I wasn’t the biggest Lost fan around, nor did I really believe that Abrams had a detailed plan figured out for the storyline, but I was hopeful that the entire plot at least wasn’t going to be some sick, twisted, joke on the unsuspecting masses. Of course, this post is a little bit late to be merely another complaint thread about how much the finale sucked as there are plenty of those floating around. Nevertheless, I can’t help but stating, for the record, that there’s really only two explanations for Lost that I can conceive of: 1) Abrams really thought they could tie all the pieces and plot arcs together in the end (?!), or 2) his goal was merely to make money over the short term by creating a plot so interesting that he knew it wouldn’t be possible to be explained in the end.
Since I know for a fact that Abrams is not stupid that rules out #1 which, sadly, leaves us to contemplate the notion that the entire six seasons of Lost really was nothing more than a joke on millions of people. It makes a great deal of sense, and it was an interesting ride, but it was clearly falling apart at the seams by the end: the numbers that dominated the first two seasons were explained by the single sentence “Jacob liked numbers?” Really? The whole time travel and moving island plot arcs were completely inconsequential and meaningless. Again… really? The statues? Dharma Initiative experiments… all pointless.
And, the best, the whole point and cause of everything: the light inside the island. It’s a transparent plot device that was whipped up and inserted in the final portion of the final season which was meant to explain the unexplainable. But, it’s a complete fallacy, you can’t explain unexplained phenomena with something else that never gets explained.
It would be easy to continue ad nauseam, but since I promised this wouldn’t be just another complaint thread, I’ll stop there. My point is, Lost was a joke. A cruel, but very profitable joke, on those of us who thought perhaps there really was a plan, and kept watching in anticipation of learning how all the puzzle pieces fit together.
It’s been about a week now since I watched the final episode, and it’s had some time to sink in. At first I was just like “well… that sucked.” But, the more I thought about it the more I realized that I actually consider Lost a fairly big injustice. Most will shrug it off, but it’s becoming a trend. I never thought the Battlestar ending could be usurped as far as disappointing show enders go, but sure enough, Lost did it.
So here’s my question to J.J. Abrams: why should I invest hours watching any more of your shows? Sometimes I’m able to avoid certain products simply out of some moral or ethical principle, but in this case it’s much easier. I’ve actually been soured against network television. I used to enjoy watching Fringe (another Abrams show), and now there’s no way I can stomache it. It’s as if Lost was the entertainment equivalent of food poisoning for me.
Fortunately not all television shows have gone the way of Lost. Legend of the Seeker is probably my favorite currently airing TV show right now. Yeah it seems a bit lame on the surface… it’s kind of cheezy, but the storyline is excellent. It’s based on a series of novels by Terry Goodkind, so unless they are completely inept, I can’t see how they could screw it up.
That said, I’m definitely going to be a much more cautious about investing that much time in a TV show again. Even without commercials, all six seasons of lost amounts to 84 hours of time. When these types of shows pop up again I think I’m going to wait on the sidelines until the show is done and then watch it via whatever media delivery / storage mechanism is popular at the time.
Perhaps I’ll go back to reading books for a while. They’re not guaranteed to be any better, but at least they don’t cram ads down my throat, nor do they typically make me want to burn them after I’ve finished reading them.
