The Lost Finale

I am a huge fan of the TV show Lost so it’s probably no surprise that you’re reading a post regarding the finale that aired this past Sunday. What did I think of it? I loved it and I hated it.

I loved the finale because it was exciting, emotional, and satisfying. Hold up a minute… Satisfying? It was and it wasn’t. If you look at the finale with regards to this season alone, it was very satisfying. This season was all about the characters and faith. That’s what the finale was about. You got to see Jack redeem himself and be the hero he never wanted to be. You see the way faith was intertwined with the story in the final scenes where the castaways are in the church and are blanketed in the light. It was the perfect ending to the story that this entire season set up. But what about the previous seasons? What about those stories? Well, that’s why I hated the finale.

What initially drew me to the show were the mysteries of the island. Why did they crash? Who were The Others? Why is there a polar bear on the island? What was Walt’s power that caused him to bring a bird back to life? What was really going on with the Dharma Initiative? These mysteries that were never answered drew me, and millions of others, to the show. Instead of finding out the answers we were greeted with Allison Janney murdering a woman and raising two boys on an island. No explanation of anything that made Lost so great in the previous seasons. A series that could very-well be considered Sci-Fi quickly became a story of faith and spirituality. Yeah, we kind of find out what the numbers mean. Yeah, we find out that the voices were the people who died on the island and were trapped there. There are so many things that should have been answered but weren’t. I’m thinking the producers and writers backed themselves into a corner when they set the finale date and did not have the time to explain the mysteries. Either that, or they got lazy and knew that they couldn’t explain them so they threw in a magic creek and a temple or two. So, in this respect, I hated the finale.

I’d say overall, it was a good way to end the show. It was a satisfying ending to this season, and thus the series, but I know if they tried to pull that ending a season or two earlier, I would have been upset. Before the finale I planned on buying the DVD set and watching the entire series over again. Now, I don’t think I will. I don’t want to find myself even more disappointed at all the good mysteries that were never solved. We shall see.