I liked it other than the whole: they’re not in purgatory…oh wait, hey, we like that idea. Let’s put 'em in purgatory for the last season! If they had dumped that whole angle and concentrated on the actual characters and wrapping everything up neater, it would have been perfect.
Desmond’s arc excuses everything silly and bad in Lost.
My suspicion is the show’s creators’ big idea from when they pitched the show was “…and it turns out they were in purgatory all the time! No one will see THAT coming!”
Then when websites started posting fan theories, half of which were “they’re all dead and the island is purgatory or something”, the showrunners said “D’oh!”
So they came up with all the sci-fi-ish island mumbo jumbo(light in the cave, etc), none of which was the original plan so none of which can be explained in any satisfactory way.
Then when it came time to end it, after all the sci-fi mumbo jumbo the showrunners thought “Okay, now that we’ve established that they are not dead and in purgatory let’s end this with them dead and in some kind of purgatory.”
Well, to be fair, they didn’t lie to anyone. Only half of the last season was in purgatory. Everything else apparently happened here on Earth. They just all met up later in purgatory because of their link to each other.
My point was:
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It was a bad idea regardless at how they arrived at it.
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Having said that it wasn’t the case, it was annoying that they lied/changed their minds/forgot they already said it wasn’t so/whatever lame excuse they want to give.
Except for that, I enjoyed the complex story line, really liked a lot of the actors, it actually moved along fairly well once they signed the final contract and knew what time frame they had to finish the story. And I liked that it told a story with a begining, middle and end. If I was writing it I would have balanced off the scientific with the mystical more at the end rather than giving way entirely to the mystical, but toss the whole purgatory “side” flash thing and all in all I’m happy with the show.
Yeah, but the island wasn’t purgatory. Life back in the real world was.
No, death after life in the real world or the Island was purgatory, but neither really changes my view that it was a cheesy thing to do, and not a particular satisfying part of the conclusion to the series.
Ha ha, you guys watched Lost!
-Tom
I’m with Mike. Even with its faults, I loved the entire show. I did not do a lot of heavy analysis post-show to poke holes. I just sat there and enjoyed the ride.
Re: Purgatory:
Once they set up the idea that the person who controls the Island gets to shape the reality of the Island, I sort of ended up almost liking the afterlife parts. Keep in mind, the caretaker of the Island ends up being Hurley, and that’s exactly the kind of thing I imagine Hurley would have done with near-godlike powers: Give all of his friends a happy ending.*
- Not that kind, you perverts.
For me the show was well encapsulated in the first episode that I enjoyed from the show. After I saw the pilot and a couple of follow-up episodes, I was about to stop watching, and I didn’t really get why people were so positive on the show. Sure, it had beautiful locations and great photography, but the whole “mysterious monster” motif turned me off something fierce. My gut instinct right then was that no matter what they came up with eventually, none of these kind of shows ever have a satisfying explanation for whacky stuff like that.
And then I watched the fourth episode: Walkabout. It was about John Locke, and after that episode I was completely hooked. Right then I decided that as long as the show was that well made, with characters that interesting, photographed and acted that well, with such great music and dramatic tension, then it didn’t matter to me that framing this great show about characters was this weird outer layer about monsters and what-not.
And coming into the show with that kind of expectation, I won’t lie, I was still disappointed with a lot of episodes. Nearly all of the Kate-focused episodes in particular, I thought, were just terrible. But I thought the show was mostly very very good, like the episode Walkabout. And I enjoyed watching it a lot. And coming at it from this perspective, I don’t really get why Tom mocks people for having watched Lost. :) I mean, sure, I guess for the people who watched it just for the mystery, I can imagine it was probably fairly disappointing, but for those that watched a well-made show for its characters, it was very nice.
Our cable box is kaput, so I’ve been using amazon prime instant(how long have I had this?) to rewatch. I did enjoy re-reading the start of this thread, especially an interview with one of the creators saying ‘no time travel.’ Ha, right.
And proud of it, man!
-Bart Simpson
Yeah, I watched all of it and I thought overall it was worth it. I even kind of liked how it ended, including the purgatory thing.
I just think it’s a cheat to say, early on, that purgatory is not what’s happening if that is what’s happening in the end. I understand that technically the island is not purgatory, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that purgatory, as a plot element, was guessed and ruled out. So from then on, on the island or off the island. the use of any variation of purgatory should have been disallowed from a plot standpoint.
What a frustrating series. There’s so many amazing moments and episodes. The writers made it seem that they had such a grand plan for the island and the survivors. Every twist and turn brought in a new layer of intrigue & complexity where you had to wonder where it would all go…
… then as the end approaches you realize they have no fucking clue where it’s all going so the final season piles more bullshit upon more bullshit until the shit mountain is so high it falls out into the afterlife.
Once they had the folks split with one group time traveling, I knew they had no real idea how to wrap it up. I disliked the ending a lot, but I had to watch it to see what kind of goofy metaphysical BS they were going to dump on the viewers. Sadly, it was worse than I thought.
That first season though? Amazing.
Nothing will ever redeem the final season for me, but Lost was still a pretty amazing show with some characters and stories I’ll always love. I think this read from one of the writers of the first two seasons will be fascinating to anyone who enjoyed the show even in part. It’s a long read, but worth it.
THE LOST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JAVIER GRILLO-MARXUACH
What follows began as an on-the-record response to a journalist who reached out to me for background for a book on the current “Golden Age” of television. My selfish desire is to put this all down as I remember, then leave it for anyone who is interested to find so that I can stop telling the story… and in doing so, maybe someday revisit the series not through the lens of a participant, but that of a viewer who has never been asked – as I have a million times – “Did you have a plan?” or "Were you lying when you said in an interview that the writers knew what the island was? “What was JJ/Damon/Carlton like?” “Was it purgatory?” – and, of course, my personal favorite, “No, come on, really, was it purgatory?”
Spoiler - it wasn’t purgatory.
Looks like I have something to do this afternoon. Nice find.
…and in doing so, maybe someday revisit the series not through the lens of a participant, but that of a viewer who has never been asked – as I have a million times – “Did you have a plan?”
The answer to this turns out to be exactly what I’ve assumed all along and precisely what I would hope for in a series which had as its two primary appeals its characters and the mysterious journey they and the audience were on.
The creative process is organic and anyone who has ever written anything knows that while you start with a general frame work, some of your best ideas and greatest inspirations come along mid-stream. Breaking Bad has one of the most well conceived and tightly plotted story arcs of any series ever created but there is a great story from the writers room about the episode where Walter and Jessie are trapped in the RV when Hank pulls up. The writers had no idea how to get them out of that bind and the ideas that they came up with and discarded ended up in the final script as the ideas that Walter and Jessie pitch to each other.
Anyway, that’s a great article. Thanks for posting it.
It amuses me to watch the Lost actors’ reunion that is Hawaii 5-0.