Doesn't matter if you don't stick the landing. The journey is meaningless without a satisfying destination.
LOST - what is its legacy?
- Thread starter Asbsand
- Start date
This is something that has become a popular defense of the show ever since the producers started claiming "it was never about the mysteries, it was about the characters". But honestly, I never bought that. The last couple of seasons but especially season 6 treated the characters and their series long arcs like crap.
First off, Locke actually being dead and amounting to nothing. Sayid and Claire becoming villains for some reason. Aaron/Walt not being special after all. Sun and Jin getting killed and leaving their daughter behind. Ilana doing nothing and then exploding.
I don't remember much about Kate and Sawyer in season 6 but I remember feeling disappointed in general because outside of Jack and maybe Hurley it felt like a lot of characters didn't get a satisfying conclusion to their story.
I don't remember much about Kate and Sawyer in season 6 but I remember feeling disappointed in general because outside of Jack and maybe Hurley it felt like a lot of characters didn't get a satisfying conclusion to their story.
It fell apart at the end, and it's not really something I'd recommend anyone return to in retrospect, but it was pretty clearly a turning point for TV. Serialized dramas had been running on HBO and the like for a while, but it really mainstreamed the idea. I remember overhearing the librarians at my high school eagerly analyzing episodes. Like I'm not sure how much of that later era of Breaking Bad and Mad Men and Game of Thrones you get without it, let alone all the stuff that's running now. And it launched a handful of pretty successful careers.
The final season being a disappointment doesn't make episodes like "Walkabout" or "The Constant" any less brilliant. Saying it doesn't matter is a level of black and white critique that doesn't hold up at all.
Before smart phones and alternate screen experiences, this show was truly groundbreaking in its interactivity with its viewers or at least how we engaged with the show and each other while watching. Trying to figure it out, piece the flashbacks together and the show trying to stay one step ahead.
I still love its idea of a magic box and the possibilities that leads to when still thinking about it to this day. It was tv's The House of Leaves (fantastic book that can only be a book).
I still love its idea of a magic box and the possibilities that leads to when still thinking about it to this day. It was tv's The House of Leaves (fantastic book that can only be a book).
Pretty much, allthough he has done so much shit between the gems too
I enjoyed the first four seasons so much that I'm not mad that things went off the rails after that.
I love both Lost and BSG, but I have to disagree. It was the shows of HBO that cemented serialized television as the main form of storytelling. The Sopranos were 5 years earlier than Lost, and just as big if not even bigger. Also The Wire, Deadwood, OZ, and Six Feet Under during those early 2000's also deserve credit. Not saying that Lost doesn't deserve credit (especially at a network level), the main credit needs to go HBO and especially The Sopranos.
I love LOST. It wasn't a perfect show and it floundered some towards the end, but I still enjoyed the hell out of the ride along the way.
I'm glad I had the experience of watching it when it originally aired because it was a legit phenomenon. At work we'd talk about each episode for the entire week until the next one, discussing it in detail. I've never seen any other show have the impact on so many people concurrently as LOST did. It was great fun, blemishes and all.
I'm glad I had the experience of watching it when it originally aired because it was a legit phenomenon. At work we'd talk about each episode for the entire week until the next one, discussing it in detail. I've never seen any other show have the impact on so many people concurrently as LOST did. It was great fun, blemishes and all.
I was a pretty big fan of it. My college even had a viewing party for the last episode, though a fair number of people didn't get the ending. They weren't dead all along!
The show definitely didn't live up to the potential, and later shows picked up on the good aspects and dropped the bad parts, but its influence can't be overstated. I was fine with the slow pacing while it was airing, but I imagine it'd be a huge drag watching it again.
This video is super cheesy but it brings back memories of the mood during the ending.
The show definitely didn't live up to the potential, and later shows picked up on the good aspects and dropped the bad parts, but its influence can't be overstated. I was fine with the slow pacing while it was airing, but I imagine it'd be a huge drag watching it again.
This video is super cheesy but it brings back memories of the mood during the ending.
Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of this. Lost had high quality memes. And because of the timing, it didn't overload the fandom.
I'd say watch the pilot and see how you feel. Even though the show doesn't really come together in the end, it reaches highs that are well worth the trip.
All things considered, I would say Lost had a bigger impact than GoT
Actually, that reminds me of another way Lost changed TV, and that was international broadcasts. Previously people in the U.K. (let alone non English speaking countries) had to wait months after the US first aired their shows.
Serialised tv was certainly popular before Lost and was going in that direction anyway, but Lost really was on a whole other level. Lost was shown at the same time in the U.K. as the US broadcast, which was frankly unheard of at that point.
Actually, that reminds me of another way Lost changed TV, and that was international broadcasts. Previously people in the U.K. (let alone non English speaking countries) had to wait months after the US first aired their shows.
With this show I learned a lesson about life and about storytelling: questions are more interesting than answers.
While I think the first half of the show is better than the second half (season 3 being the best one), I think most of the criticism is unfounded and often comes from people not understanding or simply not liking the outcome of things. I'd say 95% of the questions in the show were answered, and almost all making perfect sense. In fact, I would have preferred in retrospect that less things had been answered, and had been left to the viewers imagination in some more subtle ways.
In any case, it's the best "entertainment" TV show ever IMO, and really worth watching in 2020.
While I think the first half of the show is better than the second half (season 3 being the best one), I think most of the criticism is unfounded and often comes from people not understanding or simply not liking the outcome of things. I'd say 95% of the questions in the show were answered, and almost all making perfect sense. In fact, I would have preferred in retrospect that less things had been answered, and had been left to the viewers imagination in some more subtle ways.
In any case, it's the best "entertainment" TV show ever IMO, and really worth watching in 2020.
This is an asinine take. The journey of LOST and the week to week theories was the best part. It changed how we all watched television. You didn't lose that experience from being disappointed in the ending, you still enjoyed it in the moment.
That's like saying a terrible book has 1 or 2 good chapters. Who cares? The book is bad.
The entire purpose of a good story is to arrive at a satisfying conclusion. Otherwise they would just end halfway through. We keep watching (or reading, etc.) to see how things work out. That is a critical aspect of any story. It doesn't matter what came before if you fuck that up. The story is just bad after that.
100% of my enjoyment was trying to figure out what was going on. Watching to see what happens next. Waiting for the answers. Speculating on the Lostpedia forums. I absolutely lost that experience by the ending since afterwards I felt like I had completely wasted my time. The show I thought I was watching was a goddamn lie.
God, fuck Lost. Makes me furious just thinking about. Fucking hacks, everyone who worked on those final seasons.
If you didn't have buddies that catch it every week as it aired and shoot theories with, you missed out.
One of the best TV series of all time and an absolute joy of a ride. I rewatched it a few months ago (Thanks Covid) and it was as great as I remembered, hell maybe even more. It holds up damn good. The characters and storytelling are some of the best ever.
Mr. Eko *chef's kiss*
Mr. Eko *chef's kiss*
Let's try this with another logic exercise. I hate my ex-girlfriend because she cheated on me, but the sex before that was still amazing. Her cheating on me doesn't retroactively change the quality of the sex, I still enjoyed it.
But it's nothing even remotely like that because that's not what I said at all.
The majority of Lost is not bad. It is good. I was simply giving two examples of amazing episodes.
Not really an apt comparison since the goal of sex isn't to have a successful relationship. Sex can be good or bad all by itself.
Each episode of a TV show has the goal of advancing the story towards a satisfying ending. That is its only purpose.
Didn't the whole Mr. Eko arc turn a whole bunch of fans off the show?
That is not true for 99% of the history of television. LOST changed how we watch serialized TV.
Episodes like "The Constant" are not bad because of season 6, that episode stands up on its own as an incredible 42 minutes of television. The ending is irrelevant to its quality.
The legacy of lost is defiance against circonvoluted plots that promise a lot.
For me it's the perfect example of writers losing the control of their story and doing cliffhangers and Building huge mysteries for the sake of it.
For me it's the perfect example of writers losing the control of their story and doing cliffhangers and Building huge mysteries for the sake of it.
Not sure what to say other than I disagree with every fiber of my being. Individual episodes of Lost cannot be good in any capacity since their only purpose was to build up the mystery reveals. Those mysteries were the core tentpoles of show and the reason why it was so popular in the first place.
It really was great when you only had one episode a week to live off of. I even joined The Fuselage because I needed to process everything with other folks.
when it's all available and you can binge it, no good. The fun was going week to week and figuring it out.
when it's all available and you can binge it, no good. The fun was going week to week and figuring it out.
I'd say so too. GoT influenced in its own ways, but Lost redefined how the mainstream public invested in scifi/fantasy tv shows, particularly of the ensemble variety. It was the giant whose shoulders GoT stood on.
Horrible ending aside to go along with a lot of other dumb shit, some in control of the showrunners and others not, I can only think of warm feelings when talking Lost, but not too warm because again - lot of stupid shit. I think that goes for the majority. Stupid ending but generally a decent ride.
Ofc another GoT comparison comes to mind here in how we and the regular public views these shows over time. Cause for me and GoT, it isn't a decent ride with a stupid ending. Entire show is tainted because the last 3 seasons of that show and what they did to most of their characters and plots. Lost didn't have that problem for me really.
I don't think I'd watch a show where every episode was unenjoyable but they set up a satisfying conclusion.
I didn't watch it until right after that season 3 finale, as I kept hearing it was insane. The show always sounded stupid to me before that.
Marathoned all three seasons in a week.
When I went back to look at that thread, I'm glad I wasn't in it. There were clearly people "guessing" the outcome who had actually read spoilers.
a phenomenal, game-changing series only limited by the rigid conditions under which it was made.
the industry evolved and became more flexible onward and we got masterpieces in the form of The Leftovers and Watchmen once Lindelof was given more creative freedom.
the industry evolved and became more flexible onward and we got masterpieces in the form of The Leftovers and Watchmen once Lindelof was given more creative freedom.
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A sports team can still have a great season if they don't win any titles. A simgle game can make a whole season memorable if it's great.
I can understand people being disappointed in Lost, Game of Thrones, Dexter, Sons of Anarchy and countless other shows' endings but retroactively damning years of great entertainment is going too far in my opinion.
People who think the ending crashed the landing (heh) don't fully appreciate that Jack's ending arc was only his and not neccesarily the show answering everything for the viewer. That wasn't intended to be the ending of the mystery, just the ending Jack needed from the mystery box. The show constantly kept providing magical explanations and mysteries for each character who needed answers and Jack being the central character wrapped the show up the way it did because of that fact. Locke fell off and got used by the island/mystery box because he relied on that magic too deeply. Stared into the abyss if you will.
Can't help the way I feel. After Lost I felt like I had wasted all those years following the show. The sense of entertainment I had felt at the time was wiped away by the last couple of seasons. Those early seasons are just bad memories now because they remind me of how I was duped for so long. Endings are critical to me. The most critical aspect of any story. The entire point of a story is to get to the ending. The ending needs to be good.
The conclusion won't be satisfying unless individual episodes are enjoyable though. One has to come before the other.
I remember loving this show for the first two seasons I believe, maybe it was 3. Whenever the other people got really involved and had a whole compound on the island I checked out. The whole boat sequence with Michael and his son to end one of the seasons was great.
This series-long progression of a narrative produced one of the most unsettling speeches in tv history imo.
I know that some folks were disappointed to know how Locke's story ended up (especially after all the boss Locke memes), but cotdamn did I enjoy the journey. It's just one of those tragedy stories I can't hate on.
Yes, it did actually but he was a fantastic character and one of my favorites. He deserved better treatment, that's for sure.
Feels like the kind of thing that Disney would eventually do for Disney+ rather than ABC.
Lost, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad feel like the last of the "watercooler TV shows" where you knew everyone was watching, live, and talking about it the day after. Streaming sites are trying to recapture that with weekly drops and stuff (Mandalorian, The Boys) but I don't think it really works the same.
never seen Lost but The Leftovers is good and presumably heavily influenced by it(since it's the same guy)
