Thinky-Thoughts About Freaky Finales And Unanswered Issues
So, I've been thinking a little more about the Lost finale. Or, more accurately, I haven't been thinking about the finale itself, but about my reaction to the finale, and it occurs to me that there are a few other shows I have to thank for that reaction.
And, OK, I'm not getting into anything specifically spoilery here, for Lost or anything else, at least not in plot terms. But I am going to mention a couple of shows with various kinds of WTF-ish endings, and shows which do or don't ultimately provide answers to the viewers. I personally think that's almost an anti-spoiler -- for me, this is precisely the sort of thing it really helps to know going into a show. But not everybody may agree.
First off, I would like to thank The Prisoner, which I watched in its entirety maybe a couple of months ago, because after that finale, I feel like I am thoroughly inoculated against WTF-ish endings. It's also a great example of something that works, if it works at all, on a symbolic/thematic level, rather than a literal and logical one. It is, in fact, sort of the extreme case of that. So it's, uh, good practice, I guess, for looking at things from different perspectives and being able to say "if this wasn't about giving me concrete answers to puzzles, maybe it was about something else" and finding interesting something elses to latch onto and find satisfaction in. (Note: I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to watch the endings of both The Prisoner and Lost again to explore that fully.)
I would also like to thank The Pretender, which really brought home to me the fact that it is fully possible to love a show which sets up tons of weird mysteries and either fails to answer them or answers them in ways that are completely cracky and ultimately just raise more questions, anyway. This, of course, wasn't entirely The Pretender's fault, as it never got to have the proper wrap-up its creators planned, although based on the directions the second TV movie seemed to be going in, this may be just as well. But, in a bizarre way, I sort of learned to love the confusion and self-contradiction and dangling threads. It fits the show's tone very well, somehow, creating this sense of reality and identity as slippery things, easy to use to manipulate others, but difficult to grasp for yourself.
In both cases, we're talking about something that's deeply frustrating if you're expecting the show to put together the jigsaw pieces to make a coherent picture in the end or viewing it as a puzzle whose solution you will ultimately find in the back of the book, but fascinating if you approach it from a more abstract level, as being about people and ideas and the mysteries of life, rather than about, say, putting clues together to find out whodunnit or to reveal the Logical Explanation for Everything.
I still don't know entirely how I feel about the ending to Lost, but I do know those experiences really, really help when it comes to dealing with weirdnesses and unanswered questions. If only they'd come before the finale to Quantum Leap, perhaps I might not have hated it so much. I kind of doubt it, but it's possible.
[ETA: And if anybody wants to talk more specifically about any of these shows, I'd be delighted. But, please, label comments with spoiler warnings if necessary. Thanks!]
And, OK, I'm not getting into anything specifically spoilery here, for Lost or anything else, at least not in plot terms. But I am going to mention a couple of shows with various kinds of WTF-ish endings, and shows which do or don't ultimately provide answers to the viewers. I personally think that's almost an anti-spoiler -- for me, this is precisely the sort of thing it really helps to know going into a show. But not everybody may agree.
First off, I would like to thank The Prisoner, which I watched in its entirety maybe a couple of months ago, because after that finale, I feel like I am thoroughly inoculated against WTF-ish endings. It's also a great example of something that works, if it works at all, on a symbolic/thematic level, rather than a literal and logical one. It is, in fact, sort of the extreme case of that. So it's, uh, good practice, I guess, for looking at things from different perspectives and being able to say "if this wasn't about giving me concrete answers to puzzles, maybe it was about something else" and finding interesting something elses to latch onto and find satisfaction in. (Note: I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to watch the endings of both The Prisoner and Lost again to explore that fully.)
I would also like to thank The Pretender, which really brought home to me the fact that it is fully possible to love a show which sets up tons of weird mysteries and either fails to answer them or answers them in ways that are completely cracky and ultimately just raise more questions, anyway. This, of course, wasn't entirely The Pretender's fault, as it never got to have the proper wrap-up its creators planned, although based on the directions the second TV movie seemed to be going in, this may be just as well. But, in a bizarre way, I sort of learned to love the confusion and self-contradiction and dangling threads. It fits the show's tone very well, somehow, creating this sense of reality and identity as slippery things, easy to use to manipulate others, but difficult to grasp for yourself.
In both cases, we're talking about something that's deeply frustrating if you're expecting the show to put together the jigsaw pieces to make a coherent picture in the end or viewing it as a puzzle whose solution you will ultimately find in the back of the book, but fascinating if you approach it from a more abstract level, as being about people and ideas and the mysteries of life, rather than about, say, putting clues together to find out whodunnit or to reveal the Logical Explanation for Everything.
I still don't know entirely how I feel about the ending to Lost, but I do know those experiences really, really help when it comes to dealing with weirdnesses and unanswered questions. If only they'd come before the finale to Quantum Leap, perhaps I might not have hated it so much. I kind of doubt it, but it's possible.
[ETA: And if anybody wants to talk more specifically about any of these shows, I'd be delighted. But, please, label comments with spoiler warnings if necessary. Thanks!]