"It's the journey not the destination". I don't know who said it first...a Manager of mine used to quote it & I have always really liked it. I think the writers of the show Lost must have been fans of it as well. For this show over the last 6 years was truly about the journey & not as evidenced by the season finale about the destination...or all the unanswered questions. The finale was if nothing else true to the show. A great story with great characters, that opens up as many questions as it answers. I do consider Lost one of the better TV shows of all time. Originally it was created to be a fantasy version of Survivor & last a season. However, from the get-go it caught on due to it's great cast of characters & it just hit dead on the zeitgeist of the time. The Tom,Dick, & Jane love triangle of Jack, Kate & Sawyer were some of my favorites. Jack the troubled "Good-Guy", Sawyer the "Bad-Boy" who evolved to be far more & of course Kate the not-quite-Girl from next door...could she be any cuter & more beautiful at the same time? I think Sayid was the shows best character. 3yrs after 9/11 & months after the invasion of Iraq we are introduced to a former Republican guard Communications officer who was also a Torturer. Accused of being a terrorist early on he proved to be an invaluable member of the group & in the end sacrificed himself to save his friends. He was a man of violence & was one in his flash-backs, flash-forwards & in the side-ways story. Yet I always found him one of the most intriguing characters & one of the good guys. To create a character like him during the time he was created really showed some talent by the writers. I could go on & on about all the others...(no pun intended)
Lost could get frustrating at times & it really required your attention & commitment. You could not just miss an episode & catch up next week. All in all one of televisions greatest products. It's ingenious use of the Internet to get fans to learn more about Dharma & other secrets really took things to the next level.
Now while the bulk of the 2 1/2 hour were great...I wasn't crazy how it was strongly implied that the "sideways" stories were some form for purgatory for the characters to re-unite in. Why they didn't go with an alternate time-lines or dimensions like Faraday implied is beyond me...it would have made more sense. The very end with Jack lying in the bamboo forest on the beaches edge watching the plane fly off after saving his friends...then his eyes close. Dead...sleeping...or just a device to book-end the beginning (The first episode starts with Jack lying in the bamboo...then opening his eyes...then runs around helping everyone while hell is breaking loose)?
I've seen this ending used before (Stephen King's Dark Tower series a perfect example) & I'm not a big fan of it. The truth of the matter is many writers can create great stories & characters...but few can close. I think it might have something to do with human nature...we never want the story to end...our quest for immortality. The other thing about the finale was the many questions about the island that were not answered. I think this show was originally about the characters & how they dealt with being stranded & as it went on the writers kept creating all this mythology & science to the island...& then got lost themselves somewhat along the way. In the end I think they decided either this show was about the island & it's mysterious or that the island & it's secrets were there just to drive the characters stories. I guess it safe to say they choose the characters...for now. I don't believe for a second this is the very last we will see of this island or these characters. It's been a long strange trip & a wonderful thought provoking journey. More TV should be like this...we may want closure...but like life...it's not the destination...it's the journey...
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