Interesting thoughts on The Wire. It offers a more controlled, one might say “street smart,” view of Baltimore’s crime world, than did Levinson’s and Attanasio’s Homicide, by focusing almost exclusively on one aspect of it, drugs. What I liked about Homicide was how it weaved all sorts of themes into the story. The episode, “Heartbeat,” (season 4) was a great one, inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Tell-tale Heart.”
I wish they’d found a way to write around the actor who played Walt’s growth spert. They finally give Walt some closure in the bonus materials of season six, but it’s clear at the beginning they had far more elaborate plans for the character.
They probably also had more elaborate plans for Libby. They drop this thing about her actually having been in the same institution as Hurley but pretending to be a psychiatrist, then that never gets fleshed out any. Unexpected end of contract maybe? Also she’s the only major character we never find out what she was doing on the plane.
What made the character development so successful in Lost was the parallel stories pattern. In seasons 1-3, each episode goes back and forth with flashbacks for one character. In season 4, flashes into the future, then in season 6 the parallel universe flashes. That way they could elaborate on a character’s backstory without doing it through boring exposition.
^ Agreed ^
I guess you can think of it as “not everything in life is fully explained or turns out the way you thin it should”… but that’s just me rationalizing the imperfections of Lost. haha.
I always thought that maybe since Walt was just a kid, Jacob was okay with him leaving the island for good.
Yeah I was pretty disappointed that we never really learned anything about Libby… I was always hoping for her to come back.
I guess I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t deal that much with Walt, but kind of relieved, too, cause any time they tried to bring Walt up I thought it was kind of ridiculous… and it wasn’t helped at all by the fact that that actor hit puberty and I guess couldn’t play flashbacks anymore.
I think that Lindelof and company had more elaborate plans for Walt as well. They focused on his psychic abilities in Season 1 but that never got fully developed.
@Pure Fault: Walt actually does end up going back to the island. I believe there was a small supplemental episode on the Season 6 DVD that shows Hurley and Ben coming to get Walt.
@Rainn: Jack was, in essence, the protector of the island, as he rid the island of the malevolent evil that was plaguing it for untold centuries. That was his purpose all along no doubt.
@Doofu: I would have liked more exposition on Libby as well. She didn’t really turn up again until Season 6 and we were never told why she was in the institution or why she was on the plane. She did turn up in an episode about Desmond in Season 3….she sold her late husband’s boat to Desmond…the boat that he later used to arrive at the island.
Hmm, I must have completely missed that on my DVD. I’ll definitely have to watch that. I think that’s a great way to tie up that loose end.
@Pure Fault
Yeah, that’s the story reason Jacob didn’t force Walt to come back to the island, because he was a kid. But that was more of a retcon than an original intention.
Also when Michael was kidnapped in season 2, ‘Ms Clue’ asked him ‘Did you ever see him anywhere he was not supposed to be?’
I’m thinking astral projection.
Also, some pure spec, but: Ben has a magic power, his power is he can kill anyone he wants. Which opens up the question, was Michael a candidate (Remember, Michael died because Ben killed the guy with the deadman switch), and if he was, was Anna Lucia a candidate? You never get a good long look at all the crossed out names, maybe I should pause it next time I get around to season six.
You can find as close to a complete list of candidates as you’re ever going to on Lostpedia. Most of the names and corresponding numbers are probably taken from the lighthouse. Dawson (presumably Michael) is #124. That would also explain why he couldn’t kill himself, similar to Jack.
I have always believed that the reason Walt was never called back to the island (and was allowed to leave in the first place) is because he was raised by his mother. Jacob wasn’t too keen on that. Locke was raised in foster care, Jin didn’t know his mother, Sawyer’s mother got shot, Ben’s mom died from childbirth, The Others took Alex from Rousseau, Shannon was raised by her father before he remarried.
@RGrimes
I got that Jack had completed his duty/destiny as the Protector of The Island by ultimately saving it, but I feel like he had so much to learn from The Island, had he lived, because he came to a certain understanding about it. Same thing with (Alive) Locke. But I guess The Island chose Hurley because he needed it just as much as The Island needed him.
Reading that page a lot more characters were probably candidates than I thought. Ones missing from that list that are necessary to be candidates if the mythology holds true are Anna Lucia and Daniel’s mother.
But then Daniel’s mother wouldn’t have been crossed off? Hmm…maybe under the ‘became a mother’ statute.
Has it really been over 2 years since the finale already?
Ahhhh…. when will we ever get to experience another series like this…
I marathonned this a year ago I was surprised to realize that I had actually watched the first twelve eps in their entirety.
It was about episode 8 that asked my GF “Is everybody already dead?”….
I guess that arguably nobody yet was, and that nobody died until after the “time-slip”, but by the end everybody had been dead people walking for at least a season.
Brilliant show…
Worst fucking ending ever.
Ambrose Bierce wrote “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” in 1890. Perhaps not too coincidentally, Adrian Lyne’s “Jacob’s Ladder” was made exactly a century later, also about a military man who hallucinates a full life extending long after his superiors and/or the government have killed him.
“Sixth Sense”… etc.
Abrams, Lindelof etc. could have done better.
I did love the show until the end.
Just like China/Taiwan/Singapore’s “A Chinese Ghost Story” the series, which was great until the final ep.
I am addicted to “Once Upon a Time”, so maybe some of the descendants of “Lost” will have evolved a sense of how to end a series.
I know the writers and producers were flying by the seat of their pants writing, attempting to keep track of all the clues they had created, and which were to be clues, but starting about 6 eps back they could have start toward a far more satisfying end than going back to that cod poly-religious church and have everyone “walk into the light”.
Producers should just ignore the internet idiot factor until they are done.
People really get pissed off about the end.
I liked it.
I liked the ending as well. It made not have been the greatest plot wise, or about tying up all the loose ends, but it just felt so right to me. They answered enough while still leaving questions open to be debated on the internet for all time.
“Worst fucking ending ever.”
Pardon the hyperbole.
I was trying to convey my sense of betrayal, which may have partly directed at my co-viewer (my ex) who owned the set.
But I still think it was cheap and last minute, and created three endings of my own (which I have since lost), starting six eps back that I would have liked better.
Except of course, then I would have complained that they were “too predictable”.
@ Linden
I have a theory that every one had the finale ruined for them by out side forces. Particularly a perspective sexual partner. My ex ruined it for me by scaring me right as Jack was touching the coffin, my bodies reaction was to slam my hand on her thigh, she didn’t like that. My friend and LOST buddy, ended up getting taken into his bed room half way through and getting blue balled. A female friend had her boyfriend turn off the show and admit he was cheating on her. Now given that scientific data we could extrapolate that 85% of the haters are mad because they didn’t get laid after.
It’s been awhile, but I don’t really get the hate for the finale, I loved it.
Not a perfect article, and part comedy, but I think some of this serves as good explanations for some of the detractors (along with the linked tumblr).
http://www.cracked.com/blog/108-answers-to-losts-supposedly-unanswered-questions/
99 freaking hours of television that most of you loved and a lot of you are ready to throw the whole thing down the drain just because the last hour was problematic. (I agree, they could have done better, but it didn’t ruin the show.)
The last ep. undermined the whole ontology of the rest of the series though, Brad. I wouldn’t say it ruined the whole series, but . . . it was the worst conclusion of a really good show since Seinfeld.
I don’t agree that it was that bad, but let’s say that it was. The show covered a lot of territory, introducing and resolving numerous threads in various styles with a level of writing and character dynamics that few shows can approach. You had a couple actors giving consistantly amazing performances. The mystery solving angle was important, but the show would not have worked so well if that’s all it had going for it. Even the Earth X angle of Season 6 may have been comic book trope, but was daring in terms of how science-fiction a network television show can get (we’re talking Star Trek as a peer). Everyone had an idea of how it should have ended and it went in its own, possibly misguided, direction. I’m kind of fine with that.
@ Brad Yeah, I was rewatching the first few episodes with a friend that had never seen them. I realized the show was always about the characters, and wow did they create some great ones. You really liked these characters, even the ones you hated you wanted to see more of. Of course there are some characters in such an expansive show that are misguided or lame, but over all the main cast is just superb.
I’ve always felt iffy about the moniker of Scifi being put on the show, it just seems to bring up so many expectations in the audience that aren’t fulfilled, but expected when you put something in that genre. It has sci fi and adventure elements, but I have always seen it as a drama first and foremost. When a character has a big emotional moment and that music starts swelling up, I’m not thinking about time travel, or hidden stations, I am totally invested in the emotional state of that character.
>>I’ve always felt iffy about the moniker of Scifi being put on the show, it just seems to bring up so many expectations in the audience that aren’t fulfilled<<
This brings to mind our spoiler thread elsewhere on the forum. Lost was very slow to reveal it’s science fiction elements. Until Season 4 or thereabouts, there was always a possibility open that there could be some kind of reality based explantion for the goings ons. The slow unfolding of information allowed a perspective that those who are approaching the show in retrospect won’t be able to experience.
I suppose that’s fair, it did kind of bury the lead when it came to it’s Scifi elements. I remember even early on knowing something was off, but my mind never jumped to science fiction, i kept waiting for some dumb reveal, like they were in an old amusement park or some such nonsense. As the show progressed though I was more and more sure they would not go in that direction, and I believe they didn’t. I think everyone wanted a big dumb twist ending, and were upset by the fact that it ended some what logically.
I have also noticed so much hate comes form people that have never watched the show, or stopped, and have only seen/read/heard the final episode. I can’t count the number of times people have said to me “So they were just dead the whole time?”. It saves me time though as I don’t have to debate them, as they obviously didn’t watch the show or if they did, didn’t pay attention. LOST diid lose me (ha….) for a few seasons. I stopped watching after Mr. Eko left, I turned on the show and hated it for a few years. I got back into about four years ago and never looked back, it was a wonderful ride and felt like one of the landmark television shows of my life.
On the subject of people that just wrote off the show for no reason… right after the finale, an acquaintance of mine posted on my Facebook: “A prediction I made back in season 1: the ending would suck.”
How is that even a prediction?
I think the biggest thing about Lost was the fact that every episode opened up a new question where as the finale didn’t do that (for the most part).
It needed a definitive end, but it did leave some questions open… however, I feel the main ones were answered well enough.
There were so many things a lot of people wanted to find out or wanted to happen… the writers couldn’t please EVERYONE. In fact, I’m almost certain that no matter what the ending was, people would have still said it “sucked” and so on.
I can definitely see why it let some people down, but I felt a sense of completion afterward. Personally, I can’t think of a better ending. They stopped the disruption of the earth “gaia” or what have you, stopped the man in black from leaving the island and rampaging throughout the world with his smokiness, and helped many of the people escape the island once and for all. And we get to see them all (at least the ones who could move on) reunite long after they’ve all passed.
I feel the same, the ending just felt right to me. I really had no huge lingering questions that they didn’t answer. All they really didn’t explain were little things, like what exactly they did with the polar bears, but those are the cools little things to discuss forever.
Very few shows have every effected me on an emotional level before, at least not to the extremes this show did. I cared for the characters, I cheered at their victories, I wept for their losses.
The whole series was basically a giant chess match that had been going on for centuries, I thought it was great. It reminded me of the Secret Wars from the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon. One side good, one side bad, the pawns are chosen and they play their part. In both instances you had shifting allegiances and fallen heroes.
What did you think of the epilogue? I did a lot with a little and I enjoyed it. Finally brought some sense of why Walt was important, and it was great to see where the drops were coming from.
Best fucking beginning.
Ever.
(For TV, that is.)
Edit: And I should probably add that I just remembered that the last three seasons were a casualty of the writer’s strike. And so the ending.
I liked the epilogue as well. It was just enough to tie up some of the “bigger” lose ends,
And speaking of it having an awesome beginning, and the fact that what was really going on was like a chess game, I thought it was excellent that in the very first episode, they had John Locke explain how backgammon was a game of light vs. dark.
I think they had to have some general outline. They say that they made it all up as they went a long but I can’t believe that. Firstly there was Locke in the first episode, then in season three you get your first mention of Jacob. I don’t have the exact quote but it’s when they were at the hydra station. One of the others says something along the lines of “I don’t care if Jacob wants them alive, I’m gonna kill him.”.
I think they knew where they wanted to go big picture but flew by the seat of their pants to get there.
If they really did make it all up as they went along, I’m even more impressed.
Pure Fault
>>Hellshocked
Thanks for that response. I guess what I meant to ask was, is it “smart”? I mean, from everything I’ve heard, it sounds like smart writing. The subject matter doesn’t sound that interesting to me… but neither does a bunch of people crash landing on an island ;)