Kidnap-happy neighbors, tattoos that everyone hates, and a finale leaving
you wanting less. The smoke monster wasn't the only thing that went wrong with "Lost."
"Lost" suffered from its own groundbreaking nature in a certain way. The model of network
television has historically let series run as long as viewers are still tuning in.
According to Collider, the creators of "Lost" originally planned on just three seasons,
and then found themselves in a strange reverse negotiation with the studio to
actually let them plan on ending the show. Until that deal was hashed out,
they had to stall for time and add more mystery elements without revealing too much of the
endgame too soon. ABC's initial offer was to let the writers end "Lost" after 10 seasons,
so it's relatively fortunate that showrunner Damon Lindelof negotiated them down to six.
As a result, after a propulsive and well-paced first season based on the
mystery of what was in the hatch, the middle seasons of "Lost" begin to feel a
little spread thin. Lindelof in particular took this lesson and applied it to future
projects that he kept relatively short and sweet, often to critical acclaim,
like the single season of "Watchmen" or the three seasons of "The Leftovers."
For all the cliffhangers and inexplicable polar bears, the main appeal of "Lost"
is its cast of characters. It finds a successful formula right off the bat,
with most episodes telling the story of the survivors on the island intercut with
flashbacks to one of their pre-crash lives, often with dramatic parallels to what they're
facing in the present. It was a very successful formula… at least for the first few seasons.
Arguably the flashbacks are all diminishing returns after "Walkabout," where we learn that
the character John Locke was formerly paralyzed, but it's indisputable that the narrative device
was worn out by the time we sit through an episode dedicated to how Jack got his tattoos, an episode
that even Lindelof has noted in interviews as one of the worst of the series. Especially as the
mystery in the present dragged on without answers, these flashbacks came off as filler in order to
meet the studio's demand for more episodes. The flashbacks never technically stop, but beginning
with Season 3's brilliant surprise flash-forwards, they become less and less frequent.
"We have to go back!"
"Lost" fans say that the show was always more about its main characters rather than
its plot and so shouldn't be judged harshly for all of the holes and unresolved storylines
it left behind. But that's denying the basic reality that "Lost" had a TON of cliffhangers:
nearly every week, some new mysterious element is introduced or explored, and the cut to the ominous
title shot at the end of each episode interrupts viewers desperate to see what's about to happen.
Each season finale is perfect evidence of this. "Lost" isn't structured in
a way that makes any season particularly satisfying as a story on its own; instead,
each is designed to fold into the next, giving us a trail of cliffhangers like breadcrumbs to
follow to the big series finale. If "Lost" wanted to be about character,
it wouldn't have made us sit with so many distracting questions between episodes and
seasons. It implicitly makes the show dependent on the outcome of the plot,
and while it's eminently gripping, by design it makes it harder to enjoy the journey to get there.
The most memorable quote from "Lost" should be one of its many important and gasp-inducing
lines. But because of the time it devotes to one father's search for his missing son,
and then subsequent near-complete lack of follow-up when the character disappears
from the show, fans mostly remember one line courtesy of the character of Michael.
"WAALLLLLLTTTT!!! No! WALLLLLLLLLLLT!"
Granted, the actor
playing WALLLLLT, Malcolm David Kelley, aged a whole year from season to season,
when only a few days would have passed on "Lost," so it's understandable that the writers needed him
to fade from the narrative. On the other hand, they probably should have considered that when
they made him such a key figure of concern in the first few seasons, including them hinting
that Walt had some kind of special abilities only to never reveal what they were or how they worked.
Much like Walt, the recurring string of numbers holds significance mostly
just because "Lost" says so. The show's universe includes the sequence 4, 8, 15,
16, 23, and 42 in so many different places that it defies any sort of causal logic and
functions almost more as an in-joke for the writing staff of the show, or a mildly fun
Easter Egg hunt for the most devoted fans. They ultimately and most significantly correspond to
the various candidates of the survivors to replace Jacob as protector of the island.
There are several strange steps between that supposed origin and Hurley's encounter with
them in a mental hospital, which leads him to win the lottery and ultimately believe they're cursed.
"4,8,15,16,23,42, 4, 8 - we're dead - 15 - doomed and dead-"
"Hurley are you OK?"
"Huh? Yeah, awesome."
They're also the serial number on the hatch and the numbers Desmond has to enter into
the computer to keep something disastrous from happening, and on and on and on. By
the time you start hearing about "The Lost Experience" AR game and something called
"The Valenzetti Equation," it seems more and more likely that the numbers are just
a connecting force between disparate parts of "Lost," like a chaotic and tangled spider web.
The Others are another great encapsulation of what made "Lost" so frustrating for some
people. For two seasons, they're mysterious bogeymen. They kidnap Claire and Walt,
and their leader, Ben Linus, is obviously a dishonest and evil person. In Season 3,
we learn that while they're a little kidnap-happy, they're not entirely
evil. They're normal people trying to protect the island, and the real threat is from the outside.
For the rest of the show, they gradually become indistinguishable in purpose and
practice from the Oceanic survivors, even though the drama of the show thus
far has been thinking of them as, well, "the others." By the time you're trying
to understand the rivalry between Ben Linus and the wealthy Charles Widmore,
you get lost in how the Others fit into the story in the first place. The Others get a
new leader in the end, but don't really factor into the endgame of "Lost" in a significant way.
"Across the Sea," the second to the last episode of "Lost," should have been a
triumphant moment in storytelling. After the better part of six seasons, answers about the
larger conflict happening outside the survivors' comprehension are finally revealed. But almost
as much as the finale, the episode was met with confusion from a viewing public ready
for answers. The whole story of "Lost" is a quasi-biblical story about brothers in eternal,
supernatural conflict? And the Island is little more than a fairy-tale backdrop for this story?
The episode lays bare something fundamental about the calculus of "Lost." The show spent
six years puzzling our minds with questions that presumably had rational explanations.
But in the end, the vast majority of plot elements are a result of supernatural,
irrational powers and actions by two characters whom we barely even know. The reliance on a
deepening mystery that supposedly takes place in a universe like our own turns out to be
a bait-and-switch for a larger symbolic conflict. As preparation for the finale,
"Across the Sea" does its job by softening the blow, but it's still a shocking and abrupt turn.
There's truly no greater mascot for "Lost" and its spirit of mystery than the smoke monster.
Initially, it's pretty accurately named, as it appears to be a living cloud of black smoke that
kills Oceanic 815's pilot and knocks over trees menacingly. But soon, it starts appearing as
the characters' dead relatives, so it appears to have different forms and properties. Even after
coming face to face with it, the character John Locke was vague about what he saw.
"And what I saw…
was beautiful."
Eventually we learn that it was The Man in Black all along. The evil brother was
locked in conflict for centuries with the equally mysterious Jacob and had been stuck in smoke form
since an encounter with the bright light known as "the Heart of the Island." The point being,
The Man in Black aka the Smoke Monster was less of a character or villain than a concept.
Whatever it ultimately was, it even left many experienced "Lost" viewers scratching their heads.
We'll get to the specific nature of the flash sideways in Season 6, but "Lost" is supremely
frustrating in that it saves the big reveal until the series finale. Season 5 ends on a
huge cliffhanger, as Juliet detonates a hydrogen bomb meant to sink the Island
and alter time itself so that none of the events of the show ever happened. As Season 6 unfolds,
it seems very plausible that they're depicting that alternate timeline, as it depicts all the
major characters living different lives that have little to nothing to do with the Island.
Of course, that's far from what they turned out to be. So "Lost" essentially revises the key
to one of its biggest cliffhangers, and in the process completely invalidates the sacrifice of
one of its best characters. It also raises a lot of questions about how the Island is
even habitable if a hydrogen bomb went off in the '70s and the timeline remained the same.
For a couple of seasons, leading man Jack and leading lady Kate seemed destined to fall into
the endless list of fictional 'will they or won't they' relationships. Fortunately, the scruffy,
wisecracking Sawyer swooped in to break up the moon-eyes and get together with Kate.
Later, it's Sawyer and Juliet that have an actually pretty compelling,
time-travel–bonded romance, but there's also Kate and Jack on the fringes making everybody
insecure about things. This love quadrilateral even factors into the motivation to detonate
the hydrogen bomb in season five, as Jack is supposedly so heartbroken over
losing Kate that he wants to literally blow everything up for a shot at a second chance.
"Well damn Doc, she's standing right on the other
side of those trees - you want her back, just go and ask her."
"Nah it's too late for that."
In a show full of supernatural and mystical elements, and great conversations revolving
around philosophical debate, Jack's reasoning just seems out of touch with the rest of the series.
The flash sideways scenes in Season 6 turn out to be glimpses of the afterlife. Regardless of
the particulars, in retrospect, it seems like a fundamental misstep for "Lost" to confirm that
an afterlife exists, because it cuts the basic dramatic tension of every scene in the show off at
the knees. "Lost" is at heart a tale of survival. Part of its huge popularity is that it taps into
a primal drive, focusing on people trapped and trying to survive on a deserted island.
But if there's a confirmed afterlife within the world of "Lost," what drama is there to
re-watching it and worrying about the characters being in danger? They'd
just be getting an earlier ticket to the chill afterlife where Jack's dad explains everything
calmly and everyone smiles at each other. The "Lost" afterlife isn't just unnecessary,
but also robs viewers of the chance to find meaning in the characters' deaths.
Even if you're on board with the flash sideways world as a strange New Age purgatory,
"Lost" handles it questionably in a finale that intercuts mildly confusing action sequences with
what just seems like the cast wrap party. It becomes impossible to care about the
battle between Jack and The Man in Black aka Zombie Locke once you get the reveal anyway.
The explanation that everyone has gathered in this place because they
knew the time they spent on the Island together was special and significant
is overall unsatisfying. It feels like "Lost" insisting on its own profundity,
which is in no way earned and makes an assumption of goodwill on the part of the viewer. "Lost" had
so many loose ends and rabbit holes that no finale would please everyone, but "The End"
really feels like it was specially crafted to raise even more questions than it answered.