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.
- Published by David Knox
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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.
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- Tagged with Desperate Housewives, FlashForward, Heroes, Jericho, Lost, Prison Break, Survivor
69 Responses
“Lost really is a love story”…
For who exactly, it wasnt for me and all my friends..Lost was about the Story, it was about who, how, what, if..not whether sun and ginn get together, who cares, we want some answers not a soppfest (thats left to masterchef).
Lost in now apparently a “character” piece or a “love story” which is a great way to not have to answers the 2,657,876 random, throwaway questions the writers raised.
The writers pulled a fast one, to any easy route. They should have done it was all a dream thing, this was almost as lame. The ending was the oldest narrative and lame trick in the book.
“Overall it was a good ending for all of the characters.”
Sorry i could care less about the characters, the island was a “character”, what about that…i, like millions of others, care about the story and in that respect the finale, the whole season 6 was a complete slap in the face to those viewers. We have been made chumps of as i sure the writers were laughing their butts off at our expense.
It addressed nothing, answered nothing. If your satisfied with this then you must set the bar pretty low.
@Mark. Ok i c now, thanx heaps. Andrew
Yeah yeah so they created a place to meet afterwards supposedly.
At no point was this ever brought up during the series ie no one said if you die go to the church and wait for me.
I think JJ Adams should have stepped out of the light at the end and just explained everything.
The most irritating things left over really was, what was the island, why was it so special, and what the hell was that stupid rock cork in the cave about
Disapointed
@ sara i think you need to read “Anonymous” post 26 May 11.45.
I thought the same to when i watched it but they did not all die when the plane crashed, so all the stuff on the island actually happened. Read the post by Anonymous it explains it all.
Just Loved that ending. Moving. Spirtual. Spellbiding. Stunning. The fact that every character had died even before episode one aired was just perfect. (I thought as much a long time go…). From beginning to end, they went from Lost to “found”. Beautiful…. As their souls wandered around between this life and the next, they took us all on a spectcular journey through their issues and their charqcters, that had me, for one, glued to every episode. And, by not answering all those inane (and totally irrelevant) side issues, they left us with the one important thing: we all die – just some of us find it a but harder to move on as we relive our demons. Groundbreaking in every way.
if you think about it, if season 6 played without the “flash-side ways”, it would’ve be more streamlined and possibly less confusing to some people. In the end it does make sense, but was it necessary?
good thing how the ending was opened for fans interpretation and discussion. So Hurley and Ben live on the island forever, and the guys on the Ajira Plane Jack sees flying off (With Sawyer, kate etc.) we presume return home and live happily ever after
as Kate said: I’ve missed you for a very long time
at the end of the day, Lost really is a love story
@ Andrew – The way I see it is like this: As Christian said, “Everyone Dies”. Shannon and Boon died a few years ago, Jack dies on the island at the end, Kate and Sawyer left on the plane, lived for another 50 years maybe, Hurley and Ben protected the island for centuries maybe. Time is irrelevant in the sideways / limbo universe. They all met up after they were all dead – some well before Jack dies, some Well after.
Didn’t find it amazing it all, loved the build up but felt the writers had written themselves into a hole by the end of it. So much left unanswered, nice ending but seemed the easy way out to me.
Please, someone explain to me when did they die? Plane crash? H-Bomb? Then and only then i will understand Lost, i think. P.s Loved the ending and all its amazing 6 years of life.
Dear oh DeaR Lost, that was not good was it.
To set up useless red herrings like Jack’s son (and whose soul is he supposed to represent if he never actually existed?) and refuse to pay them off because you claim that it’s a character show is insulting and facetious.
Christian Shepherd explains a lot at the end. The flash sideways was some sort of purgatory/limbo the losties created so when they died they could find each other before moving on. The ones that were in church were there because their time on the island was the most important time in their lives – that’s why there were a few faces missing as the island was obviously not that important to them e.g. Lapidus, Miles, Charlotte.
What happened on the was real – “what happened, happened”. Christian told Jack that some people died before him e.g. Boone, Shannon and some died long after he did e.g. Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Ben. Time was irrelevant in the sideways (afterlife) world.
I think leaving a lot of the questions about the island unanswered leaves the door for a further movie or another TV series focussing on another group of people or Hurley’s tenure as protector of the island for example.
The only cop-out I thought was the “all religions” room where Jack and Christian had their talk. Up to then all the imagery was from christianity and they said that they were in a church. The producers obviously went all PC in order to appeal to all religions and not just one in particular.
Overall it was a good ending for all of the characters.
The main problem with “The End” is that it didn’t tell the whole story. I’m not one of those Lost fans who wanted or needed every question answered clearly in black and white. I’m content to fill in blanks where I can. But, it seemed cheap to me that the finale centered on something (which, incidentally, still doesn’t mean much at all to me. We never did get to understand the scale of the island’s glowy light power.) that was introduced just two weeks ago. It felt rushed. It felt like we could have easily skipped a few seasons and ended up in the same exact place, story-wise.
“How did the ending make the previous 5 seasons irrelevant? it was the journey of the characters”.
The was not a character driven show, in season 3 one of the producers even stated “it was a mystery based show 1st and foremost”.
They changed their mind when they realised they didnt know how to finish it.
It was a bad finale, the character stuff was good, no doubt, but you can not deny that they ignored all the past 5 seasons in terms of the mysteries.
It was like the last season was a separate show to the previous five years, it just does not link up in terms of narrative/ Makes zero sense.
It was a cop out ending and a let down for anyone who was more interested about the story of lost rather than the characters. The ending, which was not doubt thought up in a rush, was a major cheat on their part.
It was awesome! It became obvious early on in the final episode how it was going to play out, but the predictability didn’t matter to me. It was so satisfying to see everyone reunited and happy. It was a great series and a fitting ending.
Pathetic waste of time. Unimaginative ending with zero answers. Laughable ending and one the producers promised it wouldn’t be about 4 years ago. Everything that happened in the past 5 seasons meant nothing thanks to this ending. What a joke.
An ending the bore no relevance to the past 5 seasons, which they just completely ignored.
It was almost as bad as it all being a dream. A waste of 6 years.
@ Stevie G, Michael wasn’t at the church because he’s still on the island being one of those pesky whisperers! Besides, he’s going to Hell anyway! And notice how Ben wasn’t in the church – he’s probably off to Hell too! Walt may not have died yet in the real world, hence not at the church. The plane crashing and its aftermath may not have been the most significant moment in Walt’s life either, whilst for everyone in the church, it certainly was – and hence their reason for being there and waiting for everyone else to “let go” and arrive so they could leave together. 🙁 I’m still so sad in the same way Six Feet Under left me an absolute blubbering mess.
I’m still mostly speechless and more than a little choked up at the grandness of the finale. If nothing else, I’m interpreting it to mean that only the relationships you form and the love you create in life matter in the end—and some of what we think are “life’s greatest mysteries” are just part of the journey and may never be answered, and that’s something to realise and accept (after working through the frustration).
(By the way—anyone thinking this was a massive Christian message, take a closer look at the polytheistic symbolism in the “church” toward the final scenes… the importance of love, of building relationships, is quintessentially universal.)
Lost was a work of incredible achievements, amazing mysteries, astonishing beauty, unexpected goodness, and powerful bonds of love and friendship between people… I hope others can say the same about me after my own finale.
I did and didn’t like the way it ended. I like the way Jack’s father said that everything that they went through was real, so the whole island was real and the story was real. I also liked that he said that some the people, in the church, died before Jack and some died long after. It would have been nice to know what sort of lives they had when they got back, even a brief scene of Claire being reunited with Aaron etc.
The only thing that I wish didn’t happen was the death of Sun and Jin, they should have survived and flown out with Kate, Sayer and the rest.
The whole parrallel thing was clever and basically for those who don’t “get it”, it was a place they created in order to reunite before they moved on to the after life. They just had to have a way of understanding what the visions were and Desmond was the key to start the remembering.
I’m glad that they didn’t go down the whole, they were all dead from the start and that the island didn’t really exist. I would have felt ripped off if that was the case. So it didn’t end with all my favourates surviving, shows rarely end the way I want anyway. Lost is going to go down as one of my favourate shows of all time and I plan on watching the whole thing again from the very beginning, now that I it is all over.
The way I thought it was going to end though, was that Jack would finally kill the man in black. It would then flash to the parrallel version, where everyone would start to remember that they had a alternate life on the island and remember what they all went through and that the bomb actually worked and saved them all. I thought it would end with them all finding each other, alive, and basically the problems that they had before the island were overcome and that they all lived happily ever after. Jack and Kate, Sawyer and Juliette, Sun and Jin, Charlie and Claire and Aaron, etc. In the end though, I accept the ending and do what they all did in the end and “move on”
Thanks Lost
I know it was on Seven them 7TWO but is there any chance 7TWO will air the final again today, or in the coming week?
I think I get it now, kinda. So the sideways stuff for the final season was a dream/heaven and the island was real and they didn’t make it off. Maybe not the best ending of a TV show in recent memory but for Lost it works I guess… might need to watch it again.
What an amazing ending to the Lost series, although it did leave many questions unanswered. Whether you think everyone died in the first crash, or that the island was real and the sideways time line was the only time in purgatory, it left the decision up to the viewer. Kudos to the writers, so many things in life are spoon fed to us but Lost let us all have a choice. I watched the show with a huge group of people and the band ‘Previously on Lost’ itsasickness.com/lounge/adam-and-jeff-are-obsessed-lost These guys are an episode recap band and they’re wonderful. It was such an amazing way to close out Lost. Their music is a great way to reminisce about your favorite episodes.
Speaking of Lotto results, it would have been epic if they were The numbers.
It should have just ended with the what-if versions of the characters having memories of both lives. I think this was an intelligent show with a hollow Hollywood ending. Well, it was how the ending ended which irked me.
Also, apparently the actual end credits was significantly different than the generic one Ch7 showed. And when I say “significant”, I mean lots of people on the internet are debating the significance of it as we speak.
Speaking of Ch7, it’s been a while since we’ve seen those pesky lotto results on Lost, I can’t believe they stuck the results on twice during the broadcast. Twice as annoying. Ditto X-Factor ads.
Jimmy Kimmel did a neat concise explanation / summary / theory at the beginning of his ‘Aloha Lost’ cast special which ran in the US straight after the final episode.
His explanation was the same as ‘Anonymous’ and a few others have said.
Was anyone else really irritated by Seven’s promos instead of credits?
I thought rather than downloading I’d watch the finale with the rest of the country. I thought 7 would do right by us for the finale. How wrong I was. It completely killed any lasting emotion.
Christ, it’s the finale. At least give us a credit roll.
Thumbs down!