Happy Atheist Forum

Was anyone on this site into the "Lost" T.V. series?  I watched it for 6 seasons and enjoyed it up until the last season, when a well-written, sci-fi type time travel show became an obvious religious based battle of good vs. evil, with so many ridiculous bible based story arcs.  I continued to watch it right up to the end, hoping the writers would NOT take the easiest route of having all the characters "redeem" themselves and go to "heaven" and was so disappointed when that was exactly what they did!

Did anyone else feel cheated by this series that was so good for so long?  

I stopped watching it about two years ago...

Quote from: "Cecilie"I stopped watching it about two years ago...

Ditto. Mid season four I just plain Lost (har har) interest.

It wasn't fun anymore after they left the island. The whole thing got too complicated... I think the same thing happend to Heroes.

I thought they were doing a pretty good job with the whole series until this whole cop-out with the religious theme at the end!  It really disappointed me.

Quote from: "happytobeme"Was anyone on this site into the "Lost" T.V. series?  I watched it for 6 seasons and enjoyed it up until the last season, when a well-written, sci-fi type time travel show became an obvious religious based battle of good vs. evil, with so many ridiculous bible based story arcs.  I continued to watch it right up to the end, hoping the writers would NOT take the easiest route of having all the characters "redeem" themselves and go to "heaven" and was so disappointed when that was exactly what they did!

Did anyone else feel cheated by this series that was so good for so long?  

Totally cheated.  I was hoping for parallel timelines that would eventually merge as a resolution to the apparent paradox.

[spoiler:37bgzj14]And why was Aaron, as an infant, in the church/temple/whosiwhatsit?  And why did Juliet say, "It worked" to Miles?

Yeah, the last season being purgatory - that sucks.

My partner says he has decided to think of what happened on the island as the real ending - the Man in Black getting killed, Jack dying, assorted people escaping in the plane, and Hurley becoming the island's guardian.[/spoiler:37bgzj14]

I made a pretty cool cake for our Lost series Finale party, though.
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1.squidoocdn.com%2Fresize%2Fsquidoo_images%2F590%2Fdraft_lens5611232module102225181photo_1274640496Lost_Cake_unfinished.jpg&hash=c8a74a922a6180df951351ba846b35e75a3cbe71)
This photo doesn't show the four-toed, broken statue foot, though.  I have to get that photo off my partner's camera.

[Edited due to a WTF moment. Apparently I quoted instead of editing.]

I agree, I think they were almost leading you to believe the alternate flash-sideways was going to merge with the island time by having Juliet say "It worked".  I think I like your partner's idea best.  Let's just accept an alternate ending that we like better!  Otherwise, I feel like I wasted 6  years on the show, even though it really was so well written and acted.

Awesome cake!  

:hide:

... I watched about 15 minutes of the series before I realized it was just another "string-the-viewer-along-with-crazy-shit-for-as-long-as-we-can-make-a-buck" show.

That being said, I like "Flash Forward", which of course means it's getting canceled after 1 season.

Quote from: "joeactor"... I watched about 15 minutes of the series before I realized it was just another "string-the-viewer-along-with-crazy-shit-for-as-long-as-we-can-make-a-buck" show.

That being said, I like "Flash Forward", which of course means it's getting canceled after 1 season.

Yes, it's getting canceled. I like Flash Forward as well.

I said this in another thread where someone brought up the finale, but I'll go over it again.

First of all, I didn't watch LOST for the last 6 years...I watched it pretty much in the span of two weeks on Netflix and then watched the last season as it came out.  I didn't really have the emotional attachment to the characters that a lot of people seemed to have, so the last episode to me just seemed like a poorly written story that allowed for tons of seemingly endless montages so that people could really LIKE the characters one last time.  For me, LOST was interesting for the story, not for the characters, and I think that's why I feel pretty 'meh' about the finale.

I don't have any problem with the heaven/purgatory thing per se, because the whole show was obviously fiction so sure, throw in some more fictional concepts like purgatory and heaven, the more randomness the merrier - IF it made the story interesting.  I felt like the ending they went with was an ending you could literally slap onto any given show to tie things up, and I guess I just hoped they would actually end with the same creativity that was used earlier in the series.  But, they obviously went a more emotional route, and they must have done that for the sake of the fans.  I think they missed the boat in a way though, going the route of what essentially amounts to two and a half hours of fanservice instead of dedicating at least a little more energy to making the last season and/or at least the final episode of the story memorable.  Fans who love Kate, miss Charlie, wanna hump Sawyer (rrrowr though, seriously), etc. are not the only fans of the show.  For me, the characters were all just parts of the story, and I felt like the ending didn't do the story justice.

I don't really feel like I can complain too much though, because like I said I haven't been watching the show for the last 6 years.  

Lost was one of my favorite TV shows, as was Battlestar Galactica.  Both included themes of secularism and/or skepticism in a spiritual/supernatural/religious setting, especially early on.  Both shows did cop out at the end by essentially reaffirming that their supernatural aspects were indeed valid when all was said and done.  Still two excellent TV shows that I will watch again and again, but both were somewhat disappointing in the end.

Galactica - totally agree.

For me, the ending ruined an otherwise stellar series.
(kinda like Star Wars ep. 1,2,3 ruined 4,5,6 for me)

In many ways, just having an ending with loose-ends left over would be preferable to tying them up in a hackneyed way.  Such a shame when it looks like they've painted themselves into a corner and have to pull out some tripe to justify it all.

Just leave it "unknown".
(wayyyyy off topic)
For example, had they ended Galactica with a beauty shot of them finding Earth, I would have been ok with that...

Quote from: "joeactor"Galactica - totally agree.

For me, the ending ruined an otherwise stellar series.
(kinda like Star Wars ep. 1,2,3 ruined 4,5,6 for me)

In many ways, just having an ending with loose-ends left over would be preferable to tying them up in a hackneyed way.  Such a shame when it looks like they've painted themselves into a corner and have to pull out some tripe to justify it all.

Just leave it "unknown".
(wayyyyy off topic)
For example, had they ended Galactica with a beauty shot of them finding Earth, I would have been ok with that...

How about a good old, "St. Elsewhere" ending?  

I dunno, I really loved Lost all the way through. I actually enjoyed the ending. I don't think it was odd they chose the purgatory route. They didn't really say anything about heaven and hell. It was 'moving on' apparently, so that can be interpreted as you wish. I don't think it was a simple good v evil premise because Jacob was himself a mass murderer. It was Richard who told Ben to kill the people in the Dharma Initiative and Richard got all his orders from Jacob...

What did annoy me a little was the non-resolution of who the fuck makes up all the rules. Whidmore used to literally shit a brick whenever anyone potentially contravened any of these so-called 'rules' only to have every one of them broken in the last episode. I know Hurley said something like, 'I guess the new caretaker makes the rules' but why? I was expecting some kind of cosmic significance but apparently they were just some artefacts of a stupid game being played by Jacob and ole Smokey.

Why did Jacob's brother get turned into the smoke monster but not Jack when he went down there? I was expecting jack to turn into white smoke. I think they could have played with the hard science a bit more. Would have been nice for them to reveal some kind of quantum rift under the island which transmuted time into light, or something equally ridiculous :)

Ok, i just realised Richard has been to the real world before. In season 2 he was in an office trying to convince Juliette to come to the island.

Just found this. it is quite funny

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvid ... -cats.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/7760170/Lost-re-enacted-by-cats.html)

Richard was sent to recruit Juliette to the island when the sub was still being used by the others to ferry in specialists and medicine to try to solve the pregnancy mystery (that apparently didn't have a resolution but was just kind of swept aside on the show), wasn't he?  I thought I remembered him being the one who drugged her for the sub ride to the island...

OK, I thought so.  :D

Quote from: "Kylyssa"I made a pretty cool cake for our Lost series Finale party, though.
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1.squidoocdn.com%2Fresize%2Fsquidoo_images%2F590%2Fdraft_lens5611232module102225181photo_1274640496Lost_Cake_unfinished.jpg&hash=c8a74a922a6180df951351ba846b35e75a3cbe71)
This photo doesn't show the four-toed, broken statue foot, though.  I have to get that photo off my partner's camera.

By the way, Kylyssa, that's sweet looking cake!  

I choose to forget Star Wars Episodes 1 through 3.  

Worst moment of the Galactica finale:
[spoiler:2zie8q5w]Kara Thrace's sudden disappearance after fulfilling her destiny.[/spoiler:2zie8q5w]

Worst moment of the Lost finale:
[spoiler:2zie8q5w]The way they handled the Man in Black/Smoke Monster.  All it took was Desmond unplugging the island's cork to make him mortal again?  What was his true nature and why would him getting off the island have spelled disaster for the whole world?  Was he going to black smoke everyone to death?[/spoiler:2zie8q5w]

Quote from: "karadan"I dunno, I really loved Lost all the way through. I actually enjoyed the ending. I don't think it was odd they chose the purgatory route. They didn't really say anything about heaven and hell.

You have to go back a week or two to get the Heaven/Hell thing.

Michael didn't get to go to Purgatory and then move on to Heaven.  He's stuck on the island as one of the whisperers.  He didn't earn redemption before he died on the boat, so he's in Hell.

I would have been fine with the ending (and "moving on") if everyone got to go.  But Michael stuck on the island (the gate to Hell) for eternity...  *shakes head*

Here's a post from someone in the writer's room of LOST:

http://lostmediamentions.blogspot.com/2010/05/someone-from-bad-robots-take-on-finale.html#comment-51784991

They set out to write a show about science vs. faith - and have faith come out on top.  Life as a heaven/hell test.

You know, I really don't mind that the ending got all religious, I mind that continuity was ignored and the ending seemed slapped together.  They did it to be clever, to make a strained twist ending.

Listen, you guys want good "island" stuff with castaways? Two words for you:

Gilligan's Island

'nuff said.

Quote from: "McQ"Listen, you guys want good "island" stuff with castaways? Two words for you:

Gilligan's Island

'nuff said.

"shhhh... I hear feetprints!"

(radioactive beets?)

I'm going to watch the finale tonight with two friends-they were out of the country when it was on.  Should be interesting, considering I've only watched the first 2 seasons and part of season 3.

Quote from: "philosoraptor"I'm going to watch the finale tonight with two friends-they were out of the country when it was on.  Should be interesting, considering I've only watched the first 2 seasons and part of season 3.

You will not have an effing clue what is going on. I guarantee it