you’re going to a university town, you’ll probably love the mix of mellow southern style, with the modern hipster coffee house trends. ive got friend there and have always loved my visits.
@carol-i really appreciate your perspective in rewatching to find the things you’ve liked and the things that have been constructed. i have been trying to do that myself, and not focus on the missed threads/opportunities.
@aaron r- i hope this doesn’t end any time soon.
also-even if there are dvd extras for season 6 i for one am only interested in WHAT WAS SHOWN. i am not concerned with what the Producers say in podcasts or commentaries. what matters is what we all saw & shared. the rest is just trivia.
@ chris in seattle et al -it feels like Darlton had something more in mind for Walt at least, but that’s one of the things that i think either there was a decision to just drop or leave piles of on the cutting room floor. and yes i know there’s probably no such thing as a ‘cutting room’ anymore.
i’m of two minds about how it all went down. as i say, the ‘conspiracy theorist’ in me really thinks that the Producers planned to leave us an incomplete story in order to fire our imaginations (and keep us coming back). the other part of me feels like they were probably trying to do the ‘right’ thing but it all just got away from them. but thats not very satisfying, is it?
@ Carol (sorry about the email thing, someone hacked me but it’s fixed and closed now) i think ‘Mother’ knew and raised the boys with full understanding that one of the boys would save her from becoming the ‘island security system’ herself. the Smoke Monster is probably as old as The Island. most likely installed -if you will- by whoever was responsible for this whole thing in the first place. a security system is something that one installs if they have something to protect or hide.
on a side note, @ Yann my Dad was born in Greenfield, Tennessee, about 15 miles (if i remember right) from the border with Kentucky. that part of the country is usually really pretty, very green and life can be pretty slow. but Kentucky is also the only place that i’ve ever seen a tornado. not too big, but the real thing. oh well, if it isn’t earthquakes its tornadoes, if not that then heat waves. not to scare you, you’ll probably like that part of the country.
we’re getting really close to actually saying “God” and “Devil” aren’t we?
aaron r- saying youre of two minds is exactly right. i am not either black or white on any aspect of the show, least of all the ending. i agree, i think the Producers put up a compelling and interlinked story as well as they could. did they fall short in the end? i think so. but for me that is all the more compelling. it shows that they were not all powerful, as maybe we ascribed to them. we can debate what they came up with, but i don’t think they were trying to SCREW with anyone’s head. i do think they wanted to try and leave holes for us to fill in AND come to the closing bell they envisioned. was that too big for them? maybe.
but i like that they tried even if they came up short.
i dont think anyone can argue with the first 4 or 5 seasons being simply amazing. those seasons are probably the reason we’re all here. maybe the last season fell down. i dont think only having 16 episodes helped them any.
whether we’re discussing GOD & the DEVIL we’re certainly talking nature, and the nature of humanity.
@ Yann – my mom was born in southwestern West Virginia, not far from Kentucky. I agree with aaron r that it’s right pretty down there, y’all. You’d get a slice of America that’s not the urban experience. On the other hand, I have colleagues who have taught in the university there, and it’s not a backwoods experience by any means.
@ chris it always amazes me when someone swears that “i’ll never watch anything that Darlton does ever again.” how can one say that? look at the phenomenon that this has all become, the attention that it has commanded from ‘thinking’ people. it shows that some people aren’t content to just plop in front of the ‘glass teat’, demanding some actual thought and content, not just pablum. i’ll watch ANYTHING that these guys try. it might not be good, and of course we can’t compare anything else to Lost. it’s still the best television that this boy has ever seen. or expects too. i agree that the first 4 seasons at least were totally addictive. but i loved the whole thing.
well, i just signed up on Facebook. sheesh. how do i find the Lost conversation that i keep hearing about?
@ Aaron r – search for Transmission, then you have to click on “like” – we’re all there, just as lost as ever.
now i can be an even bigger thorn in peoples sides. lol.
aaron r ~ up on the top of the Facebook Transmission page are some tabs ~ press onto the ‘DISCUSSIONS’ one and you will see a few topics started there, one being ‘blog user name’ to introduce yourself (41 or so comments are on there) and another being ‘nagging questions one at a time’ ~ both of these topics were spearheaded by Bonita ~~ anyone is free to continue those threads or start a new thread
I loved my LOST experience too!! Other shows are incredibly well-written and acted (Mad Men; Breaking Bad; Dexter; True Blood) and I enjoy all those a lot ~~ but LOST was special: there was so much to delve into and think about ~ Like Mad Men, the psychology is great, getting glimpses into people’s psyches and motivations and choices… but being on a mysterious gorgeous island where the characters have to be so interconnected 24/7 and have so much to fear and deal with and have to rely on each other so heavily ~ it truly was ALL-absorbing
…and the themes of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ~ both of which were constantly turned on their heads: Sawyer and Kate and Juliet and Sayid and Ben and Locke and Eloise and Daniel and Charlotte and Zoe and Widmore and several others being every which way ~ having to constantly fathom who was what and what was what ~~ all the crazy mysteries of the island’s healing (cure from paralysis and cancer) and harming (pregnant women) and Desmond or Locke or Daniel or Walt being ‘special’ and whatever all that meant… it all was gripping
@ aaron r – Welcome to Facebook Aaron! Just sent you a friend request there. GREAT to see you, and no, your NOT too old for it. Just look at a lot of the rest of us. 🙂
@ YAE – Just to set the record straight so there is no misunderstanding……
No matter how much I vent. No matter how much I complain about not liking the way LOST ended or all the unanswered questions. And no matter how much I would like to grab both Damon and Carlton by the shoulders and shake the living sh*t out of them. In over 55 years of watching television (yeah, I’m giving away my age here), I still think LOST was the greatest show I’ve ever watched.
I’m still looking forward to receiving my complete series on Blu-Ray so I can see what has been held back from us. I’m still looking forward to rewatching all of the episodes. And I’m still looking forward to receiving my “Masters in LOST Studies” from LOST University come August.
And who knows, by the time I am done with all that, I might even say I “absolutely LOVED” the ending :^)
@ YAE – Or Not 🙂 hehehehe
Yeah, we’re all such addicts!!! Glad we have each other who ‘understand’
@Chris- whoops, I didn’t mean anything bad about Kentucky, as I said, I would love to go there, it looks so beautiful. It just seems that sometimes I feel that everything moves so fast around where I live in MA and it gets a bit crazy. When I hear people talk about the south they say it moves at a nicer pace and is a bit more laid back so that is what I meant about a cultural difference. I meant it more as a mood than culture like music, opera, sophistication etc. “culture was the wrong word to use.
@YAE – the people that are upset with Damon and Carlton – is it because you were told one thing but then given somethinge else? I get that. I do feel we were deliberately misled sometimes. I specifically remember a podcast where they were doing word association with certain characters and saying whether they were good or bad. I remember at that time they said Jacob was bad. So I felt that must mean that MIB was really good and Jacob was fooling everyone.
@ Carol from Boston – I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’ll try to explain why I am unhappy with Damon & Carlton. As always, I might be like Walt, all wet, but here is the way I feel. If I repeat things I’ve previously said, I hope everyone will accept my apology.
First, I tried to keep from having any preconceived ideas on how the show would end. Regardless of who it was that said they felt the people that would be disappointed with the ending would be those who’s idea didn’t match what happened, I was determined not to be one of them. And in all honesty, I think my resolve in that respect paid off. I really didn’t have any idea how the show would end. And I guess I could very easily accept the “Jack dying”, the “afterlife as the SW world”, and the rest of the show’s ending…… IF more of the things that were a major part of the show had been resolved.
But there in lies the reason that “I” personally am upset with Damon & Carlton. In my estimation, there were just WAY too many plot lines of the show that we all were made to think were important, that were never resolved. And while I know it’s hard to differentiate sometimes between minor points that were trivial to the show not getting answered, and major themes not being resolved, I think when we are hammered over the head for an entire season with something, THAT should be something that should be resolved. I won’t go into a bunch of details here because I think we all know what these plot lines were (in a lot of cases we discussed them and pondered over them right here on this forum), but there were a lot of things that should have, and COULD have been explained so the people who were invested in the mysteries wouldn’t have felt so cheated.
Along with this, I think a lot of people’s frustration also stems from the last few interviews that Damon & Carlton did prior to the finale. One interview in particular, they seemed to take the attitude that the fans of the show could “go suck an egg” (a more polite way of saying it than a couple of the blogs I read), they were only going to answer the questions and plot points that they wanted to answer. If the fans of the show didn’t like it, too bad. I think that kind of an attitude after all of the support the fans gave them REALLY fueled the “upset with Darlton” crowd. I know it did me.
Another point (and then I’ll shut up again), is the fact that there should have been absolutely NO shortage of time to answer any and ALL the plot points and questions that were generated through the 6 seasons. It was Damon & Carlton who negotiated the ending. They KNEW when the ending was going to be way back before they even started developing some of the latest questions that were left hanging. So in other words, peope are feeling that if you’re not going to answer the question, don’t raise it. The shortened seasons along with the LONG hiatus also fuels this fire. If Season 5 and Season 6 would have both been the normal 22 or 23 episodes, there would have been more than ample time to resolve all the plot points, answer all the questions, and probably pleased almost every last person who ever watched LOST from beginning to end.
So again, a lot of this I know I’ve said before. But since the topic still seems to be cropping up, and the questions about why some are still so upset with Damon & Carlton keep surfacing, well, I thought I would address how and why I feel the way I do one more time.
As I said, I still love the show. I will still participate in the LOST University, rewatches, etc., and I will still say that LOST was the best show ever put on TV. But would I have felt a whole lot better about it if things we were led to believe were important would have been “wrapped up” instead of left hanging, you bet.
Again, just my 2 cents worth. But now the Tigers have won again, so I am going to call it a night. We’ll see what tomorrow brings 🙂
Lyle – great explanation. I get it. I think we need one more season.
I guess I’m glad that I rarely listened to those two; when I did they seemed to have a joint coy, almost devious, sense of homor ~ but also could come across as collectively smug
It is curious that they would choose to open so many cans of worms and leave a lot of them hanging ~ I liked the explanation that they bit off more than they could chew or got lazy or somehow rushed for time because they didn’t plan properly ~~ but the stuff we GOT always kept me intrigued and there were many gems of truths (relationships matter; love is about helping someone mature and be their best self; both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are not always what they seem), which I super appreciated
@ carol-i think you were all cool with kentucky. i just thought deep south sounded…a little serious. as said, you’re always thoughtful & positive. no issues on my end.
@ aaron r-i am not a darlton hater. i was disappointed by things. but i have always loved the THUD moments of LOST. at least once an episode i usually would just be floored by something that happened. a good episode had a few of those in them.
@ LReene- thanks for such a great post about the issues with what wasnt on the table. i absolutely agree that the lack of adequate time seemed an issue, and that Darlton were responsible for that.
it seems like they couldn’t break the mold of their own story telling but were tied to keep telling LOST in the fashion they had. namely, with always stacking questions on top of other questions.
if i may reference Babylon 5 for a moment, and i am an unabashed believer in that show, there was a structural way to go about doing a MYSTERY show. that required paying off the mysteries each season. sure there was an overall build up of themes & issues, but the mystery elements began to fall away & become CHARACTER stories.
while we were kind of told this is what happened, and that it was now all about the characters, i don’t know if i fully saw that ‘truth’. what we had was a story that was structured with a late reveal that would surprise the audience at THE END of each sequence/story/season. and it seems that the end of the story was a victim of needing to mask itself in another setup.
anyways LReene, i’m happy you put your thoughts out here. and greenberry too.
Here is a question I have. I was watching the first episode of season 6, so much of it still bugs me. Dogen was ready to kill all the losties after hearing they were just survivors of 815, he just shrugged and said to kill them (this is a specially recruited leader from Jacob) then after pulling out the list he said they had to save Sayid and Lennon said if they didn’t “and your friend dies we are all in a lot of trouble” Why is that? Because Jacob wanted Sayid saved? Jacob didn’t try to save other candidates, why Sayid? Then we were told both Sayid and Clare had an “infection”. Which they did not. They were just being manipulated by MIB.
So what is up with the infection? On one hand it seemed to hit Rouseau’s friends, but maybe they were being maniuplated as well? Was there ever an infection? And how would have Sayid’s death really hurt the temple people? I still have no respect for the temple people and their attitude towards killing anyone that doesn’t serve their purpose.
@ Carol i’ve been thinking more long-range about plot developments. what if Jacob, being untold years old, if indeed he’s still ‘human’ or ‘alive’, wanted Sayid saved because he had fore-knowledge of Sayid’s final act on the sub? knowing that Sayid would ultimately save Jacob’s ‘replacement’? i’ve given up on any idea of Jacob and MIB being anything other than unnatural beings by the time OUR Losties arrive on The Island. Hurley wasn’t on the sub (was he?) so he would be safe if the bomb went off or not, but Jack was a vital link in the chain? this is the kind of stuff in my head when i wake up.
and i say OUR Losties because who knows how many times this has played out? how many people thru the ages have been pulled to The Island? we’ve only seen 3 sets, i believe. ‘Mother’s’ group, whoever they might have been, Jacon and MIB’s mother’s people, and our current group. how many more? i don’t really count the Dharma people, as they chose to go there.
and the infection? it seems to be gone by the time our friends show up, but Island people remember. remember Dogen talking about the ‘darkness’ inside Sayid? and Nathan injecting Claire to protect the aaron?
@ Lyle and @ chris i don’t believe that ‘haters’ is the right word. sorry about that. it feels as if a lot of smart people are wrestling with an incomplete but compelling idea, trying to make it work so as to be swept away by a truly unique experience. i don’t think that the people still posting here are that obsessive about it. i can’t picture any of us standing in line at the grocery store, muttering about Kate’s black horse or Sawyer’s glasses.
the whole experience has been so rich that we keep struggling to make a complete garment, if you will. and it’s so deep that we can’t help but get frustrated sometimes.
passion, not hate.
@Aaron – what is cool about this show is that it did create many communities to talk about the show and even a month after it is over it still generates questions and I think that was the writer’s goal. Hopefully at some point they will answer some more questions, maybe when their 6 month period of radio silence is up.
Hi YAE! – It’s morning and I’ve had a chance to think a little more about my post from last evening. Yeah I know, bad sign….. thinking again. 🙂 But here are a couple more pennies worth of ideas to toss into the thought pool. Please be patient with my explanation because expressing them may become rather disjointed.
Penny 1 – I think another reason that a lot of LOST fans are upset, is the fact that Damon & Carlton, through interviews, podcasts, and promotional material, led us to believe that they had this grand master plan in mind for the show right from the start that would all be revealed by the end. I believe that somewhere towards the end they even said that Adam & Eve was proof of all that (wasn’t much proof to a lot of people but…….). Anyway, with all of the story lines, mysteries, and island lore that didn’t get answered, it really does make it look like they were just winging it all the way through, and never really did have ANY kind of plan. It wasn’t an issue of time, because they are the one’s who set the timeline. And it wasn’t an issue of story telling, because we all know that they could tell an EXCELLENT story. So it leaves the mystery and lore buffs feeling like all of the things of that nature were just fill, something to keep you coming back, with no intention of fulfillment.
Penny 2 – And this is probably the hard one to explain. Too many unanswered questions. Too many unanswered mysteries. Too many threads of island lore left hanging. But LOST is done and there can be no more.
Ok, so I have read a lot of posts that advocate the premise of Darlton purposely leaving a lot of things unanswered so that we could draw our own conclusions from our own interpretations. For me (and I know for a lot of others), this just doesn’t work with this show. Now I have read a lot of good books that do just that. One author that comes to mind is John Grisham. Typically his books are very good at leaving a person more or less hanging at the end and having to draw their own conclusion as to what was going to happen (and sometimes what did happen). For the most part though, the intricate story lines he creates throughout his novels and the characters back stories he weaves together to make a person become invested in the character, have some kind of resolution up to the point of the ending. In the case of LOST, we KNOW what happened at the end. They all died and moved on so there can be no more conjecture.
Oh we could guess at Sawyers life after he got back from the island and if he went back to conning people for a living. Or we could wonder if Kate’s nature to run followed her the rest of her life. And as one poster on another blog put it, can we even consider what sort of a shattered life Aaron must have had that the day he was born was the best part of his life, so that he went back to that state after death to “move on”? But none of this makes any difference anyway, because Damon & Carlton have more or less told us after they died they were all happy. End of story! As I think I said in one of the first posts I made on the subject, to me that is what I would expect. It was a “Feel Good” ending, with nothing to back it up.
We saw Jack die. His story line of dying as a hero is closed and I can accept that. We saw Charlie, Libby, and several others die in previous episodes and I can accept their endings with no reservations also. But what about everyone else? What happened to Sawyer? What happened to Kate. What happened to the now aging Richard Alpert after he left the island? And Desmond and all the others (and the “other Others”). We can’t even guess on their lives and what may have become of them, because at the end of LOST, they were all dead. Damon & Carlton told us so, end of story.
And THAT is the reason I for one am frustrated with how LOST ended. Too many unanswered questions. Too many unanswered mysteries. Too many threads of island lore left hanging. But everyone is dead and LOST is done.
Does ANY of this make any sense? (I know what I am thinking here, just not sure if I am conveying any of it. Lol).
Yes, this DEFINITELY was;
[sent from santa-rosa mental hospital]
[where life is beautiful all the time] 🙂
@ LReene ~ (as Tevia would say) You’re right! I agree with those feelings of character loose ends
@ greenberry – Ever the diplomat!! LOL
What a day. It’s raining outside and the nurse won’t let me take my bicycle for a ride. The orderly won’t make Dave give me the remote for the TV again. And Libby has hid all the Blu-Ray discs of LOST (and I’m not ABOUT to watch it on DVD). So……. I found Hurley, and here is how we are going to spend our day.
We’ve come up with an idea to make EVERYONE happy (except maybe Damon & Carlton that is). We’re going to start writing and producing a NEW show for TV and it is going to be named ………. Are you ready for this?……….. FOUND!
While it will be all about what happened to our Losties after they walked through the door of the church and “moved on”, much of the series will delve into the lives of the characters after LOST through flashbacks, and explain how they created the sideways world for themselves in the afterlife that we all saw.
No doubt we will be doing some time traveling, and through it explore more of the mythology and secrets of the island. We will consult with Eloise and Daniel during “his” time traveling days, and also probably Charles Widmore. Oh, we are also considering having Desmond be sort of a narrator. Since he is the one that “the rules don’t apply to”, it might be the perfect job for him. Anyone like the idea of letting the “whisperers” actually help out this time around?
Sound kewl? Hurley and I are EXCITED!! And we already decided that if Damon and/or Carlton come calling and want a job, we are going to tell them “No dice bud! You had YOUR chance and blew it” And besides, YOU said LOST was finished, for good! na na na na naaa naaaaa
Hurley is frantically writing so I will keep you all posted on his progress
[sent from santa-rosa mental hospital]
[where life is beautiful ALL the time]