Why LOST, lost

BITTERSWEET, BUT MOSTLY BITTER
Well it’s finally over! On the one hand I’m glad it’s done, no more waiting until next week to gain another tidbit of information (that may or may not be important). No more frustration at the end of a season finale knowing I have to wait 6 to 9 months (or 108 days, ha!) to satisfy my LOST longings! On the other hand I hate to see what initially I considered the greatest show ever developed for television come to an end. Notice I said, “initially”!

LOOKING AT WALLPAPER
I began season 6 with much anticipation! This was it! We are finally going to get some real answers! After all, that’s what the producers told us, right? Every commercial said something like, “The time for questions is over” followed by MIB as John Locke “I’ll tell you everything”. Well, did we really expect to get all the answers? Of course not. Cuse and Lindelof did tell us we wouldn’t get all the answers we wanted. Okay, that’s cool, I can live with some things not fully explained, some loose ends to keep the mystic alive (really I can). However, I didn’t feel like I got any of the main answers I was looking for.
Why? You may ask. Because I felt like the writers set me up for that.
It’s like going to a museum and in one of the rooms is a beautiful sculpture sitting in the middle of it. You are told something incredible is in there just look around and you’ll see it. Then you go into the room and the lights are dim except on the walls where you see this incredible wallpaper with all kinds of designs and colors and patterns that take your breath away! You spend hours examining it amazed at both its beauty and complexities. Then whoever told you to go in says, “No, no, no! The wallpaper’s not what you’re supposed to be looking at, look at the sculpture in the middle of the room!” as they turn on the lights! You think, “cool, but why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? I just spent all my time looking at the wallpaper, but now the museum is closing and I’m not going to have time to really check out the sculpture!” And the person says, “Dummy, I told you something incredible was in there! The wallpaper is just for effect or context. They all point to the sculpture!”
That’s what I feel like the writers did to us! I agree that from the beginning they said it was going to be about the characters. Fine! No problem there, but why spend 5 seasons going on and on about the wallpaper and how cool and mysterious it is only in the last season to not explain 98% of it (I made that number up, hey I just pulled a Cuse/Lindelof!) under the guise it was all about the characters, not the sci-fi stuff.

MRS. KEAMER (NOT KEAMY) & 12TH GRADE ENLGISH
When I was in high school we were assigned a book to read. The teacher held it up in front of the class, read the title, then the author’s name and in three short sentences gave away the ending to the book. As you can imagine this brought many moans from the class followed by a scolding from our teacher, “You people have to learn to read for character development, not plot!”
That’s what I felt like season 6 ending up being. Are Cuse and Lindelof going to use the same excuse? Wait, maybe Cuse and Lindelof are the smoke monster version of my 12th grade English teacher! AHHHHHHH! Seriously, I get the whole thing with LOST being about the characters, really I do. As a matter of fact this is one thing that drew me into the show; the character development was topnotch! But can’t we have both? You start out with this brilliant plot, fill it with incredible actors playing characters that we all come to love or love to hate! Brilliant! But to use that as an excuse to NOT explain the plot that you have been building on for 5 years! To say the plot was a literary mechanism (see Mrs. Keamer I did learn something in class, “literary mechanism”) by which the characters develop is just lame! Cuse and Lindelof spent all this time drawing us in with the complexities of the plot, but then to leave us hanging on the grounds that it was all about the characters, not plot itself, is just crap. I feel like they are scolding me for complaining about this.
Now don’t get me wrong, character development was great! Plot was great! Cuse and Lindelof started off writing the smartest show I’ve ever seen! I just think you can develop characters, but not at the expense of the plot especially since they lead us to believe the plot was really important. Think about all the stuff they developed outside of the show itself from commercials about DAHRMA to the phone numbers you could call. There was the Valenzetti Equation, The Hanso Foundation to name a few. Heck, even Widmore was built up to be this great character (nemesis or good guy?) only to be shot by Ben in a closet. Even the actor who played Widmore when interviewed, said his character’s ending was lame. To me this simply sucks.

LIVE TOGETHER, DIE ALONE
Nothing explains the show better than this line. Why? Because the writers made it that way. As to the show, that’s exactly what happened… they all lived together on the island (off the island) and for Jack (our main character) he died alone. Now I know there are those out there who will say Vincent showed up, but Jack died alone and that’s cool, nothing wrong with that. It was nice he got to see his friends make it off the island as many predicted he would.
But I somehow feel this is the fate the writers are handing to us. If you don’t except their explanation of the whole show (it’s not like we have a choice! Dang just like Jacob’s mother) the way they wrote it, then baby, you die alone. If however, you buy into their methodology and their reasoning for it, then it’s one big happy LOST family that we were able to live together with them for 6 years! Well, I’m not buying it! Sorry guys (Cuse and Lindelof, that is) you LOST me on that (pun intended!)!
Why spend so much time and creative juices to build this great mystery and cop out with the character development excuse. I’m sorry but don’t spend 5 years teasing me with all the philosophy, history, spiritualism and really cool stuff to abandon most of it in the last season! I have questions I want answers to and the reason is b/c you (Cuse and Lindelof) made me want to know! What was the statue all about? Why was Jacob living in there? What the flip did “He who lies in the shadow of the statue” and “He who will save us” and “No one comes in unless I invite them in” mean???
Yes we know where the Smoke Monster came from, but why did that happen? Why when Des goes in the light the same thing didn’t happen to him? When did Jacob first see the Smoke Monster take on his dead brother’s form and how did that all go down? How did the first guardian become the first guardian and why? No you don’t have to fully explain the light in the heart of the island, but, dang we need more than the idea that there’s always been (and probably always will be) a guardian!
I know the writers would say, “We don’t want to ruin the mystery by explaining everything. That’s what happened in Star Wars. When Qui-Gon Jinn told little Ani about the midi-chlorians it ruined the mystery. We didn’t want to do that.” REALLY???!!! The campfire scene did EXACTLY that for me! Kate wants to know what the names were and why hers was crossed off. “It’s just chalk on a wall. The job’s still yours if you want it.” Talk about ruining mystery! No I’m sorry, that’s just WAY TOO inconsistent as a reason. Don’t lead us down a path if at the last minute you’re going to jerk us off that path to some other path! That’s NOT good writing!

HAVE YOUR CAKE & EAT IT TOO
I like cake. It smells good when it’s being baked, looks pretty and is usually made to help celebrate something really cool. Well that’s what LOST almost was for me. It “smelled” really good. It looked freaking awesome! I was constantly excited about the show and where it was going. But alas, when it came time to eat the cake that had been baked, it was taken away.
For me seasons 1-5 were about one thing and season 6 about something else altogether. I’m sure the writers and others (not THE others) would argue that you couldn’t have season 6 without seasons 1-5. Why? Because seasons 1-5 allow us to know the characters, see how they grow and how some die, so that season 6 will be as full and rich in character development as possible along with plot fulfillment as well. For me, that’s why I now I feel the way I do about this show.
In the past, I recommended it to everyone. “Watch this show! You’ll love it! It’s smart! Great acting, etc.” I’d say. Heck after it was all over, I planned on getting the DVDs just so I could watch the whole thing again and pick up on all those things I missed the first time around. But not now. I have NO desire to watch it again, especially seasons 1-5 b/c the things developed there (outside of the characters themselves) don’t matter. You could have told the same story without all the mystery so that when season 6 came around you wouldn’t be disappointed and you would be satisfied with the idea it was all about the characters as we were told.
I know some would argue that you couldn’t have this without the way it was written. But just ask yourself this question “Would you encourage someone who had never seen the show, now that it’s over, to rent the DVDs and watch b/c in the end it’s really cool?” Would you be willing to say that for the sake of character development, 5 seasons of mystery never to be solved is enough? I doubt you would, at least for the sake of the person you shouldn’t.
In the end, I’m very glad it’s done. I’m disappointed as you could ever be and ultimately that’s why LOST lost for me.