Lost ended this year in what was one of the more highly anticipated series finales in recent memory.
Unfortunately it was utter shite.
I only really got into Lost last year and subsequently rocketed through the first few seasons with gusto. While season 5 was already getting a bit ropey I stuck it out through to the end despite noting to nobody in particular throughout season six that it’s dual-storyline premise would only work if the reasoning behind it was sound.
Needless to say it wasn’t, and despite sticking with Lost through polar bears, French women, smoke monsters and a questionable time travel plotline, I simply could not suspend my disbelief any further. The afterlife? Seriously?
Not only did the finale fail to answer some key questions – and to be fair, I didn’t expect everything completely wrapped up – it took the show on a ridiculous tangent, veering wildly from it’s original premise. The result of this crazy shift in focus was two-fold. First, it made me feel completely used for the duration of the sixth season as I had cautiously enjoyed some very touching moments, only to now realise the writers had rather flimsily created barely a husk of a story to base them around. Second, it sullied the legacy of a show that could’ve gone down in the annals of television as a modern classic.
I wish I’d stopped watching at the end of the fourth season, or at the very latest, the fifth.
[SIDENOTE: I’m ruthless with television and am known among friends for dropping shows that fail to live up to my expectations. Cases in point: I dropped Grey’s Anatomy a few years ago after Meredith’s ridiculous attempted suicide and my life is all the better for it. I’ve also recently dropped Brothers & Sisters which seems to have completely lost focus.]
Lost will be remembered for it’s brilliant non-linear storytelling but popular culture is largely influenced by how something comes to an end and the masses have not looked kindly on the Lost finale. If Lost is lucky, history will overlook the last two seasons as a misguided epilogue to a show that brought fast-paced, morally ambiguous, genuinely engaging drama to network television.
