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The legacy of Lost

Lost may have vanished like the smoke monster into the air. But its legacy will live on in shows we are yet to see.

And so, after six seasons of dazzling, confusing, infuriating drama, Lost has departed our screens.

The final episode was a mix of action, romance, hope and closure. There was a battle scene between ‘hero’ and ‘villain’, the expression of yearning love, the arrival at the heart of the island, the return of ‘deceased’ characters, the meaning of the flash-sideways, the fulfilment of destiny…. it worked like an orchestra score, rising and falling, as indeed it has for six (mostly) remarkable seasons.

Lost leaves behind an indellible imprint on American television. Already there are those that have sought to draw upon its blueprint, but imposters are quickly obvious.

Lost itself drew upon other forerunners. Survivor‘s escapist nature had been an unstoppable force on television at the time. Could a drama hope to capitalise on the lure of a tropical setting? Then there was the serialised, action matinee plots. Tune in next week to see our heroes get out of this one…. Even the opening title card was like something out of an old matinee movie.

Lost revived prime-time serialisation along with Desperate Housewives, paving the way for shows like Prison Break, Heroes, Jericho, and Flashforward.

The show’s storytelling devices were king. Flashbacks, flashforwards, flash-sideways, parallel storylines. Linear storytelling was left at the door. That empowered the writers to great effect because we were so easily hoodwinked. How stunned were we to learn that Locke had been paralysed, or that the heroic Kate was actually a fugitive on the run, that the dude Hurley was a millionaire.

Lost also brought different characters forward for different episodes like Players of the Week, pausing background stories to highlight a character or a moment in time. The ensemble nature of the show has been cloned by shows including Flashforward, Heroes and more.

The cast was multi-cultural. Americans, British, Australian, Asian, Middle-Eastern.

The proportion of location to studio work was astounding.

The music from Michael Giacchano was superb. It gave the soundtrack a filmic quality.

And then there were the brilliant performances from actors like Terry O’Quinn, Michael Emerson, Daniel Dae Kim, Naveen Andrews, Michelle Rodriguez -to name but a few.

Lost did lose its way in those middle years when it was meandering around the jungle in search of stories. It was hard hanging in there out of respect, faith and sheer hope it would all come good. Many did not return.

The show’s mythology and puzzle ignited a wildfire of theories online. Forums were volatile with debates across the show’s six years. The finale has kept them alive. Some are celebrating the closing 150 minutes, some mourn its departure and others are fuming they never got the answers they felt they were owed. Is it any different to the six seasons it has run?

Lost may have vanished like the smoke monster into the air. But its legacy will live on in shows we are yet to see.

69 Responses

  1. @Jason: how do you explain the apperancd of Christian shephard off island, during Jacks flash forward during season 4? He set of the smoke alarm, said ‘Jack’ and then dissapeared when that lady walking in the room.

  2. @ Barry – some good questions there – I’ll attempt to help, the guy who pushed the numbers before Desmond was Kelvin, he appeared in two different eps, before Kelvin is was Radsinsky who was heavily featured in the second half of season 5 – he was a tool!

    Christian Shepherd (his island appearances), Yemi (Eko’s brother), the man in the cabin, these were all the smoke monster, hence why Christian seemed menacing.

    The miscarraiges were caused by the nuke, in the 70s we see Ethan Rom (Goodspeed) being born on the island, in the present the pregnancy fails and the mother dies in the second trimester – I’ve always taken “the incident” to be the cause of this – ironically Juliet was the cause of her own problem!!

    As for all the crazy things the Others did, Ben explained last week that he felt smokey was manipulating him, also remember smokey couldn’t directly kill the candidates – he tried to get them to kill each other, sort of explains the purge to me and seeing as smokey couldn’t get to Dharma thru their sonic fence he must have been manipulating the Others.

    As for Walt – I have no idea, I think that was a genuine cock-up – they wrote an interesting character and then realised he was going to grow up quicker than the timeline of the show.

    The pile of notebooks refers to one of the other Dharma stations where they had to observe the swan station (the number pushers) and file reports on the observations – it gave the impression (to Locke) that the number pushing was just a psychological experiment but with all the reports ending up in the middle of a field uncollected it seems the observation station was the experiment!

    The only things I really wanted answers about after last night was 1) Why is the island out of sync with the rest of the world timewise (ie: that guy’s body washing ashore a day before he was actually killed on the frieghter) and 2) how you can turn a wheel and suddenly end up in the middle of the desert – though there’s some good theories about that one on the net – look up mirror matter moon, It will blow your mind!

  3. The flash sideways was wrapped up nicely and was a brilliant arc to the story. However for me, the island mysteries were not satisfactorily explained. If there was a direct link between the mysteries and the flash sideways I could accept that. However the writers have failed to adequately explain what the purpose of the island was. It may be that the island’s light is the source of purgatory and the fact that Jack saved the island was the reason they were all able to meet up and eventually move on. Perhaps Widmore knew this and that if the island was consumed by darkness and not protected human souls would be the ones “lost”.

  4. Other questions I sort of hoped might have gotten touched on before the end: WTF with the numbers (which were apparently explored in some online episodes but not in the television eps); WTF Christian Shephard actually was if he was exposition guy/angel in the finale but seemed rather menacing in all his on-Island appearances; why the Others took the children and Cindy the flight attendant but more of the actual Candidates; if Walt was so important and psychokinetic and all, why did they just let his story fizzle out; what was the point of that pile of notebooks in the field; why couldn’t women carry babies to term on the Island; and what the heck was going on with Kate’s black horse that apparently Sawyer could also see? Jace says that the producers wanted to focus on answers that the Losties themselves wanted, not the fans, and I get that. But still … somebody please explain Walt to me.

  5. What about , the pilot, Mr Echo, why were we never told the brothers name, the shack, the others the person who pushed the numbers before Desmond.

    They all die at some stage and go to heaven but they could of done that the second week.

  6. ohh dont worry lost writers, i didnt want to see walt, michael and eko in the finale anyway Not (walt and eko werent even in this last season)

  7. I have a foot in both camps. After I watched it, I thought “is that it?”, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the finale and am now more persuaded that it was a fitting ending. I still don’t have a firm view either way though. Some time in the future, I will re watch the series.

  8. Absolutely loved the finale!

    the beautiful ending scenes brought the entire six-season storyline full circle.

    The reveal that the sideways world is actually life after death, and that the bomb detonation in fact didnt work was great.

    One very satisfied viewer here 🙂

  9. lost is like twin peaks… a show about being human but taken to an extreme,,, the mystery is genuine but really it was just a catalyst for the personal stories in my opinion.

    I would have been dissapointed if the finale had turned into a checklist of every mystery on the island, i think they got the mix reasonably right

  10. Lost; was it about the characters state of situation with their troubling personal life that they feel lost on what to do about it Or was it about people being lost on a mystery island?

  11. “If you didn’t get the finale, then you didn’t get the show in the first place.”

    Oh ok, then please, by all means, enlighten us, as those who are angry at the finale, didnt get it. Or are you going to say, “Well it was only ever about the characters”

    Oh please, don’t insult our intelligence. Sorry, ask anyone about Lost, will they say ” for me, it was all about sun and jinn, about kates embrace with jack…” blah, heave.

    No, afraid not, average people will say “the hatch, the others, the smoke monster, dharma..etc etc”. So That is what Lost was about. Saying it’s about the characters is just an excuse for the writers to not have to answer anything or connect the dots from one season to the next. It is a slap in the face to anyone that gave a dam about the story.

    Ok then, um, please tell me the link between the finale revelation and what has proceeded for the last 5 seasons??I’m not talking about ‘character” moments..i am talking about the story, narrative and the entire world and history these “characters’ existed in..

    Please connect the dots for us, as we are so clueless,..i will be waiting in anticipation.

  12. Considering most people (at least in this country) that watched the last episode of Lost tuned out years ago, I wonder what they made of the finale.

  13. Love it, Love it, Love it! I’ve watched and loved every minute of this show (even the dud episode with the paralising spiders). If you didn’t get the finale, then you didn’t get the show in the first place. Not ashamed to say the ending had me in tears.

  14. As someone who has watched every episode, I was initially a little disappointed by the ending (not enough answers!).
    However, after having read other peoples opinions and theories and re-considering everything that happened, I am increasingly satisfied with the finale – and for that matter the entire series.

    Throughout the entire 6 seasons, we were constantly shown the flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsideways to show how these people were connected in their past/future/after lives, and why they were so important to each other. From early on in the first season, right through to the end, this seemed to be the focus of the series.
    I loved those moments throughout the last 6 years when they revealed the hidden connections between the characters (they keep finding each other) – and then to show at the end that they all belonged together forever……….the more I think about it, this works as the perfect conclusion for me.

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