final boarding call
Today I finally got the final season of Lost on DVD. I really can't say what has taken me so long to buy it, once upon a time I would rush out and buy each season the very morning they were released, but season six has been completely forgotten, my collection incomplete, for some unknown reason. This will be only the second time I've watched the last season...I wonder how much I've forgotten since it first aired all those years ago. Wow, I'm so ashamed of myself for checking out of this fandom so much that I've neglected this season for such a long time.
I'm so glad that Lost got to end on its own terms, it wasn't axed and therefore the ending was rushed. There's nothing worse than getting into a show and really following it, only to have it be axed and an anti-climatic ending thrown together with whatever limited time the production staff were allowed before having their heads severed by studio executives. With a show like Lost it was essential that they end in their own time, because they had so many damn questions to answer, it seems like with each new episode we had about thirty new questions to scratch our heads over. The last season gave the writers the chance to take their time and establish the storylines that would lead us to the answers, some of them we'd been waiting the full six seasons for. They could weave more of their magic and take us on more crazy journeys. I'm glad they knew when to end it, rather than dragging it on for too long and start playing cheesy clip shows, they knew when the horse was lame and needed to be put down.
I remember when I first started watching about mid-way through season one, it was to watch the development of the characters. They were so realistic and such a diverse and interesting group, you couldn't help but love them. In that sense I was happy with the way it ended. Let's be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted from Lost was more Charlie and Claire, and in the finale I got that. They revisited all of the characters and tied up all of the loose ends. It was so amazing to see all of the characters get a happy ending and reach the place you'd always wanted them to get to from the first episode. It was like an amazing high school reunion and I couldn't have been happier with it.
For me, I was just so freakin' relieved that it didn't turn out that the island was just a dream. I HATE when writers pull that crap. It's such an anti-climatic and easy way out 'oh, it was just a dream, haha, gotcha!' because you invest time and care into the characters and to find out that none of it was ever really real would have left me feeling extremely cheated. I feel like the dream ending is a lazy writers way of half-creating a mindfuck for their audience when they don't know how to do a proper one and I'm glad the writers of Lost kept it interesting and didn't sink to that level. The ending of this wasn't anti-climatic at all. I adore how it ended with Jack coming full-circle, that was such a nice touch.
I think it would have been a very uncomfortable position for the writers to be in coming into the final season. With Lost it started out relatively simple, right? People stranded on an island, cool, cool, the island isn't all that it seems, cool that sounds interesting, suck it Gilligan's Island! But then with every season they kept adding more-and-more. Oh, now we're time-travelling, now there's quantum-physics involved, now the epitome of good vs. evil lives on the island and etc. It was like being on a rollercoaster and it just kept climbing and climbing and climbing and you hear the track ticking under you but it's still climbing, it's still building. There was so much going on (oh, I forgot, alternate universes were also involved!) that they had a real task on their hands of how to end it. After building for so long you gotta make the drop worth our time. How on Earth could they satisfy everyone and make the fans feel like their time had been well invested? I reckon a lot of sleepless nights would have gone into the final season and you have to appreciate the cockiness of the writers to pull it off.
Everyone needs to take a moment to thank Lost for changing the entire landscape of modern television. They redefined what you could do in a TV show and threw out the idea of 'playing it safe'. It's so strange to think of what kind of shows were playing on TV before Lost, but afterwards it's this sense of anything goes. It was so gutsy for them to attempt a drama/sci-fi hybrid in primetime and somehow they got away with it. Every week was something entirely new and something exciting and I think that kind of standard is something all future TV writers will be running to keep up with. It's complete escapism and it makes you want more from your favourite show, it always challenged me and prompted lots of thinking and theorising, it was more than watching it, you really, truly experienced Lost and I think that's a very special thing in this age of disposable culture.
I'm so glad that Lost got to end on its own terms, it wasn't axed and therefore the ending was rushed. There's nothing worse than getting into a show and really following it, only to have it be axed and an anti-climatic ending thrown together with whatever limited time the production staff were allowed before having their heads severed by studio executives. With a show like Lost it was essential that they end in their own time, because they had so many damn questions to answer, it seems like with each new episode we had about thirty new questions to scratch our heads over. The last season gave the writers the chance to take their time and establish the storylines that would lead us to the answers, some of them we'd been waiting the full six seasons for. They could weave more of their magic and take us on more crazy journeys. I'm glad they knew when to end it, rather than dragging it on for too long and start playing cheesy clip shows, they knew when the horse was lame and needed to be put down.
I remember when I first started watching about mid-way through season one, it was to watch the development of the characters. They were so realistic and such a diverse and interesting group, you couldn't help but love them. In that sense I was happy with the way it ended. Let's be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted from Lost was more Charlie and Claire, and in the finale I got that. They revisited all of the characters and tied up all of the loose ends. It was so amazing to see all of the characters get a happy ending and reach the place you'd always wanted them to get to from the first episode. It was like an amazing high school reunion and I couldn't have been happier with it.
For me, I was just so freakin' relieved that it didn't turn out that the island was just a dream. I HATE when writers pull that crap. It's such an anti-climatic and easy way out 'oh, it was just a dream, haha, gotcha!' because you invest time and care into the characters and to find out that none of it was ever really real would have left me feeling extremely cheated. I feel like the dream ending is a lazy writers way of half-creating a mindfuck for their audience when they don't know how to do a proper one and I'm glad the writers of Lost kept it interesting and didn't sink to that level. The ending of this wasn't anti-climatic at all. I adore how it ended with Jack coming full-circle, that was such a nice touch.
I think it would have been a very uncomfortable position for the writers to be in coming into the final season. With Lost it started out relatively simple, right? People stranded on an island, cool, cool, the island isn't all that it seems, cool that sounds interesting, suck it Gilligan's Island! But then with every season they kept adding more-and-more. Oh, now we're time-travelling, now there's quantum-physics involved, now the epitome of good vs. evil lives on the island and etc. It was like being on a rollercoaster and it just kept climbing and climbing and climbing and you hear the track ticking under you but it's still climbing, it's still building. There was so much going on (oh, I forgot, alternate universes were also involved!) that they had a real task on their hands of how to end it. After building for so long you gotta make the drop worth our time. How on Earth could they satisfy everyone and make the fans feel like their time had been well invested? I reckon a lot of sleepless nights would have gone into the final season and you have to appreciate the cockiness of the writers to pull it off.
Everyone needs to take a moment to thank Lost for changing the entire landscape of modern television. They redefined what you could do in a TV show and threw out the idea of 'playing it safe'. It's so strange to think of what kind of shows were playing on TV before Lost, but afterwards it's this sense of anything goes. It was so gutsy for them to attempt a drama/sci-fi hybrid in primetime and somehow they got away with it. Every week was something entirely new and something exciting and I think that kind of standard is something all future TV writers will be running to keep up with. It's complete escapism and it makes you want more from your favourite show, it always challenged me and prompted lots of thinking and theorising, it was more than watching it, you really, truly experienced Lost and I think that's a very special thing in this age of disposable culture.