!!! Spoiler Alert !!!
If the ‘LOST’ finale is still on your TIVO
Stop reading now!!!
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OK…first off, I’ll just say that while I may not be the most die-hard ‘Lost’ fan out there, I still have invested 6 stinking years of my life following the survivors of Oceanic Airways Flight 815, the Others, the Hatch, Jacob & the Smoke Monster, the Flash-Backs, Flash-Forwards & Flash-Sideways, Quantum Physics and Electromagnetic Forces, the four-toed statue, Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, whether Richard Alpert uses mascara on his eyes and…those God-damned polar bears…..so after sitting through four and half hours of the ‘Lost’ series finale (five and half, if you count the wrap-up on Kimmel!), one word can sum up my feelings…DISAPPOINTED !!! I could Monday-Morning Quarterback this well into Tuesday, but the main things that bugged me were…
1. For a series that was consistently fast-paced and full of action, the finale plodded along as though it were stuck in quicksand. Cast member throwing each other long, meaningful glances leading to flashbacks bathed in warm, glowing light, all framed with the sappiest soap opera-esque musical accompaniment you could ever imagine! Half-way through the show I realized that despite the fact a few of the ‘Big Ticket Items’ were finally being revealed, I actually caught myself getting bored by the way the story was unfolding! And I never got bored by ‘Lost’!!! And what little action that was present seemed amateurish compared to what came before…a slow-motion Jack jumping in the air to punch Locke/MIB/Smokey looked like an out-take from ‘300’ and Kate finally killing Locke by shooting him in the back was not only telegraphed earlier in the show (“You might wanna save your bullets!”), but a totally unsatisfying way to dispatch the root of the island’s evil! This was how the final battle between Good & Evil I’ve waited for all these years ends…with an off-camera shot in the back?!! And finally, the ‘special effects’ employed when Jack replaced the cork-like rock to restore the Island’s magic was hokey enough to qualify for “Worst of the Year” lists everywhere! Excuse me, but am I the only guy who saw it as a poorly realized, blatant rip-off of Spock’s death in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”…?!!
2. A major part of why the show dragged had to do with ABC’s decision to sell more ad time than I’ve ever seen in a finale like this. Here I thought the reason the show was going to be 2 1/2 hours was because they were cramming more story for the fans, but nooooooo….it was simply to squeeze every possible advertising dollar outta the show! The editing suffered horribly because of it…you would just be getting into a scene when suddenly the action would cut to an ad! I’m sure ABC is sitting on a giant pile of cash this morning, but they should still get a trip to the woodshed over that one!
3. I know a series like this can’t answer every single hanging question, but there were far too many things left to the viewers imagination after the screen faded to black, like…
• How did the explosion of the Hydrogen Bomb that ended last season fit into all this? Did it create the Flash-Sideways World that was Season Six? Was everybody already dead or is that was did them in?!!
• The Dharma Initiative…will somebody please tell me just how the Hell it got started? I dunno..maybe I missed that episode, but somebody had to come up with the initial idea of moving a few submarine-loads of workmen to a very hard-to-find island in the South Pacific to get to work on cracking that Electromagnetic Anomoly!
• Walt and Michael turn up outta nowhere, but I still don’t know what made Walt ‘special’ and how he kept turning up to warn people.
• THAT DAMNED FOUR-TOED GIANT ON THE BEACH !!!!!
Finally and most importantly…I would have liked to think that after all of the great writing and crazy action and red herrings and time travel and meticulously interwoven story lines & relationships, the writers of this show…a truly memorable and groundbreaking production, I might add…could have come up with an ending a bit more satisfying than what to me was nothing but a religious cop-out with, “You’re all dead…walk into The Light!”. I realize that ‘Lost’ is simply a bit of modern mythology transmitted over the TV waves, but when it was all over I was left with the feeling that I just sat though a fifteen-course meal cooked by a Michelin 3-Star chef and for dessert he served me…ice cream! Yeah, everything up to this point was fabulous…..but ya’ couldn’t come up with a better finish than that?!!
Rant over…..but I really hope tonight’s Series-Ender for ’24’ is better!!!
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